ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#131

Post by elithrar » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

ridaj wrote: post #114

nerdponx wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering all the stuff that's open public information, it's a bit surprising that cell tower locations aren't .

Exact cell site locations would be considered competitive strategic information by most carriers, who spend a lot of time, money and energy selecting the right cell sites to cover the right markets at the right cost. Also, they change all the time, eg when leases expire, when customer traffic patterns changes, when there are upgrades, etc.

This is categorically untrue. They are not a secret due to the approvals required at a local level and by the FCC.

Many carriers lease space on the same towers, or have agreements to lease space from others in certain markets. You almost never get the site placement you want: you are operating in a built environment and have to work within those constraints.

The problem is that knowing the co-ordinates of the tower does nothing to defend against Stingray-like devices: coordinates aren’t a means of authentication.

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#132

Post by upofadown » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #28

abeppu wrote: post #24

Some informed person can probably tell us: are there any technical developments on the horizon which could plausibly make stingrays unviable? From a lay perspective, it seems like cell tech hasn't been designed to meet some criteria that ought to be achievable. - Are there future cell technology standards being planned which would make it harder for a 3rd party device to impersonate a cell tower? (e.g. the police wou…

Since the FCC sanctions stingray use for law enforcement I'm sure they make sure that any new mobile radio technology is compliant with police spying requirements.

Last I heard these things were FCC licensed for "emergency use only". The issue is that the FCC can't override federal law and deliberate interference with radio communications is illegal under such law.

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#133

Post by bluGill » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:18 PM UTC

mLuby wrote: post #74

If we had a crowd-sourced database of cell towers (picture & coordinates) wouldn't it then be straightforward to know (and report) when your phone wasn't connecting to a legitimate tower? I for one want to make sure the criminals aren't intercepting my signal with home-made stingrays; the police have other lawful ways to get what they need.

No, because the cell carriers have "tower in a box" kits that they make available to various people. These are real towers, but they move often. If you go to a large event (something like burning man, though I don't know if they do for that specific event) there is a good chance the carrier has scattered a few of these around the venue because the fixed location towers (often miles away) would be overwhelmed and nobody would be able to use their phones.

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#134

Post by syshum » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:31 PM UTC

arminiusreturns wrote: post #36

syshum wrote: post #11

Hopefully, this puts to rest the idea that government can use "private contracts" as a end-run around constitutional and legal restrictions on their activity They have been hiding behind the NDA as a reason they should not have to follow federal disclosure laws, but never in the history of the law has a private contract superceeded the law itself. they also hide behind these same NDA's when criminal defendants get to…

The third party doctrine loophole is huge and not likely to be impacted very much by this, unfortunately. Here's a relevant talk from the National Constitution Center, if you want to hear some of the nuance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW32k7x7zE0

Third party doctrine has little to with this case, I agree it is a problem, but that is not what I was talking about in my post

The Thrid Pary doctrine allows the Government to end run the 4th amendment if you discloused info to a 3rd party.

In this instance, the government is claiming they do not have to talk about the technology at all, even to the point of proving it actually does what they claim.

In criminal Trails they treat it as a black box that is magical.. this should not be allowed evidence collected by it directly or as a result of his use should be barred unless the defence has access to the technology fo independent review

The government claims they do not have to disclose anything because they signed a contract with the manufacturer saying they would not disclose anything about the tech.

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#135

Post by 4AoZqrH2fsk5UB » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

chaps wrote: post #43

calibas wrote: post #12

Stingray use requires a warrant and every case should be dismissed where one was used without a warrant. I'm sure that's the main reason they want to hide the use of stingrays, they know they're doing something wrong. Police having the ability to spy on everyone with little to no oversight is nightmarish authoritarianism, it's completely against the spirit of American democracy, not to mention in violation of The Con…

As part of some volunteer work I'm doing with Lucy Parsons Labs, I submitted a FOIA request to every single state's largest city, asking for search warrant records that would likely exist on complaints for search warrants, the warrants themselves, or from any audit. About 100 requests in total. After two months, only two cities have sent me their search warrant records. All other states have given me rejections sayin…

Do you have a template for this? I'd like to submit such a request to my own city.

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#136

Post by jimktrains2 » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

no_opinions wrote: post #115

abvdasker wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tools should be as powerful as possible. I think a lot of people would disagree with this premise. The argument against it is basically that abuse of powerful surveillance technologies is inevitable precisely because the technology is so powerful. In reality, law enforcement is only incentivized to catch criminals, not necessarily to protect people's privacy or personal freedoms, so LE will abuse these capabili…

> The argument against it is basically that abuse of powerful surveillance technologies is inevitable precisely because the technology is so powerful. What would be some examples of an abuse? What would be some examples of a powerful surveillance technology? For instance, what "surveillance technology" isn't already an internal diagnostic tool for day-to-day system administration for a telecom/service provider? Only…

I think that part of the issue is that blank surveillance is as easier than surveillaning a single person used to be.

Also, it is possible to build systems where the admins can access the data or metadata. End-to-end encryption, for example parent the admin from seeing the contents of messages. Systems like Tor also prevent any one person from knowing who everyone is and what's saying. Mutual authentication can also help establish that mitm attacks aren't happening, but that's a slightly different problem than when there is access to the back end of the system being used.

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#137

Post by ridaj » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

LadyCailin wrote: post #119

ridaj wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exact cell site locations would be considered competitive strategic information by most carriers, who spend a lot of time, money and energy selecting the right cell sites to cover the right markets at the right cost. Also, they change all the time, eg when leases expire, when customer traffic patterns changes, when there are upgrades, etc.

I don’t buy that. I’m sure the way that they select the sites in the first place is probably proprietary, but once you start broadcasting radio frequencies, it’s trivial to pinpoint the location of the towers, so there’s absolutely nothing stopping anyone, particularly a competitor, from mapping them out quite easily.

Costs $$$ to have techs drive around the land with that kind of gear...

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#138

Post by ridaj » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

elithrar wrote: post #131

ridaj wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exact cell site locations would be considered competitive strategic information by most carriers, who spend a lot of time, money and energy selecting the right cell sites to cover the right markets at the right cost. Also, they change all the time, eg when leases expire, when customer traffic patterns changes, when there are upgrades, etc.

This is categorically untrue. They are not a secret due to the approvals required at a local level and by the FCC. Many carriers lease space on the same towers, or have agreements to lease space from others in certain markets. You almost never get the site placement you want: you are operating in a built environment and have to work within those constraints. The problem is that knowing the co-ordinates of the tower d…

I'm not sure what approvals you're talking about. For individual small sites in already-built structures, neutral-host sites, or for leasing agreements with other operators where you're just putting a new cabinet in an existing site, what approvals are needed that would publish cell site locations?

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#139

Post by auiya » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

mrandish wrote: post #51

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For two months last year, researchers at the University of Washington paid drivers of an unidentified ridesharing service to keep custom-made sensors in the trunks of their cars, converting those vehicles into mobile cellular data collectors. They used the results to map out practically every cell tower in the cities of Seattle and Milwaukee—along with at least two anomalous transmitters they believe were likely st…

That's super interesting. Those are international departure airports. I wonder if what they're doing is sniffing for phone numbers of interest showing up in the international terminal indicating a 'person of interest' is trying to leave or arrive. I assume people trying to leave or enter the country without permission might have false ID and a false name on their ticket but they probably don't think about changing th…

Probably used for things like terrorist watch lists, national security ventures, etc... highly doubtful it's used for domestic law enforcement purposes. The US wants to know when foreign nationals of interest attempt to enter/exit the country.

Re: ACLU sues Homeland Security over 'stingray' cell phone surveillance

#140

Post by _salmon » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

zw123456 wrote: post #110

Generally if the RSRP or RSSI increases significantly that is a dead give away you are on a stingray. You don't really need an app to see that (google how to see it for your phone type). Of course, it is always possible that your carrier just turned up a new site closer to you but that is not something that happens often and you can usually notice it. Some comments about mm-wave 5G, keep in mind that mm-wave != 5G. B…

Watching signal strengths is all well and good, but you need historical data to compare to. This is a viable option for a few sites (maybe near where you live), but not an option when you're on the go.