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CBS Reports 'Suspicious' Cell Phone Tower Activity In Washington DC (cbsnews.com)
"An unusually high amount of suspicious cell phone activity in the nation's capital has caught the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, raising concerns that U.S. officials are being monitored by a foreign entity," reports CBS News:
The issue was first reported in the Washington Free Beacon, but a source at telecom security firm ESD America confirmed the spike in suspicious activity to CBS News. ESD America, hired preemptively for a DHS pilot program this January called ESD Overwatch, first noticed suspicious activity around cell phone towers in certain parts of the capital, including near the White House. This kind of activity can indicate that someone is monitoring specific individuals or their devices... According to the ESD America source, the first such spike of activity was in D.C. but there have been others in other parts of the country. Based on the type of technology used, the source continued, it is likely that the suspicious activity was being conducted by a foreign nation.
The news coincides with a letter sent to the DHS by two congressmen "deeply concerned" about vulnerabilities in the SS7 protocol underlying U.S. cellular networks, according to an article shared by Slashdot reader Trailrunner7. Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Ted Lieu are asking if the agency has enough resources to address the threat. "Although there have been a few news stories about this topic, we suspect that most Americans simply have no idea how easy it is for a relatively sophisticated adversary to track their movements, tap their calls, and hack their smartphones."
The news coincides with a letter sent to the DHS by two congressmen "deeply concerned" about vulnerabilities in the SS7 protocol underlying U.S. cellular networks, according to an article shared by Slashdot reader Trailrunner7. Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Ted Lieu are asking if the agency has enough resources to address the threat. "Although there have been a few news stories about this topic, we suspect that most Americans simply have no idea how easy it is for a relatively sophisticated adversary to track their movements, tap their calls, and hack their smartphones."
Everyone is being wire tapped oh shit...
"Based on the type of technology used, the source continued, it is likely that the suspicious activity was being conducted by a foreign nation."
Is that because the US based three-letter-agencies just tap in at the service provider level?
It's just the President's Russian friends making sure he's safe from Obama's wiretaps.
Every country on earth, barring North Korea has an embassy within pissing distance of the White House and Capitol and CBS "discovers" there's espionage. What grade did these people graduate from?
I'm shocked to find out this is going on in this establishment.
Could be ex and former staff selling mi/gov grade product to their cult, faith, embassy, other parts of the US gov, the private sector.
Once the devices got handed out to NATO nations, the different EU nation police forces all their ex and former staff can sell the US product to the private sector.
The US is now been flooded with its own products as once very secret tech finds its way into every embassy and the private sector.
Other nations front companies, US dual citizens helping their real nations.
The UK had the same issues. Some ore gov, mil other are just random efforts by different groups.
What the UK did can often show what could be in the USA.
Fake Mobile Phone Towers Operating In The UK (09 June 2015)
http://news.sky.com/story/fake...
UK Cops Using Fake Mobile Phone Tower to Intercept Calls, Shut Off Phones (10.31.11)
https://www.wired.com/2011/10/...
Fake mobile phone towers discovered in London: Stingrays come to the UK (6/11/2015)
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...
The other US side would be to track US police, city workers to ensure they did not have a task force on any emerging private sector products or services.
Once a map of every phone in a wide city area was tracked, tracking undercover officials would be easy given a lack of digital counter surveillance training.
New "staff" or users reporting back into a government building every few days or weeks for a set time would be very easy to map.
Another aspect would be to counter any journalist trying undercover work. Their origin and return to their place of work would be detected if they ever had two working phones with them. Their undercover story phone and their journalist phone.
Other tracking could counter bloggers and web 2.0 attempts by citizen journalism to enter political parties or party political fund raising.
They might make an error with two phones in use. One they used for undercover work in the past, one they use for their blog.
Lack of cash could see device reuse and very easy tracking.
Also the meeting of any gov worker, federal official, contractor, mil, political staff with any journalist would be tracked by the mil, gov, party, contractor. A vast database of journalist. A political and private sector version of the NSA's FIRSTFRUIT.
The Most Intriguing Spy Stories From 166 Internal NSA Reports (May 17 2016)
https://theintercept.com/2016/...
“.. over 5,000 insecurity-related records” ranging from “espionage damage assessments” to “liaison exchanges.”
Someone is not tracking the fake networks for some reason. Political over, mil, police or gov use? Gov workers detect the fake cell products and nothing is done?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
There is literally no way you can communicate with another person where you can be assured that your communication is not monitored. Even face-to-face communication in code is compromised, if the other party is compromised. Cell phones only work by collecting a lot of data about the caller and the caller's recipient. If CBS is only now figuring out that D.C. is a hotbed of cell data leakage, they are fantastically bad at their jobs.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
No, they don't. Microwave ovens have video cameras. Toasters are for wiretapping. Duh. You can even see the wires when you look inside the slots.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
FBI through an office in Quantico can directly tap ALL network main switches. The government PAID AT&T and Verizon to upgrade the switches to IP. The FBI added Colo cabinets at the main switch sites. The FBI can wiretap directly WITHOUT interacting with Verizon or AT&T.