Mysterious Fake Cellphone Towers

[Valerie]

Mysterious Fake Cellphone Towers Are Intercepting Calls All Over The US

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.

With most phones, these fake communication towers are undetectable. But not for the CryptoPhone 500, a customized Android device that is disguised as a Samsung Galaxy S III but has highly advanced encryption.

Goldsmith told Popular Science: " Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated. One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found eight different interceptors on that trip. We even found one at South Point Casino in Las Vegas.”

The towers were found in July, but the report implied that there may have been more out there.

Although it is unclear who owns the towers, ESD found that several of them were located near U.S. military bases.

Mysterious Fake Cellphone Towers Are Intercepting Calls All Over The US - Yahoo Finance

yikes!

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Well if they're intercepting calls they sound real enough to me. Only the description's fake.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

If worried about the government listening to your phone calls, don't use the phone for security-related discussions. Duh. Mob's known that for decades. 'Smart' Americans only just now considering it? Not good guys.

I like to chat to the NSA while on hold, "So how you guys at NSA doing? Catching badguys? BIN LADEN BIN LADEN BINLADEN...That wake ya up? Well, gotta go now, have a wonderful day, keep up the good work."

Lik eto do my part to boost morale.

 

[Valerie]

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:

Not the NSA, cloud security firm SilverSky CTO/SVP Andrew Jaquith told us. “The NSA doesn’t need a fake tower,” he said. “They can just go to the carrier” to tap your line.

ComputerWorld points out that the fake towers give themselves away by crushing down the performance of your phone from 4G to 2G while the intercept is taking place. So if you see your phone operating on a slow download signal while you're near a military base ... maybe make that call from somewhere else.

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.

 

[Mad Scientist]

If worried about the government listening to your phone calls, don't use the phone for security-related discussions. Duh. Mob's known that for decades. 'Smart' Americans only just now considering it?

Why do you lock your doors a night or when you're away? Got something to hide?

You don't want the Gov't and Police conducting searches of your House and Personal Effects without a Warrant?

You MUST be an Anti-American Terrorist Criminal!

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

If worried about the government listening to your phone calls, don't use the phone for security-related discussions. Duh. Mob's known that for decades. 'Smart' Americans only just now considering it? Not good guys.

I like to chat to the NSA while on hold, "So how you guys at NSA doing? Catching badguys? BIN LADEN BIN LADEN BINLADEN...That wake ya up? Well, gotta go now, have a wonderful day, keep up the good work."

Lik eto do my part to boost morale.

It's comments like these from so called Americans that let me know this country is done for.
You're pathetic,you really are....

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

If they are by military bases, it is a foreign government spying.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

If they are by military bases, it is a foreign government spying.

Cracks me up when the feds try and deny any knowledge.
Yeeeeah thats the ticket....we dont know how those got there.

 

[Katzndogz]

You know how phones are 3g or 4g. The phony towers are only 2g. If you see on your phone that you have 2g coverage your phone is being intercepted.

 

[shart_attack]

Sounds like the work of Miley frick'n Cyrus to me.