US Marshals Tracking Cell Phones With Fake ‘Tower’ Broadcasts From Small Airplanes

a reply to: rival

The only way we can get a cell phone ping (locating a person by signal) requires an exigent circumstance without a warrant.

Kidnapping, person in danger etc.

Even then we still fill out emergency paperwork that goes to the cell provider to cover their side. Absent that a warrant is required.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Well good, that's the way it should work, but for my own
privacy's sake I am going to assume that other LEAs might
not operate as completely under the law as yours--certainly
the NSA is operating outside of the law at the moment.

But there are so many other issues involved. I read somewhere
(and I don't have time to research the somewhere) that there
were over a million search warrants executed for cell phone data
last year. If that's true, it appears that courts are handing out
lawful searches like halloween candy, and they are viewing
cell phone data as very important evidence to be used in court.

The other, lesser known issue perhaps is private surveillance.
That is the ability of any private person to use a surveilance
program, available for less than a hundred dollars on the internet,
on your smart phone, to remotely access ALL DATA on your phone.
The execution is as simple as asking to borrow your phone, appearing
to make a phone call, and handing the phone back to you.

Afterwards, the person who is spying on you can access all data
coming thru your phone, including texts, passwords, pictures, videos
coversations--everything, by simply visiting the web service they used
and typing in a password. Some of these services may even provide the
ability to remotly turn on the camera and microphone.

But now I'm really off the OP's topic.

Insofar as Federal Marshalls tracking cell phones from planes goes, I
think this is the kind of surveillance most of the US public would
agree with.

For me personally, I would like to see this technology used FIRST to
find missing persons, locate Amber alerts, execute arrest warrants, etc,
and not so much as a evedence gathering tool to be used in courts across
the US.

Call me a dreamer...

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: rival

The only way we can get a cell phone ping (locating a person by signal) requires an exigent circumstance without a warrant.

Kidnapping, person in danger etc.

Even then we still fill out emergency paperwork that goes to the cell provider to cover their side. Absent that a warrant is required.

That's great but local LEO's and the feds are playing by totally different sets of rules. The feds are scooping up everyones data and saying it's legal because they aren't targeting anyone specifically and aren't even reading the information until they get a warrant, therefore there's no constitutional breach.

Local LEO's are playing on a much smaller scale and are for the most part only after specific people that are suspects of crimes, at which point a warrant has been obtained. When they're doing the blanket data collection it's wrong too but for the most part this is an issue with the NSA, FBI, and so on not local police departments.

Anyone can log your activity easily on the internet. Its called a man in the middle attack. Got an area where there is bad service? Get a femtocell and insert a pc with two networking cards in bridge mode.

Cells connect to the femtocell and use it as a pseudo cell tower. You now have access to all unencrypted and encrypted data over the wire. Decrypting the data is a another matter.

Here is a video from defcon 21 that explains it a little better.


From this video we can see that it is possible with a compromised femotcell. Now if this tech is available to end users then just imagine what is possible with or without a warrant.

I recommend anyone who is curious about tech and security to watch all the def-con clips you can find. They are a wealth of knowledge from hardware and software hackers in the field.