Have you ever had your mobile phone battery drain faster than normal while escorting an infamous internet activist around Melbourne? If you answered yes, it turns out you could be getting hacked by the government.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam found his iPhone draining three times faster than usual last friday as he was escorting former WikiLeaks associate Jacob Appelbaum around Melbourne. It was dead by 10am, which prompted Appelbaum to suggest that the phone may have been intercepted and the transmitter turned on remotely in order to record his conversations with the activist and his location.
Given Appelbaum’s tech savviness, Ludlam believes it entirely possible the government was hacking his phone, despite ASIO’s assurance that such an act would require a warrant. The Senator is yet to decide whether he plans to take the matter further, although if true, it’s a scary prospect for just how Orwellian our government has become.
[SMH]
qbngeek
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 2:38 PMWhile I would not be surprised one little bit, I think you might be better pointing the finger at the US rather than the Australian government.
Rossco
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 2:46 PMWe don’t have evidence either way and speculation does not help anyone… Not saying its not possible but I’d like people to take their tin foil hats off for a second and ask Mr Ludlam the obvious question: did he remember to charge his phone the night before? I know I have forgotten to plug mine in the night before a big day at work only to have it die mid morning. Just sayin…
Matt
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 2:50 PMHow about ensuring the switch is on at the wall, I plugged my charger only to leave the switch off a couple of times now.
Shane
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 3:20 PMMost people keep their chargers plugged into the wall and always switched on mate.
Crowknee
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 3:44 PMMost people can identify baseless, broad statements of fact.
kaws
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 2:49 PMWhat a fine bit of journalism, sensationalizing someones comments that have absolutely no proof. Not to mention that doing this covertly under law to an Australian citizen is illegal??? Come on guys.
Nads
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 3:21 PMThat’s not true, over a dozen Australian agencies are allowed to access specific sets of information of your phone without your knowledge. such as location services.
The Joker
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 7:28 PMOh that’s right. Governments NEVER EVER break the law. Politicians never lie to their people. Really, grow up. ASIO are the spooks so who’s going to watch them and say naughty ASIO, you broke the law. What other agency has any chance of getting any evidence of what ASIO or others like them are up to.
Brandon
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 10:35 PMThe following agency monitors the activities of our intelligence agencies. http://www.igis.gov.au/
Will
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 2:50 PMVery unlikely the government was actually remotely accessing his phone and having it transmit voice information without his knowledge. Aside from that being a decidedly difficult endeavour, if he was actually concerned about that he is able to turn his phone OFF. Sounds like a typical Green – lots of talk and little thought.
Biderjum
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 3:07 PMProlly that new app he just installed ‘DrainMyBatteryForPublicity’
Josh
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 5:24 PMHahahahaha
DanSectacular
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 3:27 PMAustralian Senator using an iPhone made in China with Americas hacker tor guru… Probably jailbroken too? Just asking for it in my opinion..
jay
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 3:31 PMNothing to do with the fact he was on the phone and getting lots of emails that day, confirming appointments, agenda… ID10T
Rumour is ASIO read all the comments on Gizmodo and then hack the database to get email addresses and names, that are then used to track potential hackers against medicare cards and TFNs. No proof, but if it was true it’s scary how Orwellian stupid rumours can be.
David
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 4:07 PMWhile yes I’d be surprised if the government didn’t have this capability or let “needing a warrent” stop them, this is still ridiculous. Surely more evidence than “my phone battery went flat” is required before throwing around accusations? Because that *never* happens with smartphones without ASIO tapping your phone, right?
Noidberger
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 4:23 PMDoes Ludlam have push email set up against an Exchange mail server? It causes excessive battery drain (within a few hours battery is drained/overheats phone). It’s a known issue at my work – Solution. Delete the mail account – reboot iphone – restore mail account – turn off push feature. All good. (provided all is sorted on Exchange side)
Ludlam’s response is overly paranoid. The last line by Nick is hyperbolic bollocks. Our Govt is far from Orwellian.
Scoon
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 5:08 PMHmmm… sensible IT tech worker… OR GUV’MENT CONSPIRATOR THROWING IN A RED HERRING?!?!? lol
Ozoneocean
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 4:42 PMOn smartphones, from any manufacturer, occasionally this happens. for whatever reason, probably some sort of run-time error or process just being silly for some reason. It doesn’t mean you’re under surveillance or being probed from Mars, or slipping into an alternative dimension or whatever…
poedgirl
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 4:54 PMThe battery draining quicker than normal can happen at times. Just last week, my iPhone got rather hot for a couple of hours and the battery was down to 40% rather quickly. I rebooted the phone and all was good.
That said, this kind of thing is quite easy to do if the phone is jailbroken and OpenSSH is installed. Most people leave their SSH root password the same after installing it so access is as easy as finding the IP address the phone has.
Of course, getting the IP would be rather easy for a government agency so once they had that, it would be easy to do anything on the phone.
Blake
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 4:59 PMOr it could have been searching for a signal while it was in his pocket for some reason.
There are plenty of rational reasons for this.
Morris
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 5:57 PMSeems like Ludlam’s comments were taken a little out of context. He’s not adamant about it at all. http://www.6pr.com.au/blogs/6pr-perth-blog/govt-in-bugging-scandal/20120125-1qgot.html
Spool
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 7:01 PMInstalling too many fart apps seems a more likely explanation to me. I can’t believe someone with a tin-foil hat that big got elected to the Senate….
warcroft
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 7:01 PM1996 telecommunications act.
All mobile phones must be accessible by authorities for “emergency purposes”.
About 2005 my mother (being a court reporter for the magistrates supreme court for 30+ years) told me about how an American arm of the Mafia was brought down by the FBI.
The FBI revealed in court how they were able to activate and use mafia members phones as listening devices and monitor conversations and meetings.
It was legal for the FBI to do it because its written in the 1996 telecommunications act.
Dan
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 8:57 PM1. Australian Senate, not US. We still believe in our laws and our people over here.
2. Politician – probably lucky if he can understand how to turn the thing on.
3. Greens after some publicity? no way, thats not their style at all.
4. So many better untraceable ways to run surveillance and people to run it on than a Senator who broadcasts his every move.
smurfydog
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 9:13 PMThis happened to me a few weeks ago. No idea why. It went from fully charged in the morning to 20% about 5 hours later. I only used it a couple of times for everyday tasks. I normally get 2 days from a full charge.
Did a respring and that stopped it.
Hasn’t happened since.
Guess it’s just one of those things.
Shaun Williams
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 10:10 PMActually it could have some truth.
After I updated to iOS 5.01 I was getting really bad battery life. So was my wifes iPhone.
A few days ago an Optus Update come thru on the phone and the battery life vastly improved again.