Law enforcement reportedly use planes equipped with fake cell towers to track suspects

[Shawn Knight]

For the last seven years, the U.S. Marshals Service has been using electronic devices installed in airplanes to track individuals.

Known as “dirtboxes” by law enforcement, the two-foot-square devices are said to mimic cellphone towers and trick handsets into sending over their unique registration information according to people familiar with the matter as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Sources claim dirtbox-equipped Cessna aircraft operate out of at least five metropolitan-area airports on a regular basis and have a range that can cover most of the US population. A single flight is capable of collecting data on thousands of cellphones. The data can be used to pinpoint a phone’s location to within 10 feet, even down to a specific room in a building.

Law enforcement use the technology specifically to locate phones belonging to individuals under investigation such as drug dealers and those suspected of murder. As you might expect from such a dragnet program, much of what is collected belongs to people that aren’t suspects. Once the device determines which phones belong to targets, they “let go” of non-suspect phones, sources said.

Revised versions of the technology are even more impressive as they can pull off other feats like jamming a signal or even scrape text messages and photos from a device. It’s unclear if these capabilities have been used over US soil, however. Abroad, the technique is used by military and intelligence officials to help locate suspected terrorists.

Sources say what is done over US soil is completely legal although whether or not it should be done is a separate question. 

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/58825-law-enforcement-reportedly-use-planes-equipped-fake-cell.html

 

[cliffordcooley]

That explains why we can't get additional towers put up! If our signal strength was stronger, these planes would have less chance of taking over communications. Now here is a concept, I had never considered before.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Sources say what is done over US soil is completely legal although whether or not it should be done is a separate question.

Oh wow, an inflammatory statement in an article by Shawn... what a surprise. Not falling for your trolling this time, Shawn. (At least not until page 2 of the comments anyway)

 

[Guest]

It probably is legal considering we now have to pass a law to find out what's in it.

But they are collecting data on Everyone in the area. Time will tell but eventually this will get abused.

 

[Guest]

If this is fully legal why dont they use the providers cell towers info to locate people, that way they can cover the entire continent instead of relying on planes. Would be much more effective to ask AT&T to locate one person and then tell them where they are.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

As long as they actually discard the innocents info then this is great. The bad guys don't play by the rules, why should the feds?

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

That explains why we can't get additional towers put up! If our signal strength was stronger, these planes would have less chance of taking over communications. Now here is a concept, I had never considered before.

Maybe you should encourage a lot more criminal activity in your area then you can have a cavalcade of Cessnas buzzing overhead 24/7 thereby eliminating the need for cell towers altogether but still have a strong, reliable signal when you need it.

 

[seefizzle]

Every time I forget about all of the crazy ways our government has to spy on us I read another article that proves that the government has even farther reaching methods than I thought. I first thought, this can't be that bad. They can't possibly have that many planes up in the air collecting data this way... nope, they can cover most of the us population.

They're coming to take you away ha ha!

 

[Camikazi]

That explains why we can't get additional towers put up! If our signal strength was stronger, these planes would have less chance of taking over communications. Now here is a concept, I had never considered before.

Maybe you should encourage a lot more criminal activity in your area then you can have a cavalcade of Cessnas buzzing overhead 24/7 thereby eliminating the need for cell towers altogether but still have a strong, reliable signal when you need it.

That is not a bad idea