A new Sprint BYOD deal offers customers unlimited wireless for US$25/month if you bring your own iPhone or Android phone.
Carriers Have Stopped Selling Location Data...We Think
Major carriers in the U.S., like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon claim they’ve stopped selling user data. AT&T says it also wasn’t illegal.
FCC Wants Carriers to Automatically Block Robocalls By Default
The FCC is calling on carriers to start automatically blocking robocalls by default, for free. So far the agency this isn’t a requirement.
Carriers Fight Bill That Would Stop Them Throttling Data of Public Safety
Carriers oppose a recently passed bill that would stop them from throttling the data of public safety—like firefighters—during emergencies.
More T-Mobile Location Data Abuses
In response to a letter from Senator Ron Wyden, T-Mobile has come forth with more location data abuses by third parties.
3 Security Flaws in 4G, 5G That Could Affect iPhones
Three security flaws found in 4G and 5G networks could be used to intercept phone calls and track peoples’ location.
5G T-Mobile Won't Launch Until Later This Year
Most smartphones coming out are designed to work on higher frequency cellular bands. But there aren’t any current phones that work on the 600MHz band.
Comparing Android Security Versus iOS Security
Keiran Dennie tweeted an interesting chart that compares the security of various smartphone operating systems.
Wondering about Android and Apple phone security? Here’s an objective chart to help you decide.
It’s a well known fact of Android that people have to rely on their carrier to push out security updates. This can take weeks, months, and sometimes they don’t get released at all.
What Phone Tethering is, And How to Use It
You might have heard of the term “phone tethering” before. In case you didn’t know what it meant, David Nield put together a guide explaining the term and how to use it.
We’re going to focus largely on wifi tethering here—creating a wifi hotspot from your phone or tablet—but you do have other options. If you’ve got a spare USB cable you can create a more stable connection between laptop and mobile device, or you can tether via Bluetooth, which is significantly slower but less taxing on battery life.
I’ll put an addendum here. Tethering depends on your carrier, and some carriers don’t allow it, like prepaid carriers. I used to use Net10 and I couldn’t use create a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Verizon Wants You to Forget it Throttled Firefighters' Phone Data
Verizon doesn’t want you to remember when it throttled the cellular data of first responders during the California wildfires.
In 2018 Americans Got 26.3B Robo Calls
Hiya, a spam-blocking app analyzed 450,000 of its users to figure out how big of a problem robo calls are.
More on the Bounty Hunter Location Data Story
There’s more to the bounty hunter location data story that Motherboard reported on earlier this month. One of the data brokers involved was Zumigo.
Korean FTC to Let Apple Respond to Unfair Practices
The Korean FTC has found Apple guilty of unfair practices in its dealings with carriers, but it will let Apple respond.
Bounty Hunter Successfully Tracked Down a Phone
AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile sell access to customers’ location data. As an experiment, Joseph Cox paid a bounty hunter to locate a phone, and it worked.
The bounty hunter did this all without deploying a hacking tool or having any previous knowledge of the phone’s whereabouts. Instead, the tracking tool relies on real-time location data sold to bounty hunters that ultimately originated from the telcos themselves, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint, a Motherboard investigation has found. These surveillance capabilities are sometimes sold through word-of-mouth networks.
The technology apparently works on all mobile networks, but there was some issue with Verizon. Shady practices like this are why we need an American GDPR, as well as a better FCC.
RCS, Successor to SMS, Could Come to Apple Devices
RCS is a technology touted as the replacement for SMS. It will bring rich, iMessage-like features to texting, and major carriers support it. And it sounds like Apple is interested.
According to the purported slide from the conference, Apple has “engaged in discussions with the GSMA and Operators about including RCS in iOS.” This is inherently vague and doesn’t offer too many details about the extent to which Apple is involved, but the pitch seems to center on three things.
I find it unfortunate that RCS seems to only support encryption during transport, and not end-to-end encryption. Governments around the world would probably not let end-to-end encryption become so widespread.
AT&T Screws Customers Even More By Killing Prorated Bills
The carrier will start charging customers for the full month after they cancel.
For Now, You Won't Be Getting Verizon eSIM Support
Although the four carriers promised to support it at launch, Verizon and T-Mobile are lagging.
Here Are The Countries That Support eSIM in the new iPhones
An eSIM makes it easier to switch between carriers. But right now only ten countries in the world support it.
U.S. Carriers Launching Project Verify App to Replace Passwords
Those in the computer security industry aren’t impressed though.
Canadian Regulators Put an End to Locked Cellphones
The regulations, “will erase millions in annual revenue for carriers” because locking phones is a completely arbitrary practice designed to lock consumes to a carrier.
