IMSI catchers - Sting Ray

[MorGrendel]

Fritz, when you were over I brought up Stingrays, and my concerns regarding your use. You didn't seem to follow, and in case you are not in the know, I've provided some reading. I saw the top article, and it grabbed my attention because it cited that there are "mysterious" towers of dubious ownership located near military bases. The article itself is a feeder, but it reminded me of our conversation, and so I thought I'd pull in some related information on Stingray/Hailstorm.

As always, I am opposed to warrentless wiretaps, but I'm extra annoyed that the technology basically slows my signal that I pay good money for.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mysteriou ... 45809.html

Seventeen fake cellphone towers were discovered across the U.S. last week, according to a report in Popular Science.
Rather than offering you cellphone service, the towers appear to be connecting to nearby phones, bypassing their encryption, and either tapping calls or reading texts.

Although it is unclear who owns the towers, ESD found that several of them were located near U.S. military bases.

"Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that's listening to calls around military bases? Is it just the U.S. military, or are they foreign governments doing it? The point is: we don't really know whose they are," Goldsmith said to Popular Science.

In an amazing coincidence, police departments in a handful of U.S. cities have been operating "Stingray" or "Hailstorm" towers, which — you guessed it — conduct surveillance on mobile phone activity. They do that by jamming mobile phone signals, forcing phones to drop down from 4G and 3G network bands to the older, more insecure 2G band.

https://www.aclu.org/maps/stingray-trac ... s-got-them
Maryland - Local Police
Montgomery County
Baltimore
Anne Arundel County I & II

Stingrays, also known as "cell site simulators" or "IMSI catchers," are invasive cell phone surveillance devices that mimic cell phone towers and send out signals to trick cell phones in the area into transmitting their locations and identifying information. When used to track a suspect's cell phone, they also gather information about the phones of countless bystanders who happen to be nearby.


http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014 ... ork-looms/

"We do not comment on solutions we may or may not proivde to classified Department of Defense or law enforcement agencies," Jim Burke, a spokesman for Harris, told Ars.

Other locales known to be in the process of related federally-funded upgrades include Tacoma, Wash.; Baltimore, Md.; Chesterfield, Va.; Sunrise, Fla.; and Oakland County, Mich. There are likely many more, but such purchases are often shrouded in secrecy.

One of the primary ways that stingrays operate is by taking advantage of a design feature in any phone available today. When 3G or 4G networks are unavailable, the handset will drop down to the older 2G network. While normally that works as a nice last-resort backup to provide service, 2G networks are notoriously insecure. Handsets operating on 2G will readily accept communication from another device purporting to be a valid cell tower, like a stingray. So the stingray takes advantage of this feature by jamming the 3G and 4G signals, forcing the phone to use a 2G signal.


http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014 ... s-request/

Although the Sarasota Police Department and the North Point Police Department did not own Stingray devices, the two departments had borrowed the cell phone trackers from the US Marshals Service (USMS), which requested that they hide the use of the Stingrays from judges and defendants. The issue was discussed in the e-mails when the Sarasota Police Department realized that a North Point detective had been too explicit in a probable cause affidavit (PCA), specifically detailing “the investigative means used to locate the suspect.” The Sarasota Police asked that the North Point Police seal the old affidavit and submit a new, more vague one.

In the past, and at the request of the U.S. Marshalls [sic], the investigative means utilized to locate the suspect have not been revealed so that we may continue to utilize this technology without the knowledge of the criminal element. In reports or depositions we simply refer to the assistance as ‘received information from a confidential source regarding the location of the suspect.’ To date this has not been challenged…

Knowledge about the devices has been guarded fiercely by law enforcement and manufacturers alike. Earlier this year, a Florida police department said that it failed to tell judges about its use of a Stingray device because “the department got the device on loan and promised the manufacturer to keep it all under wraps.”


http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/28508 ... phone-data

WUSA9 obtained documents showing area police have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on cell site simulator equipment, software updates and FBI training.

To locate their targets, the technology scoops up the data of hundreds of unintended cell users too. There are no known standards requiring police to erase data collected from those not suspected of criminal activity -- private information from citizens like you.