In some areas of the U.S., police are using the masts to “trick” smartphones into revealing their locations.
The results of a recent investigation that was conducted by USA Today has revealed that police in some areas regularly use artificial mobile technology towers for the purposes of tracking smartphone users.
These towers connect to smartphones in order to fool them into disclosing their current locations.
This mobile technology isn’t being used on the regular public. Instead, it is being applied to a location tracking effort for criminals. However, that isn’t coming as much of a comfort to many people who are perfectly aware of the fact that the fake “Stingray” mobile masts function in a way that would also allow the police to receive data from any and all of the thousands of smartphones that could be within their range at any given time.
The investigation from USA Today showed that this mobile technology is being used in many places in the U.S.
There are dozens of different police forces that have already implemented the use of this mobile tracking throughout the United States, even when it comes to criminals involved in minor crimes. It was determined that the U.S. isn’t the only place that uses this type of technology. An investigation run by Sky showed that there are also false towers of this nature in London. That said, when it comes to that city, it isn’t entirely clear who is behind them. All that is known about them through the Sky investigation is that there are up to 20 of them that are active there.
These devices, which are nicknamed “Stingrays” use technology signals to trick smartphones within their range into thinking that they are a “real” cell phone tower. The mobile device then interacts with the stingray as it would a regular network mast and reveals its location.
The stingray mobile technology devices have already been used as a part of the evidence that has been resented in dozens of different court cases. At times, it has occurred even without telling the defense lawyers where and how the tracking information was collected.
