SeaGlass: City-Wide IMSI-Catcher Detection (2017)
seaglass.cs.washington.edu
seaglass.cs.washington.edu
In my research, I developed a technique to attack a phone with low power from km away, without being able to be detected at all with traditional tools like SeaGlass or Crocodile Hunter. It‘s published here and works against production LTE networks, no downgrade attacks whatsoever necessary:
you're welcome
> The FCC's involvement in cell site simulators began years ago when it first approved commercial sales to law enforcement. Documents disclosed under FOIA show that the company that sells Stingrays had local police departments lobby the FCC close to ten years ago for approval.
[0]: https://www.eff.org/files/2016/10/06/senate_letter_to_fcc_on...
[1]: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-355228A2.pdf
Also there are apps for scanning and tracking celltower stength and mass-logging GPS data. I think that data could be the input to their detector... don't need a trunk full of HW.
“ These sensors have advantages over phones because they can contain specialized cellular scanning equipment and external antennas for farther reception ranges. While phone apps can see limited information on the tower currently connected to, our sensors scan the spectrum to measure hundreds of channels at a time and dozens of broadcast properties.”
So there is an advantage over using a regular cell phone and an app.
I think the problem here is that the federal law against intentional interference is quite definite. So this is the best loophole that the FCC could come up with.
This is to catch mules bringing over drugs and sex traffickers most likely. Once they get to the other side, need to call for a pick up.
[0]https://apnews.com/article/immigration-covid-technology-busi...
The entire article is about installing an app on their personal phones.
https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/costly-failure-biden-...
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/06/05/us/border-migrants-cell-p...
I’m entirely agnostic to what the claim is, what ideology it supports, or even whether or not it’s true.
You use a citation to increase the credibility of you claim or argument. If the citation doesn’t actually say what you said that is a problem.
If I said aliens are real here is proof and cite a lasagna recipe that’s a problem
SeaGlass: City-Wide IMSI-Catcher Detection (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27173717 - May 2021 (55 comments)
SeaGlass – Enabling City-Wide IMSI-Catcher Detection - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14474956 - June 2017 (36 comments)
Pi connected to a Cell modem, mobile hotspot, and "bait phone" ... and a separate GPS.
All powered by wall warts off an inverter to the car's 12v system.
This makes me feel better about my own systems designs.
I hate this phrase.
Leaded gasoline worked, but it was so stupid it actively made people stupid.
Storing passwords plaintext works, but the first time your system gets broken into it's a massive problem.
Driving at 80 mph in a rainstorm is stupid and it works until it rather spectacularly doesn't.
Door motion detector broken? a human hitting a manual door open button when they see people is "stupid but it works".
Need to build a bridge but don't have an engineer? Piling rubble in the water until you get a path across is "stupid but it works".
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/SchlockMercena...
Yeah and airborn nickel causes cystic fibrosis with the highest concentrations found in the home in built up areas, blown in like dust, and inhaled Methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl causes but doesnt cause Parkinsons.
Surprising what the scientists can find but wont put their names to it.
Does that actually matter? Probably not, but I find the comparison to Docker apropos. Sometimes it's just easier to add/keep abstraction/isolation simply on the small off chance that it's lack does get in your way as long as that abstraction/isloation itself doesn't get too much in your way.
Hotspots often support NEMA GPS protocol to use them as a GPS receiver. All those devices could be powered more efficiently with a DC to DC power supply.
My understanding is these are quite commonly used for concerts, sporting events etc., Vodafone called them COWS (Cell site on wheels).
Anecdotally when the Vodafone CEO of the time came to visit NZ, some lackeys were charged with staying physically close behind him with a COW so he would always see good reception.
An international mobile subscriber identity-catcher, or IMSI-catcher, is a telephone eavesdropping device used for intercepting mobile phone traffic and tracking location data of mobile phone users. Essentially a "fake" mobile tower acting between the target mobile phone and the service provider's real towers, it is considered a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack.
"GSM phones authenticate to the tower, but the tower doesn’t authenticate back. This means that anyone can create a ‘fake’ tower that your phone will connect to. The major problem here is that in GSM, the tower gets to pick the encryption algorithm! That means your attacker can simply turn encryption off (by setting encryption ‘algorithm’ A5/0) and simply route the cleartext data itself.In theory your phone is supposed to alert you to this kind of attack, but the SIM chip contains a bit that can de-active the warning. And (as researcher Chris Paget discovered) carriers often set this bit."
/i am mostly clue free about this stuff so this post might include erroneous assumptions