CCTV.com Quick Look at the news on the 27th. Recently, Nanjing police in Jiangsu Province destroyed a network black industry chain that included manufacturers and sales agents, including production and sales positioning, eavesdropping, and secretly filming equipment. 28 suspects were arrested and related equipment was seized. More than 2000. The police investigation found that these devices were disguised as power banks by the manufacturer, and could be remotely located, tracked, recorded remotely, etc. without the user’s knowledge, suspected of infringing on citizens’ personal information.
Reviews:
“This is too scary, what occasion is this to be used for?”
“I feel that my phone is being monitored. My friend talked to me about milk powder, and the next day he pushed me the milk powder information. It was the brand my friend said! It’s terrible!”
<h3><strong>The GPS locator turned into a bug, and some companies lost tens of millions of dollars.</strong></h3>
When it comes to eavesdropping, many people may first think of the plot of a spy war drama. However, these plots we see in movies and TV are likely to happen around us. In August of this year, CCTV reported that a security company in Beijing had been wiretapped due to trade secrets, and the company’s bid failed and suffered heavy losses. The bug turned out to be our common GPS locator.
In a security company in Beijing, the reporter saw such a small black box. The staff told reporters that the company’s meeting to discuss marketing plans is highly confidential, but no one thought that this small black box was hidden under the seat. Due to the leakage of business secrets, the company failed to bid and suffered a loss of tens of millions. This kind of small black box, called GPS locator, is widely used in automobile anti-theft and enterprise operation vehicle management.
And how is such a product used for illegal wiretapping? The reporter tried to buy a product for testing and unpacked the product. It was a plastic box the size of a matchbox. The reporter installed the APP on the phone according to the instruction manual, opened the APP, and was able to observe the vehicle’s trajectory in real time. The next thing to try is remote monitoring. The two reporters agreed that one would stay in the car with the locator, and the other reporter would return to the office to listen. It turns out that no matter whether the eavesdropped’s voice is loud or small, the monitored voice is as clear as calling the other party. In addition, in the APP interface, there is a “remote recording” button. After activation, the conversation is saved in the phone.
In other words, as long as such a GPS locator is placed next to the eavesdropped, it is equivalent to putting a mobile phone on hold. All sounds will be transmitted to the eavesdropper’s mobile phone, and even recorded, but the eavesdropper is completely unaware of what happened.
GPS locators are widely used in the theft prevention of private cars and enterprise vehicle management. However, when the GPS locator is designed to be small, easy to conceal, and capable of remote listening, it makes the product tasteless. Moreover, some manufacturers and sales merchants are also taking advantage of the blind spots of supervision to more or less expressly imply their hidden functions in some electronic product sales promotion advertisements.
This kind of GPS locator capable of remote radio has a very simple internal structure: an IoT chip and a battery for powering it. The chip receives satellite data, transmits the data to the signal tower, and then transmits the positioning data to the server via the signal tower. The user sends a request to the server to obtain the precise position of the chip. Compared with the general Internet of Things chip, this chip adds a miniature microphone.
At present, products such as GPS trackers have not been included in the national compulsory product certification catalog. However, the addition of microphone radio and other functions on this basis has no relevant management regulations, forming a blind spot for supervision. And manufacturers and sellers are also taking advantage of this blind spot of supervision, and in such product sales promotion advertisements, they more or less expressly imply their hidden functions.
<h3><strong>Experts: To protect personal information, it should be intercepted from the source of production</strong></h3>
The Regulations on Prohibiting the Illegal Production and Sale of Special Equipment for Eavesdropping and Photographing and “Pseudo Base Station” Equipment implemented in 2015 clearly prohibits natural persons, legal persons and other organizations from illegally producing, selling and using special equipment for eavesdropping and photographing. Article 57 of my country’s Supreme People’s Court Provisions on Several Issues Concerning Evidence in Administrative Litigation also clearly stipulates that materials obtained through wiretapping cannot be used as the basis for a verdict, and the perpetrator is likely to bear related legal liabilities. In this regard, experts pointed out that with the development of science and technology, laws should be followed up simultaneously to regulate various illegal acts carried out by using new technological means.
Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law: “Personal information is actually the highest level of protection in all countries, including China. It cannot be handled by enterprises’ self-discipline, nor can it be handled through individual cases. The process of normalization. It must be a combination of online and offline, and it can be blocked from its production source.”