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from the I-could-tell-you-but-I-would-have-to-kill-you dept.
StingRay, a suitcase-size surveillance tool, mimics a cellphone tower, allowing authorities to track individual cellphones in real time. Users of the device, which include scores of law enforcement agencies across the country, sign a non-disclosure agreement when they purchase it, pledging not to divulge its use, even in court cases against defendants the device helped capture.
That is one of the concerns of civil liberties groups, that cellphones unconnected with a law enforcement investigation are also captured by the device. While some cell-site simulators allow 911 emergency calls to pass through to legitimate towers, other calls routinely fail. Should an emergency unfold, cell users in the vicinity probably would find their calls dropped or signals jammed.
"Even if there is a 911 pass-through feature, there are still plenty of other calls that people might want to make," said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. "You might want to call your children's school. You might want to call your wife or husband."
It's hard to know with certainty how many innocent cellphone users have experienced jamming due to police use of cell-site simulators. Federal restrictions on information about their use prevents collecting such details.
(Score: 1) by claywar on Tuesday December 27 2016, @06:04PM
I'm totally guessing here (as I don't have/never will have access to one of these devices), however, I'm going to wager that these devices are acting as a portable BS/NodeB/eNodeB in order to get/convince phones in a certain radius to attach to them instead of local towers due to signal strength. At that point, I'm assuming they're spoofing Home PLMN on top of that to ensure that connection. How they identify which one is appropriate is what I'm not exactly sure of, as my knowledge of cellular networks is still growing.
As far as data is concerned, once you hit IMS (VoLTE/LTE-A/Anything IMS-Registered), there's absolutely no difference between SMS, Voice, and Data. They're all packets for the taking.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 27 2016, @07:22PM
Well yea, once you have the suspect's phone connecting to your "tower" you get everything. But the fact the "wire protocol" makes no distinction between voice and data isn't important. What is important are the legal details of CALEA and how the telcos, law enforcement and the courts have sorted things out. And apparently all of those details are so secret Congress has trouble learning about it so we are entirely in the dark.
One thought though, they might be using the Stingray to find out what phones the suspect is using. After all you can't issue a wiretap order until you have a phone number to tap. With the existence of anonymous burner phones they might be snooping to find out how many phones these shady dudes have, especially if they have (and they almost certainly have) the fun of dual SIM phones. You can buy a SIM and a prepaid recharge card almost anywhere these days with cash.