#LEGAIA ROGUE TOWER MAP SOFTWARE#
#LEGAIA ROGUE TOWER MAP SIMULATOR#

If the heatmap shows a cell site on a fenced-off parcel of land with a big tower, it’s a pretty good bet that cell tower is legit. Differentiating between a rogue and legitimate tower still takes a bit of work.

This device really isn’t a tool to detect only rogue cell towers – it finds all cell towers. This data was thrown at QGIS, an open source Geographic Information System package, revealing a heatmap with the probable locations of cell towers highlighted in red. After driving around the neighborhood with his rogue-cell-site detector sitting on his dashboard, had a ton of data that included latitude, longitude, received power from a cell tower, and the data from the cell tower. Data received from a cell site is logged to a database along with GPS coordinates.

#LEGAIA ROGUE TOWER MAP SOFTWARE#

To build his rogue-cell-site detector, is logging this information to a device consisting of a Raspberry Pi, SIM900 GSM module, an Adafruit GPS module, and a TV-tuner Software Defined Radio dongle. To make detecting rogue cell sites harder, some of this information may change the transmit power may be reduced if a tech is working on the site, for instance. This information includes the radio channel number, country code, network code, an ID number unique to a large area, and the transmit power. Stingrays, IMSI catchers, cell site simulators, and real, legitimate cell towers all broadcast beacons containing information.

#LEGAIA ROGUE TOWER MAP SIMULATOR#

A Stingray / cell site simulator detector With several of these devices connected together, he can even tell where these rogue cell towers are. For the last few months has been working on a simple device that allows anyone to detect when one of these Stingrays or IMSI catchers turns on. Simply knowing they exist isn’t helpful – a proper defence against governments or balaclava wearing hackers requires some sort of detection system. No matter where the threat comes from, rogue cell towers still exist. While there was most certinaly several of these devices at DEF CON, I only saw one in a hotel room (you catchin’ what I’m throwin here?). The EFF calls them cell-site simulators, and they’re an incredible violation of privacy. These rogue cell sites have various capabilities, from being able to track an individual phone, gather metadata about who you have been calling and for how long, to much more invasive surveillance such as intercepting SMS messages and what websites you’re visiting on your phone. You should be scared, even though police departments everywhere and every government agency already has this capability. In less than a year, evil, bad hackers could be tapping into your cell phone or reading your text message from the comfort of a van parked across the street. From what we saw at HOPE in New York a few weeks ago, we’re just months away from being able to put a femtocell in a desktop computer for under $3,000. The balaclava-wearing hackers know it, too. Software defined radios are getting better and better all the time.

Legaia rogue tower map