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Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

online.wsj.com

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Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#51

Post by revelation »

m0dest wrote: post #48

I understand that you can sniff IMSI without being a recognized carrier. But to actually get a cell phone to join your tower – don't you need the carrier's keys to be able to authenticate during the tower handshake? (iOS 5+ warns about unencrypted tower connections, so presumably these have to be authenticated UMTS?) If so, should we expect that the carriers surrendered their keys to law enforcement to allow them to…

That's how IMSI catchers work, your phone joins their network. The network determines the level of encryption, if any. And last I remember there were basically no handsets out there that would even report missing encryption, so I'm not too sure on the iOS 5+ part, but unless you are staring at your screen all the time you would probably miss any such warning anyway.

(Not to mention that A5/1 is broken, but since Stingrays have been around forever and companies don't like investing into something thats not broken, I don't think they even do that. Certainly not at 9k bucks.)

Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#52

Post by anigbrowl »

emddudley wrote: post #30
jacquesm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is receiving data openly transmitted on the airwaves illegal?

Ask Google about their Street View wardriving project... an appeals court ruled that it violated the Wiretap Act. http://www.wired.com/2014/04/threatlevel_0401_streetview/

That was quite different though, because Google was (inadvertently) recording packet data as well as SSIDs. It's right there in the 3rd paragraph.

Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#53

Post by fit2rule »

Yeah, well .. here is the thing:

We, the free people, can build drones and we can also put wifi repeaters on them and we can - instead of sniffing things - actively participate in the construction and maintenance of wide open communication systems, for all to use. Everyone.

That is the other end of the scale of all this secrecy and control - there is another end of the NSA conundrum, and its all about open source. So, you know: getting your own local network started, and stop just 'consuming it' from the powers that be, is sort of a priority folks. If you don't want to have a secret oppressor, push to have fewer secrets kept in the world. Its a fact that the corruption of all governments begin with their secrets.

So .. as someone who has a fleet of small drones above his head right now, albeit sleeping while the lipo's charge, here is a technology I think should be pointed out that is a little less prone to snooping, and with the right kind of neighborhood, gives us all a great amount of freedom to communicate, nevertheless:

http://ronja.twibright.com/

Snoop on that, Feds!

Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#54

Post by pjc50 »

ck2 wrote: post #39

This makes me wonder if the government has or is working on drones that hone in on a specific cellphone signal with a specific id after being trained. Not just for tracking but an "icbm" kind of drone. First for military use, then for domestic use like how the police always get military weapon, iris scanners, etc.

I believe this has already been done in Yemen, as part of the programme of murdering foreign nationals in countries the US is not at war with.

Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#55

Post by venomsnake »

r0h1n wrote: post #34

Thinking aloud in terms of a "solution" - is it possible to build crowdsourced blocklists that can be subscribed to by users, and will refuse to let their phones connect to "fake" celltowers? P.S. I'm not a wireless guy, so I don't know if there's any kind of a digital giveaway that can distinguish a fake cell tower versus the real one it is spoofing. If there isn't, then perhaps the fault lies with existing wireless…

Not until the baseband processor is proprietary. And even then nothing prevents feds from just giving the towers new ids or just manipulating the blacklists.

Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#56

Post by pdkl95 »

declan wrote: post #7

Here are some excerpts from the WSJ paywalled article: Cellphones are programmed to connect automatically to the strongest cell tower signal. The device being used by the U.S. Marshals Service identifies itself as having the closest, strongest signal, even though it doesn’t, and forces all the phones that can detect its signal to send in their unique registration information. Even having encryption on one’s phone, su…

While these active MitM attacks are important (the methods seem to be similar to ARP-poisioning), we shouldn't leave out the passive capabilities. These may not even be listed as a feature, if it is a different tool that parses the already-captured traffic as a deferred job.

As we see mentioned here on HN all the time, there is a massive amount interesting data that can be pulled out of large datasets. The original WP publication[1] about COTRAVELER gives a very nice example of the power in just knowing very-inaccurate (cell-sized) location data. You probably don't even need any particular cell-network identifying number, given how easy it is to correlate this kind of data to other identifiers.

[1] http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/how-the-nsa-is-t...

Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#57

Post by kalleboo »

These are all still using GSM, which doesn't authenticate the network right? I really wish I could disable GSM on the iPhone like I could on my Android - none of the networks I regularly use have usable GSM networks. It's a waste of battery and a wide open security hole. Plain old classic GSM needs to die. Bring on the UMTS/LTE future.

Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#58

Post by morganvachon »

joering2 wrote: post #22

A $9,000 per machine. Is it possible for a civilian to purchase it? Knowing this is unconstitutional and if there are no government laws (shouldn't be right?) forbidding you from purchasing it, can I sue them if they refuse to sell me one? Correct me if I'm wrong but putting this machine around Wall Street (given you know how to sell and buy stocks) would probably get you $9k back in less than a day, hm? I still wond…

> can I sue them if they refuse to sell me one?

No, and you can't sue any company for refusing to sell you their product. In some cases you can sue if they refuse to serve you based on discrimination (i.e. a restaurant or hotel) under the Federal Civil Rights Act, or even a state-level civil rights act or charter, but that's a different set of circumstances. There are all manner of businesses who refuse to sell their goods directly to the consumer and sell to distributors only, and they aren't getting sued over it.

There's also the issue that using the device, period, is against Federal law, yet our Federal government is doing it anyway. They get away with it because they can[1], but you would likely end up in prison, possibly without a public trial.

[1]I think what they are doing is wrong and illegal, but until a judge puts a stop to it they will continue to get away with it.

Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#59

Post by morganvachon »

pjc50 wrote: post #54
ck2 wrote: post #39

This makes me wonder if the government has or is working on drones that hone in on a specific cellphone signal with a specific id after being trained. Not just for tracking but an "icbm" kind of drone. First for military use, then for domestic use like how the police always get military weapon, iris scanners, etc.

I believe this has already been done in Yemen, as part of the programme of murdering foreign nationals in countries the US is not at war with.

The US is "at war" with the entire world, even their so-called friends. You don't spy on your friends, you spy on your enemies. You don't do secret raids and secret bombings on third parties, you do that to your enemies. We've always been at war with .

Re: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

#60

Post by unclebucknasty »

r0h1n wrote: post #34

Thinking aloud in terms of a "solution" - is it possible to build crowdsourced blocklists that can be subscribed to by users, and will refuse to let their phones connect to "fake" celltowers? P.S. I'm not a wireless guy, so I don't know if there's any kind of a digital giveaway that can distinguish a fake cell tower versus the real one it is spoofing. If there isn't, then perhaps the fault lies with existing wireless…

The solution is to make it illegal and/or enforce it as such.
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