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At Least 17 Fake Cellphone Towers Capable Of Invasive Spying Have Been Discovered Across America
Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
When Lee Goldsmith drives by one of the many fake cellphone towers being discovered throughout the U.S., his $3,500 CryptoPhone 500 will immediately display the warning message in the image below.
When you drive by the same fake towers, known as “interceptors,” your run of the mill iPhone or Samsung Galaxy won’t alert you to any potential security breach. And that’s exactly how those people who installed these interceptors, whoever they are, like it.
I’ve seen headlines about these fake cell towers over the past several days, but didn’t investigate the matter until today. It appears Popular Science broke the story in late August with the piece: Mysterious Phony Cell Towers Could Be Intercepting Your Calls. The article focuses on the revelations of Lee Goldsmith, CEO of ESD America, which makes ultra-expensive and ultra-secure cellphones (another player in this market is Silent Circle with its Blackphone) . What Lee Goldsmith and other users of the CryptoPhone 500 have discovered while driving across part of America will shock and disturb you.
We learn from Computer World that:
Through notifications such as that, CryptoPhone users found and mapped 17 fake “cell towers” in the U.S. during the month of July. While most phones can’t find those interceptors, a $3,500 CryptoPhone 500 can. The phone has a Samsung Galaxy SIII body, but unlike the Android OS that comes standard on the Galaxy SIII and “leaks data to parts unknown 80-90 times every hour,” ESD America hardened the Android OS by removing 468 vulnerabilities.
“Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated,” said Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America. He told Popular Science, “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.” He added, “What we find suspicious is that a lot of these interceptors are right on top of U.S. military bases. Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that’s listening to calls around military bases? The point is: we don’t really know whose they are.
Privacy groups have been fighting unconstitutional stingray surveillance for several years, yet there’s still a great deal citizens don’t know about the portable devices known as IMSI catchers, also known by the generic term “stingray.” It acts like a fake cell tower and tricks your mobile device into connecting to it even if you are not on a call. It is used for real time location tracking; some can pinpoint you within two meters as well as eavesdrop and capture the contents of your communications.
They can do even more than that, including pushing spyware to devices and sending spoof texts.
Goldsmith conducts testing on his company’s “baseband firewall” while driving by an unnamed government facility in the Nevada desert that runs an interceptor. “As we drove by, the iPhone showed no difference whatsoever. The Samsung Galaxy S4, the call went from 4G to 3G and back to 4G. The CryptoPhone lit up like a Christmas tree.”
You might know your phone is being intercepted if it shows 2G, instead of 3G or 4G, but some interceptors claim to be “undetectable.” The VME Dominator, for example, is marketed only to government agencies. It promises that it allows “you to intercept, block, follow, track, record and listen to communications using unique triangulation and other advanced technology,” but “cannot be detected. It allows interception of voice and text. It also allows voice manipulation, up or down channel blocking, text intercept and modification, calling and sending text on behalf of the user, and directional finding of a user during random monitoring of calls.”
Now here’s the incredible part. Although the phase out of 2G is several years away, those who wish to spy are so concerned about it, they are already making plans to ensure that surveillance isn’t impacted.
Although it will be a long time before cell phones no longer support 2G, Johnny Law is working on upgrading Harris Corporation “Stingray” systems, with “Hailstorm,” to support 4G LTE interception. The News Tribune in Tacoma reported on a March 2014 purchase order from the DEA, which stated, “The Hailstorm upgrade is necessary for the Stingray system to track 4G LTE phones.”
According to Ars Technica, the Oakland Police Department, Fremont Police Department, and the Alameda County District Attorney joined forces by applying for a DHS grant to pay for the Hailstorm upgrade. “The entire upgrade will cost $460,000—including $205,000 in total Homeland Security grant money, and $50,000 from the Oakland Police Department (OPD).” In theory, more documents are being gathered and will be released this month by the Alameda County DA’s office.
No surprise that one of the most insidious agencies ever created is set to fund the upgrade to spying technologies for law enforcement. I covered this threat in my recent post: Department of Homeland Security – A 240,000 Person Cancer on the American Soul.
Now more from Computer World...
While the FCC seems to have known about cellular network vulnerabilities that stingrays exploit, last month it established a “task force” to investigate the “illicit and unauthorized use” use of stingrays. Instead of investigating law enforcement’s use of such interceptors, the FCC “plans to study the extent to which criminal gangs and foreign intelligence services are using the devices against Americans.” The FCC also refused the ACLU’s FOIA request for stingray documents.
Meanwhile, the FCC is the agency about to destroy the internet on behalf of telecom companies. Do you really have any doubt as to who these agencies really work for?
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‘Telepathy’ experiment sends world’s first brain-to-brain message
For the first time in history, scientists have been able to send a simple mental message from one person to another without any contact between the two, over a huge distance between India and France.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/technology/a/24904810/telepathy-experiment-sen...
Eventually, humanity is going to have to make the (very) difficult choice of whether or not to largely abandon most "modern" technology and retain our humanity, or continue marching towards the Technostrophy that is Transhumaism. If the people driving this technocratic, cybernetic system weren't deeply (pseudo) religious psychopaths who wanted to gain immortality, perhaps humans would have a proverbial "Third Way." But we were too busy sleepwalking into this Age of Transitions to notice. All our modern tech is Fascist tech now. Will we rip off the Band-Aid? Probably not.
...in which case, see you all at the Singularity. Welcome to Hell on Earth 2045.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTl9hxxJai4
Those will be designated dangerous Luddites, to be treated as terrorists, and Waco-ized.
Resistance is futile, in the earthly sense of the term.
...or "Terrans," as futurists like Michio Kaku call people who oppose transhumanism.
"Terrists" sounds an awful lot like another word the establishment likes to bandy about. Coincidence? Heh.
"or continue marching towards the Technostrophy that is Transhumaism"
Technology will run out. I state this with regard to the depleting resources necessary to continue it, that and the ability to perpetute the volume of demand necessary to prop it up.
One side is expecting to leave this planet by way of a being from the sky. The other side is expecting to blast off the planet in a space ship. I wish that both groups would leave now so that I can live in peace...
Beautiful and true last words, but I have significant doubts about your thesis; whether or not our "resource crises" of today are real or simply imagined Neo-Malthusian drivel is a question I ask myself constantly. Assuming, however, that your thesis is correct, the transhumanists have a plan even for that in molecular nanotech. Will they get there "in time"? I dunno that, either. But these fuckers have a habit of only telling humanity about their plans once they're a sure thing.
http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/doug-casey-technology
There's an article by a "Libertarian Transhumanist." Scary stuff. He's been syndicated on ZH before, I believe. I expound on this a bit more below, but the alt media, specifically its younger audience, is being prepped to accept transhumanism not only as an inevitability, but as a wonderful alternative to the "real world," with all its problems. All of us commenters here already do this to a certain extent, turning a temporary blind eye to our real lives to project what little of ourselves we can onto this digital carnival mirror.
To tell you the truth, I hate thinking about this stuff. Hate talking about it. But, seeing as so few are, it's almost a responsibility at this point. I hope you're right, Seer.
"...across America"?
There is no America any more, only the United State_, a bankrupt, criminal, surveillance police state run by the elephant/jackass sock puppets of the central banking cartel.
The Joos tax you to spy on you and then charge you $3500 to not do it.
They got both sides of the racket.
Like the glass guy who pays young thugs to break your windows and drum up business in the slow times.
.....easy solution, get "johnnyrayclempicgfukkerIphuckedmysister" and his hotrodded cheby pick up to hook a tow strap on it to protect 'Murica......and yank it down.
Whom ever complains, owns it.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
JRev:Eventually, humanity is going to have to make the (very) difficult choice of whether or not to largely abandon most "modern" technology and retain our humanity....
naaaaaa. Use their own tech against them. Much more fun.....give 'em the rope....etc....
Wish I was more of a techie...
As somewhat of a "techie," I can tell you that's a virtual (no pun intended) impossibility. The infrastructure of the Internet and modern communication itself has been constructed with the deliberate aim of surveillance; you can attempt to obfuscate your digital existence as much as you want, but the only thing separating your privacy from the technocratic tyrants is an algorithm "smart" enough to decrypt your encryption. "Their" toys will always be better than ours. The hacker community is so predisposed to discuss "back doors" in corporate software, but there are just as many "convenient design flaws" in hardware. You know any independent hardware (specifically GPU/CPU) manufacturers? Me neither. Even barring these realities, within the next 10 years or so, ALL computing will be "Cloud" computing, and by then it will truly be too late.
Not to mention that memes of the "cyberpunk" and "cypherpunk" have very much been given to us. They expect, nay, welcome the coming conflict. Breed the sense that only through technology can you fight technology, only to increase adoption of biomimetics and bioinformatics. Classic Hegelian Dialectic at work.
...or did you think James Cameron and his CIA dad made Terminator as a warning? You're being prepped.
http://www.whale.to/b/cameron5.html
Sorry to sound so dire, but our situation is indeed a dire one. While we all prattle on about war, poverty, fiat currency, and oligarchies, we've taken our eye off the proverbial "End Game," which is closer than ever. Look at the Joe Rogans, Abby Martins, Adam Kokeshes, and Amber Lyons running around the alt media selling the same old psychedelic-driven MKULTRA agenda of the 60s, which is directly related to transhumanism. Just ask Ted Kaczynski. Cognitive dissonance on a massive scale. None of this ends well.
ESD wouldn't have any incentive to place these fake sites around the country. No, none at all.
No cellphone, no problem.
I'm just going to leave this here:
http://www.antennasearch.com
The spooks are more than welcome to listen to my cell phone calls. More than likely they'll hear about my grandchildren and my latest woodworking project.
Why don't you dickheads worry about something important? This is nothing compared to the microscopic rectal implant machines hidden within the base structure of thousands of public toilets. If you've ever sat on a public toilet you should be concerned that maybe you are already harboring the technological seed that will destroy you when the time is right.
This has some other aspects that are odd. This gives them plausable denighability. To do active things as apposed to passive things. Criminal super bad stuff like flash mobs of the misinformed. Or worse.
Bullshit and panic.
Who sent out this message?
A person, which will profit on selling his $3.500 crap.
The best way is to reduce the calls to abs. minimum and talk just the time-place aNd no subjects.
TECHNICAL STUFF:
I talk about GSM and do not CDMA.
But as CDMA uses basically A5/1 as well, it could be applicable (Technologically, I understand GSM only..)
The A5/1 and A5/3 have been flawed by design. Do not ask me, why and who...here just one notation:
In December 2009, the A5/1 Cracking Project attack tables for A5/1 were announced by Chris Paget and Karsten Nohl. The tables use a combination of compression techniques, including rainbow tables and distinguished point chains. These tables constituted only parts of the 2TB completed table, and had been computed during three months using 40 distributed CUDA nodes, and then published over BitTorrent. More recently the project has announced a switch to faster ATI Evergreen code, together with a change in the format of the tables and Frank A. Stevenson announced breaks of A5/1 using the ATI generated tables.
Documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 states that NSA "can process encrypted A5/1".
so they can encrytp also encrypted communication on the fly, they do not need to make those jokes.
And why is the communication unencrypted there at those 17 places? Well, this is my guess, because I do not have access to those base stations, but if they have
-the old firmware
-the old HW
-the old SW
-synch troubles
then the encryption is switched off automatically, just to keep the network alive. Th's my explanation. The guy had a motive to sell more of his expensive crap, so he postulates a nonsense.
One of my biggest concerns about the NSA spying on Americans centered on how much was being spent, because if we are spending a lot of money on this consider it a big red flag. It recently came out thanks to information leaked by Edward Snowden that the "black budget" last year was a massive 52 billion dollars.
This is the money used in "secret" spy operations, and it is enough to send shivers down the back of those that have read about the totalitarian society of Oceania described in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Orwell's novel, all citizens of Oceania are monitored by cameras and are fed fabricated news stories by the government. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/09/are-we-creating-orwellian-society...