California Police Used Stingrays in Planes to Spy on Phones

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #34

ChuckMcM wrote: post #25

This kind of stuff always annoys me. One of the interesting things would be a 'home designed' cell system based on using unlicensed spectrum in the TV white spaces. Then you could build a system where a phone only answered a tower which sent out an ident frame which was cryptographically signed by a trusted key. And the response would be encrypted with that trusted key as well so only the cell tower could decrypt it.…

To get decent coverage you need to negotiate and pay for space, power, and internet connectivity on thousands of towers/tall buildings all owned by different people and municipalities who see you as somewhere between an annoyance and a revenue stream to exploit. Then you need a field workforce capable of performing maintenance at all of those sites (which requires making appointments and sometimes paying fees to the…

Post by samstave » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

tlrobinson wrote: post #44

samstave wrote: post #31

I wonder if the mobile cell tower they just put up outside of att park is a stingray, or a valid mobile tower

Given the cooperation between telcos and law enforcement, is there much difference? There was temporary cell service at Burning Man for the first time this year, supposedly to "support" law enforcement. I guess you could interpret that in two different ways...

Post by superuser2 » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #72

superuser2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get decent coverage you need to negotiate and pay for space, power, and internet connectivity on thousands of towers/tall buildings all owned by different people and municipalities who see you as somewhere between an annoyance and a revenue stream to exploit. Then you need a field workforce capable of performing maintenance at all of those sites (which requires making appointments and sometimes paying fees to the…

This is one of the reasons its a fun idea. The TV bands (50 - 210Mhz) can cover a huge area from a single antenna (that was their original modality) but because of the inverse square law, it means that a much smaller and lower power antenna nearby can still get a big chunk of real estate. During some experiments at a company that will remain nameless it was something like 1 antenna could easily cover 2 mile diameter…

Post by TrevorJ » Fri, Jan 29, 2016, 2:57 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #70

geggam wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the spirit remains the same. The concept is you are safe from search without a warrant. If they are able to apply copyright to digital media then its assumed the same as paper. If it is assumed the same as paper then it seems obvious that its safe from search.

The plain English wording says that you are safe from unreasonable searches. Everything hinges on the interpretation of "reasonable," which is not a matter of "plain English" because plain English doesn't define "reasonable" with sufficient precision.