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Department of Justice Harvests Cell Phone Data Using Planes
Tyketto writes The US Department of Justice has been using fake communications towers installed in airplanes to acquire cellular phone data for tracking down criminals, reports The Wall Street Journal. Using fix-wing Cessnas outfitted with DRT boxes produced by Boeing, the devices mimic cellular towers, fooling cellphones into reporting "unique registration information" to track down "individuals under investigation." The program, used by the U.S. Marshals Service, has been in use since 2007 and deployed around at least five major metropolitan areas, with a flying range that can cover most of the US population. As cellphones are designed to connect to the strongest cell tower signal available, the devices identify themselves as the strongest signal, allowing for the gathering of information on thousands of phones during a single flight. Not even having encryption on one's phone, like found in Apple's iPhone 6, prevents this interception. While the Justice Department would not confirm or deny the existence of such a program, Verizon denies any involvement in this program, and DRT (a subsidiary of Boeing), AT&T, and Sprint have all declined to comment.
Having a database of the cell towers a phone *should* see in a given region (it should be possible to crowdsource that) should make it possible to throw an alarm if a cell tower with suspicious characteristics "appears" at some spot.
For that, we'd need reasonably documented baseband processors.
Of course, political involvment is the more adequate approach to a political problem. But why neglect the technical tools?
I'm not exactly against them catching criminals, but how often has someone receive shitty cell service and 'drops' because of these fake towers?
Not even having encryption on one's phone, like found in Apple's iPhone 6, prevents this interception.
WTF does this statement have to do in TFS? There cannot possibly be any slashdotters ignorant enough about technology to think that encryption of a device would have any impact on the radio signals?
I really miss /. - where did it go?
People always say this, but they neglect to mention WHICH FEDERAL LAWS are being broken daily by everybody.
I suppose people either just assume it is true, or they know details but do not want to get too sidetracked... This video may help explain which laws we break daily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
On a more on topic note, StingRay devices cover a broad range of uses. Some simply harvest unique cellular IDs, while others do much more to intercept communication and emulate legitimate towers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...