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Verizon Technician Is Accused of Selling Customers' Call Records and Location Data To Private Investigator (ap.org) 50

A former Verizon technician who worked in Alabama is being accused of selling customers' private call records and location data to an unnamed private investigator. Authorities said the data was sold for more than four years, from 2009 to 2014. The Associated Press reports: [Daniel Eugene Traeger] logged into one Verizon computer system to gain access to customers' call records, authorities said. He used another company system known as Real Time Tool to "ping" cellphones on Verizon's network to get locations of the devices, according to the plea agreement. He then compiled the data in spreadsheets, which he sent to the private investigator for years, the court records show. "Between April 2009 and January 2014, the defendant was paid more than $10,000 in exchange for his provision of confidential customer information and cellular location data to the PL, an unauthorized third party," court records state. Though Traeger was based in the Birmingham area, the court records do not indicate whether the information that was sold involved Verizon Wireless customers in Alabama or elsewhere. He faces up to five years in prison, but prosecutors are recommending a lesser sentence since he accepted responsibility, according to terms of the plea agreement.
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Verizon Technician Is Accused of Selling Customers' Call Records and Location Data To Private Investigator

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  • Government hates competition.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Of course they do. The pioneering sociologist Max Weber defined the government as the group of people that enjoys a monopoly on force.

      The question is how accountable you want the people who are licensed to use force (including powers of intrusion) to be.

      • Not true (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @05:28PM (#52980065)
        Govt has no such monopoly. You have every right to self defense. Govt monopolizes the rule of law. Otherwise you get lynch mobs and witch hunts.
      • Re:Once again... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @07:04PM (#52980567)
        I had a friend in the FBI. I asked her to look me up. She said it was a crime to look up someone that isn't under investigation (even yourself). So nobody ever does. Every lookup must be linked to a case, and the case manager will see the request. You *will* be caught, fired, and possibly prosecuted for looking up information you don't have reason to. Such a scheme should be used where customer data is used. Including the private sector.
  • Why Richard Stallman refuses to use a phone i.e. surveillance device .
  • He faces up to five years in prison, but prosecutors are recommending a lesser sentence since he accepted responsibility, according to terms of the plea agreement.

    I thought the U.S. had a third party consent doctrine, whereby no warrant is needed if your data is stored with a third party, in this case, Verizon. So, I don't understand what they're being charged with in this case.

    • I assume the issue is that the employee was acting on their own, in violation of Verizon's terms of service. It would have been perfectly legal if they'd been selling the data to advertising partners instead, who would have absolutely no restrictions on who they then re-sell the data to. Honestly this P.I. is an idiot and threw someone in the line of fire for really no reason other than perhaps convenience.

    • He faces up to five years in prison, but prosecutors are recommending a lesser sentence since he accepted responsibility, according to terms of the plea agreement.

      I thought the U.S. had a third party consent doctrine, whereby no warrant is needed if your data is stored with a third party, in this case, Verizon. So, I don't understand what they're being charged with in this case.

      This. I would think that at worst he would be guilty of breach of contract, exposing him to civil penalty, but I'm not sure what they can charge him for, unless it was something along the lines of hacking (i.e. gaining access to computers that he was not authorized to) or corporate espionage.

      • "Shortly after the charges were filed last week, Traeger pleaded guilty to a felony count of unauthorized access to a protected computer"

        So yeah, those over broad hacking laws. Kinda sad to see 'em used for something I agree with.
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Depends on who asked for the data.
      e.g. MAINWAY https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      or other telephone company efforts like Hemisphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
  • by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @05:44PM (#52980147) Journal
    Technician should only have access to this information for accounts that were assigned to him.
    • by rhazz ( 2853871 )
      Someone has to have the authority to assign that access.
  • by gatfirls ( 1315141 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @06:23PM (#52980341)

    If you think this is an isolated issue you are sorely mistaken. I'll bet this is a mainstay for PI's around the country. Especially since it took 4 years to catch him. My guess without details is that he got caught when he started using the Location system since that's not something anyone besides SysTechs and LEO would need.

  • by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @06:55PM (#52980525)
    This is an example of why the cloud is bad. Even if companies are trustworthy, can that be said of every single employee in contact with your data?
  • Anyone who thinks this doesn't happen a few hundred times a day with every telecom carrier you can think of is a bit out of touch. And it's hardly worrying next to the people paying off NSA analysts, contractors, and interns...

  • by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2016 @09:53PM (#52981241)

    Everyone has a price.

    Low paid call center employees just have a lower one.

    You companies who seek to get the cheapest labor you can find would do well to remember this.

    "I wonder how this open AP got connected to the corporate network ? "

    Ea$y An$wer. . . . .

An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know.

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