DHS Confirms Presence of Cell-Site Simulators in U.S. Capital | Hacker News Reader

DHS Confirms Presence of Cell-Site Simulators in U.S. Capital

eff.org

71 pointsivanleoncz10 comments

> Law enforcement and the intelligence community would surely agree that these technologies are dangerous in the wrong hands, but there is no way to stop criminals and terrorists from using these technologies without also closing the same security flaws that law enforcement uses. Unlike criminals however, law enforcement can still obtain search warrants and work directly with the phone companies to get subscribers' location, so they would not lose any capabilities if the vulnerabilities CSSs rely on were fixed.

Oh law enforcement might have to begrudgingly go back to warrants as described in the 4th amendment? That would be horrible for authority overreach.

Besides the trampling of your 4th amendment rights and warrantless searches, this is another example of backdoors/holes/trapdoors that exist for 'security' being abused and eventually the bad actors get it.

Going with security that is backdoored or vulnerable just so 'good' actors can get in when needed is another level of trust that can be abused and will be seeked out by bad actors, even wolves in sheeps clothing within the good guys.

We have world class security systems, yet plenty of keys under rocks in the backyard.

It is basically leaving your window open on vacation and putting a note that says, only Sally the neighbor can come in through the window, please (Sally being the gov't or 'good' guys). Guess what, Sally won't be the only one coming in.

So either the secret service (or similar) is monitoring the area, but DHS doesn't know about it and just blew their cover, or foreign spies are hoovering up intelligence and blackmail material on top officials and whoever is talking to them.

Either way, how are heads not rolling for this?

If you have to ask, you're not authorized to know :)

This story was all over. I think it is a lot like google being forced to not show clear pictures of us military bases or the white house (or lower resolution pics). Russia has them, China has them. Only the american people don't have them, and low grade terrorists maybe don't have them. But I'm in the american people group, and I am questioning how much security protection they get from this. I think things like access to these kinds of devices only for the "official govt" plus dozens of external actors really just keeps americans in the dark.

>Only the american people don't have them, and low grade terrorists maybe don't have them.

The data is out there, just gotta know who to scrape/exfil data from…

>and I am questioning how much security protection they get from this.

Security? Maybe financial security by spending tax and money acquired from selling T-notes/bonds on their friends def contractor firms they'll work at in a couple of years.

Why can't they find these illegal stingrays with the following technique:

Install a small network node at each legitimate tower that can only be seen on that tower but is always accessed the same way in secret. Only a receiver on that tower can connect to that network segment (similar to how I can connect to computers on my lan, but the firewall prevents others from doing the same outside of it. This will identify positives. We can ignore that in the site survey. Then after a dc wide survey has been complete we can identify all the towers that don't have this official network identifier, triangulate them using known techniques and then shut them down or prosecute?

This kind of technology, used by the government without serious restrictions, it's pretty bad and the article describes by itself, situations where it was "not exactly used" to solve crimes, but for monitoring data traffic of cellphones used by people engaged in protests.

However, what scares me the most, is the possibility of such technology falling in the hands of those who are playing dirty 100% of the time, against the society (criminals, mafia, gangs, drug lords, kidnappers, terrorists, etc.).

> So far, mobile providers, the FCC, and members of Congress have been reticent to address the issue

I don't know about the US, but where I live interfering with radio equipment or any other public infrastructure is extremely illegal.

How are there no processes to deal with this, find the attacker, get them? At least remove the stations, maybe find out who's behind them?

It's astonishing.

Yep, it's quite illegal in the US as well.

The FCC certainly has the equipment and know-how to locate these devices. It almost makes me wonder if they haven't been told (by another agency) to simply ignore them.

It's illegal here too -- apparantly unless the police do it

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