Army wives get phone death threats from Iraq

[sabra]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/25/wirq25.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/25/ixnews.html

Army wives get phone death threats from Iraq

Wives and family members of soldiers fighting in Iraq have received telephone calls, believed to include death threats, from insurgents, according to military documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph.

The "nuisance" calls have been made with increasing frequency over the past few weeks after insurgents managed to obtain home numbers from soldiers' mobile telephones.

The growing number of calls has led to an investigation by the Royal Military Police, which has issued a warning to all soldiers in Iraq to take great care when using mobile telephones to call home.

...

The document warns soldiers preparing to take part in operations that insurgents in southern Iraq have managed to obtain the home telephone numbers of soldiers by using electronic intercept devices to hack into mobile phone systems.

[havocmom]

1. One of my big fears when data on 80% active duty personnel stolen

Targeting their families with calls or worse.

If the people in charge of DOD can't even protect the personal info of the troops, how can they be trusted to protect all of the nation?

[grytpype]

2. Holy shit!

Just when you think you've heard it all...

[elehhhhna]

31. ANother excellent justification for PHone tapping.

[Mind_your_head]

3. What b*llshit

These 'insurgents' have the power to get mobile phone numbers of the wives of active/deployed soldiers...and then actually MAKE threatening calls...?????

....ehm, yeah, right.

WHO would have this kind of information, knowledge, power, and then USE it this way??? :freak: :think:

Where's Detective 'Columbo' when you need him, eh? Excuse me, ma'am....just one more question......

[Vidar]

4. Agent Mike making "prank" calls in a bad arabic accent.

[Mind_your_head]

11. Could be....

....and THANK GOODNESS that our gobermint is just RUSHING to trace these calls and find out and STOP those fiends (I said "fiends", not 'friends' - to be 'clear') from making such calls!!!!

I am PROUD that our gubermint is using their 'new found' powers to such good use..... :sarcasm:

[gizmo1979]

12. What possible use would that be.

all they would be doing is running up phone bills.It's not like they're coming here and attacking them.That's just foolish.

[struggle4progress]

19. Consider the source: it's a story in The Telegraph, which is ..

.. comparable, as a news source, to the Moonies' Washington Times ...

[MissWaverly]

37. how about Joe Friday of Dragnet

if ever a group needed a dragnet, it's this bunch, this is to stir up fear of terra, terra,
terra, I remember Sgt. Friday saying: Just the Facts, I don't think he would have approved
of Spin. Also if you try to intimidate the soldiers to not use their cell phones, then the
families will not know what is going on.

[HeeBGBz]

39. And military records were just accidentally stolen

With some asshole's laptop.

This story reeks of propaganda for the warpig's plans.

[CoffeeCat]

5. Bush must know who made these calls!

After all, he's spying on Americans with the supposed intent of monitoring people in the US who are getting overseas calls from Al Queda.

It sure sounds like these "insurgents" must be Al Queda.

Shouldn't Junior have all ready identified who these callers are, by now? He's spying, and he says, "If ya get a call from Al Queda...we want to know about it."

I'm sure we'll be getting those Al Queda names and numbers any second now.

:eyes:

[Bobbieo]

10. The story originates in London

Are these British, American families or both getting these calls? Something fishy here and it doesn't go with chips.

[Monkeyman]

6. NSA HAS OUR BUT CAN'T STOP THESE

hmmmmmmmmmmm

[Historic NY]

7. So much for eavesdropping..............

Hey * & company are listening in.............yeah right. I guess the insurgents have a good phone system. :sarcasm: This does sound way out in left field unless of course a few soldiers have lost their personal cell phones.

[Sydnie]

8. How long before

either a member of the family is arrested as a sympathizer or a soldier is arrested for treason due to these "calls"?

This is the craziest shit I have ever heard. Sounds like a desperate attempt to justify the wiretapping to me.

[NYC]

9. Wouldn't the information likelier be obtained this way?

http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm

Examples:

May 30, 2005 Motorola Computers stolen Unknown

Jan. 21, 2006 California Army National Guard
Stolen briefcase with personal information of National Guardsmen including a "seniority roster," Social Security numbers and dates of birth. "hundreds of officers"

Mar. 30, 2006 Marines
(Monterey, CA) Portable drive lost that contains personal information used for research on re-enlistment bonuses. 207,750

April 28, 2006 Dept. of Defense
(Washington, DC) Hacker accessed a Tricare
Management Activity (TMA) public server containing personal information about military employees. Unknown

May 22, 2006 Dept. of Veterans Affairs
(Washington, DC) Data of all American veterans who were discharged since 1975 including names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and in many cases phone numbers and addresses, were stolen from a VA employee's home. theft of the laptop and computer storage device included data of 26.5 milliion veterans. The employee was not authorized to take the files home to work on a data collation project. The data did not contain medical or financial information, but may have disability numerical rankings.
UPDATE: An additional 2.1 million active and reserve service members were added to the total number of affected individuals June 1st.
28,600,000

[Mind_your_head]

14. Yes n/t

[lala_rawraw]

13. okay, so how likely is this... think about it?

these are people who shoot, blow things up, etc... how did they get their hands on this data and then what did they do, stop in between bombings to find a phone and use a calling card?

[Robbien]

16. Sounds like a propaganda planted story to me

To help prop up "Support our Troops" and generate a bit more hate for those nasty terrorists all in one fell swoop.

[EFerrari]

20. And we know where yo mama hides the good cookays!

:rofl:

[DoYouEverWonder]

27. They probably used

Zarqawi's DSL connection.

[54anickel]

15. WTF? "This is fairly easy using today's technology. It makes no

difference whether the mobile is of UK origin or sourced abroad."

Really, it's that easy? I heard of problems with Bluetooth enabled phones a couple of years ago, but the hacker had to be in close proximity. Wouldn't it be easier just to buy one a list? http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-privacy05.html

The last 2 paragraphs of the OP article are sort of strange as well. Nuisance calls, nothing sinister? Again, wtf?

[BrotherBuzz]

17. Assuming the insurgents cracked the cell phone system....

WHY would they tip their cards by making these phone calls? I would think they would guard the secret of this potential intelligence gathering source with their lives - but that's just me. :shrug:

[katamaran]

18. "We will destroy the infidels by using up all their air time!"

And roaming too!

[Demit]

22. Yeah, that's the ticket!

:rofl:

[IndianaGreen]

29. Maybe they are on Cingular's Family Talk plan

Get two lines from just $59.99.
Add up to two more lines for
just $9.99 each per month.

http://www.cingular.com/index_welcome

[rman]

21. Wondering where they got the phone numbers - stolen IDs, anyone?

As in, a lot of US corporations have recently 'lost' a lot of ID data?

[Pavulon]

26. Most data

Lost is on backup tape. This data is impossible to read without a system running the software that created the tape and a backup device capable of reading it. Most large companies use formats that require tremendously expensive drives, 10,000 plus for a single drive at the least for LTO. 3 times or more for other formats.

That would assume the person has knowledge on how to set all this up.

[rman]

30. It takes basic IT knowledge

The data isn't nearly as difficult to access as you make it out to be. Commonly used for backup are DAT tapes, which have a large storage capacity and requires off-the-shelf equipment ranging in cost from several $100 for smaller systems to a couple of thousand for larger systems (just google for DAT backup).
A complete backup farm with multiple tape drives and a tape robot can indeed cost upward of 10k. But you don't need all that if you just want to copy the tape. One drive that fits the capacity of the tape will do.

Why would anyone steal anything that would be useless to them? Data as sensitive as this is (should be) kept very secure - it's not very likely that it is stolen by just any average thief who happened to stumble upon some backup tapes which he can't use anyway.

And then still, much of the data that was stolen is in fact on laptops.

see
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm
between Feb 2005 and June 2006: 88,366,461 IDs stolen

[Pavulon]

36. DAT tape is not

used for data backups in big shops. DAT (8mm) tape is used for unix systems (os maksysb) backup. data is basically placed on the tape in a raw format.

LTO3 and its variants hold the largest share of enterprise media markets.



Storagetek also makes high end stuff
http://www.b2net.co.uk/storagetek/storagetek_powderhorn_9310_tape_library.htm

If a tape is written with a suite like IBM TSM or Veritas it is generally not readable without the hardware that wrote it and the software. It can be recovered but that takes a level of expertise beyond most "hackers". The software writes proprietary TOC(table of contents) headers and session headers to mark data start/end.


I do agree is should be secured physically and encrypted on tape. Data should not be stored on laptops without strong encryption.

I used to do this for a living..

EDIT: The reason you hear more of this is because comapnies are now required to disclose lost tape. Usually it is lost on way to storage offsite.

[rman]

40. Still, ID data stolen of some 30% of the population doesn't

exactly bode well for corporate data security.
Apparently it's worth something to someone if that much of it gets stolen. I don't find it hard to imagine that some companies will offer their ability to read and copy those tapes to whoever is willing to pay for it, no questions asked.
Looking at AT&T's recent change in privacy policies, and Bush granting telcos the right to lie about what happens to ID data, it seems that soon enough it won't even be necessary to steal it - since the data is their property, they can just sell it.

[greiner3]

23. Do you think that the repug organizations around the US;

Have these and repug operatives are stationed around the various state and national Dem headquarters as we speak data mining? Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the Dems headquarters weren't bugged AND infiltrated.

[IdaBriggs]

24. If the families of the insurgents are fair targets, our soldiers' families

are fair targets, too. It totally bites, but hey! Its a war, right? :shrug:

[Pavulon]

25. Umm No.

But they can call all they want. If you think NSA isn't watching the origin and reporting you would be quite wrong.

Doesn't sound like a threat. Expensive pain in the ass.

Ms. Smith this is Muhammad calling, will you accept the charges??

[IdaBriggs]

35. I hope you are right, Pavulon. At the same time, I could see

"insurgents" from a country where "blood feud" is the norm deciding to bring the war home to the troops in a way I pray doesn't happen. At a certain level, despite the horrors of 9-11, the United States has been extremely insulated from the "War on Terror," and the idiot "defensive measures" instituted by the Bush regime ("take off your shoes in the airport," and "Orange is Bad") have nearly turned the situation into a joke.

The folks who are losing their toddlers, their pre-teens, and their spouses aren't laughing at the inconvenience. Some of them are grieving, and trying to move on with their lives; others undoubtedly are entertaining harsher thoughts.

If my toddler was blown up, or my pregnant wife (metaphorically speaking, of course) shot on her way to the hospital, I'm confident my memory would be long, and "an eye for an eye" is an old law....(shudder)....

[Cerridwen]

28. Psychological warfare

If true, it's a way to make the soldiers' family members and loved ones feel "less secure" in their homes, in their person, to feel fear about their safety and that of their children. If "the wives" relay the information to their soldier husbands, the soldiers feel stress at not being able to "protect" their family. It could potentially have a negative impact on a soldier - always in the back of his mind is the safety of his family, his focus is compromised.

Whether or not the "insurgents" claims are true, for example, "we know where you live," they plant a seed of fear which is hard to deny.

It's a way to demoralize the troops and their families. They are holding the families "hostage" while the troops fight against them. A modern day "Tokyo Rose," using modern technology.

[elehhhhna]

32. We shoot their kids in the head, they prank call mil. wives?

Riiight.

Prolly GW & Osama making those calls and laughing all the way

[truth2power]

34. I agree. Who benefits? My money would be on the BFEE. n/t

[Benhurst]

33. If you can't stand the heat ...

get out of Iraq.

[ThsMchneKilsFascists]

38. this may seem like a cold response BUT

So what?
Hubby or wifey is part of an illegal occupation resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocents and a relatively few "bad guys".
Maybe they did or didn't have a say in the matter, irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion.
On the home front some nuisance calls (according to the OP) show up.
So what?
Change the number.
A minor inconvenience compared to rummaging through the rubble that once was your home, trying to find the body parts of a loved one in order to bury them according to your religious beliefs. Etc.
This story smells of BS/Propaganda.
Even if it's true,
So what?