Technology Mysterious Fake Cellphone Towers Are Intercepting Calls All Over The US

[Second Summer]

Seventeen fake cellphone towers were discovered across the U.S. last week, according to a report in Popular Science. Rather than offering you cellphone service, the towers appear to be connecting to nearby phones, bypassing their encryption, and either tapping calls or reading texts.

Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America, used ESD's CryptoPhone 500 to detect 17 bogus cellphone towers. ESD is a leading American defense and law enforcement technology provider based in Las Vegas.

[...]

In an amazing coincidence, police departments in a handful of U.S. cities have been operating "Stingray" or "Hailstorm" towers, which — you guessed it — conduct surveillance on mobile phone activity. They do that by jamming mobile phone signals, forcing phones to drop down from 4G and 3G network bands to the older, more insecure 2G band.

Read more:
Mysterious Fake Cellphone Towers Are Intercepting Calls All Over The US - Yahoo Finance
And more in-depth:
Mysterious Phony Cell Towers Could Be Intercepting Your Calls | Popular Science

 

[PTree15]

Stuff like this makes me want to get completely off the grid.

 

[Second Summer]

It's probably used by the military near their bases to monitor suspicious activity there, and by the police when working on difficult cases, only targeting the phones of certain people and their contacts. And possibly by foreign agents, hoping to snap up useful information.

All of these obviously could lead to men in black coming to visit your house just because of a silly misunderstanding. So yeah.

It's a good idea to try and take some reasonable measures, but it's not going to make me go and live off-grid in a cabin in the woods.

 

[yakherder]

Just send random funny texts in the hopes that one of the guys or gals whose job it is to sit at a desk for 12 hours a day reading boring pointless potential intel will come across it and you can brighten up his or her day, if only for a couple seconds

 

[Calliegirl]

It looks like some of them are near me, but then again, I live near a few military bases.

These towers would make a great plot bunny for those who like to write political suspense or conspiracy stories.

 

[ledboots]

Just send random funny texts in the hopes that one of the guys or gals whose job it is to sit at a desk for 12 hours a day reading boring pointless potential intel will come across it and you can brighten up his or her day, if only for a couple seconds

Hi nsa,
This Bud's for you!