As many of us recall, the news came out that there were fake cell phone towers across the United States, and we all might also remember how malicious they were, but let’s recap before going to today’s more dismal findings. The findings came out when towers that were supposed and assumed to carry and transmit our mobile phones’ signal so we can communicate to our hearts’ content. The sad fact is that these towers can and likely have intercepted various people’s phone calls and send the call along as usual, but listen and record the calls, as well as the metadata (time placed, duration, phone number, etc.) that the NSA has said it collects. But today brings us an update to the search for malicious towers.
The towers are not NSA-owned or operated. Experts contacted VentureBeat and communicated that interesting bit of information. But that’s not the end of the fun. The number of towers has also increased, since the first tower’s discovery by Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America, makers of the Cryptophone 500. The tower count is now up to 19, from July’s 17. Let’s think about more than the numbers though, folks.
Who could, not would, put up these towers across the United States? The NSA, as anyone following anything that the NSA and Edward Snowden have said, could just talk to the carriers and force compliance, so they have physically no need to, unless it is based on some seriously illegal or deeply undercover thing, but that’s doubtful. They wouldn’t let themselves get found or found out so easily. But if the NSA, the first scapegoat to fall in everything security- and privacy-related, isn’t the culprit, who, whether it be a single person or many or a whole group or organization, would put them up? And what could they hope to achieve with our captured phone calls? Maybe it’s some exercise by some group somewhere in America, or it is a legitimate threat to more than just our security. Time and searching are the only sources for that information, so until they start telling, keep it tuned in. Let us know what someone could possibly want with a phone call, if you have any ideas.