Mysterious “interceptor” cell towers in the USA are grabbing phone calls — but they’re not part of the phone networks... The towers were revealed by Les Goldsmith to Popular Science last week. He’s CEO of ESD America, which builds the super-secure Cryptophone 500 for clients that need the military-grade security and can handle the phone’s estimated $3,500 price tag.
In the course of testing the phone, Goldsmith’s team discovered the existence of phone cell towers that intercept a call and hand it off to the real network — allowing the tower to listen in or load spyware to the mobile device... In July, ESD America identified 17 of the towers, but now it has increased that outed inventory to 19...
...Who is installing and managing these interceptors? ... Not the NSA, cloud security firm SilverSky CTO/SVP Andrew Jaquith told us. “The NSA doesn’t need a fake tower,” he said. “They can just go to the carrier” to tap your line.
...They could be from perhaps law enforcement agencies or the military, he suggested. A number of these towers are around military bases, although they’re also found in other locations, including the vicinity of the South Point Casino in Las Vegas...
...The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced last month that it is launching an investigation into the use of cell network interceptors by criminal gangs and foreign intelligence...
Andrew Rosenblum, writing at Popular Science, offers additional detail.
“What we find suspicious is that a lot of these interceptors are right on top of U.S. military bases. So we begin to wonder – are some of them U.S. government interceptors? Or are some of them Chinese interceptors?” says Goldsmith. “Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that's listening to calls around military bases? Is it just the U.S. military, or are they foreign governments doing it? The point is: we don't really know whose they are.”
...But for governments or other entities able to afford a price tag of “less than $100,000,” says Goldsmith, high-quality interceptors are quite realistic. Some interceptors are limited, only able to passively listen to either outgoing or incoming calls. But full-featured devices like the VME Dominator, available only to government agencies, can not only capture calls and texts, but even actively control the phone, sending out spoof texts, for example. Edward Snowden revealed that the N.S.A. is capable of an over-the-air attack that tells the phone to fake a shut-down while leaving the microphone running, turning the seemingly deactivated phone into a bug. And various ethical hackers have demonstrated DIY interceptor projects, using a software programmable radio and the open-source base station software package OpenBTS – this creates a basic interceptor for less than $3,000.
How widespread is the problem?
One of Goldsmith's customers traveled from Florida to North Carolina and discovered eight different interceptor towers along the way.
Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.
2 comments:
If no one knows who they belong to & if they're outside of our military bases, why have they not been taken down? Just askin.
What makes you think they are Phony Cellsites? Have you ever heard of Land Mobile Trunking Systems or Conventional Digital 800 MHz Public Safety Systems. They used the same technology that is used in standard Cellsites except the handheld or mobile radios are a bit different. These systems have been around for the last 30 years. Nothing mysterious about these two-radio systems unless you've had your head buried in the sand. Welcome to the 21 st Century of Digital Communications.
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