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Comment by mi100hael | Hacker News Reader

Stingrays block all calls since they're not actually connected to a cell network, so calling any number should suffice.

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How is blocking all calls even remotely legal?

It’s not. But the FCC isn’t capable of doing its job, and prosecutors are very cautious about using the evidence.

Reminds me of another story on HN where for months some guys was driving around with a cell phone jammer in his trunk because he got fed up of distracted drivers. It took quite a bit of effort to track him down as far as i remember.

Possibly cathartic, but I'd almost imagine having a bad signal would distract them more.

It's not telephone service is considered critical infrastructure and therefore it is supposed to be illegal to disrupt service. This is why you have to block robo calls on your phone and its not done for you by the carriers. An over simplification is if a call is attempted no entity can prevent it from being made.

I am sure there are some legal loop holes out there that is why the government can use the CSS.

Aren't these still "secret" devices that show up even w/out a warrant?

It probably isn't.

Anything's legal until a judge rules on it.

Ok, so they should fix that and connect the stingrays to an actual network, and forward all calls.

Leaves the question what happens when they move or turn off the stingray.

So just man in the middle all the encryption that goes on with modern phone protocols? Should we all have to install the stingray root cert on all our phones? or should the phone providers have to provide them a valid tower cert on demand?

Don't stingrays downgrade to 2g where cellphones didn't authenticate the tower?

No, even with 3G phones generally won't complain in any visible way if the tower doesn't support encryption.

I mean, I think they downgrade to 2G for a lot of reasons; the encryption (or lack thereof) isn't the only one.

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