The police use Stingray for illegal monitoring private citizens. Why shouldn’t the average American use them, too?
We’ve known the basics of how devices like the Stingray work: By impersonating cell towers, they force phones to relay information through them, tracking individual phones via their International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI). But haven’t known much about their capabilities, or really how their systems run. This information, split between manuals and documents for different Harris Corporation software and hardware, outlines how to set up a cell data dragnet using their software and IMSI-catching devices.
The takeaway is that these can be set up without a lot of technical know-how, as the documents give step-by-step instructions. Heck, The Intercept even acquired a videoof the Windows-based Gemini software’s setup instruction. The software-and-hardware combinations are pretty robust: The Stingray II device, for example, can impersonate four cell towers simultaneously and monitor four cellular provider networks at once.
Further, according to its quick setup guide that The Intercept uploaded, Gemini lets operators track phones across GSM, CDMA, UMTS and LTE, meaning it can monitor most phones on the market. Users can tag multiple phones and monitor them as they move throughout an area, even nicknaming them to find later. Perhaps most insidious is the Gemini software’s capability to “listen and log over the air messages,” though it’s unclear how much metadata and communication content is saved.