In case you, like me, were wondering wtf stingrays are (besides a type of fish). This is from their report :
Cell-site simulators, also known as “Stingrays” or IMSI catchers, are devices that masquerade as legitimate cell-phone towers, tricking phones within a certain radius into connecting to the device rather than a tower.
Cell-site simulators operate by conducting a general search of all cell phones within the device’s radius, in violation of basic constitutional protections. Law enforcement use cell-site simulators to pinpoint the location of phones with greater accuracy than phone companies. Cell-site simulators can also log IMSI numbers (unique identifying numbers) of all of the mobile devices within a given area.
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The fact that government agencies are using these devices without the utmost consideration for the privacy and rights of individuals around them is alarming but not surprising. The federal government, and in particular agencies like HSI and ICE, have a dubious and troubling relationship with overbroad collection of private data on individuals.
Wait, people didn’t know about StingRays?
They’ve been around for like a decade now.
But uh, yeah, basically, they’re fake/spoof/honeypot cell towers that man-in-the-middle all nearby cell network traffic.
This is how they do the whole… everything dragnet, all the time, basically all cop cruisers have them in them, active all the time, this is why you just don’t bring your phone to a protest unless you really know what you’re doing.
So how do they break my SSL connections?
It’s a little less about reading what you’re saying or looking at on your phone, it’s mostly about tracking where your phone goes and figuring out who you are that way.
When someone finds one of these simulators, what would they do?
Whatever you do, you shouldn’t accidentally spill saltwater on it. That could destroy a very expensive piece of spying equipment, and would be a terrible, tragic accident that could interfere with the advance of nazism.
Hang on while I fly up and spill water on a fucking plane or the side of a private building.
