from Jerry@feddit.online to cybersecurity@sh.itjust.works on 02 Sep 00:26
https://feddit.online/post/1014830
I have a #Pixel 10 Pro XL phone, which may be the first phone to give warnings when the phone connects to a rogue cellphone tower or IMSI catcher. The OS cannot block it; it can only tell you that someone read information, and it presents an alert. It says,
“Your data may be at risk. Device ID accessed. At 6:57 PM a nearby network recorded your device’s unique ID (IMSI or IMEI) while using your T-Mobile SIM. This means that your location, activity, or identity has been logged.”
I didn’t ever get an alert before walking through the building, but this time, during a 30-minute walk through the building, I got about 8 alerts, ranging between 1 and 3 minutes apart.
Using this information from repeated connections, someone can follow my movements and location; they can identify it’s me because the IMSI number is unique to my phone, so it can be an indication that someone was collecting all the cellphone information in the area, most likely law enforcement.
It can also mean that I was connecting to a rogue cell phone tower, not just an IMSI catcher, and it was an attempted Stingray attack, likely also law enforcement. If successful, they can try to see and hear what I’m doing on my phone, as my phone won’t know that it’s a fake cellphone tower.
Be aware that a rogue tower will try to negotiate your phone’s connection down to a 2G connection, which is unencrypted, providing them with access to everything that you are doing and saying. Please go into your phone’s settings and disable 2G!!
It’s been believed for some time that this technology has been used by law enforcement secretly and consistently. This is creepy and unnerving.
Turning off the phone, by the way, doesn’t stop an IMSI catcher. Your phone still responds. You need to keep the phone in a Faraday bag if you’re really concerned.
It’s a good thing that phones are now starting to inform people that they are being watched and that people will begin to see how much of an issue this is. You can assume that your local law enforcement knows where you are all the time.
#cybersecurity #lawenforcement #pixel #privacy #surveillance
threaded - newest
Oh shit… Could this be why my phone seemingly randomly switches to 2G/LTE? It always seems to happen in the same places, and never for more than a minute or two.
No way to tell but the best practice is to keep your phone LTE or 5g only.
I had a discussion recently on here about it.
My understanding is LTE is best since it can't be used to exact positioning and saves battery.
However apparently it has its own security vulnerability that 5g fixed. However 5g can literally expose your special position.
Either way never prrmits 2g/3g that's just fish bowling.
I don’t seem to be able to even disable it on this phone.
It is a bit tricky. Use an llm, it should be able to provide device specific instructions.
No, it can make up bullshit that it’ll tell you are device specific instructions. Fun fact: LLMs have NO ABILITY to determine what they’re telling you is correct. Period. Regardless of what shit execs say.
Results may vary. I have been able to get good instructions out of them for various things.
It does require some common sense though.
So does a traditional internet search, and bonus! It’s not burning megawatts of power to facilitate your lack of effort with filtering out a small handfull of irrelevant results…
Yes LLM’s don’t ‘know’ anything.
But LLM’s can be fine-tuned on any training material, which can greatly improve their accuracy, and self-training methods are being developed. It isn’t knowing, in the human sense, but at some point soon, if not now, it may be programmatically able to detect an inaccurate result and correct.
Edit - attempting to downvote reality away is truly pathetic.
Maybe an LLM by the specific vendor.
Not a general model
github.com/undergroundwires/privacy.sexy/…/359
The setting toggle seems to be available since Android 12, but not all vendors seem to have implemented it. There are instructions in the linked GitHub issue that seem sane.
Is this a new feature?
Is it coming to android 16?
It's in Android 16 for the first time, which is what the Pixel 10 ships with, but older phones don't have the hardware: https://www.androidcentral.com/apps-software/android-os/android-16-can-tip-you-off-if-someone-is-snooping-on-you-using-stingray-devices
Damn is this also a new feature?
I didn't realize stock won't permit this. Wtf
Who the fuck still uses 2G? I thought even 3G had been turned off for quite a while by now…
Spooks force you to down grade into 2g/3g so they can capture your traffic data
Define “spooks”, as fucking obviously I’m not going to understand a term related to a field I’m unknowledgable about. Or is this more about feeling superior and completely and utterly irrelevant to the real world, where real people and devices exist?
Spook is a pretty common term for ‘spy’.
I don’t think the other poster was attempting to make you feel inferior.
and where is 2G/3G in all of this? Apparently many providers have turned off even 3G in 2025.
The 2G/3G is in the spook’s fake cell tower. They’re not taking the data from a provider, they’re acting as if they’re the provider and doing a downgrade attack.
Thanks for actually explaining.
IOT, your utility company, sensors that report information ....
But where are the networks coming from? Are they not actually turned off, but just disabled for cellphones?
What app is providing this service for you?
It's a new feature in Android 16, but older phones don't have the hardware to support it.
Very interesting, do you happen to know what the hardware it requires is?
My understanding is that the phone requires a modem that supports version 3.0 of Android's IRadio hardware abstraction layer (HAL). Older phone's modems do not support version 3.0.
If you switch off 2G, bear in mind that it might be your only option to send emergency calls when otherwise out of signal. Remembering how to switch it back on (or even that you’d switched it off) might not be feasible when you need it!
edit: phone typos
According to the documentation, turning off 2G will not block emergency calls. But, yeah, having said this, definitely, it's best to remember how to switch it back on, just in case.
Can confirm. The Setting on my Pixel 7 says “Emergency calling is always allowed”
I’m illiterate to these things sort of… So don’t harangue me for this but doesn’t that imply that the connection is always on wether you disabled it or not? Would not outgoing imply incoming as well?
Just curious, again, I have no idea.
As I understand your phone will ignore 2G requests unless it’s an emergency call. Now, you mentioned these suspicious towers will try to downgrade to 2G, which should also be ignored.
US carriers have supposedly decommissioned 2G completely as of February of this year according to Google:
2G is shutdown for consumers, it still exists for commercial systems that use it for data reporting (thing gas lines, remote monitoring systems, etc).
Now I don’t know what that means for our phones, or which towers still have it. I suspect any consumer phone will simply never be able to connect via 2G,but the tower would still see the phone on 2G.
A few years ago someone I knew at T-Mobile said they could no longer get replacement parts for 2G equipment. If it’s still up and running I wonder how it’s being maintained? Or maybe he was misinformed.
That’s hilarious. No major facilities-based mobile network provider in the US has used physical 2G hardware for many years.
Everything was converted to software-defined remote radio heads long ago. The RRHs get mounted up in the air directly behind the antenna element arrays. The same RRHs that power LTE RANs can do GSM just fine.
GSM is computationally and spectrally an afterthought. They literally shove it into the guard bands at the far edges of the PCS LTE carrier.
Found and updated the avoid 2g setting on my Pixel 6. I am running android 16.
Where was it? Haven’t find it on mine
Network and internet>internet>settings button next to carrier>scroll to bottom
Thanks!
I think this change needs hardware-specific code changes, so not every device upgraded to Android 15 or newer will have that
I am aware, but the person I’m replying to mentioned a specific device, which I also have.
For me it was in my SIM card settings: Network & Internet > SIMs > <your SIM>.
Bottom option was a toggle for “2G network protection”.
That's fucking creepy, and I've got a feeling that we're going to see a lot more of this going forward, too.
Are there any known ways to detect or interfere with Stingray devices? I know that in the US, police often use these devices illegally, without the necessary warrants, so sabotaging these devices is a just and moral decision.
well idk about morality if the police is trying to capture some pedo or drug distributor
What if it was to track an immigrant? Or a pregnant woman seeking an abortion? Or a peaceful protestor? Because those are real examples of this technology being used, as well. Where to you draw the line at when it is or isn't okay to become collateral damage in somebody else's petty power play?
These Stingrays steal data from maybe 1 criminal per usage of the device, and hundreds of nearby innocent people. They are indiscriminate. And no, they don't just delete your data just because you're not relevant to their search; everything they gather on you will be kept, tagged, and stored indefinitely in multiple government agencies' databases.
brother you sure you country is democratic? ik corruption is a global problem but this is weird 😕
The first A in ACAB is “all”, not “American”.
In the U.S. it's illegal to do anything that would interfere with these devices because it also cuts off emergency services. Sort of like using a hospital to store weapons during a war?
It could also be something less alarming, like cellular repeaters inside the building. Many buildings use these to boost indoor coverage when concrete and steel block signals from outside towers, and that might explain why your phone flagged multiple connections so quickly. I’m not ruling out the possibility of a rogue tower or IMSI catcher, but it’s worth considering that the alerts could simply be repeaters being picked up by this new warning feature. Either way, it’s good that your phone is making you aware — at least now you know when unusual connections happen.
A cell phone repeater is a passive device. It just extends the range of an existing signal. They don't act as cell towers. They don't read information from the phone.
That’s true for some types of signal boosters, especially the simple passive ones. But many building systems aren’t just passive repeaters — they use distributed antenna systems (DAS) or active repeaters that re-broadcast the signal from outside towers. From the phone’s perspective, those can sometimes look like a new connection point, even though they’re not rogue towers reading data.
So while your point is absolutely right that a normal repeater doesn’t act as a tower or capture phone info, the way modern indoor coverage solutions are implemented can still trigger the same kinds of warnings. That’s why it can be hard to tell apart a harmless booster from something more suspicious.
More information about DAS systems and cellular repeaters, and how they differ, if you’re interested:
🔗 en.m.wikipedia.org/…/Distributed_antenna_system
🔗 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_repeater
(edit, added Wikipedia links)
Really creepy.
2G has been phased out on current US networks but is still in place on our phones. I wonder what steps they’ll take to access our data when 2G is phased out on the phones themselves.
I think T-Mobile still has 2G service in some parts of the U.S. https://www.androidpolice.com/t-mobile-2g-network-is-still-active/
Turning off the phone doesn’t stop it? How does it reply?
I’m assuming pulling my (Fairphone) battery out would kill it dead?
Creeeeeeepy
It does not reply. It doesn’t work when off or in airplane mode.
Edward Snowden claims the NSA knows how to do it.
https://www.cis.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/EAS499Honors-IMSICatchersandMobileSecurity-V18F.pdf
Even better, that means we can locate them.
they only know your phone is there, not that it’s you. they also need to triangulate your position to know it more exactly than “it’s in range”, which requires special hardware with an extra antenna
They can triangulate from the 8 readings that they did and know my location. They also know it's T-Mobile and they can subpoena T-Mobile and Google to get the information (the IMSI code will identify the dealer) to identify who bought the phone and what phone account pays for the service.
IMSI catchers / rogue cell towers do not work with switched off phones or in airplane mode. Source: shop.mobilen.com/everything-you-need-to-know-abou…
Seems to depend on what you read: https://godarkbags.com/blogs/news/imsi-catchers-the-hidden-threat-to-your-mobile-privacy-and-how-to-stop-them
Quote:
Can I Be Tracked With My Phone Off?
Yes, even when your phone is turned off, it’s not entirely inactive. The radio system, controlled by a separate subsystem called Baseband, can still transmit signals. This design allows for features like remote device tracking but also means that simply turning off your phone doesn't protect you from IMSI catchers. Using a Faraday bag completely isolates your device from any external signals, providing robust protection.
The most effective defense against these threats is to block the signals that IMSI catchers rely on. This is where Faraday bags come into play. These specially designed bags create a barrier that prevents radio waves from reaching your device, effectively neutralizing IMSI catchers and other surveillance tools.
I’d recommend searching for other sources to corroborate that story. A website selling Faraday bags telling you that you really need a Faraday bag is hardly a reliable source.
It doesn't mean they are wrong. Anyway, here:
"Based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency (NSA)
had already developed a technique in 2004 to locate cell phones even when they were turned off,
called “The Find”, mostly used to locate terrorist suspects [36]. This was accomplished through
the use of IMSI catchers, which could wirelessly send a command to the phone’s baseband chip to
fake any shutdown and stay on [37]. The phone could then be instructed to keep just the
microphone on, in order to eavesdrop on conversations, or periodically send location pings. The
only hint that the phone was still on was if it continued to feel warm even though it had been shut
off, suggesting that the baseband processor was still running. IMSI catchers used by London’s
Metropolitan Police are also reportedly able to shut down targeted phones remotely [38]."
https://www.cis.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/EAS499Honors-IMSICatchersandMobileSecurity-V18F.pdf
That’s not a normal thing, but you’re right. I can’t rule it out. Some phones may stay connective when off. It may require someone to tamper with them beforehand; maybe remotely while they were still on.
I read this patent at Google patents.google.com/patent/EP2680182A1/en and if it’s not snakeoil, monitoring the power consumption of phone components seems like a good detection method.