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Observing my cellphone switch towers

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Re: Observing my cellphone switch towers

#91

Post by kmonsen »

dTal wrote: post #82
qb2021 wrote: post #53

At this one industrial customer I visit every week for a full day, my Verizon cell phone date/time time will suddenly change back by 19 years, six months, and some days (I don't have the exact value). This has been going on for almost a year. My pet theory was that law enforcement turned on a stingray nearby back in 2020, it came up with a default date of 1/1/2001, and has been running ever since. Steel building with…

Could it possibly be because the time is being set from GPS, somewhere in the stack? The 19-and-a-half year offset is spot on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_week_number_rollover

If so according to the link the phone needs to be from 2013 or older, or an iPhone from 2012 or before. That would give gp an award in no unnecessary upgrades :-)

Re: Observing my cellphone switch towers

#92

Post by kmonsen »

Btw you do use this with stingrays to trick the phone into full power boost so it will use the battery very quickly. Useful if you want to encourage the user to go home to charge.

I don’t remember the details but it has to do with selecting which cell tower is the best and how strong the cell phone needs to boost the signal are two different steps. Or at least used to be 10 years ago.

Re: Observing my cellphone switch towers

#93

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

heelix wrote: post #45

Something like this would make it pretty easy to spot one of those stingray devices, I bet. Cell towers tend to stay put, so mapping out an area would go quick. Were a new 'tower' show up in an odd spot -- there may be shenanigans at hand.

> "Were a new 'tower' show up in an odd spot -- there may be shenanigans at hand."

Or maybe it's simply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_cell_sites

Re: Observing my cellphone switch towers

#94

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

kmonsen wrote: post #92

Btw you do use this with stingrays to trick the phone into full power boost so it will use the battery very quickly. Useful if you want to encourage the user to go home to charge. I don’t remember the details but it has to do with selecting which cell tower is the best and how strong the cell phone needs to boost the signal are two different steps. Or at least used to be 10 years ago.

It seems that intentionally draining the targets battery would be counterproductive to the law enforcement's goals of tracking them

Re: Observing my cellphone switch towers

#95

Post by jimmygraham »

kmonsen wrote: post #91
dTal wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it possibly be because the time is being set from GPS, somewhere in the stack? The 19-and-a-half year offset is spot on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_week_number_rollover

If so according to the link the phone needs to be from 2013 or older, or an iPhone from 2012 or before. That would give gp an award in no unnecessary upgrades :-)

I think they mean at the cellular network level (or stingray,) not the phone itself.

Re: Observing my cellphone switch towers

#96

Post by kevin_nisbet »

latchkey wrote: post #80

It is worth noting that the mentioned books (along with many others about LTE) are available online, for free, if you know where to look.

So are the standards actually... but it's probably pretty difficult to get into if you don't work in the industry and have to learn all the terminology, approach, history/evolution of the standards, etc.

Re: Observing my cellphone switch towers

#98

Post by Spooky23 »

qb2021 wrote: post #53

At this one industrial customer I visit every week for a full day, my Verizon cell phone date/time time will suddenly change back by 19 years, six months, and some days (I don't have the exact value). This has been going on for almost a year. My pet theory was that law enforcement turned on a stingray nearby back in 2020, it came up with a default date of 1/1/2001, and has been running ever since. Steel building with…

A guy on a team that I worked on detected one of those devices and called the university police (we were a tenant in a university building), who laughed, and then proceeded to methodically and politely walk the hierarchy of agencies with jurisdiction (sheriff, city police, state police, FBI field office, FCC, etc). I believe he called a member of Congress as well.

Eventually somebody figured out that he wasn’t going away, and a couple of very pleasant guys popped in and dropped off their business cards. They told him it wouldn’t be a problem anymore and to give them a call if it became a problem again.

End of the day, if someone is creating interference, they need to stop. If you have the time and inclination, complain and they will.

Re: Observing my cellphone switch towers

#99

Post by OOPMan »

capableweb wrote: post #54
hansor wrote: post #38

It's quite hilarious seeing bunch of skilled and intelligent hackers being excited regrading process known as "Handover" :) It is well known, and well documented in every single book in subject... Worth to mention that there are 3 types of handovers: - Intra-relations: user can be switched between various cells at same tower. - Intra-relations but with handover to lower technology (let's say when 4g is not available[…

It's quite hilarious seeing a supposedly "skilled and intelligent hacker" (since we're on Hacker News after all) being so excited to recite the article.

It's quite hilarious seeing the term "skilled and intelligent hacker" being used to describe HN users
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