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Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over DC, MD, VA

nbcwashington.com

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Re: Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over DC, MD, VA

#31

Post by SSLy »

madengr wrote: post #19
jlgaddis wrote: post #4

Related article, "Feds: There are hostile stingrays in DC, but we don’t know how to find them" [0], and discussion [1] from 45d ago. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/dhs-to-senator-m... [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16748971

Not knowing how to find them, is a load of crap. You can certainly find them, it just takes expensive equipment and time.

or just asking the cell towers providers for list of genuine hardware, and then cross-checking that against triangulated antennas.

Re: Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over DC, MD, VA

#33

Post by walshemj »

eps wrote: post #3

Devices near the embassies can be explained in two ways and the US spying on foreign diplomats is a far more logical one.

Looking for patterns that might disclose the watchers that follow diplomats / intelligence officers I assume.

Re: Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over DC, MD, VA

#34

Post by CamperBob2 »

guelo wrote: post #26

It was the responsibility of the FCC to have never allowed these devices to manufactured, but as typical they fell for the police exemption excuse. Now they'll be abused more and more.

Control of 'manufacturing' was never going to happen. They would literally have to prohibit the sale of high-speed DACs and ADCs to civilians. If you think the War on Drugs was an expensive boondoggle, try keeping LTC2216s out of my hands. :-P

However, it is the responsibility of the FCC to not throw up their hands and say "Duh, we don't know how to find 'em." They have one job -- regulating the use of the RF spectrum -- and that's it.

Re: Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over DC, MD, VA

#35

Post by ohazi »

guelo wrote: post #26

It was the responsibility of the FCC to have never allowed these devices to manufactured, but as typical they fell for the police exemption excuse. Now they'll be abused more and more.

The protocol should have required enough authentication to make it impossible to manufacture these devices without also having a blessed, revocable key from the carrier you're snooping on.

The FCC could have easily had their police exemption without also providing access to your average HAM, any reasonably competent hobbyist, and the security services of every other nation on the planet.

Security on cellular networks is even more of a joke than on consumer-grade wifi... it's basically a pinky promise not to look at stuff you're not supposed to look at. No fucking wonder there's a mountain of stingray clones in DC. Are they planning to fix this on 5g networks? Because there's no reason to be so concerned over backdoors in Chinese cellular modems as long as we're happily letting them in through the front door.

Re: Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over DC, MD, VA

#37

Post by [deleted] »

ballenf wrote: post #23
bwilliams18 wrote: post #16

I don't understand the assertion that the US Gov't can't do anything to prevent the foreign governments from doing this... The FCC has broad powers to regulate the public airwaves. This technology clearly disturbes authorized and licensed utilizaton of the airwaves OUTSIDE of the bounds of the Embassies. FCC should have the power to prevent this.

The situation discussed in the article was with regard to Stingray-type devices placed at foreign embassies which are considered foreign soil. The FCC doesn't regulate embassies any more than it regulates Beijing or Moscow. The Stingrays found on K Street (far from Embassy Row) and some bridges were more likely US government operations. So the question comes back to are there non-embassy, non-US government Stingrays…

[deleted]

Re: Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over DC, MD, VA

#39

Post by dboreham »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #22

I know almost nothing about the systems and protocols involved here, but aren't these cell systems hackable? Why has no one tried to connect to one and then compromise it to learn more about what (and who) makes them tick?

Most likely this has been done but the people who did it aren’t posting here.

Re: Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over DC, MD, VA

#40

Post by askvictor »

joe_the_user wrote: post #21
jlgaddis wrote: post #4

Related article, "Feds: There are hostile stingrays in DC, but we don’t know how to find them" [0], and discussion [1] from 45d ago. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/dhs-to-senator-m... [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16748971

My guess would be that the situation isn't that they can't find the stringrays but that they can't distinguish between "hostile" and "friendly" stringrays. After all, each agency deploying such devices does so as secretly as possible, naturally not alerting other agencies, and so there's no list of friendly stingrays.

Probably, they don't want to find them.
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