5 ms·

Mysterious Phony Cell Towers Could Be Intercepting Your Calls

86 points by revscat 12y ago

GrinningFool 12y ago
Here's the original article instead of the blog: http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/mysterious-phony-cell-towers-could-be-intercepting-your-calls http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/mysterious-phony-ce... It's equally devoid of content that doesn't consist of telling us how CryptoPhone 500 [tm?] is awesome because it can detect these false towers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- aftbit 12y ago
  What does the proprietary secure phone do to detect these things? Can I get an app to alert me if I connect to a stingray-type device?
  - lgierth 12y ago
    I don't know what the secure phone does, but something like the IMSI Catcher Catcher [1] comes to mind. [1] http://www.sba-research.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/AdrianDabrowski-IMSI-Catcher-Catcher-ACSAC2014-preprint-20140820.pdf http://www.sba-research.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/...
    - arecurrence 12y ago
      Nice, more interesting than the article. :) Thanks for the link!
- seba_dos1 12y ago
  Neo900 http://neo900.org/ http://neo900.org/ will be able to detect such things as well.
johnny5 12y ago
Those are just stingrays though, right? It's unclear as the article says towers but doesn't say whether anyone has actually seen a tower, only that they've detected attacks through their secure android phones. If this is just a report of stingray use it should come as no surprise that they are in widespread use & that non-targeted phones latch on to the signals.
- deathhand 12y ago
  At any rate if the FCC doesn't get involved we know who to point the finger to.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  Stingrays and private-owned devices. I suspect some are responsible for the text ads that pop up occasionally on my handset.
jpatokal 12y ago
Cripes, what a breathlessly clueless article. This has fuck all to do with "Android security": the towers are MITMing GSM, and the tech to do this has been around in some form since 2003. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- schoen 12y ago
  Slate reported last year that IMSI catchers or similar technologies were "in the hands of the feds since about 1995 [...] widely deployed since the mid '90s". http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/15/stingray_imsi_catcher_fbi_files_unlock_history_behind_cellphone_tracking.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/15/stingray_... Wikipedia does suggest it was "first commercialized" from 2003, but that doesn't mean that the technology wasn't around even earlier. (Ross Anderson has referred to interference from governments in the security design of GSM, and the possibility of fake towers could well have been one of several things those responsible for the interference had in mind.)
blindfly 12y ago
That entire article reads like an advertisement for a renamed Android rom.
- scintill76 12y ago
  But it has 468 vulnerabilities patched! I wonder how they inflated this number. I'd bet a lot of it comes from Samsung customizations, meaning you get pretty good protection just by flashing an Android build that's closer to Google releases. Also, if there are serious vulnerabilities among that number, it's a bit disappointing that they took an open-source project (well, such as Android is) and horde their fixes under this license.[1] It sounds like they don't even permit you to flash your own build ("to compile it solely for the purpose of comparing the compiled version to the binary code provided by GSMK") [1] http://esdcryptophone.com/background/source-code/license http://esdcryptophone.com/background/source-code/license
dang 12y ago
Url changed from http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/08/28/android-security-2/ http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/08/28/android-security-2/, which points to this.
CPAhem 12y ago
Support the EFF - they are helping develop a false tower detector: http://secupwn.github.io/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/ http://secupwn.github.io/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/
- schoen 12y ago
  We've been invited to collaborate with that project in some way (and it "aims to be recommended by" EFF in the future), but I'm not aware of any announced collaboration between AIMSICD and EFF so far.
degtech 12y ago
Funny to read this here. Just read about it last week in a mayer german tech magazine. Now everybody can buy the imsi cacher for less then 1500 usd. http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Digitale-Selbstverteidigung-mit-dem-IMSI-Catcher-Catcher-2303215.html http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Digitale-Selbstverteidigung-m...
degtech 12y ago
Funny to read this here. Just read about it last week in a mayer german tech magazine. Now everybody can buy the imsi cacher for less then 1500 usd. http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Digitale-Selbstverteidigung-mit-dem-IMSI-Catcher-Catcher-2303215.html http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Digitale-Selbstverteidigung-m...
neotek 12y ago
Christ Popsci is a terrible site to try and use from Australia. Trying to access any URL just gives a lazy redirect to the front page of popsci.com.au, with the helpful error message "Oops! Something went wrong. Please scroll down to find your content."
gnu8 12y ago
Important questions that should be put to Apple and Google loudly and frequently: Why don't we have baseband transparency to know what our phones are connected to? Why don't we have baseband firewalls?
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Interesting question, perhaps the best way to figure out who owns these would be to destroy one and set up a camera trap to see who comes out to fix it. I'm sure that with a little creativity it would be possible to 'fake' a fault (my favorite being the apocryphal tale of shooting frozen pigeons out of an air cannon to knock microwave towers out of alignment).

86 points by revscat 12y ago

Here's the original article instead of the blog: http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/mysterious-phony-cell-towers-could-be-intercepting-your-calls http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/mysterious-phony-ce... It's equally devoid of content that doesn't consist of telling us how CryptoPhone 500 [tm?] is awesome because it can detect these false towers.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
aftbit 12y ago
What does the proprietary secure phone do to detect these things? Can I get an app to alert me if I connect to a stingray-type device?
- lgierth 12y ago
  I don't know what the secure phone does, but something like the IMSI Catcher Catcher [1] comes to mind. [1] http://www.sba-research.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/AdrianDabrowski-IMSI-Catcher-Catcher-ACSAC2014-preprint-20140820.pdf http://www.sba-research.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/...
  - arecurrence 12y ago
    Nice, more interesting than the article. :) Thanks for the link!
seba_dos1 12y ago
Neo900 http://neo900.org/ http://neo900.org/ will be able to detect such things as well.

johnny5 12y ago

Those are just stingrays though, right? It's unclear as the article says towers but doesn't say whether anyone has actually seen a tower, only that they've detected attacks through their secure android phones. If this is just a report of stingray use it should come as no surprise that they are in widespread use & that non-targeted phones latch on to the signals.

deathhand 12y ago
At any rate if the FCC doesn't get involved we know who to point the finger to.
jnbiche 12y ago
Stingrays and private-owned devices. I suspect some are responsible for the text ads that pop up occasionally on my handset.

jpatokal 12y ago

Cripes, what a breathlessly clueless article. This has fuck all to do with "Android security": the towers are MITMing GSM, and the tech to do this has been around in some form since 2003. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
schoen 12y ago
Slate reported last year that IMSI catchers or similar technologies were "in the hands of the feds since about 1995 [...] widely deployed since the mid '90s". http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/15/stingray_imsi_catcher_fbi_files_unlock_history_behind_cellphone_tracking.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/15/stingray_... Wikipedia does suggest it was "first commercialized" from 2003, but that doesn't mean that the technology wasn't around even earlier. (Ross Anderson has referred to interference from governments in the security design of GSM, and the possibility of fake towers could well have been one of several things those responsible for the interference had in mind.)

blindfly 12y ago

That entire article reads like an advertisement for a renamed Android rom.

scintill76 12y ago
But it has 468 vulnerabilities patched! I wonder how they inflated this number. I'd bet a lot of it comes from Samsung customizations, meaning you get pretty good protection just by flashing an Android build that's closer to Google releases. Also, if there are serious vulnerabilities among that number, it's a bit disappointing that they took an open-source project (well, such as Android is) and horde their fixes under this license.[1] It sounds like they don't even permit you to flash your own build ("to compile it solely for the purpose of comparing the compiled version to the binary code provided by GSMK") [1] http://esdcryptophone.com/background/source-code/license http://esdcryptophone.com/background/source-code/license

dang 12y ago

Url changed from http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/08/28/android-security-2/ http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/08/28/android-security-2/, which points to this.

CPAhem 12y ago

Support the EFF - they are helping develop a false tower detector: http://secupwn.github.io/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/ http://secupwn.github.io/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/

schoen 12y ago
We've been invited to collaborate with that project in some way (and it "aims to be recommended by" EFF in the future), but I'm not aware of any announced collaboration between AIMSICD and EFF so far.

degtech 12y ago

Funny to read this here. Just read about it last week in a mayer german tech magazine. Now everybody can buy the imsi cacher for less then 1500 usd. http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Digitale-Selbstverteidigung-mit-dem-IMSI-Catcher-Catcher-2303215.html http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Digitale-Selbstverteidigung-m...

degtech 12y ago

neotek 12y ago

Christ Popsci is a terrible site to try and use from Australia. Trying to access any URL just gives a lazy redirect to the front page of popsci.com.au, with the helpful error message "Oops! Something went wrong. Please scroll down to find your content."

gnu8 12y ago

Important questions that should be put to Apple and Google loudly and frequently: Why don't we have baseband transparency to know what our phones are connected to? Why don't we have baseband firewalls?

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Interesting question, perhaps the best way to figure out who owns these would be to destroy one and set up a camera trap to see who comes out to fix it. I'm sure that with a little creativity it would be possible to 'fake' a fault (my favorite being the apocryphal tale of shooting frozen pigeons out of an air cannon to knock microwave towers out of alignment).