Stingray purchases are so shrouded in secrecy that they're probably used a lot more than we know.
When police turn to technology to catch a criminal, innocent bystanders—and their personal information—get caught in the fray.At least 55 local and state police departments in 22 states and the District Of Columbia own stingrays, surveillance devices that can dupe your phone into offering up its location and other information, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. At least nine agencies in California own the gadgets. Six local police departments in Maryland and five in North Carolina are also known to have them.
Still, it wouldn’t be accurate to say you’re most likely to have your cell phone tricked in the 22 identified states. Authorities in other parts of the U.S. may secretly be using stingrays, so actual usage overall is probably a lot higher than what’s been calculated.
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Guess, what? There are fake cell phone towers on airplanes that fly around the country too. Warrants not necessary, of course, because when you clicked through the EULA terms on your new smartphone, you agreed that you gave up all rights to privacy. You didn't know that did you? If you are just now finding this out, welcome to the machine. I'm glad I could help you understand what you unknowingly did. I didn't know either until recently. That kind of stuff just isn't brought to our attention by the 20 year old kid who is selling you the phone at the store, because they didn't know either...
Planes are equipped with devices sometimes known as “dirt boxes” to law-enforcement officials because of the initials of the Boeing Co. unit that produces them, which mimic cell towers of large telecommunications firms and trick cellphones into reporting their unique registration information.
The technology in the 2 ft square device enables investigators to scoop data from tens of thousands of cellphones in a single flight, collecting their identifying information and general location.
Sounds great! Warrants are so old fashioned anyways, so 20th Century...