US Marshals Service Refuses To Release Already-Published Stingray Info

v3rgEz (125380) writes The U.S. Marshals Service is known to be one of the most avid users of StingRays, and documents confirm that the agency has spent more than $9 million on equipment and training since 2009. But while it appears the USMS is not under any nondisclosure agreement with the device manufacturer, the agency has withheld a wide range of basic information under an exemption meant to protect law enforcement techniques — despite the fact that that same information is available via a federal accounting website.

Comments

Re:How does stingray connect to the wider network?

[Shakrai]

It doesn't. It just acts as a fake base station; if you happen to connect to one you'll have no service. They don't use these things to intercept your traffic, they can do that Verizon/AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile's switch, without having to follow you all over town. These devices are used for two purposes:

1. To localize idle cell phones with greater precision than the macro cellular network can.
2. To determine which cell phones are being carried in a specific area.

#2 sounds Orwellian but it has legitimate purposes during criminal investigations, i.e., trying to figure out the IEMIs of burner phones being carried by suspects you have under surveilliance. Once you have the IEMIs you can wiretap them with lawful interception technology built into the phone company's switch.

Re:How does stingray connect to the wider network?

[Holi]

That's one way it can be used. "StingRay and similar Harris products can be used to intercept GSM communications content transmitted over-the-air between a target cellular device and a legitimate service provider cell site."