text:
Feds enlist public's help on techy patent filings
Critics of the U.S. patent system have long griped that it's entirely too easy to get patents these days on obvious or otherwise unmeritorious inventions--in part because overworked patent examiners don't have ready access to information about what's already out there.
A yearlong pilot project, endorsed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in partnership with the New York Law School, is supposed to help.
The goal behind the Peer to Patent Project, officially launched last Friday, is to allow anyone who's interested to weigh in on 250 pending patent applications belonging to … Read more


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text: Gallery: Putnam in Pictures, Friday, April 26 Apr. 26, 2013 @ 02:07 PM The Herald-Dispatch / 2014 Did you miss something in Putnam County this week? Chances are, one of our photographers was there. Prev | Next Purchase this photo Billy Summers/The Putnam Herald Before the Boston Marathon Victims Benefit Run begins on Sunday, April 21, 2013, at Valley Park, a moment of silence is observed. ()


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This is a Galina Signature ball gown. I purchased this last some while I was with my Mother in Law in Georgia. My husband and I are already married, but we got married in a Japanese court house without family. We were going to have our ceremony in November of 2014, but due to my husband being gone during that time, we need to push it back a few years. I do not want this beautiful dress to just sit in a closet for a few years while we pick a new date and have it possibly ruin.
When we were in the store, I tried on and took pictures with the store's floor model. When I purchased it, I ordered a brand new gown straight from the company. The new dress has never been worn or anything, it is still in the original state as when it was picked up from the store.
For the length, I am 6'1″ and the floor model dress fit me perfect even with heels.
- Label Size: 6
- Street Size: 6
- Bust:
- Waist:
- Hips:
- Height with Shoes:
- Alterations: No alterations have been made.
- Color: White
- Silhouette: Ballgown
- Material:
- Neckline: Sleeveless
- Style: Glamorous
- Condition: New
- Preservation Method: It is still in the original bag that it was picked up from the store in October of 2012.
- Terms of Sale: All Sales Final
- Location: Cumming, GA
- Will Ship to: Other
- Payment Methods Accepted: Escrow.com
Please read our BUYER'S GUIDE before purchasing a dress online.


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Rwandan Bronze Star Basket
Baskets have served many functions in Rwandan history, including holding food, celebrating weddings, and carrying secrets from one woman to another. Woven of natural grasses, this basket's pure white background makes a stunning contrast to the geometric bronze patterns woven into its design.
Rwanda, a tiny and extremely poor country in the lakes region of East Africa, is sadly best known for a devastating civil war in 1994. Handicrafts such as these baskets form a major source of income for Rwandan women. The baskets are a testament to the strength of the proud Rwandan people and their commitment to weaving a lasting peace.
Small measures approximately 11.25" dia. (28.6 cm), and Medium measures approximately 13" dia. (33 cm). Large is out of stock. Handmade in and fair-trade imported from Rwanda.
Due to its size, this item is not available for international nor express shipping.
Created to help women worldwide gain economic security for themselves and their families by earning fair wages for their handiwork, Global Girlfriend sources women-made, fair-trade imported, eco-friendly products. By supporting long-term partnerships with the artisans, it fosters equal employment opportunities, healthy and safe working conditions, technical assistance, and development strategies to help reduce poverty, one community at a time. Become a "Global Girlfriend" and help build a brighter future for girlfriends around the globe!
People buying this item also bought:
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Artisan: Gahaya Links
In the tiny, land-locked country of Rwanda, ravaged by the 1994 genocide that created hundreds of thousands of widows, hope might seem hard to come by. But this conflict-ravaged place is also the home to Gahaya Links, a company with a vision of peace between Hutus and Tutsis, of employment and income for female heads of household, and of a brighter future for all.
Gahaya Links was founded in 2003 by Joy Ndungutse and Janet Nkubana, two sisters who have found that the way to weave straw into gold is through fair trade. Gahaya Links works with 54 cooperatives throughout Rwanda, employing thousands of weavers, most of whom are women. Each cooperative is run by a democratically-elected president, secretary, and treasurer -- literacy is the only requirement -- and each cooperative is structured so that Hutu and Tutsi weavers work side by side, promoting reconciliation as the country struggles to come back from its long nightmare.
"Our main achievement is seeing how the women we work with have changed from how they were [directly post-genocide] to how they are now." --Joy Ndungutse
Joy Ndungutse's designs are taught to master weavers from each cooperative, who travel to the headquarters in Kigali to learn new designs and techniques as they are decided upon. The master weavers then return to their cooperatives to teach the other weavers, thus fostering leadership and community as well as guaranteeing standardized quality.
In addition to the weavers' salaries, Gahaya Links puts one dollar into a savings account for each basket completed. The mandatory savings program has enabled the weavers to afford more-nutritious food, pay for their children's education, obtain medical care, and afford to wear shoes. None of these things were possible on their previous incomes.
Through their dedication and work, Joy Ndungutse and Janet Nkubana have created a flourishing business that is sowing the seeds for a lasting peace.
More items from Gahaya Links: View all ▸
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text:
Q: Do Open Relationships Work?
Or are they just stupid?
on August 22, 2013Published in the September 2013 issue
Some celebrity couples seem to think an open relationship makes a couple stronger. What do you think?
I don't get paid to think at least that's what Kurt and Goldie keep telling me but if I did, I'd think that open relationships are a bit like e-cigarettes: Good in theory, but they'll make you look stupid at parties. Only the most level-headed, secure, forthright, and honorable celebrities should even attempt open relationships, because they're the only ones who can afford to pay everyone off when things don't work out, which they won't, because they never do. (Come on, you knew that.) Still, if you think you can manipulate your wife into agreeing you should sleep with other people, and you feel certain you can get drunk enough to ignore whatever she chooses to do, then by all means, open your relationship to the public. Just make sure everything is up to code and the exits are clearly marked.
Got a sex question of your own? E-mail it to us at email@example.com.
Follow Esquire Magazine on RSS and on Twitter at @Esquiremag.
What To Read Next
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06The Shortage Worth Worrying About: Great Whiskey
07Women We Love of Instagram: Sarah Stage
08The 9 Steps to Dating Like a Cowardly Drone
09Why Do We Need SAT's Anyway?


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The only Original `Selke Hat'
Handcrafted Quality from New Zealand.
Click box below to view specials!
Browse Shop
Selke - Handcrafted Leather and Fabric Hats
Specializing in high quality hats guaranteed for the discerning buyer. All handmade (whatever the type) tramping hats, fishing hats, hunting hats, southern man hats, cowboy hats, summer hats, mesh hats, breathable hats, vented hats, winter hats, opossum helmets, lambswool helmets, aviation helmets, opossum caps, lambswool caps, deerskin cheesecutters (flat caps), nappa leather cheesecutters (flat caps), trilby hats, baker boy caps and pony hats (calf skin hats). All are extremely durable and handcrafted for a lifetime of use.
Since its establishment, Selke has built a well-earned reputation for quality products and fine workmanship, and has become a trusted name in outdoor apparel throughout New Zealand and beyond.
Our products are manufactured from the best available raw materials with the highest attention to detail and craftsmanship including rigorous quality control that Selke quality demands. All of our garments offer great performance in tough weather conditions and long-lasting durability.
If you need the most comfortable hat or garment that won't let you down in harsh conditions, is manufactured to the highest standards, and looks great too, choose Selke.
The only original Selke hat. Our customers know to look for the Genuine Selke NZ Handcrafted Brand...there is only one.
Just a few examples of what our customers are saying about us (unprompted!):
Have this hat and love it ! (Opossum Cap - 102P)
Katch Bacheller - Anchorage, Alaska, USA
Thanks for sending the leather hat through... my husband loves it.
(Black Deerskin Trimstyle Cheesecutter Cap - 609TRBL)
Maria Smart - Wellington, NZ
Thanks for lovely hat - received this morning (just B4 10am) as per update.
(Red Deerskin Trimstyle Cheesecutter Cap - 609TRR)
Gail Goddard - Ellerslie, Auckland, NZ
What can I say, truly outstanding and brilliant service. Ordered at 5pm Wed, changed order at 6pm, personal phone call at 9pm, and arrived home today (Thursday) to find the hat on the doorstep. That is less than 24 hrs (Great NZ service at its best). I will certainly be buying more hats (although they look as though they will last a long time).
Thanks - you are awesome.
Tom Davies - Mt Pleasant, Christchurch, NZ
PS: Happy for these comments to be published for advertising purposes, frankly I am amazed.
The best hat I have ever owned, and widely envied. You could do with a UK outlet.
Philip Madden - Birdingbury, Rugby, UK
I have previously bought 2 hats from your company & absolutely love them!
I bought one for my husband and father in law.
Edith - Fleming Island, Florida, USA
Just received the Large size Deerskin Trim Cheesecutter.
Very nice! Very happy!
Will be recommending!
Ben Carroll - Albany, Auckland
Hi - I love your hats. I just ordered my second one today, a trilby, which I am gifting to a friend in India who also loves hats. I plan to buy a few more while I am in the country.
Kunal Bhaskaran - Auckland, NZ
Hi - Received hat today. I love it - best one I've had. When I need another one, I will order it from you. Thanking you - all the best.
Greg Keogh - Newcastle, NSW, Australia
You sent me a Cheese Cutter Cap on 6th June 2012 for my son and he was delighted. I would like to order an identical cap for my husband.
Frances Moss - Bushey, UK
Incidentally I wore the hat a lot in China, where we had a 4 week holiday in May. I got lots of compliments about it there also. It seems that the Chinese are currently discovering hats.
Brent Walker - Killcare, NSW, Australia
Love the hats!
David Oxley - Capel, Western Australia
I have been wearing my Baker Boy Cap for over a year now. Thankfully I've not lost it, and I wear it every day: Fantastic hat.
Jo Baxter - Paraparaumu Beach, NZ
Thanks for your help with my enquiry/order, paying online made ordering easier. I know I'll be as pleased with my new hat as I am with my oilskin - they're definitely the best hats in the world.
Alan Bradford - West midlands, UK
Thank you for the safe arrival of two fine caps. You could only
have posted them on Monday at the earliest and they arrived in perfect condition on Saturday morning, an amazing delivery service. The deerskin is beautifully soft.
The caps are somewhat better then the equivalent on offer in the UK, I sense you could have a good market in the UK and Europe.
D Slesenger - Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Hi, our mates had your hats at our house today and we really liked them.
K & J Parlane – Kaikohe, New Zealand
Don't need to get one as got one years ago... just like to say well made hat love it... had to re glue the trim bit but hey it's been in the sea lol... good job thank you.
D Holt - Lincoln, UK
I just wanted to let you know that the hat has arrived and my husband loves it! Thank you so much for all your assistance.
C Daly – Hawthorne, Victoria, Australia
Hi, I bought 2 of the 103BR hats in smaller sizes today at Tower Junction H&F but no XXL available. If u have one XXL brown in stock can you please courier it to me at the above address. Many thanks - great NZ product.
T Studholme - Christchurch, NZ
I have hunted around for a good hat for sun protection which also has style. I like your 105S which I saw at a Hunting and Fishing store.
K Nicholls - NZ
Have used up two. Time for a third. Great hat. Last time mocha, this time the olive brown.
j Emigh - Riverside, RI, USA
I have purchased a hat when I visited NZ 3 years ago and will replace to a new one. The best hat I ever had.
M Poulsen – Denmark
Dad had bought one of your hats while visiting New Zealand years ago - it is his favourite hat and so it is very well worn. He still loves and wears it and I would like to get him a new one for when he is dressed up! Thanks so much! (he lives in Bermuda so would still prefer the cooler mesh).
C Sikking - Lancaster, Pa, USA
i love this hat which I bought, but my dog chewed it up. Would love to get another one soon since I am up in Colorado (USA) fly fishing.
W Schubert - Texas, USA
I purchased a hat from Champagnes in Michigan and love it. Are they still selling these out of Michigan? I would like to purchase the golfers fairway.
K Whitaker - Bristol, TN, USA
A few years ago, I bought excellent Selke hat 308, size large, from a shop in Exeter UK, having seen one in tourist/travel shop at small town south edge of Lake Taupo. My son in law now wants a similar hat, but I can't find the Exeter shop; perhaps closed. In order to ascertain size, have you any stockists in SW England or London, please?
J Davies - UK
This is an awesome looking hat with great detail and quality. I've been looking for a good quality hat in NZ for a very long time so I'm very glad I found you. Thanks very much.
W Kingii Ranginui – Lower Hutt, NZ
Saw a Selke hat in Canada (imported by Brier Enterprises Inc). Liked it, bought it. It didn't wear out or lose shape. I left it in a road side cafe'. Where can I buy another in the UK?
I Innes - Norwich, UK
This is my favourite product. I find it practical, comfortable and looks kinda cool. I would love to own this hat and am waiting until I can afford to buy one.
N Liechti - Queenstown, NZ
I currently own one of your cheesecutters which I wear all the time. Could you please email me a price for the trilby?
J Ryan - Napier, NZ
A year or more ago I purchased one of your Bowlers Hats. It has been very good and much admired by the other club members.
D Beattie - Takaka, NZ
Thanks kindly - must add you have some pretty cool hats.
D Furnell - Whangaparoa, NZ
Hi, my husband has his well worn hat @ work and wears it all the time.
F McCann - Waikanae, NZ
I have the 301M version already and love it. Keep making the hats!! I love them!
R Kondler – Carmel Ca, USA
I left mine at a Jesuit Home. I'm sure the old guys love it . I would like to replace it.
P McGovern - Quakertown, PA, USA
I purchased a hat for my husband while in NZ, now I would like one.
M Dreaver - Brookhampton, Western Australia
Brother has awesome hat from visiting New Zealand. Love the hat, need one. Will be boasting about this hat.
J Wilson – Sedalia MO, USA
Bought one while in New Zealand. Great hat - you should export them to the US - my husband has received many compliments about it!
N Walma - Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, USA
I like it . Very smart and comfortable.
P Birchall - Awanui, Northland, NZ
I live in Ireland and would love to order one of your hats, if possible. I lived in New Zealand 4 years and bought one of your hats in Christchurch, but unfortunately lost it. To get another would be great. I look forward to hearing from you.
G Keogh - Ireland
I have one of your hats - superb thanks, and very comfortable.
R Mainprize - Bienheim, Marlborough, NZ
After my journey in New Zealand I possess since a few of years a hat Style No. 301, size large, natural leather. I'm really content with the quality but I want to buy another one.
J Wolfgramm - Germany
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Glamorous yet practical - our leather and opossum fashion hat. Made from N.Z. nappa and opossum, this cozy hat is also a very smart looker. Extremely soft, comfortable and warm for those frosty days. Feel snug and look stunning. Fully lined. Available in: Black Brown Nappa
Canvas Hat
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Light and cool summer hat without the open mesh. Provides excellent sun protection. Water resistant too.Has an adjustable leather chinstrap. Available in: Khaki Canvas Sand
Alpine Possum Helmet
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A stylish Opossum Alpine Helmet, oozing with Kiwi Warmth and atmosphere, ideal for the ski field, the snuggest helmet around. Fully crushable with oilskin outer (wind and water proofed). Available in: Brown Sand oilskin
Bush Hat
Price: NZ$93.00
A stylish and popular suede hat that oozes the "outdoors". A medium sized, reinforced brim that offers good protection from the sun. It has the thong hat band. Available in: Olive Brown Suede Mocha
The Fisherman's Ghillie
Price: NZ$99.00
Made from lightweight canvas and open cotton mesh for coolness, with an extra broad brim for maximum protection from the sun, this hat is the perfect fishing companion! A selection of your favourite flies can be attached to the flyband for convenience too.
The name "GHILLIE" (Gillie), is a Scottish term for someone who accompanies a fisherman as an assistant or guide. What better companion could you have than your very own "GHILLIE"?
Calf Slink Hat
Price: NZ$108.00
Calf Slink (hair and all) trimmed with leather. Crushable, soft and the ultimate in comfort. Try it – Looks stunning on. Truly handcrafted – every hat is unique.
The Trim–style Cheese Cutter Cap (Deerskin)
Price: NZ$137.00
A trendy, trim luxurious deerskin cap – awesome and so comfortable. Available in: Black Afghan Bone Chocolate Navy Red
Oilskin Cap
Price: NZ$70.00
A cotton oilskin cap lined with thick fur fabric. It has a soft peak and can be crushed and stuffed into your back pocket when not needed. Has fold down earflaps. Not only does it keep you warm, but keeps out rain and wind. Available in: Green Oilskin Black Brown
Distressed Leather Hat
Price: NZ$97.00
Something different from all the others. Casual yet stylish with an already worn look. Rustic brown – very popular. Available in: Rustic Brown
Suede Mesh
Price: NZ$97.00
Our original style with mesh crown. Very popular in warmer climates where heat in the crown may become uncomfortable. Packs flat and recovers shape well. Available in: Olive Brown (301) Mocha (301M)
Opossum Cap
Price: NZ$120.00
Brown oilskin cap trimmed in opossum and leather. A classy and practical cap to keep you snug and dry. For arctic conditions fully lined with fold down earflaps. You won't get warmer than this. Available in: Brown
The Bowlers "Hat"
Price: NZ$99.00
Made from lightweight canvas and open cotton mesh for coolness, with an extra broad brim for maximum protection from the sun, also features a green underside, this hat is the perfect bowling companion. Fully breathable with 100% cotton mesh crown.
The Oilskin "Hat"
Price: NZ$58.00
This all cotton oilskin hat is primarily for wet weather conditions, yet it can be described as an all year rounder. Broad brimmed with the familiar bush hat styling it can be twisted, flattened or rolled without damaging the shape. Fitted with a chin strap. Available in: Brown Oilskin Black Green Sand
The Souwester
Price: NZ$87.00
Very warm & dry-will keep you cozy even under the most extreme weather conditions. Comes fully lined with fleece, complete with ear flaps & chin strap. Available in: Brown Oilskin
Full Grain Leather Hat
Price: NZ$108.00
Smart and crisp full grain leather hat with a fly band. The ultimate cowhide, very smooth. Available in: Brown Full Grain Leather Black Tan
Distressed Leather / Mesh Hat
Price: NZ$99.00
A great summer hat, comfortably cool and light weight. Available in: Brown Leather Black
Suede Rodeo Hat
Price: NZ$153.00
Stylish yet casual. A real attention getter, with fully adjustable brim and high crown. Country and Western look.Comes with adjustable suede leather chinstrap. Available in: Mocha Dark Brown Olive Brown
Leather Trilby
Price: NZ$116.00
For the classy tailored look, a trendsetter. Available in: Black Brown Leather
Selke Original
Price: NZ$93.00
The hat that made us famous. This suede hat has a medium/wide curved brim that really looks great on your head. The brim is reinforced with nylon to retain the shape and the plaited hatband finishes it off. A "must have" if you are new to the range. Available in: Olive Brown Suede Mocha
The Baker Boy Cap
Price: NZ$99.00
Trendy stylish & comfortable Available in: Black Nappa Leather


text:
AMD Announces Support for Opteron 6000 Series
Code-named 'Magny-Cours', the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform supports extreme performance typical in enterprises or institutions with high-performance computing demands and web-facing servers which reach critical processing levels when internet traffic surges. In the company's most recent
news release on Market Watch, AMD announces forthcoming products from MSI, Tyan, Supermicro and other channel
system providers.
AMD has announced a lineup of motherboard and channel products for the soon-to-be available AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform.
"'Our strength is in the ability to provide vast combinations of features, performance and power for the dynamic server market,' said Etay Lee, general manager, Network & Communication Business Unit, Gigabyte. 'With the ability to offer 8- or 12-cores on a stable, high density, multi-node server platform, we are able to address a wide range of customer needs and are scheduled to begin shipping to those customers this month.'"
"'MSI has developed the new 8- and 12-core regular server platform solutions for enterprise environments that demand high density and expandability,' said Norman Tsai, vice president, Enterprise Platform R&D Division, MSI. 'These customers' workloads also require reliability, availability and security features that the new AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor brings to this new product line.'"


text:
higher ed indeed
The online revolution is hitting a few bumps.
Dick McKenzie walks away from his micro economics MOOC in mid mooc, citing the abysmal performance of a large majority of the 37,000 students.
The NYT even managed to produce an anti online class editorial. They claim that online students generally do worse than brick and mortar students, especially in community college settings.
I don't mean to suggest that traditional higher ed is the bizzle though. Consider the case of Sharon Sweet, an associate professor of mathematics, who is about to be fired from her job in Florida for pressuring students to vote for Obama (and a straight Democratic ticket).
If this is truly found to be a generally fireable offense, I believe that there will be an incredible number of new job openings in higher ed in the coming years.
This semester, I've been working on "flipping" one of my classes. Before each class, the students are assigned videos to watch or a reading assignment to complete and they take an online quiz over the material. The last question on the quiz solicits their feedback about what is causing them problems.
Then in class, we try to deal with the problems, work some examples, and fine tune their understanding. I still probably lecture more than I should, but it's a start and the students seem to be either enjoying or at least be OK with the format, though I'll have to wait for course evaluations to see what they really think about it.
Labels: bad to the bone, higher ed


text:
Wopular is an online newspaper rack, giving you a summary view of the top headlines from the top news sites. Senh Duong (Founder)Wopular, MWB, RottenTomatoes
The stylish combat film "300: Rise of an Empire" topped the box office with a strong debut of $45.1 million seven years after the original "300" became an unlikely sensation.
Sheriff's deputies responding to a report of a body on fire in Alpine arrived to find a body still smoldering.
Driver dies in wrong-way crash in Grapevine
Don't call them hot dogs and don't ask for ketchup.
Real-time data that you control could help you live a healthier, longer life.
A flight carrying more than 170 people made an emergency landing at the Honolulu International Airport Saturday.


text:
User Review: Suunto Core
My goodness don't buy this watch!!!!
I have had it for over a year, used it for all sorts of outdoor activities (hiking, sailing) and it has been the single least reliable product I have ever owned. It has been back to the service centre 3 times (about to go again for a 4th!), it will let you down when you least expect it and, if you are an outdoor person, this is totally unacceptable.
I have used a Suunto dive computer for over 10 years with great results, I can't believe a company with their reputation would put onto the market such a 'crappy' product.
You've been warned!
Have you owned or used
Suunto Core?
Share your experience »
Where to Buy
sponsored links
Help support Trailspace by making your next purchase through one of the links above.


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Message Subject
What's truly, TRULY scary . . .
Poster Handle
Anonymous Coward
Post Content
Is the sheer number of individuals who are so incredibly ignorant and devoid of any understanding of dogmatic Islamic ideology and philosophy -- and then go on to create an extremely distorted perspective of the situation in Gaza without proper understanding of the reality at hand.
Have you READ the Qu'ran? Do you know what Sharia law is? Do you know this religion is bigoted beyond comprehension, at complete odds with the rest of the free world? That to this day they will stone women and gays? Do you understand Palestine is a word created in recent history to reflect displaced Arabs that mostly subscribe to this ideology???
Or will you continue to bark the same shit without educating yourself?
If you do not know what the true face of the religion is about, DO NOT OPINE about Israel and its operation in Gaza, because you have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT OR REFERRING TO.
THIS IS NOT ANY KIND OF TRADITIONAL WAR OF SIDE A vs. SIDE B.
When you fully understand that radical Islam is a WORLD DOMINATING, FREEDOM HATING IDEOLOGY that is akin to mental illness on the order of dementia, and teaches prevarication and deceit is the way to subdue all that DO NOT BELIEVE IN IT, you will understand that ISRAEL IS NOT FIGHTING A WAR WITH OTHER HUMANS.
It is fighting a war against a PSYCHOSIS that unfortunately will place innocent civilians -- including women and children -- in its path at ALL COSTS -- to ADVANCE ITS IDEOLOGY.
So please, do yourself and this forum a favor and shut your incredibly naive mouth until you are fully educated on the topic. Cease and desist from casting blind blame in the wrong direction and promulgating bullshit. You're no better than the mainstream media.
Anonymous Coward 1485413
How old are you?
What gives you the right to judge others?
Who taught you to think? And why dont you ask questions before being so pathetically naive yourself?
All religions are in conflict with the apparent world as we are discovering it.
Palestine is Palestine, you dont need to paint it something else. [
link to www.juancole.com
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University Staff Forced to Address Their "Heterosexual Privilege"
Abby Martin To "Piss Moran": MSM Filled Corporate Shills Who Continuously "War Monger & Fear Monger!"
Economist Warns of Collapse Risk: "Will Not Allow Life to Continue As We Know It"
This HD Video From Space Is Going To Change The World
Herman Munster (John Kerry) urges US envoys to make 'climate change' priority
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9 Million Lbs. of "Diseased and Unsound" Meat May Have Reached 35 States, Says USDA
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The Drone That Will Shoot You With an 80,000 Volt Taser
Names of Everyone on Board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370
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Bruce Schneier | ||||||||||||
Schneier on SecurityA blog covering security and security technology. « Hacking Indictment | Main | Buying Fake European Passports » December 5, 2006 Remotely Eavesdropping on Cell Phone MicrophonesI give a talk called "The Future of Privacy," where I talk about current and future technological developments that erode our privacy. One of the things I talk about is auditory eavesdropping, and I hypothesize that a cell phone microphone could be turned on surreptitiously and remotely. I never had any actual evidence one way or the other, but the technique has surfaced in an organized crime prosecution: The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone. Seems that the technique is to download eavesdropping software into the phone: The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call." EDITED TO ADD (12/12): Another article. Posted on December 5, 2006 at 6:29 AM • 83 Comments To receive these entries once a month by e-mail, sign up for the Crypto-Gram Newsletter. CommentsGreg • December 5, 2006 7:27 AM Yea well there is a lot of things posible on cell phones. Old ones and new ones. When I was working for a GSM based network----there where....cases that makes me belive the current claims. There is however a few things to note. First is that battary life is based totaly on the transmission time. This is physics you can't "hack" it, so battary life would be very short if its "on" all the time-even sound activated would drain it pretty quick. The second is interference and general security. Hi security places don't alow any *trasmission* or recording device because they don't trust the guy with the phone anymore than the phone. GSM phones also make a hell of a racket with my PC speckers. Chris1 • December 5, 2006 7:41 AM @Greg (or anybody who knows): What would battery life look like if the phone was recording audio to an internal buffer, and then transmitting it in short bursts, at faster-then-realtime speeds whenever the buffer got full? Ian Eiloart • December 5, 2006 7:47 AM Interestingly, MI5 used to (perhaps still do) use ordinary landline telephones in a similar way. It does require them to get up close, and bounce a radio beam off the phone, but apparently the microphone in the handset modulates the radio reflection. Tim • December 5, 2006 7:50 AM I wonder if the BBC article (do you have a link?) is talking about turning on automatic answer on a mobile phone, rather than something more mysterious. If you turned off the ringer, and turned on automatic answer, you have a bug that can be used simply by calling in to it. If you have it plugged into a charger, the bug is permanent. It would be simple to put such a phone into a meeting room in a company and then phone in for a listen when the company bigwigs are in there. Owen Blacker • December 5, 2006 7:53 AM This was also mentioned by Henry Porter in a recent documentary called Suspect Nation that he did for the British TV channel More4. The same technique was used there — install eavesdropping software then spy at leisure. Lourens Veen • December 5, 2006 8:12 AM Doesn't the ISDN standard have a similar facility built-in, where a phone can be put into listening mode remotely? Roger Lipscombe • December 5, 2006 9:02 AM "mostly because the battery in a tiny bug would not have lasted a year" But the bug's right next to an (e.g.) 850mAh battery (the Li-ion battery in my Nokia) that's probably going to be recharged (without thinking) whenever it gets a bit flat. Surely, when installing the bug (when you have a couple of minutes access to the phone), you just attach a couple of patch wires between the bug and the battery connection. Grant Gould • December 5, 2006 9:04 AM If I were the FBI, I'd take the hardware approach and build bugged batteries. Cell phone batteries are easily replaced, but since they're rechargeable almost nobody ever looks at them. Many different phone models from the same manufacturer have the same battery type, which saves manufacturing. I wouldn't use the phone's antenna, either -- it's too obvious when GSM phones are using the network, they interfere with computer monitors in a distinct and suspicious way. Rather, I'd have the bug record and dump it periodically over a short-range connection to a receiver near the suspect's home or workplace. That would minimize suspicious loss of battery life -- indeed, if the receiver were near wherever the suspect kept his or her charger, the battery drain of the transmission could be completely unnoticeable. Octavian • December 5, 2006 9:40 AM And a bit of history - a simple trick used in the 80s by the secret services (especially in the former communist block) was to slightly increase the line voltage so that the microphone would become active even if the phone was on hook. Ian Rae • December 5, 2006 9:52 AM On a slightly related note, this reminds me of the time I dropped my cellphone and it acquired a new feature: anytime someone would call me as soon as they would press send, and while my phone was ringing, my phone would also transmit audio from the caller. I could hear them but they couldn't hear me...until I picked up of course. as tempting as it was to keep the feature I responsibly got the phone fixed. It was too eerie... I have no doubt there are a ton of related tricks to surreptitiously capture audio. My phone was a Nokia 6310i. Awesome phone, wish I still had it. Anonymous • December 5, 2006 10:02 AM Yep, this is legit and I remember a "friend" who works in security for the government telling me about this fun feature about six years ago. It's software-based, so the eavesdropper doesn't have to "plant a bug" or be anywhere NEAR your phone. Just assume that every conversation you've had in the past 10 years was recorded by the NSA. Asdf • December 5, 2006 10:20 AM Wasn't there a bit of a hissy fit in Europe recently about the staff of Ericcson phones installing this stuff, and it was used against people in the Greek government? MikeA • December 5, 2006 10:23 AM @Octavian Steve • December 5, 2006 10:25 AM Didn't the Feds do this with the built-in 'phone home' phones in mercedes S class saloons some time ago ? That car being favoured by high income types of every persuasion - some bright spark noticed a lot of criminal big wigs have them and figured out how to activate the phone remotely and so 'bug' the car with no need for physical access. Clive Robinson • December 5, 2006 10:25 AM @Bruce, "I hypothesize that a cell phone microphone could be turned on surreptitiously and remotely" This has been talked about befor on your blog and enough info has been put on it for you to have more than a hypothesis... It is all to easy to do and the software can be downloaded to the phone by the phone operator. Most mobile phone code uses standard chips and copies of either existing code or code that is supplied by the chip manufacture as refrence code. So it is easily possible for a knowledgable cracker to do the same, and you have seen reports of Mobile Phone viruses that are real so why do you doubt it? @Chris1, Roger Lipscombe "What would battery life look like if the phone was recording audio to an internal buffer" Don't think battery think very high value "super cap" capacitor of half a farad or more they can keep things running for several days. You find them in lots of comsumer equipment these days to hold charge for Real Time Clocks etc whilst the battery is being charged, Oh and the average rechargable battery is omly good for around 200 charges where as a super cap is good for several thousand. @Eiloart "MI5 used to (perhaps still do) use ordinary landline telephones in a similar way" I think you are confusing two things here. First off the "Spy Catcher" device worked on a very simple idea, you put an RF carrier on the line from outside the house that is a little above the MediumWave band, you also insert inductors on the exchange side and a couple of caps across the line to bring the phone and it's line to resonance. The "Hook Switch" being a real switch back in those days looked like a very very small capacitance in series with the carbon granual microphone which efffectivly bridged the tuned cct. Effectivly any sound changed the Q of the tuned CCT and ended up Amplitude Modulating the RF carrier you injected. You then picked this modulated signal back up off the line with a current pick up (think VSWR detector circuit). THe Other thing you might be thinking of was the "Rusian Singing Eagle" Basically the story is that a hand carved U.S. Eagle supposedly carved by Moscow children was given to the US ambassador who hung it on his wall. Inside was two RF cavities one of which had a very flexible end (think aluminium foil) which changed the Q / Resonant frequency of the cavity. The two cavities where connected to each other by a diode that acted as a frequency multiplier. When the Rusians beamed a microwave signal at the eagle a multiple of the frequency was re-radiated modulated by any sounds in the room. Supposedly the Russians beamed a very very large amount of microwave radiation from a church adjacent to the embasy which prompted many jokes about it. @Tim It's one way to do it that works and there are several others. A couple of these ideas appear to have been used against a hundred or so people prior and during the Athens Olympics (Bruce Covered it when it broke news back then) It appears they used "Standard Software" in Ericson Switches. To Bug just Calls and SMS (although there are hints at other activities, which a death put an end to further enquires). @Lourens Veen "Doesn't the ISDN standard have a similar facility built-in" Yes as do most "digital service" landline switches, they always have done and the same thing is available for all mobile phone switches as well (if you want to pay for it and you are the right sort of customer...) @All First off unless you are using a very old (think analogue) channel based system most mobile phones give away the fact that they are transmitting to an audio Amplifier or medium wave radio. It is fairly simple to demonstrate turn on your hifi amp and MW receiver tuned to a blank part of the band (ie his) and make a call to your home phone then move your mobile close to your hifi. You will hear a very anoying buzzing noise which is your mobile phone sending out packets of data. Your HiFi is "envelope detecting" the signal. You also get a similar effect when you put your mobile next to a modern electronic phone. Therefor you can build a reliable "bug detector" for this out of a small audio amplifier a diode a capacitor and a small coil of wire. All of which you can get from your local Radio Shack / Tandy / Maplin etc etc. Likewise any bug would need to be continuouse carrier (FM/PM) to avoid a similar fate. A second effect that is well known (publicly) since the 1980's is TEMPEST/HIJACK/NONSTOP cross modulation attacks. Basicaly a mobile phone like most other digital electronic equipment generates all kinds of RF junk that gets into all kinds of other electronics, and data in one cross modulates with the other. Effectivly confidential data can piggy back out of a secure TEMPEST area on an RF carrier that would not normally be present... The UK Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher baned the use of mobile phones in all confrences and secure areas for specifficaly that reason. The current incumbrent and his cohorts chose to ignore the demonstrations and still go to sensitive meetings with their mobiles on.... Roy • December 5, 2006 10:40 AM Any manufacturer that designed in a side-channel capability would hope to receive favorable treatment from the US government, right? Think of government contracts and favorable judicial decisions. Clive Robinson • December 5, 2006 10:43 AM Oh for all those who might be amused by such things there are a couple of TSCM sites out their, http://www.tscm.com/ Have a look but remember to keep a little pile of salt with you ;) Clive Robinson • December 5, 2006 11:06 AM @dave Lauren Weinstein's artical contains some minor mistakes for instance, "First, when the phone is operating as a bug, regular calls can't be taking place in almost all cases" Not true, most mobile phones can handle two or more calls at the same time (think third party calling, bridge/conference calls etc). As long as the bug software took this into account then it is not a problem. Also if the people bugging you are using a "micro/nano cell" to act as a bridge then all betts are off on this one. "Another clue that a phone may have been transmitting without your permission is if it seems unexpectedly warm." Only partialy true, if it transmits on the lowest power or you keep your phone in an inside pocket you are unlikley to notice (though a cheep thermal image cammera or IR remote temp meter certainly would). So if you are evesdropping via a micro/nano cell then the phone can be told to use minimum power. "record ambient audio from the phone mic and store it in the phone's memory in compressed form, then upload it en masse later" Actually it is not that practical, most efficient compression software "throws away" background and other "non prime" audio content in order to get the 10-40 compression ratios needed. Unfortunatly when used as a bug this "throw away" audio is usually the stuff you realy want to hear. Assume lowest (telco) acceptable ADC quality then you are still looking at 64Kbit/sec before compression say 5Kbit afterwards that is still 2.25Mbyte an hour for very low quality audio. The other problem is of course you realy would be using quite a lot of CPU cycles to get this rate so the old heat & battery argument becomes valid. ALso some phones with "noise canceling mics" are likewise not very good when it comes to bugging for similar reasons... Clive Robinson • December 5, 2006 11:12 AM @Roy "Any manufacturer that designed in a side-channel capability would hope to receive favorable treatment from the US government, right?" Ah probably not have a look at the FBI interpretation of CALEA. Also look at what the The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), the Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA), the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the U.S. Telephone Association (USTA) have to say on the matter it makes interesting reading... Clive Robinson • December 5, 2006 11:44 AM On the subject of phone tapping Matt Blaze gave a talk up at Stanford on just this subject back in March this year as a follow up to his paper, http://www.crypto.com/papers/wiretapping/ You can see a write up of the talk at, http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/nb/nb.cgi/view/... It is certainly worth a read as you might be realy surprised who can legaly own and operate wire tap equipment in the US (18 USC 1252(2)(b)) and just how cheaply it can be obtained. If you go looking on the Internet for "wire tap" equipment you might find the expression "Telephone loop extenders" will get you more reliable information (both illegal and legal). Back many years ago in the UK such equipment was refered to as a "pole job" because it was usually put up the top of the telegraph pole (by a General Post Office squirrel), however few people are old enough to either remeber or talk about such things these days... The legal bods all moved over to the central exchange where it was "warm and cosey" and no "interested parties" hanging around. In later years "pole job" also refered to a piece of very illegal equipment that you would put in the "equipment room" of a block of "flats" where all the telephone pairs where available. Basically it bridged many pairs and had a control pair. If you lifted the handset on the control pair it would find a vacant line and switch it over to you so you could make calls at other peoples expense. The equipment is supprisingly easy to make, and it was also quite easy to add features that indicated the "real owner" of the line had picked up as well as faking a dial tone followed by a busy signal to them after they had dialed a couple of digits. Davi Ottenheimer • December 5, 2006 12:03 PM "One of the things I talk about is auditory eavesdropping, and I hypothesize that a cell phone microphone could be turned on surreptitiously and remotely." As others have said, no need to hypothesize. You might call this as much a feature as a "bug", depending on your perspective. FWIW, I used to know of a similar "bug" for Macintosh in the early 1990s (they usually had sound/mics built-in, unlike PCs). An attacker/friend just needed to get their target/friend to click on a fake bomb message (simple prompt for a restart) and sounds could be output to their system, or input redirected to play somewhere else. Eventually, if not now, people will have a need for monitoring the software config and traffic for their mobile devices. And the more data stored on the server (back to your theory of removing the assets from remote devices) with constant connectivity, the more users can simply hard-reset their device at a moment's notice to destroy bugs without losing their contacts, calendar, etc. another_bruce • December 5, 2006 12:10 PM i've heard about this before with cellphones and assumed they had this capability. Israel Torres • December 5, 2006 12:39 PM From my experience Nextels are outright noisy devices especially when there is inbound/outbound traffic channeling through. Even just walking by an FM radio, cable television, or most electronic communication devices will start giving audible noise-clicks. For good measure any type of carry-on electronic device (cell, calculators, watches, pens) should be left at the door before entering "private" areas. Usually anything said in these areas shouldn't be written down in the first place so justifying an electronic device would be really difficult and really draw suspicion. Israel Torres Clive Robinson • December 5, 2006 1:04 PM @another_bruce "how do we know for absolute sure and certain that our landlines can't listen to us when they're on the hook?" It would be very unwise to asume they coud not... There are things you can do to reduce the posibility but the answer would still be the same Anonymous • December 5, 2006 1:51 PM When I worked at the University during the '90's there was a move to 'privatize' a bunch of civil service positions. The civil service staff were understandably concerned. The University boardroom contained a projection screen, with a computer intended for showing Powerpoint presentations. Some folks I know wrote a tiny, simple program that captured the audio from the built-in microphone and sent the packets over the campus network to our desktop systems. Under the guise of a tech support call they installed it on the boardroom projection PC. We could then sit at our desks and listen to what was going on in the boardroom, regarding the privatization or whatever, at any time. My T-Mobile MDA is basically a handheld Windows computer just like that boardroom PC. I suspect the very same little eavesdropping program would work on my MDA. Fortunately I don't have anything to worry about from overzealous law enforcement, because I've never done anything wrong. Well, except for the thing with the boardroom PC. derf • December 5, 2006 2:21 PM It's a "feature", and yes - you pay extra for it. Now you know what "cost recovery fee" covers. Stephan Samuel • December 5, 2006 2:34 PM Aside from the software bugs (just wait until your car navigation runs Java), and hardware bugs, which spy-types have been doing for years, there are also secondary ways of listening to things. Ordinary objects become transducers in the presence of sound waves. Sound waves vibrate air and the air vibrates anything it hits correspondingly. While building walls are difficult to listen to, glass isn't. The microphone in your mobile phone works on this principle: when you speak, it generates an electrical waveform corresponding to the sounds you make. Between radar, sonar and eavesdropping, engineers and scientists have been working on the technology to use these transducers for a long time. Between low-noise amplifiers and technology to pick one signal out of noise from another, there's a lot that you can do with some well-designed circuits and a directional pick-up. Bruce Schneier • December 5, 2006 2:37 PM "Wasn't there a bit of a hissy fit in Europe recently about the staff of Ericcson phones installing this stuff, and it was used against people in the Greek government?" That's different; it was done at the switch. a_Lex • December 5, 2006 2:46 PM C'mon guys! So what made some of you think such a device was ever "secure" in the first place? No really, cellies are for convenience, NOT for privacy/security. Securing a cellie is a reaserch project in itself. Off course, there MAY be cellphones that are free of both intentional and unintentional backdoors (i wonder if someone somewhere could actualy give the cellphone an official certificate that it is hardware/software backdoor free), but unless it has been PROVED that your cellphone is secure we have to play cautiously and conservatively, and assume that the cellphone is capable of acting as a surveiliance device. @derf "It's a "feature", and yes - you pay extra for it." A wise note. THE CHEAPEST ONE. a_Lex • December 5, 2006 2:49 PM @Bruce Schneier On an almost unrelated note, Mr Schneier, the man who discovered that a backdoor in a switch was utilized has died in a "tragic accident". Coincedences... How probable is such a coincedence? Alice Lillie • December 5, 2006 2:57 PM I have a rather old cell phone. How new do phones have to be in order for the phone mic to be remotely turned on to eavesdrop on conversations near the phone? It's a Nokia 3360. The copyright in the instruction book is 2001. I got it second hand. Please e-mail if you know at firstname.lastname@example.com This is one good reason to use old equipment, if all it is for is to receive and make calls, no camera or other fancy stuff. Albatross • December 5, 2006 3:25 PM How probable is such a coincidence? About as probable as the death of Ken Lay during the window between conviction and sentencing, resulting in automatic abatement and thereby saving his estate millions of dollars otherwise forfeit. That's why I've carefully avoided becoming wealthy - I'd hate to find out the hard way that I was worth more dead than alive... C Gomez • December 5, 2006 3:27 PM So cell phones aren't secure. Is that news? What, do we need legislation to protect us? What good will legislation do when a) criminals don't care about legislation and b) governments can and will insert clauses allowing them to bypass legislation. You have to take care of yourself in this world. Considering the federal government in the U.S. is barely capable of administering anything, I don't expect a problem. Igor Drokov • December 5, 2006 3:32 PM At some recent event a German company demonstrated a way of exploiting a "service SMS" security. After delivering and installing some Trojan (via an unauthorised service SMS) they claimed to be able to have a remote access to the handset including listening to conversations, copying contacts etc. More details: http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?... A rather lengthy video from the presentation (in German) http://www.it-sa.de/itsa_asx.php?... Clive Robinson • December 5, 2006 4:18 PM @a_Lex "i wonder if someone somewhere could actualy give the cellphone an official certificate" Yes there are GSM mobile phones certified toto at least ITSEC E4+ (from the UK CESG) For the GSM phone look at, for a brief guide on ITSEC ratings look at, And no I have no connection to the company (other than one of it's founders used to be the MD of a company I worked for) anonymous (sorry folks) • December 5, 2006 5:01 PM
From a software perspective this is extremely easy. However inbuilt OS security in all of the mobile OSs I know mean the chances of such malicious code being installed by a 3rd party is extremely small. That said it is very easy for the network opperator to silently install whatever they want over the network. Given how they rolled over for the previous federal wiretapping scandle nothing would surprised me... Anonymous42 • December 5, 2006 5:04 PM Any mobile device capable of FOTA (Firmware Over-The-Air) updates can probably have its firmware and applications updated silently. Sprint started supporting FOTA right after my departure so I can only guess at what the process looks like from the user's end, but I imagine that even a normal update with modal progress dialog would be dismissed as "just another update or something." Mobile phones are major security and privacy holes, and things will get much worse before they get better. sidelobe • December 5, 2006 5:10 PM I discussed this with a colleague who was once in cellular customer service. Remember car phones? I'm talking about cellular phones permanently installed in vehicles. Some of them were manufactured and installed with an "auto-answer" feature that was meant to be safer and more convenient for a driver. But at least one model had a disconcerting problem: it would answer a call without ringing. In at least one case, a subscriber called customer service complaining that he was caught in some unauthorized extra-marital activity, because "that blankety-blank phone answered on it's own." Roy • December 5, 2006 5:33 PM So, what we need is a clamshell holster for mobile phones with electromagnetic shielding all around, good quality acoustic insulation to attenuate voice leakage, and an internal device situated right at the phone's microphone pickup that feeds it a random electronic yodel? Did I miss anything? Asdf • December 5, 2006 6:13 PM On an almost unrelated note, Mr Schneier, the man who discovered that a backdoor in a switch was utilized has died in a "tragic accident". @ a_Lex: not an accident. Supposedly a "suicide by hanging", but suspicious remarks were made before his death. @Roy: Kees • December 5, 2006 6:18 PM I wonder if the Cryptophone - http://www.cryptophone.de/index.html - is also vulnerable to remote listening. @Roy Davi Ottenheimer • December 5, 2006 9:33 PM @ kl Exactly, but a very familiar problem (everyone's favorite OS) is more likely to repeat than not with a proprietary network. Are consumers demanding an open phone, or a service that makes it easy to separate client from the target (see my comment above -- imagine phones designed to not be tied directly to an owner). Ironically, the limitations of the mobile platform could help reduce the complexities and thus enable exposure of vulnerabilities, but instead they might also be a perfect excuse for shortcuts and control gaps driven by "market" forces. Jon Kay • December 5, 2006 9:39 PM I read the actual evidence referenced by the original story and didn't see any evidence to support the article's claims. In fact, it seems clear to me that some other kind of equipment must have been used in this case, because the opinion talks about it working even when the cellphone was turned off. I don't believe any cellphone out there can run a program while turned off (or do anything else, much less transmit, without hardare hacking. Therefore, contrary to the article, it must've involved a physical hack of the cellphone such the transmitting battery suggested earlier in the thread. The original article also implies that a "roving bug" (mentioned in the legal documents) is the technique for turning cellphones remotely into bugs. That's rather likelier to be legal language referring to the "roving tap" authority needed to establish mobile or otherwise especially intrusive taps under a mechanism established by the Patriot Act. The legal language around the term seems to support that. Davi Ottenheimer • December 5, 2006 10:25 PM "I don't believe any cellphone out there can run a program while turned off" I can press the "off" button on a phone just to turn off the screen, or to turn off portions of the listener/transmission service, etc.. So unless all sources of power (e.g. battery) are completely removed, the term "off" is very relative. In fact, mobiles are often designed to allow "always available" functionality with default-enable across multiple networks even though you might press the "off" button and save some power. ladyblogger • December 6, 2006 3:03 AM "A wise note. i have a -- no-cost-to-me -- LG phone, about two years old. weinstein (cited above) talks about 3G phones. my crappy phone is 3G CDMA, whatever the hell that means... Tarkeel • December 6, 2006 3:27 AM "[...] said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge [...]" I wonder when this will be used to create some nice and nasty cellphone virus. I assume they atleast do code signing or something similar to protect from unauthorized access, but imagine the payoff from pulling this off: You can basically blackmail entire societies with the threat to render their cellphones inoperable. @Jon Kay: ""I don't believe any cellphone out there can run a program while turned off"" Unfortunately, "Off" is very rarely off these days. As was mentioned earlier, most phones will happily turn themselves on (if there is enough battery left) to trigger alarms etc. I know some hybrid phone/PDAs come with a "airplane" mode to turn off the antenna since you can't turn them off. dermot • December 6, 2006 3:45 AM Hi Bruce, erasmus • December 6, 2006 5:01 AM Why bother, when it seems most people do not change the default PIN on their voicemail? Ref the British 'investigative' reporter who has been found guilty of eavesdropping on voicemail accounts of Buckingham Palace staff. Ron • December 6, 2006 5:15 AM @Stephan Samuel "Ordinary objects become transducers in the presence of sound waves. Sound waves vibrate air and the air vibrates anything it hits correspondingly." Perhaps this famous device falls in this category: Anonymous • December 6, 2006 6:37 AM > You can basically blackmail entire societies with the threat to render their cellphones inoperable. Have you seen anyone blackmail entire societies with the threat to render their Windows computers inoperable (*) ? * with any kind of (remotely approaching) success ? another_bruce • December 6, 2006 12:42 PM that does it! no more sex in the same room with a telephone evar! Anonymous • December 6, 2006 1:28 PM Sprint's OTA software updates are (generally) totally transparent to the user. While GSM devices cause noise in speakers, and sometimes even mess with video displays, CDMA devices do not. At mw of power, it would not get warm or anything. A lot of current phones have speakerphones on the outside. They are worse at filtering out background noise, on purpose, and are on the outside (for clamshells) so would make excellent bugs.
Jon Kay • December 6, 2006 2:02 PM > I can press the "off" button on a phone just to turn off the screen, or Then I call it "idle". You can also press the "off" to turn it really off. > I know some hybrid phone/PDAs come with a "airplane" mode to turn OK, I guess that's true, but that's unlikely to have been what we had here. > I assume any device that has access to power is more or less on. If You know, it's amazing how perfect we assume the government and large organizations are when we're being paranoid. Mafiosos are people, too. Plus, the top Mafiosos are generally arrogant, and arrogant people make mistakes by the ton. Stefan Wagner • December 6, 2006 6:08 PM @Jon Kay: as seen on TV? Andrew • December 6, 2006 10:11 PM Several related anecdotal points. 1) Nobody is allowed to bring unauthorized electronic devices of any kind into a Security Operations Center, Emergency Operations Center, etc. in which secure data is handled. If you were dumb enough to bring such things into a SCIF, you shouldn't know what an SCIF is, let alone be inside one. 2) The technology discussed not only exists, but is a monitoring option for mobile phones issued to employees. Add GPS and stir, briskly. That sound was your illusion of privacy being shattered. Cheers. 3) It's easy to check the microphone for ambient sound, and save only that sound which is human voice. The phone also detects when it is plugged into a charger. Funny that the latest Motorolas don't let you use unauthorized chargers, isn't it? A convenient time to do the upload -- or just time-share the data stream during a voice call. Sounds like a product. The classy approach is to have shielded small lockers with white noise in the vestibule of your operations area. You forward your mobile phone to one of the "guest" lines, and put it in the locker. A thought for your privacy at home, too. Except that your local telco is an order of magnitude easier to tap :) Zaphod • December 7, 2006 1:06 AM @Roy "Did I miss anything?" - yes an internal pouch for one's RFID passport! Zaphod This is so old... • December 7, 2006 3:14 AM And has nothing to do with mobile phones tho they are also used cause those are usually located near person/persons who are under surveilance. Not going to details, but its only radio waves + microphone (in this case). So, no need for power/battery, lines etc Basicly anything can be used and RF is just more advanced than infra red beams. Basic principle is propably 50 years old, but this technique told in article has been in use around 10 years. Clive Robinson • December 7, 2006 7:48 AM @Jon Kay "Mafiosos are generally arrogant, and arrogant people make mistakes by the ton" Arrogant they may be but remember they designed and deployed the first telephone bugs... As always the LEA's had to play catch up and that required some time... @Andrew "So, what we need is a clamshell holster for mobile phones with electromagnetic shielding all around, good quality acoustic insulation to attenuate voice leakage, and an internal device situated right at the phone's microphone pickup that feeds it a random electronic yodel" Such things are already fairly widly available, go into any cellphone test area (say Cingulars in Redmond Town Center for instance) and you will see the clam shell cases some have both speakers (for the mic) and mics (for the earpiece) so you can plug them into achostic tests sets. If you want to buy one new go to the Rhode and Schwarz web site. I have seen some for sale on E-Bay in the past, for quite a small amount of money. Jon Kay • December 7, 2006 5:25 PM > Arrogant they may be but remember they designed and deployed the first telephone bugs... That just demonstrates that they can do smart things, not that they don't take shortcuts and make mistakes. Anonymous • December 7, 2006 6:45 PM "Doesn't the ISDN standard have a similar facility built-in, where a phone can be put into listening mode remotely?" Yes, but there is a solution to avoid this: watung • December 7, 2006 10:27 PM What about OTA? "...is a method of distributing new software updates to cellphones or provisioning handsets with the necessary settings with which to access services such as WAP or MMS." jayh • December 8, 2006 7:32 AM Ref POTS landlines: The older style cheap phones had a mechanical switch which disconnected the phone on hook. These are probably the most secure. Frank Rieger • December 8, 2006 8:27 AM @Kees: We have done for the CryptoPhone a lot of work on the operating system. We remove attack vectors, based on a user-selectable OS-security profile that essentiall balances features vs. attack surface. a_Lex • December 9, 2006 5:22 AM @Asdf "not an accident. Supposedly a "suicide by hanging", but suspicious remarks were made before his death." Sorry, confused it with the Adamo Bove case @Clive Robinson Does ITSEC cover all the potential "remote activation malware/backdoor" issues, or is it a purely cryptographical certificate? ON CLAMSHELL STUFF... Speaking of defensive measures, I have done some reasearch on the topic and discovered Russian LEAs are so much very concerned with this cellphone feature. They have been concerned since the first cellies hit the market. And they have developed a countermeasure - a relatively soundproof holster with a tiny speaker, which hisses white noise into the cellie's microphone. The noise level in 1 mm from cellies microphone is 100 +/-2 dbA It turns on whenever it detects transmission attempts on the side of cellie, so if you basicaly put a turned on mobile in there, it will be immediately jammed by noise and will be jammed untill you bother to turn off the phone This approach (placing a TURNED ON cellie in "cocoon jammer") seems nice because you, on one side, effectively jam the microphone (even when adversary runs this spycell malware, no sound but a menacing hiss will be recorded) and, on the other hand , are still able to recieve calls, as communication with network is intact (use vibration, as the holster is designed to be effectively soundproof). There is also a version with a Bluetooth disrupter. It can "hiss" for more than 48 hours in a row without recharge. As all Russian surveillance countermeasures, it is sold with no export limitations. Sold here http://www.cbi-info.ru/products/search/?... @Frank Rieger Wow! Larry • December 12, 2006 3:00 AM In my opinion there are not so many issues while a lot of software for voice encryption over GSM are spreading. Imho in the next years we will see some j2me java based crypto phone too. Still have some doubt that encryption technologies will remain free in the future... Old Nokia • December 19, 2006 6:52 PM @Ian Rae I also had an experience with my (old brick) Nokia phone a couple of years ago. One day I received a message from my cell provider informing me that the menu options on my phone had been 'upgraded'; I checked and they had. There was no 'If it's OK by you' or anything like that. It just happened. Who knows what else thay can do with your mobile these days? @Clive Robinson Fantastic posts! Thanks for that. @Alice Lillie Sorry, my phone is as old as it gets. See above. @Anonymous42 Agreed. Unfortunately I can confirm • January 17, 2007 5:27 PM Someone close to me has had this happen to them. Someone has used numerous cell-phones as listening devices in numerous locations and then made the person close to me aware of the eaves-dropping by emailing text of conversations or calling/leaving voice-mails of overheard conversations. I was present when one such eaves-dropping was apparently made and the text of part of someone's speech was relayed. VERY VERY scary. Reading the above I had an idea - just buy one of those (stupid-looking) light-up antennas so one would (likely) know when it was transmitting otherwise surreptitiously. yassine chtioui • February 10, 2007 6:17 AM does anyone know where one can buy a cell phone tap device?if so please e-mail me at my e-mail address,thanks,yass, alte • March 23, 2007 1:36 AM post by yassine chtioui on feb 10,07 saffron • May 12, 2007 2:36 AM A few nights ago around 21:45 I was on a cell phone call in Austria (between 3 and T-mobile). My cell phone is a Sony Ericcson. Suddenly an amusing Buzzer clay/tone sounded... 3sec. later a second… for instance in each case 1sec. long. Subsequently, I could hear 2 other people in conversation (in English)… they could not hear me, however, since they had not reacted to me. after for instance 10-15sec. my telephone call was interrupted. Neither I nor my interlocutor knew the Voices. What can that have been? peterin sa • May 17, 2007 5:11 PM I have a copy of the roving bug on my Samsung X670 cellphone called Datamover which was bluetoothed onto my handset by work collegues who listened into my calls surreptitiously. why do all this when all you need is a police scanner to pic up any cordless or cell phone conversations. jill • October 17, 2007 10:36 AM hello, i have no idea what all of this means, but you guys seem like you do. if someone can make me a device, tell me how to use it, and it works, I will send whatever is fair for it.. think about it-- email me at firstname.lastname@example.com-- rick • January 8, 2008 8:43 AM I am the developer of "World System of Proof" technology which turns any cell/mobile/land line phone into a recording device with unlimited capacity anywhere in the world. The service will be offered March 2008. Steve • April 23, 2008 12:32 PM I am looking for a device to eavesdrop on cell phone conversations without having to ever touch the cell phone, can anyone help me. josh • October 4, 2008 8:43 PM I had a similar situation happen to me. The nerds where I work, somehow bugged my Palm Treo 650. They messed with me pretty bad, made me think they were psychic and stuff. They did it for about 1 year in conjunction with spyware that got in through an e-mail they sent me. I almost went insane till one day I dropped my cell phone in the lake and it quit working. It is true, in my case, what they say. The phone got unusually warm and the battery drained faster. I told the authorities about the eavesdropping but they FBI, State and local authorities said they really didn't have the manpower to deal with it. E • September 30, 2009 11:35 PM When this was written there were doubts now it's a daily fact and we can all do it. Subscribe to comments on this entry Comments on this entry have been closed.
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Polite, selfless and modest — this is how a '"good girl" is taught to behave. But, in her book "The Curse of the Good Girl," author Rachel Simmons writes that this paradigm actually diminishes girls' power and potential to succeed. An excerpt.
Our culture is teaching girls to embrace a version of selfhood that sharply curtails their power and potential. In particular, the pressure to be "Good" — unerringly nice, polite, modest, and selfless — diminishes girls' authenticity and personal authority.
The Curse of the Good Girl erects a psychological glass ceiling that begins its destructive sprawl in girlhood and extends across the female life span, stunting the growth of skills and habits essential to becoming a strong woman. This book traces the impact of the curse on girls' development, and provides parents with the strategies to break its spell.
Almost ten years ago, I founded the Girls Leadership Institute, a summer enrichment program for middle- and high-school girls. I began asking largely middle-class groups of girls to describe how society expected a Good Girl to look and act. Here is a sample response:
- Blue eyes
- Little girl
- Quiet
- Perfect
- Sheltered
- Good grades
- Studies
- No opinions on things
- Well rounded
- Follower
- Preppy
- Has to do everything right
- Doesn't show skin
- High expectations
- Honorable
- Tons of friends
- Polite
- Enthusiastic
- Generous
- Kind
- Boyfriend
- Intelligent
- Conservative
- Popular
- Wealthy
- Athletic
- Natural hair
- Listens
- Honest
- Respectful
- Always busy
- Organized
- Flirtatious
- Skinny
- Speaks well
- Follows the rules
- Doesn't get mad
- Healthy
- Average
- Barbie
- Confident
- Perfect attendance
- Façade never cracks
- People pleaser
The Good Girl was socially and academically successful, smart and driven, pretty and kind. But she was also an individual who aimed to please (people pleaser), toed the line (no opinions on things) and didn't take risks (follows the rules). She repressed what she really thought (doesn't get mad ) and did not handle her mistakes with humor (has to do everything right).
The Good Girl walked a treacherous line, balancing mixed messages about how far she should go and how strong she should be: she was to be enthusiastic while being quiet; smart with no opinions on things; intelligent but a follower; popular but quiet. She would be something, but not too much.
We live in the age of the fiercely successful "amazing girl." Girls outnumber boys in college and graduate school. They graduate at higher rates. In high school, girls pursue more leadership roles and extracurricular activities than boys do, and they are significantly more likely to see themselves as leaders.
But if their college applications are stamped with twenty-first-century girl power, girls' psychological résumés lag generations behind. The Curse of the Good Girl erodes girls' ability to know, say, and manage a complete range of feelings. It urges girls to be perfect, giving them a troubled relationship to integrity and failure. It expects girls to be selfless, limiting the expression of their needs. It demands modesty, depriving girls of permission to commit to their strengths and goals. It diminishes assertive body language, quieting voices and weakening handshakes. It reaches across all areas of girls' lives: in their interactions with boys and other girls, at school, at home, and in extracurricular life. The Curse of the Good Girl cuts to the core of authentic selfhood, demanding that girls curb the strongest feelings and desires that form the patchwork of a person.
In a 2008 study by the Girl Scouts, girls aged eight to seventeen worried that leadership positions would make them seem "bossy" and lead to negative attention from peers. Another study found girls significantly less likely than boys to want to be the boss or in charge of others. Our culture's mixed feelings about girl power emerge most clearly in girls' descriptions of "Bad Girls":
- Piercings
- Dyed hair
- Dark hair
- Jelly bracelets
- Dark clothes
- Arguing
- Rule breaker
- Backtalking
- Foul mouth
- No respect for self or others
- Loud music
- Doesn't care about her body
- Artistic
- Doesn't plan long-term
- Doesn't care what people think
- Parties
- Eye makeup
- Fights
- Cheats
- Lies
- Steals
- Tough attitude
- Punk
- Proud
- Dramatic dress
- Loud
- Selfish
- Speaks her mind
- Obnoxious
- Center of attention
- Rebel
- Slut
The Bad Girl was the picture of female failure, a reckless rejection of femininity, everything a girl was told not to be. She was the odd girl out with a bad reputation, low to no status, and few friends.
Yet she was also independent and authentic. The Bad Girl was outspoken (speaks her mind ) and self-possessed (proud), a risk taker (rule breaker) and critical thinker (artistic, rebel, doesn't care what people think). She was comfortable being in charge (center of attention). But she was nothing if not an outcast, an example to Good Girls of what happened when you strayed from the program. Being Bad was social suicide: a big, red F in Girl.
So despite the age of girl power, attitudes are slow to change. Go on, we seem to be telling girls, but not too far, and at your own risk. Buckle down, but don't speak up. Debate your peers in class, but be "nice" about it. Be something, but not too much.
Being Good is a richly rewarded pursuit. Good Girls enjoy social largesse, holding center court in cafeterias and dominating leadership positions at school. Yet many of these overachieving girls learn to succeed by sequestering the most genuine parts of their developing selves. Mia was fourteen, overbooked, and underslept: a golfer, avid volunteer, and staff writer for the school newspaper. But, she told me:
"When I'd go to school, a switch went on. Time to be Mia that everyone wants to be friends with ... like everyone loves me, I don't do bad things, I'm just Miss Perfect. My parents love me. I do all the activities that everyone wants to do. If my teachers ask me to do something, I'll do it. One of those pleasing people."
Good Girl pressure threw a "switch" and split Mia's personality. It was as if, she told me, "I had two identities." To be Good, Mia had to project a false self to the world, acting one way in public and another way in private. She would behave one way to someone's face and another way behind her back; one way in person, another way online.
Psychologist Roni Cohen-Sandler observed a spike in stress levels and psychological crises among girls who, she writes, are:
"Prone to becoming estranged from their inner lives .... [They] are so busy living up to others' expectations that they either don't develop or eventually relinquish their own goals. They are so focused on achieving external emblems of success that they don't get the chance to figure out what really excites them and gives them pleasure. They barely know who they are or who they want to become."
At what price is success? Many of the most accomplished girls are disconnecting from the truest parts of themselves, sacrificing essential self-knowledge to the pressure of who they think they ought to be.
The curse is not confined to overachievers or to girls' external pursuits. The pressure to be Good runs deep into the core of the self, circumscribing a girl's ability to know, express, and accept her most challenging feelings. Told to be "quiet," "perfect," "shy," and "enthusiastic," to have "no opinions on things" and never "get mad," Good Girl pressure places girls on strict emotional diets, telling them that certain feelings are better than others. Just as a girl might say, I shouldn't eat this because it will make me fat, girls often tell themselves, I shouldn't feel this. I'm making too big a deal out of it. I shouldn't say this: it will make me a bitch, a drama queen, an outcast.
Placed at odds with their most important feelings, many do not develop the skills to speak their minds when they need to, or the skin to endure the claims of someone else. Lacking a full emotional vocabulary or the permission to use it, some girls turn inward, ruminating self-destructively. Others become explosive, able to articulate little more than anger and frustration. The psychological muscles a girl uses to manage difficult feelings begin to atrophy. Emotional intelligence is compromised, stunting healthy self-expression: the more Good girls try to be, the more they must discredit themselves. These toxic lessons in relationship and conflict management follow many girls into adulthood.
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To be absolutely kind and selfless is impossible, making Good a finish line girls never get to cross. As a result, girls who aspire to Goodness are ruthlessly hard on themselves. When the standards for selfhood are beyond reach, self-acceptance is futile. Girls become their own worst enemies. The terms of being an acceptable girl are rigged: Good Girls are doomed to fail.
Video: The pressure to be a 'Good Girl' (on this page) The Curse of the Good Girl thus diminishes girls' resilience, or ability to cope with stress. Being Good is a fundamentally self-limiting experience: the need to be "perfect" and "do everything right" leaves many girls uncomfortable with feedback and failure, making it difficult to push through a challenge. The need to be nice or right at all costs leaves these girls on the sidelines as they avoid the situations that aren't sure things: moments of self-assertion that require healthy risk-taking and which might lead to failure, disappointment, or another person's unhappiness. The Curse of the Good Girl is both a warning not to try and a setup to fail when you do.
The cost of the curse emerges initially as a relational phenomenon. In my first book, Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, the curse played a leading role in the drama of girls' aggression. The need to be nice forced girls to hide their true feelings, go behind each other's backs, and explode in uncontrolled anger and cruelty.
All of these girls shared the same psychic DNA: they couldn't speak their minds directly. When I asked why, I heard countless variations on a single answer: "If I tell her how I feel," the girls said, "she won't be my friend anymore. She'll turn everyone against me." Conflict would terminate their relationships. "The truth hurts," an unforgettable fifth-grader told me. "That's why I lie."
But what emerges as a social phenomenon in relationships begins to limit individual strength and potential. At the Girls Leadership Institute, I watched thirteen-year-old Julia play rambunctiously with friends, while in classes her sentences trailed off like a volume dial being turned down. When I asked why, she said, "I feel like if I sound stupid or say the wrong thing, people won't like me."
Nina said little in class, and when I invited her privately to voice her views, she told me, "There's no point in saying what I think. People at school always say I have crazy opinions. I'm taking the summer off from being told to lighten up."
Shannon could not look anyone in the eye while she talked, and she sulked in the corner when anyone disagreed with her project ideas. Lottie commandeered a group project, refusing to ask peers for help because she feared angering them.
One afternoon at the Girls Leadership Institute, I watched Catherine struggle to complete an exercise in which she was asked to list her talents and strengths.
"What's going on?" I asked. "You have a ton of stuff you're good at."
She hesitated. "I don't want people to think I'm conceited," she told the group. Some of the other girls looked down.
"And if they did?" I asked.
"They'd think I was a bitch."
I began asking the girls how they felt about leadership. As I scrolled through a list of basic skills — public speaking, debating an opinion, and interviewing for a job — the girls' comments remained constant. "Getting judged" was their worst fear. Take a risk and put yourself out there, the girls told me, and people might not like you. "Someone could shut you down," Lottie said. "They could turn people against you."
The girls were no longer talking about their friendships. They were talking about critical, individual skills for leadership and life. What these girls feared about being strong in relationships was what they now feared about being strong on their own. What made them nervous about standing tall in their personal lives was precisely what made distinction at school nerve-racking to them. Their fear of disappointing or angering others, their intense need to please, had spilled over into their skills and potential as individuals.
When the Good Girl mentality migrates into girls' public venues — classrooms, extracurricular activities, and sports fields — girls learn many of the behaviors that will stunt their personal and professional success as adults. In 2007, high school students at Miss Hall's School for Girls in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, developed a national survey on personal authority and leadership for over fifteen hundred teens. The survey asked respondents to address ten challenging "leadership problems." Across a range of scenarios, the Curse of the Good Girl consistently diverted girls from doing the right thing. Overall, 60 percent of girls surveyed said they knew they should behave assertively in the conflicts, but only a quarter said they actually would. Many said they would defer to a friend's choice, go along with the crowd to do the wrong thing, or avoid the conflict entirely. The study concluded that girls "appear to define leadership in terms of friendship, which means that they can often compromise doing what they know is right for the sake of maintaining relationships." It found a significant "lack of alignment between what [girls] value and what they actually do." To remain "Good," the girls were splitting off from themselves, compromising their integrity, values, and authority.
Today, middle- and high-school girls indisputably outpace their male counterparts. Less than ten years from now, the statistics will reverse like a river's tide. By college, the ranks of female leaders will have thinned. When they become lawyers, the amazing girls will make up barely a quarter of law-firm partners. Only one-third of business-school students will be amazing girls. Instead they will earn between 75 and 90 percent of degrees in "caring professions": education, home economics, nursing, library science, social work, and psychology. They will earn less and ask for raises less often.
The abrupt decline in women's career trajectories is hardly sudden, nor can it be blamed exclusively on men. Good Girls may enjoy success in high school, but as they enter college and move into the workplace, the rules of the game change. It is no longer enough to be smart and hardworking. The skills required to self-promote, negotiate, and absorb feedback are among the new criteria for success. Young women are ill prepared. Professional self-help books for women offer bleak inventories of these missing skills; the title of one of the bestsellers — Lois Frankel's Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers — is no coincidence.
These books fill in the blanks of a girl's education. They introduce young women to the real rules for success. But by the first day of her first job, it's often too late. Good Girl habits are firmly in place. In this book I will show you how to identify and address the Good Girl behaviors in your daughter right now.
At stake is far more than girls' professional potential. In my workshops with mothers, women tell stories of sacrifice and silence, of automatic apologizing, of clipped tones used to hint at real feelings. They want a different future for their daughters.
We have become too focused on helping girls succeed by emphasizing the tangible items they can put on their résumé: a great GPA, a good education, and extracurricular and work experience. There is a less obvious but no less important inner résumé we must help girls develop, a set of skills that may prove most valuable for their success not just in the "real world" but in their day-to-day lives and relationships.
For nearly twenty years, we have lamented the loss of self-esteem in adolescent girls. The so-called Ophelia phenomenon has been only vaguely understood as a loss of voice and authenticity. In this book I provide the first catalog of skills and core competencies that are not fully developing in girls. I offer you a map to girls' crucial inner résumé and the strategies you will need to guide your daughter from Good Girl to Real Girl.
Video: The pressure to be a 'Good Girl' (on this page) A Real Girl stays connected to a strong inner core of her thoughts, feelings, and desires. She is able not only to listen to who she is but to act on it. She maintains a critical balance: she can manage the needs of others without sacrificing the integrity of her own. A Real Girl can defend her interests in a relationship or advocate on her own behalf. Where a Good Girl might meet someone and automatically hope she is likable, a Real Girl will reflect on what she thinks and feels about the other person before deciding what to do next.
A Real Girl also maintains a balanced self-concept. Her aspirations unfold within a realistic awareness of personal limits. A Good Girl, whose identity is defined by appearances, tends to expect the unreasonable. She is often shattered by a mistake. Her investment in image curbs a taste for risk and adventure. A Real Girl, by contrast, can face her own blemishes, however painful; her limits and mistakes are as much a part of her as anything else. She has, quite literally, a sense of self.
A mother I met recently took issue with this approach. "I don't see the problem with raising Good Girls," she told me. "I've taught my daughter to be respectful and kind. She knows the difference between right and wrong." That's a good thing, I told her. But if we consider the Good Girl as only an ethical identity, we fail to see the other, less helpful lessons Good Girls learn. For instance, if a girl is too respectful or too kind, she may become a pleaser. A girl who never seems to do anything wrong might be choosing to make her mistakes in private, becoming secretive, ashamed, or self-destructive.
There is nothing wrong with being a nice person, nor is it my intent to undermine the unique sensibilities of women and girls. But girls need to have the tools to say no, to ask for what they need, and to say what they think. Too many girls and women walk away from conversations muttering to themselves about what they really wanted to say. When kindness comes at the expense of truth, it is not a kindness worth having. And when generosity leads to silence or abuse, it is not a generosity worth giving.
My findings are based on interviews and observations of Girls Leadership Institute participants and girls at a handful of public middle and high schools I visited on the East Coast. Their names and identifying details have been changed. This book focuses primarily on middle-class girls, for whom femininity is often most constraining. But the Curse of the Good Girl is not an affliction of the privileged. One out of five GLI participants receives financial aid or a full scholarship. Nearly one third are nonwhite. Femininity is defined differently among different racial, ethnic, and economic groups; African-American girls will create a different Good Girl list than will their Latina peers. Still, no matter where they grow up, girls live in a world that defines them as caregivers. As such, girls are expected to nurture others, especially male partners, at the expense of themselves. They consume media that positions them as passive, sexualized objects and which privileges the Good Girl in film, television, print, and online. These influences play out in Girl World, the powerful peer culture that circumscribes girls' potential to be real with each other, and which every girl has to deal with despite the unique influences of her background.
Not all girls experience the Curse of the Good Girl identically. Some girls manage to avoid it altogether. Though I may use phrases like "Girl World" and "Good Girl," I do not assume this is a predestined or essential way of being for girls. I am describing a pattern of behavior that has emerged in response to cultural messages about how to be a socially acceptable girl.
The Curse of the Good Girl is timeless. It not only predates current trends in girls' disempowerment, it enables them. To break it we must give every girl the tools and permission to be herself, whoever that is. This book is a guide to helping girls reconnect with their true selves. Part I exposes the challenges society poses to girls' authenticity. In part II, you learn the strategies to help your daughter embrace her full potential.
I believe that a girl may be smart and driven, get good grades and make all the right choices, and still learn habits of mind and speech that form her very own psychological glass ceiling. For while girls may be permitted to do what they want — to fly planes, go to war, and slam-dunk — they remain unable to be who they are. When girls can no longer agree upon the answer to the question "Who is a Good Girl?" we will know they are free to be themselves.
Excerpted from "The Curse of the Good Girl" by Rachel Simmons. Copyright (c) 2009, reprinted with permission from The Penguin Press.
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