Government planes mimic cellphone towers to collect user data

> I generally support the mission of the US intelligence community, but it seems my greatest fear is coming true: domestic law enforcement wants to play with the cool toys too.

OMG who would EVER thought that something like this would happen?????? I'm so shocked!!!! Maybe they need to just keep with the times... Yes that's it, no need to worry.

> I generally support the mission of the US intelligence community

We no longer have the freedoms the US intelligence community is supposed to be defending. They have already failed us.

edit: Sure, we have some freedoms, but they are vestigial. In principle, we do not. This is obvious with respect to not being subject to warrantless search and seizure: we officially live in an Orwellian surveillance society. But our freedoms are (less obviously) withering in all other areas as well.

> my greatest fear is coming true: domestic law enforcement wants to play with the cool toys too.

Actually, the usual pattern is: surveillance and security systems are first tested abroad, then are imported into the homeland. So this is not really "domestic law enforcement wants to play" but the conclusion of a progression that is part of a regular historical pattern.

UMTS/LTE (GSMA 3G/4G) has strong mutual authentication, so is generally harder to attack without collaboration from the mobile operator. What should really worry you is when your phone switches over to Edge (GSMA 2G) for no good reason. There's no mutual authentication there(!) so it's trivial for an attacker to impersonate your mobile operator...

Or speeds up :)