Feds Can Locate Cell Phones Without Telcos

schwit1 sends along an Ars Technica report covering the release of documents obtained under the FOIA suggesting that the Justice Department may have been evading privacy laws in their use of "triggerfish" technology. Triggerfish are cell-tower spoofing devices that induce cell phones to give up their location and other identifying information, without recourse to any cell carrier. "Courts in recent years have been raising the evidentiary bar law enforcement agents must meet in order to obtain historical cell phone records that reveal information about a target's location. But documents obtained by civil liberties groups under a Freedom of Information Act request suggest that 'triggerfish' technology can be used to pinpoint cell phones without involving cell phone providers at all. The Justice Department's electronic surveillance manual explicitly suggests that triggerfish may be used to avoid restrictions in statutes like CALEA that bar the use of pen register or trap-and-trace devices..." The article does mention that the Patriot Act contains language that should require a court order to deploy triggerfish, whereas prior to 2001 "the statutory language governing pen register or trap-and-trace orders did not appear to cover location tracking technology."

Comments

Get an IMSI Catcher from Rohde and Schwarz

[gd23ka]

http://www2.rohde-schwarz.com/en/products/radiomonitoring/product_categories/signal_intelligence/overview/
Click on the GC128 datasheet. They have a firmware for that device that turns it into an IMSI Catcher. There is
also a portable suitcase version of the device.

IMSI Catchers basically work by impersonating the cell tower of the network the subscriber is on, forcing his
handset to it by protocol and higher signal strength and then (this is important) flipping whatever calls are
made into non-encrypted mode. Some phones have a debug mode that will show you whether encryption is activated
or not so if you're making a call and encryption is suddenly off - you know what to do at least I hope.

Basically an IMSI catcher is a still a device that is used on the levels of industrial espionage or espionage
by foreign services that don't have access to the normal national monitoring - which incidentally _all_ (cell)
phone networks are hooked into. The claim US intelligence services are not plugged into their telcos and have to
go outside for surveillance by using a device like this is what it is: Disinfo.