How China may be tracking, intercepting Americans' phone communications

Cell phone.
(Image credit: iStock.)

"No one in the industry wants the public to know the severity of ongoing surveillance attacks" by China on American cell phone subscribers, says Gary Miller, a former mobile network security executive. That's why he told The Guardian of his concerns that Beijing is tracking, monitoring, and intercepting U.S. phone communications, usually while the user is traveling abroad.

Miller has spent years analyzing mobile intelligence reports and observations of signaling traffic between foreign and U.S. mobile operators. Signaling messages, The Guardian notes, are commands sent by telecoms operators across the global network, which allow them to locate phones, connect users to one another, and assess roaming charges. But the messages — which are sent without the knowledge of users — can also be manipulated and used for illegitimate purposes like surveillance, Miller said.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.