Slashdot Mirror
UK Police Buy Covert Cellphone Surveillance System
digitig writes "UK Metropolitan Police have purchased a 'covert surveillance technology that can masquerade as a mobile phone network, transmitting a signal that allows authorities to shut off phones remotely, intercept communications and gather data about thousands of users in a targeted area.' Other customers apparently include 'the U.S. Secret Service, the Ministry of Defence and regimes in the Middle East.'"
This seems like a law-enforcement version of the WASP drone featured at last summer's Black Hat / Defcon
The big question is, since the technology has been available for a while, and is obviously useful for its stated purpose, that of oversight. Privacy-invading technologies will always exist, will always be useful for law-enforcement, and are due to increase the more we mesh our lives with technology. How will authorities deal with data filtering, retention, probable cause, and the opportunity for discovering wrongdoers vs. the invasion of people's privacy? That is the big question.
A somewhat-rosy scenario is detailed in Charlie Stross' Halting State series. The ugly scenario looks like 1984. Which one we choose depends on an educated public steering their politicians, instead of letting their politicians be steered by ??? and profit.
But as a communication device it's worthless. No phone network, no wifi.
No. "Flight Mode" is just a shortcut which can be used instead of manually disabling cell communication, cell data, GPS, and wifi. You can shut down everything except wifi capability, for example.
From what I read in the article this system generates a signal which spoofs the cell tower networks, and asks the devices to respond with unique phone info, etc. So as long as you have just the cellular portion of your phone shut down, it won't release anything but still remain useful via wifi.
Assuming Android here, I'm not sure if iPhone or Windows phones have the same capability or not.