Fake Cellphone Towers Care About You And Just Want To Listen

It's one thing to steal American's private information and listen in on their phone calls, it's another thing to be completely overt about it.  Now, even the theft of our privacy is no longer being conducted privately.  This now seems to be the society we're allowing ourselves to be a part of.  A recent discovery of seventeen fake cellphone towers has brought no answers as to their use, but raise some serious questions.

The cellphone towers, all of which are located near military bases, were discovered using an ESD Cryptophone 500, manned by Les Goldsmith, the CEO of the ESD organization.  ESD, based out of Las Vegas, provides defense and law enforcement technology, but still can't explain what the towers are there for.  Rather than augmenting cell signals, they appear to be doing little more than bypassing encryption to read texts and listen to calls.

Originally reported in Popular Science and cited by yahoo.com, the troubling locations and seemingly-insidious intent of the towers are pervasive. As Goldsmith explained, "Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated. One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found eight different interceptors on that trip. We even found one at South Point Casino in Las Vegas.”

Goldsmith went on to speculate on which military (ours or another) could possibly be using the towers for surveillance.  Another idea involved escalation of the "Stringray" surveillance systems that the police departments of some large cities have put in place for observation.  It remains a sad but true fact that the NSA would not need the towers, and could simply hijack information from the cell service provider. The only hint the average citizen may have that the secret towers are operating in their area is that their calls will be forced down to the less-secure 2G connection, as opposed to currently-conventional 4G.

Under surveillance means under control. Are you allowing yourself to be controlled without evening knowing it? Keep your eyes peeled for the sketchy cell trees...

If you like pina coladas...and getting caught in a sting...