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Podcast Episode: Antitrust/Pro-Internet

Cell Site Simulators Areas of Concern One Pager

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Cell Site Simulators Areas of Concern One Pager

Cell-site simulators (“CSS”), also commonly known as IMSI catchers or Stingrays, are devices that law enforcement uses to try to locate and identify suspects. CSSs take advantage of flaws in cellular communication technology (which are especially common in older technologies such as 2G) and masquerade as legitimate cell phone towers, potentially tricking all phones nearby into connecting to the device instead of the tower. These devices can log the unique identifying numbers of all mobile phones in a given area and pinpoint the location of a specific number in real time with much greater precision than cell site location information that comes from the phone company.

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