According to a major report just published in the Wall Street Journal, a secret U.S. government program has been spying on Americans' phones and collecting their data by using fake cell towers—flying fake cell towers, actually.
The audacious scheme involves officials from the U.S. Marshals Service flying over America in small Cessa aircraft that carry so-called "dirtboxes" built by Boeing. The devices mimic cell towers and trick a person's phone into reporting its registration data.
The Justice Department refuses to confirm or deny the existence of the program, but the Journal says the devices, which are about two feet square, allow the government to collect data from tens of thousands of phones during each flight. The paper's sources said these flights happen "on a regular basis."
Says the Journal:
In response to the massive Edward Snowden NSA leaks, many tech companies said they would not cooperate so easily with the government's attempts to collect data on American citizens. But your fancy new phone won't do any good against this dragnet:
Read the full report at the WSJ.
Andrew's from Nebraska. His work has also appeared in Discover, The Awl, Scientific American, Mental Floss, Playboy, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with two cats and a snake.
