fakecelltowers
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Flying fake cell towers target fugitives, but can ID your phone too
In the US, the Justice Department's Marshals Service office is putting fake cell towers on planes in an effort to catch criminals by tracking down their phones. The problem is, those fake towers don't discriminate and end up collecting data from tens of thousands of phones per flight, according to The Wall Street Journal. These two-foot-square fake towers nicknamed "dirtboxes" (because they were made by Boeing subsidiary Digital Recovery Technology Inc. or DRT, get it?) are reportedly placed aboard Cessna planes that fly out from at least five metro-area airports. They trick phones into thinking that they're the strongest towers in the area, so devices would automatically link up with them. When the phones are connected, they then collect their unique registration information, as well as their general locations -- and no encryption is strong enough to prevent them from doing so.
