Mobile Network Comparison

Update: Subsequent to publishing the below article, iCard’s insolvency notice was published in The London Gazette. So it’s now verified – as of 27 June 2014, iCard Mobile Limited have been in administration.

The mobile industry is awash with rumours that cut-price MVNO iCard Mobile is going out of business potentially leaving thousands of customers stranded. The budget virtual network is struggling with huge debts and insider sources are even claiming the company might already have gone into administration.

Our investigations have been unable to confirm anything so far, but iCard have looked a bit wobbly recently. The network was launched in September 2010 and is run by an established entity called iCard Telecom.

However, some of our readers reported that their website was completely down earlier in the week and others claimed that their calling cards suddenly stopped working. They also recently ended their free calls deal without any notification to customers. Whatever the true situation is behind the scenes, it appears that there might be major cashflow issues.

Other sources have made unconfirmed comments that their money woes have forced the network into receivership due to approximately £12 million of unpaid debts. The last accounts published by iCard do not confirm this yet even though their cash reserves were stated to stand at a paltry £10,000 against liability of almost £3 million.

Following the rapid collapse of OVIVO earlier in the year, it’s clear some virtual networks are struggling to surviving in the competitive UK market. Having said that, we’ve been unable to get any official comment from iCard Mobile so far so it must be stressed that this is just a rumour and nothing has been officially confirmed yet.

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So, roughly two years after it was first announced at Google I/O, Glass is finally getting an official release in the UK. The price tag is a whopping £1000 per pair and they are now on general availability to anyone.

Since Google Glass was first announced, there’s been a huge demand which Google have exploited with exclusive review copies given away to prominent celebrities and tech journalists. Whilst some are celebrating them as ushering in a new paradigm of wearable computing, others have mocked the smartglasses and expressed privacy concerns about the internally-mounted camera.

Despite the fact it has been in development for several years now and cost a small fortune, Google still claim that officially Google Glass is still a beta product. This is only the second country to get an official release and it’s clear that if you fork out for a pair now, you’re very much an early adopter of a prototype device. Google is relying on these people’s input to shape further improvements and development. At the same time, they are hoping to drastically reduce the price over the next few years by a whole order of magnitude.

Since they are worn as glasses, unsurprisingly, Google is already able to add prescription lenses and sunglasses lenses. Compared to earlier versions of the product, the UK variant boasts an improved battery life as well as British English voice recognition. Glass runs Google’s own software and can even run customised Android apps known as “Glassware”.

Google Glass has come under fire from privacy advocates because it can record video without subjects being aware of it, and that any video will be routed through Google’s servers. And in the UK, other concerns have already been raised. Some cinemas have banned the devices due to piracy fears while the Department for Transport has been consulted on whether wearing Glass could distract drivers when travelling on British roads. On the other hand, many business are biding their time to gauge the reaction to Glass – Wetherspoons has stated that it “discuss the matter in due course” while British Airways said its customers could wear Glass at any time on board its aircraft, as long as they put it in flight safety mode when necessary.

What do you think of Google Glass? Is it just a pointless gimmick or does it have real-world uses? Are you concerned about privacy or are you dying to get your hands on a pair? And would you pay £1000 to attach stupid-looking prototype glasses to your head?

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Roughly a year after Edward Snowden’s revelations about government spying shook the world, Vodafone have published a paper that details the extent to which government agencies are able to access their private internal networks.

Vodafone’s Law Enforcement Disclosure Report even admits that some country’s security services effectively have a direct back-door allowing them to bypass any efforts by the network operator to protect its clients’ information. They said: “agencies and authorities have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link”.

The full report weighs in at a hefty 40,000 words and going into detail about the extent and type of government surveillance on global communications. The Guardian’s reaction claims that state snoopers can listen to and record live communications and even use their access to the telecoms giant’s systems to track the physical locations of Vodafone’s customers.

Before we even knew who Snowdon was, we had already written about the scary influence of state actors on communications with a particularly vivid example being the way government control of mobile phones aided was used during the Egyptian Revolution. The crackdown on media reports and internet access were vital to the suppression of anti-government citizen protesters.

Vodafone also reveal that in several countries including Egypt, Hungary, India, Qatar, Romania, South Africa and Turkey, it is unlawful to disclose any information whatsoever regarding interception of the content of mobile communications. You are not even permitted to say whether such capabilities exist.

The following diagram shows which regions allow disclosure and which have made it illegal.

In many countries, Vodafone have had to provide direct access pipes to government agencies. These backdoors do not require any due process such as legal warrants and Vodafone are not given any details about identity or the number of customers targeted. In this way, mass surveillance is possible and governments do not ever have to justify their intrusions.

Confirming the existence of these systems, Stephen Deadman said on behalf of Vodafone:

These pipes exist, the direct access model exists. We are making a call to end direct access as a means of government agencies obtaining people’s communication data. Without an official warrant, there is no external visibility. If we receive a demand we can push back against the agency. The fact that a government has to issue a piece of paper is an important constraint on how powers are used.

Vodafone also released statistics on government requests for their users’ data. The following table summarises the number of requests for interception of information through legal channels backed by warrants. It covers the most recent year where data are available. Metadata refers to information such as phone numbers, addresses, locations and dates and times of communications while content means the actual content of calls or messages. From government reports we know that over half a million requests for customer metadata were processed in the UK. Scary or what?

Meanwhile, the former Stasi officer Wolfgang Schmidt said:

You know, for us, this would have been a dream come true … So much information, on so many people. It is the height of naivete to think that once collected this information won’t be used,” he said. “This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect the people’s privacy is not to allow the government to collect their information in the first place.

What do you think about this revelation? GCHQ is supposed to spy on Britain’s enemies – is it right that they are spying on all of us? How can security agencies operate above the law? And can we do anything about this or is our best hope to use GPG to encrypt everything and retain some level of privacy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments…

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