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Cell tower

Nearly four years agone, the Electronic Privacy Data Center released FBI documents discussing a controversial surveillance technique. Both federal and local authorities often accept access to cell phone surveillance hardware, dubbed Stingrays (Harris Corp. refers to them as StingRays), that tin exist used to intercept and spy on communications from smartphones and other devices equipped with 3G or LTE modems.

Over the last four years, courtroom cases and document leaks take slowly pried back the cloak of secrecy that the FBI and the Harris Corporation, which manufactures many of the devices in question, have fought to go on in place. We now know that these devices are often used in cases that have nix to do with terrorism or national security, and that they have been collectively deployed thousands of times across the country without a warrant. We know that in one case, the FBI asked local police to prevarication rather than acknowledge to using Stingrays. At present, thanks to a enshroud of documents released by The Intercept, we have some other vital piece of the puzzle: The operating manuals for several pieces of Stingray equipment.

StingRay1

The Stingray.

These documents describe the role of a number of Harris products. While we tend to refer to these devices as "Stingrays," Harris has its ain codenames for specific products: KingFish, RayFish, Gemini, Arrowhead, so on. Many of these components are modular and designed to work together. What we refer to as a "Stingray" is, I think, better understood as a applied science platform rather than a single device. This is an important distinction, and it explains why different Stingray stories and investigations accept ascribed a variety of capabilities to the devices. A Stingray isn't just one thing — its abilities vary depending on how you configure it and what you lot use it for.

CDMA-Registration

The various manuals describe how a Stingray can be configured to sweep an area for individuals (it euphemistically refers to them as "subscribers,") and and so runway those signals over fourth dimension. Stingrays tin be outfitted with directional antennas to locate specific persons, and tin can besides interface with mapping software to plot the location of a specific device.

Registration

These products tin be configured in several modes. In Zone Registration, Gemini (i component of the Stingray platform) will annals all mobiles with the transceiver. Equally the guide states, this may result in missing subscribers if in that location are more people nearby than the device can handle. Alternately, the device can page the MSID (Mobile Station ID). This is a number associated with both a specific phone and the telephone'due south service provider. This isn't the same thing as a phone number, but each device has a unique MSID. Every bit the section above notes, this is the desired method for tracking a detail device in a heavily populated area.

Stingrays aren't limited to any particular network. I of the documents leaked is an all-encompassing overview of a production designed to spy on iDEN networks. iDEN is essentially defunct in the Us — the once-ubiquitous Nextel handsets (which chirped when yous pushed the button to talk) ran on iDEN, and there are a handful of products that still rely on information technology, but now the US mainly relies on CDMA, GSM, and LTE, all of which are mentioned above.

One of the problems with monitoring LTE, notwithstanding, is that information technology's much more secure than older network standards like 2G. That's not a problem for an accordingly tricked-out Stingray — it's piece of cake to tell a connected device to drop to a 2G signal.

Redirect-Mapping

Nosotros've combined 2 images from one of the manuals to illustrate how the redirect works. In the left-mitt image, the Stingray operator configures the redirect for a detail "subscriber." One time this is done, the device tin can be forced into 2G mode. The end-user may meet a notification on their screen that they've been forced to a lower operating fashion, but they won't know why.

Using Gemini, law enforcement can configure the device to lookout for specific subscribers, authenticate them automatically once they are in range, and notify the surveillance crew that a target has connected.

The modernistic surveillance country

Over the past decade, many individuals (and some corporations) have fought dorsum against the relentless extension of the surveillance country. In about cases, they've lost. The handful of court cases that pushed dorsum against mass surveillance have been largely overturned, and companies like Harris continue to insist that their equipment is being used to fight terrorism and only in accordance with local constabulary.

Reality has told a very dissimilar story. Multiple police departments in multiple districts accept been forced to acknowledge that they've lied to judges nigh where information came from, misrepresented the nature of the Stingray when applying for warrants, or flatly ignored the legal requirement to get a warrant in the showtime place. The fact that the FBI collaborated with the Harris Corporation and advised prosecutors to drib cases rather than admit to using Stingrays is extremely troubling in its own right, as are the not-disclosure agreements the police have signed. In one example, the FBI seized documents that a judge had ordered released, claiming they belonged to the US Marshals service.

Much of this has been justified past arguing that the mere human action of owning a mobile phone is permission to publicly search that device's data. But this statement seems in disharmonize with how Stingrays practically work. While the particulars vary, nosotros know that Stingrays are capable of intercepting voice and call data, as well every bit intercepting all of the phone numbers that an individual calls or receives a phone call from. A person who purchases a cell phone may be aware that their data will exist transmitted to AT&T — but does a person who buys a cell phone automatically consent to accept their point hijacked past a third political party? Does the act of buying a cell phone mean consenting to be forced to an older, slower wireless standard for the limited purpose of existence spied upon?

Stingrays accept been justified as anti-terror tools, only there'due south not i single case of a Stingray being used to terminate a terror attack. That hasn't stopped police departments across the country from deploying them in thousands of cases. The Harris Corporation and the FBI have gone to extreme lengths to hide the apply of this applied science precisely because it raises constitutional questions they'd rather not see contested. A few states have already introduced laws requiring police force to get a warrant earlier using Stingrays or similar devices — hopefully these latest leaks will spur other states to take similar actions.

We strongly recommend reading the Intercept article higher up and checking out the ExtremeTech and other stories we've linked to for more information on this topic.