Investigation uncovers two sophisticated telecom surveillance campaigns

Insider abuse and telco security controls

• Several anecdotes describe telco employees abusing internal access to track ex-partners, sometimes without leaving obvious logs (e.g., packet captures, access to raw telemetry).
• Others, including people claiming telco experience, strongly dispute how easy this is: they say access to enriched location data is tightly restricted, CRM data is segregated, and lawful intercept systems are on separate, hidden paths.
• There is disagreement on how many employees at large operators can see both location and customer data; some say “almost none,” others say “dozens” at big carriers.

Law enforcement and accountability

• Multiple commenters describe police largely ignoring stalking and tech-enabled harassment, even when evidence is provided, across the US, Australia, UK, and Europe.
• Others insist that in their jurisdictions such allegations would be investigated and could lead to charges, but this is met with skepticism and counterexamples.
• Telco governance and privacy offices are portrayed by some as serious and responsive, by others as theater, with audits allegedly being fudged.

Technical vectors: SS7, 4G/5G, lawful intercept

• SS7 is repeatedly cited as a long-known, unfixed weak point enabling silent location tracking and protocol downgrade attacks, even for 5G users.
• Some note that “ghost” or shell operators can abuse interconnect signaling outside normal legal processes.
• Lawful intercept and emergency services paths are described as intentionally opaque, sometimes even from normal telco monitoring tools.

Global data markets and state abuse

• Russia is mentioned as an example where telco and travel data reportedly leak onto black markets and have been used by journalists and opposition figures; some initially claim these DBs are fake, others counter with documented uses.
• Comments suggest similar surveillance and leakage in the UK, Israel, and Australia, and that “everyone does it, some just got caught.”

Israel, Gaza, and geopolitics

• The Israeli surveillance/export industry is linked in discussion to broader military and intelligence practices.
• Gaza and neighboring regions are described by several as a “testing ground” or “laboratory” for advanced tracking and targeting technologies, with concern they will be deployed more broadly.

Privacy attitudes and coping strategies

• Many argue most people no longer care about being tracked, citing mass use of big tech apps with location access.
• Suggested mitigations range from disabling background location, to keeping SIMs in dumb phones at home, to using data-only SIMs and encrypted apps, to leaving phones behind entirely.
• Others consider privacy effectively dead and foresee pervasive surveillance enabling “tailor-made hells” and black markets for “private comms” tech.