‘Fake’ cellphone towers found in U.S.

[Cathal Garvey]

> If you've never considered the threat of baseband attacks to be
> real, but considered them more of a speculative possibility,
> speculate no more:

..based on the word of a company that markets "firewalled baseband
phones" and cites personal research in undisclosed locations instead of
releasing actual data.

Don't get me wrong, basebands are probably swiss cheese and they are
often (or usually?) masters to the mobile OS. On my model of phone IIRC
they even directly share some RAM, so they can read/write willy-nilly
the Android RAM. So the idea of baseband attacks overwhelming the OS is
perfectly sound and something to bear in mind.

All that said, this is a glorified marketing campaign for the company in
question, with surprising complicity from people like Cory Doctorow (who
even uncritically describes their "patent pending" technology, somewhat
out of character for a usually pretty freedom-minded person). The
correct response, in my opinion, is "Show us the proof and the fake
tower locations or STFU".

On 02/09/14 07:09, Alfie John wrote:
> If you've never considered the threat of baseband attacks to be
> real, but considered them more of a speculative possibility,
> speculate no more:
> 
>   http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/08/28/android-security-2/
> 
>   "The fake ‘towers’ – computers which wirelessly attack cellphones via
>   the “baseband” chips built to allow them to communicate with their
>   networks, can eavesdrop and even install spyware, ESD claims. They are
>   a known technology - but the surprise is that they are in active use.
> 
>   "Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had
>   anticipated,” Goldsmith says.  “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."
> 
>   "What we find suspicious is that a lot of these interceptors are
>   right on top of U.S. military bases."
> 
> Alfie
> 

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