Dontcha' Dare Use Yer' Phones in DC.

[BIAD]

Another great find by Mystic Wanderer.

News crew discovers 40 cellphone-tracking devices operating around DC.



'An NBC investigative journalism team and a security researcher went wardriving around the DC area
with a cell-site-simulator detector that would tell them whenever they came in range of a fake cellphone
tower that tried to trick their phones into connecting to it in order to covertly track their locations.
(some cell site simulators can also hack phones to spy on SMS, calls and data).

They found more than 40 such devices in a single ride; these were sited in such sensitive locations as
K-Street, home to DC's massive lobbyist contingent; the Trump Tower hotel; around the city's many
embassies; around the Pentagon, Fort Meade and Langley; and in many residential areas.

They estimate -without disclosing their rationale -hat half of the devices they detected were part of
law-enforcement operations, while the other half are presumably operating on behalf of criminals or
foreign spies (in April, the DHS finally admitted that they were concerned about many known
"rogue cell site simulators" in DC).

Cell site simulators have been shrouded in mystery.
When they were first deployed, their manufacturers and federal cops made local law enforcement sign
nondisclosure agreements requiring them to lie to judges about the evidence they were introducing in
prosecutions -they enforced these by raiding local police departments to steal their case-files in order
to prevent the existence of the simulators from being publicly acknowledged.

The FBI stymied attempts to learn about the simulators while local law enforcement went crazy buying
them with asset-forfeiture money. The existence of the simulators was only confirmed thanks to an obsessive
jailhouse lawyer.

The problem of criminals and spies using the simulators against Americans was created by law enforcement.
Cops in DC made extensive use of them, and the kinds of cases they were deployed in went from major crimes
to petty ones.

As the use of the simulators became harder to deny, cops started making weak promises to moderate their use
of them, while prosecutors continued to insist that they were legitimate (Maryland's AG said that you could opt out
of mobile surveillance by never turning on your phone!), even as judges started throwing out evidence gathered
by them.

Inevitably, keeping the existence of this vulnerability in mobile infrastructure secret led to widespread exploitation.
Cell site simulators are very easy to use, very hard to defeat, and so they proliferated and morphed and then were
turned into products sold specifically to criminals.

The same cops who suppressed disclosure of the vulnerabilities and argued to keep them unpatched so they could
be exploited for law enforcement purposes then grew alarmed that they were being used by crooks against cops,
politicians and businesses.

The I-Team's test phones detected 40 potential locations where the spy devices could be operating, while driving
around for just a few hours.

"I suppose if you spent more time you'd find even more," said Cheh.
"I have bad news for the public: Our privacy isn't what it once was."

Especially in her ward, where many of the streets are lined with embassies.
"They're doing the interrogation, or [checking] who we are, and then the white
bar represents when they release us," Turner said as he demonstrated his technology.

The I-Team got picked up twice off of International Drive, right near the Chinese and
Israeli embassies, then got another two hits along Massachusetts Avenue near Romania
and Turkey.

All of those countries have the phone catcher technology, Turner said...'

SOURCE:

All the sources to the accusations and Police agreements are at the linked-site.

(Text from an attached Tweet)

[Mystic Wanderer]

I'd say we have those tracking things all over the world by now, it's just that there's more in D.C.  

Before long they'll have hidden mics in our light bulbs to track everything we do. 

Or, maybe they already do!     Yes, I think it's called a cellphone!