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Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

theintercept.com

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Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#51

Post by throwaway_drt2 »

jdefr89 wrote: post #19

Hey. Someone who briefly worked on the Stingray team here. I left the company that develops the stingray (who’s name is mentioned in the article but I shall not say it) because I didn’t feel comfortable with the ethics of how it could potentially be easily abused without legal permission and/or repercussion. I fear these technologies will become more commonly used against Americans by low level law enforcement withou…

Used to work for makers of the dirtbox. I would hope anyone curious about this issue also spends a lot of time digging into those devices as well.

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#52

Post by kawsper »

shakna wrote: post #15
seniorsassycat wrote: post #14

> stingrays can force phones to downgrade to 2G, a less secure protocol, and tell the phone to use either no encryption or use a weak encryption that can be cracked. Can android, iOS, or an open phone os prevent 2g communication?

It happens within the OS for the baseband processor, not within the OS of the actual phone. Unsurprisingly, the details of how the baseband processor work are a highly guarded secret, and trying to reverse engineer anything around it will end up with a heft lawsuit thrown at you.

These low-level systems can be good attack vectors, on our computer systems if you can attack the BIOS (Intel ME or AMD PSP) it doesn't matter much what defenses the operating system has.

Luckily, most of our computers aren't easily remotely connectable, but phone modems are another story.

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#53

Post by hosteur »

sandstrom wrote: post #48

Anyone know of any progress in 6G, that would improve privacy in this area? For example randomized (or truly encrypted) IMEI numbers? Also, I found this SIM card which seems to be doing IMEI randomization: https://omertadigital.com/blogs/news/encrypted-sim-cards-wha...

There are no incentives to improve end user privacy with those who specify telco standards.

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#54

Post by [deleted] »

jdefr89 wrote: post #19

Hey. Someone who briefly worked on the Stingray team here. I left the company that develops the stingray (who’s name is mentioned in the article but I shall not say it) because I didn’t feel comfortable with the ethics of how it could potentially be easily abused without legal permission and/or repercussion. I fear these technologies will become more commonly used against Americans by low level law enforcement withou…

[deleted]

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#55

Post by ColanR »

jdefr89 wrote: post #19

Hey. Someone who briefly worked on the Stingray team here. I left the company that develops the stingray (who’s name is mentioned in the article but I shall not say it) because I didn’t feel comfortable with the ethics of how it could potentially be easily abused without legal permission and/or repercussion. I fear these technologies will become more commonly used against Americans by low level law enforcement withou…

To whomever flagged the sibling comment by throwaway_drt2: they were not being crude, they were referring to the cell site simulator called the Dirtbox. [1] Don't be so trigger-happy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirtbox_%28cell_phone%29

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#56

Post by jeffbee »

spanhandler wrote: post #40
jeffbee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, why not? How can we improve general technological literacy? I don't want people to memorize the protocols, but I do want them to have the foundation of knowledge that would allow them to conclude that if the phone company can connect calls to your mobile handset, then they can also figure out roughly where it is. I'd also like for people to have the basic knowledge required to understand that GPS does not track…

Every professional, expert, specialist, or technician feels this way about the stuff they know. "Why don't people know [basic thing about their work]? What a bunch of uneducated morons." The answer is because if they knew all the basic stuff about all those fields to be what those experts judge to be informed consumers, and took the time to apply that knowledge, they wouldn't have any time left to 1) actually buy pro…

I guess we will disagree on what is or should be obviously illegal. What your phone does is the functional equivalent of you walking down the street shouting your phone number. It does not strike me as obviously wrong for people to hear it.

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#57

Post by blue52 »

throwaway_drt2 wrote: post #51
jdefr89 wrote: post #19

Hey. Someone who briefly worked on the Stingray team here. I left the company that develops the stingray (who’s name is mentioned in the article but I shall not say it) because I didn’t feel comfortable with the ethics of how it could potentially be easily abused without legal permission and/or repercussion. I fear these technologies will become more commonly used against Americans by low level law enforcement withou…

Used to work for makers of the dirtbox. I would hope anyone curious about this issue also spends a lot of time digging into those devices as well.

The majority of us are well aware how these devices create a MITM attack against your phone, but is there anything you found particularly interesting or egregious that we should know about? Especially how LE are using them to abuse every group who desperately needs protection from these devices.

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#58

Post by rrose »

bob1029 wrote: post #28
rrose wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're ignoring a key point here, which is that these stingray devices can MitM your phone by forcing it to send essentially unencrypted messages. That's both more technically complicated and more serious than passive tracking.

I don't think OP is ignoring any points. It is a statement of fact that we've been carrying around what ultimately amount to high power RFID surveillance devices in our pockets for about 20-30 years now (en masse). There are also many on this board at this very moment who can remember life before any of this technology or concern was a thing. In 1990, if you walked to the store without telling anyone where you were g…

OP is sort of shrugging off the information in this article by saying that it should be common sense that by carrying a phone you are trackable. I don't really disagree with that. But a major point of the article is that not only are you trackable, but you can be actively surveilled or even have your text messages spoofed, which is not common knowledge and isn't really encapsulated by the "radio in your pocket" analogy

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#59

Post by rrose »

jeffbee wrote: post #56
spanhandler wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every professional, expert, specialist, or technician feels this way about the stuff they know. "Why don't people know [basic thing about their work]? What a bunch of uneducated morons." The answer is because if they knew all the basic stuff about all those fields to be what those experts judge to be informed consumers, and took the time to apply that knowledge, they wouldn't have any time left to 1) actually buy pro…

I guess we will disagree on what is or should be obviously illegal. What your phone does is the functional equivalent of you walking down the street shouting your phone number. It does not strike me as obviously wrong for people to hear it.

the article also goes into the fact that these stingray devices can send text messages from your phone number and listen to your phone calls in real time. I dont think your analogy really captures that, and it's hard to imagine an argument for that being legal (at least without a warrant)

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#60

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

seniorsassycat wrote: post #14

> stingrays can force phones to downgrade to 2G, a less secure protocol, and tell the phone to use either no encryption or use a weak encryption that can be cracked. Can android, iOS, or an open phone os prevent 2g communication?

>Can android, iOS, or an open phone os prevent 2g communication?

Some android installs can turn off 2g here: Settings -> Mobile Networks -> Network Mode

However - 2G & 3g networks appear to be going away. https://1ot.mobi/resources/blog/a-complete-overview-of-2g-3g...

AT&T killed 2g in 2017 https://www.pcmag.com/news/att-kills-2g-cutting-off-original...

T-Mobile is in the process of turning off 2g https://www.alarmgrid.com/blog/t-mobile-and-rogers-2g-networ...

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