Who is putting up fake cell towers across USA?

[Termite]

Mods, It may belong in "Tech Talk", but it is definitely political, so.............

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.....<snip>
....."Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that's listening to calls around military bases? Is it just the U.S. military, or are they foreign governments doing it? The point is: we don't really know whose they are," Goldsmith said to Popular Science.
It's probably not the NSA — that agency can tap all it wants without the need for bogus towers, VentureBeat reported.....

LINK
A companion story: LINKY

[Steamforger]

If I were forced to guess, I'd say they belong to the Ft. Meade folks or the JB Anacostia - Bollings folks.

[blackeagle603]

Google?

[Termite]

If I were forced to guess, I'd say they belong to the [strike]Ft. Meade folks[/strike]or the JB Anacostia - Bollings folks.

The NSA doesn't need fake cell towers, they can "piggyback" on the network towers.

Want to find out who owns them? Have your mayor/parish president/county superintendant shut them off, and wait for someone to show up. Then interrogate whoever shows up. Track back from there.

[JustinR]

Google?

Oh, but Google isn't evil, remember?

[Erik]

OK, maybe I'm a cynic, but if you go to the original article in Popular Science, you learn that the main source for this story is the CEO for a company that builds a cellphone with encryption that can detect and defeat these interceptors. And he talks about how they are all over the US, and they are impossible to detect or avoid unless, of course, you have one of his products. He is also the one claiming that his company have found many around military bases, using the phone they sell.

It reminds me of a story long ago when our national tv news show ran a story about how every computer monitor could be read with an antenna from outside the house. This was something that anyone that had any basic knowledge of computer security was very well aware of, but the people in the newsroom didn't and they made it into a big story of investigative reporting. The main source of that story was a company that sold technology to block those signals.

Even though interceptors are out there, I'm not going to trust his numbers of how many he claims to have found around military bases. Not without at least a second source confirming it.

[Aesop]

If I were forced to guess, I'd say they belong to the [strike]Ft. Meade folks[/strike]or the JB Anacostia - Bollings folks.

The NSA doesn't need fake cell towers, they can "piggyback" on the network towers.

Want to find out who owns them? Have your mayor/parish president/county superintendant shut them off, and wait for someone to show up. Then interrogate whoever shows up. Track back from there.

^^ that, except my suggestion would be to simply monkeywrench them, via a bottle of high-test and dish soap if necessary, or arrange for someone's Frieghtliner tow truck to "accidentally" drive through one, and then wait to see who shows up, and/or files damage claims, with a crew from 20/20 or 60 Minutes on hand to follow up. Hilarity ensues.

[Langenator]

They're probably referring to the Stingray.

ACLU tracker of who has them: https://www.aclu.org/maps/stingray-trac ... s-got-them

[Aesop]

Stingray fits in a small gym bag. It doesn't need a tower, just an antenna array, and a laptop. Just the thing for anybody's Mission:Impossible panel van.
Check it out.

[Old Grafton]

OK. I confess. I put those up to intercept all the best pron on the DoD Intranet. Don't break 'em, I'll share.