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

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

#81

Post by coolspot »

exikyut wrote: post #71
Scoundreller wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were me, the antenna would be a few hundred feet away from the equipment. And the antenna wouldn’t be anything like an antenna, just something that looks like a lawn-chair. And I’d move it every day or two. And definitely not run it 24h!!! Could still be found, but good luck.

Hmm, then you need a super-mega-amplifier tacked on to boost the signal over the cable (AFAIK, the frequencies used really like short antenna runs). So that then means a super-thick faraday cage around the actual device, and probably somewhat noteworthy power consumption (a battery certainly wouldn't be enough).

Probably meant transmitter (antennae + encoder/decoder) separated from actual BTS hardware & operatives.

So after counter-side finds your camouflaged BTS, it is only disposable and relatively cheap part and doesn’t lead to whole operation uncover.

That probe part then would connect to starbucks wi-fi and interact with BTS software somewhere far from physical location, so you can’t quickly trace channel between probe and spy team.

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

#83

Post by spaceandthyme »

adventured wrote: post #20
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.

> I don't understand the assertion that the US Gov't can't do anything to prevent the foreign governments from doing this... There has been zero evidence presented so far that it is in fact foreign governments doing any of this. More likely it's the vast cabal of Federal agencies in the greater DC area all disregarding the law because nobody in the US Congress has the will to rein them in. And of course for all we kn…

Source?

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

#84

Post by throwaway9803 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #76
throwaway9803 wrote: post #63

This is old news to anyone living here and paying attention. I've been tracking suspicious cell sites for the past three years in my DC metro neighborhood with an old Android phone and some prosumer software. Some of the sites are mobile, but most of the ones I found were stationarity, and could be easily identified once you know what to look for. I'm pretty sure some of them are seriously degrading cell data/vocie q…

You should report their approximate location to the FCC.

Honestly, I don't want to be on the radar of any entity that is deploying this type of gear in the DC metro area.

I am under no illusion that I can protect myself if targeted by a state based actor. Better to be lost in the crowd.

Best case scenario is it's a legitimate LEO operation.

Worse, it's a federal national security operation.

Worse still, it's a criminal, or foreign national security operation.

Only in the first scenario would the FCC even remotely have the chance to do anything. Even then it might be a legitimate operation, and they do nothing.

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

#85

Post by indiv0 »

Taniwha wrote: post #77
mdesq wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe he switched to an iPhone. [1] I was at an analytics event this year where they were analyzing his tweets based on the originating platform. 1. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/donald-...

I'm more under the impression that there are several people who tweet using that account (you'll remember one of his lawyers claiming they did one time he really screwed up) using different platforms

I can't find the link on mobile right now, but there was an article I read a while back (on HN, actually, I think) where someone did statistical analysis on the speech patterns of Trumps tweets and correlated those with times he was known to have been using his phone (or something like that) and deduced that there were two primary parties responsible for his Twitter account: Trump himself and a PR person/team. Any politically-minded (in the classical sense) or campaign tweet was almost always by the PR team, and every inflammatory, grammatically incorrect, etc. tweet was by him (presumably).

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

#86

Post by AndrewKemendo »

StudentStuff wrote: post #48
tajen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean network quality will significantly go down if we shut down the stingrays? I mean when you have 5 nation states deploying a network of stingrays in DC, all trying to compete on being the relay nodes, that does add quite a lot of bandwidth.

Stingrays don't add bandwidth in normal operation, as they act as a repeater. Most will have the bandwidth halving effect incurred by single transceiver mesh nodes or relay stations: http://www.strixsystems.com/products/datasheets/strixwhitepa...

Even repeater is not really accurate. Like you say, in normal operation these systems are not working in collaboration with a wireless provider for the data passthrough/handoff. In my experience running these, it's more like the user briefly connects with a service with no connectivity and IMSI/IMEI connection logging only.

So in practice it would look like briefly, usually imperceptibly, losing cell service.

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

#87

Post by indiv0 »

adventured wrote: post #20
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.

> I don't understand the assertion that the US Gov't can't do anything to prevent the foreign governments from doing this... There has been zero evidence presented so far that it is in fact foreign governments doing any of this. More likely it's the vast cabal of Federal agencies in the greater DC area all disregarding the law because nobody in the US Congress has the will to rein them in. And of course for all we kn…

I wouldn't go so far as to say that there's no federal agencies in the DC Stingray soup, but how can you say it's more likely to be federal agencies in DC of all places?

If there was a single city in the US that foreign agencies would target, it would undoubtedly be DC. The abundance of embassies in the city make it a very easy target.

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

#88

Post by natch »

dannyw wrote: post #73
natch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, great. Get a phone that secretly sends your text messages to a collection point in China. https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/15/13636072/budget-android-...

Doesn’t matter if it’s a $50 burner phone to detect snooping.

True. Would you need to pay for a cellular plan, or would it work without?

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

#89

Post by cosmicexplorer »

indiv0 wrote: post #85
Taniwha wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more under the impression that there are several people who tweet using that account (you'll remember one of his lawyers claiming they did one time he really screwed up) using different platforms

I can't find the link on mobile right now, but there was an article I read a while back (on HN, actually, I think) where someone did statistical analysis on the speech patterns of Trumps tweets and correlated those with times he was known to have been using his phone (or something like that) and deduced that there were two primary parties responsible for his Twitter account: Trump himself and a PR person/team. Any po…

I was thinking of the same article, and found it, I think [1]? There was a higher-rated link also posted around the same time with the same post content [2]. I also found a follow up post [3] while looking for [1].

[1] http://varianceexplained.org/r/trump-tweets/

[2] https://www.r-bloggers.com/text-analysis-of-trumps-tweets-co...

[3] http://varianceexplained.org/r/trump-followup/

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