News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Stingray, the fake cell phone tower. Parent comment

Re:Stingray, the fake cell phone tower by thefreeman on Sunday July 27, 2014 @10:07PM (#8094757)
I am not sure about the authentication protocol. But along the same lines of thinking, it really seems like this should be detectable with software. For example, what if you used crowd sourced cell tower information to notify users / block transmissions from any cell phone tower newly detected for 24 hours or so. It seems like a temporary tower setup for a few hours should be easily noticeable compared against static, permanent ones.

Also, judging by how ridiculously hard the company who makes them is trying to keep them hidden (NDA's, etc.), it seems like they may realize that if the details of the product were known it could be easily circumvented.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stingray, the fake cell phone tower by chmars on Monday July 28, 2014 @06:44AM (#8096010)
IMSI catchers ('Stingrays') are indeed detectable, an example is the 'Android IMSI-Catcher Detector (AIMSICD)' project:

http://secupwn.github.io/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stingray, the fake cell phone tower by tmosleyIII on Monday July 28, 2014 @07:16AM (#8096080)
It would be interesting to test this out
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stingray, the fake cell phone tower by SeanDav on Monday July 28, 2014 @07:16AM (#8096076)
I tend to believe that the reason that the company uses NDA's is to give the Authorities plausible deniability. "We couldn't apply for a warrant Your Honor, because we would have been breaking our NDA". The cops probably love the NDA, it is probably a feature of the product!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stingray, the fake cell phone tower by mentat on Monday July 28, 2014 @03:21AM (#8095557)
Submitting data to wigle.net using their Android app is one way to start building enough cell tower information to make this very visible.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stingray, the fake cell phone tower by hnha on Monday July 28, 2014 @05:42PM (#8099506)
wasn't wigle very unfree? I'd love to contribute to an open cell collection project where I can download everything.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stingray, the fake cell phone tower by thefreeman on Monday July 28, 2014 @07:29PM (#8099902)
I think this might be similar to what we are looking for? http://opencellid.org/
[ Parent | on HN ]