In Western Europe they would get fired and go to jail. That's why Western Europe doxx information is considered the most expensive in the world. It wasn't complicated to create that situation. They can just fire a few, drag one to court, and rely on the chilling effect.

Calling BS on that story. You don't need to fire anyone. You just rate limit access to lookups where the customer didn't initiate a support call themselves, and require supervisor approval and audit of said approvals on a regular basis. I've also worked on systems where accounts could be marked as sensitive (e.g. the celebrities) and those needed additional sign off to be accessed.

> The police would certainly investigate such an allegation and charges could be laid if there was sufficient evidence and a conviction was possible.

I'll let you know when I finish laughing.

This is 100% false. You can serve up all the evidence on a silver platter the the police will ignore it. I know, I've tried, specifically in a stalking case. They don't care.

Ha. That's what everyone thinks before they've needed the police.

Yeah it was reported, but the telcos systems were such a load of slop there wasn’t any specific evidence recorded (logs etc), and besides nobody knew what to ask for, so it couldn’t be taken seriously.

I don’t remember the exact circumstances of how they got a confession years later, I think bragging, but he did get convicted and the Telco eventually fired him, which stopped the stalking.

You're referring to the police, who are also abusing these surveillance systems to stalk their exes?

Or maybe federal law enforcement, who are also abusing these surveillance systems to stalk their exes?

Or perhaps intelligence agencies, who are also abusing these surveillance systems to stalk their exes?

Did I mention they're all friends with each other and usually help each other and cover for each other?

Cops are too dumb to comprehend that. They would proclaim it impossible and order more donuts.

Most simple criminals get away with their crimes. Anyone with any level of sophistication does as well.

SS7 access - you still have to hack the system to acquire the data yourself, and I believe it creates a log that you roamed to that country, and briefly disconnects your cellphone from the network? It's far from invisible.

If the person was deep enough into the system to have access to location data, then they'd probably be able to just directly look up customer details (likely easier).

it's impossible for your precise location to be tracked by anybody... wow thats crazy

So what you’re saying is if you were secretly a psycho and wanted to stalk your ex-girlfriend, you work at a Telco and basically have access to the tools to do it?

So putting aside the fact you’re a reasonable person, anyone who works themselves up to a similar seniority and job description in a Telco as you, could in fact do exactly what the article is saying is an issue for the victims.

I'm sure every single telco in the world is perfectly in line with this

I'm glad to hear that your random telco's governance and influence has spread around the entire world to every other telco.

FYI: from the fact it's hard (not impossible) to see the data mentioned and it's possible (not guaranteed) that the caught offender would be punished is a VERY long way to "you lie".

Theirs was anecdata, yours is anecdata but you're additionally rude.

> And obviously, a simple email to the data governance and privacy office would be taken extremely seriously.

What is this based on? I used to work for a data governance and privacy vendor that supplied data for audits. Tons and tons of customers asked us to fudge their data.

This is after the Delve scandal, where the hottest tech compliance company was completely fraudulent and numerous other hot tech companies also had completely fraudulent audits.

This is not a reasonable assumption.

Ah, I remember back in the day when "trust me I work in a telco and this is just dumb" people were really really silent after the room 641a stuff got leaked.

you are close to a system in a way that those guardrails are clear and present; the story is from the point of view of a victim, and it is possible that they were indeed a victim. Therefore the means of the stalking is not known at all via this story, but somehow, something did occur. It is not surprising on either side, and they do not necessarily contradict each other IMHO