Comments on: What Really Happened When Sprint Fed Customer Data to Cops?

By: Pam

Pam — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:46:24 +0000

Obviously the concern here is that the requests were for valid legal activities, and not being used to harass activists or the ex's new boyfriend, for example.

By: theregoesdave

theregoesdave — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:04:54 +0000

How many people is it ok to send private data on? I thought we were the customers here?

By: Whistler

Whistler — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:54:05 +0000

I wonder how much sprint was paid for each of these lookups? I'm thinking into the hundreds of dollars EACH going by what other phone companies were charging for similiar deals.

By: A S

A S — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:46:32 +0000

What is the bet that not all of the 'valid requests' were court-ordered?

Also, 8 million is not an inflated number. Even assuming that it was an average of 8000 'pings' per person, that's 8000 people! In reality, it was probably far lesser than 1000 pings per person and far more than 8000 people.

By: zato

zato — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:47:39 +0000

GigaOM, are you tech reporters/journalists, or propagandists for Sprint?

By: Jerry Fleckhiemer

Jerry Fleckhiemer — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:36:49 +0000

You have to know what he is talking about in the audio to comment on this article. First, what is a "ping"? Second, what does the 8 million consist of, pings or subscriber phone numbers? With this clarification, you can correctly qualify a response to that except of a presentation.

With that said, lets take the worst case, 8 million subscriber, network-generated, location requests. First of all, it is impossible for law enforcement to generate 8 million subpeonas to back up every locate, so Sprint has admitted to some CPNI violations. This happens all the time and most wouldn't care if it is their daughter that law enforcement is trying to locate, but that doesn't make it legal or lawful. A good judge can ask the right questions like a the production of subscriber list "pinged" and associated subpeonas or exigent forms.

By: Seth

Seth — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:17:35 +0000

Yeah, right. And I've got a nice bridge to sell you too.

By: Mark K.

Mark K. — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:00:56 +0000

I think I personally sent one thousand requests one weekend when I was keeping track of my teenage daughter...