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From the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Sen. Ron Wyden has sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice concerning disruptions to 911 emergency services caused by law enforcement's use of cell-site simulators (CSS, also known as IMSI catchers or Stingrays). In the letter, Sen. Wyden states that:
Senior officials from the Harris Corporation—the manufacturer of the cell-site simulators used most frequently by U.S. law enforcement agencies—have confirmed to my office that Harris' cell-site simulators completely disrupt the communications of targeted phones for as long as the surveillance is ongoing. According to Harris, targeted phones cannot make or receive calls, send or receive text messages, or send or receive any data over the Internet. Moreover, while the company claims its cell-site simulators include a feature that detects and permits the delivery of emergency calls to 9-1-1, its officials admitted to my office that this feature has not been independently tested as part of the Federal Communication Commission's certification process, nor were they able to confirm this feature is capable of detecting and passing-through 9-1-1 emergency communications made by people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech disabled using Real-Time Text technology.
The full text of the letter can be read here.
Researchers of CSS technology have long suspected that using such technologies, even professionally designed and marketed CSS's, would have a detrimental effect on emergency services, and now—for the first time—we have confirmation.
So not only does it snoop on all calls in the area, it also disrupts emergency calls. And why is everything about Stingrays, even their existence, such a huge secret, even to the point of dropping prosecutions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @08:13PM (3 children)
"Provocative" in this case is pretty subjective.
No personal attacks, no call for attacks on people.
I see nothing more provocative in my post than ones that get ++ upmods here.
As a matter of fact, I have seen so many personally attacking posts from named accounts that seem to dominate this site get +2 or higher.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @08:21PM (2 children)
Welcome to this site where the group think is real. I'm surprised your post got modded troll though, doesn't seem in keeping with the general site aesthetic.
There has been a major uptick in alt-right trolling, and those types tend to intersect with authoritarian "its the law" types, so yeah your post might trigger them. Or possibly some people are just overly sensitive to harsh words and are downmodding everything that even comes close.
this site is infested and becoming more authoritarian all the time, of course the aforementioned people will try and play whataboutism and project their flaws onto others.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 29 2018, @12:52AM
Oh come now! Group think? Can such a motley crew agree on anything? Yes, there are our resident nazis, but last I checked our red brothers and sisters were still with us. That's why I personally love it here--we have every flavor of asshole. Some are sour, while others are nutty.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 31 2018, @03:54AM
Two troll mod points is not group think. Keep in mind that subscribers get ten such mod points per day and that the above post received three other mods up to those two points.