

Stingray manual released - zmanian
http://www.theblot.com/exclusive-stingray-maker-asked-fcc-to-block-release-of-spy-gear-manual-7739514?1

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peterkelly
"Released" may be a bit of an overstatement. Here's an excerpt:

The StingRay is a [REDACTED]. The following features and capabilities are
provided by the StingRay:

\- [REDACTED]

\- [REDACTED]

\- [REDACTED]

\- [REDACTED]

\- [REDACTED]

The StingRay unit is shown in Figure 3-1 and is [REDACTED]

Figure 3.1: Stingray Unit [REDACTED]

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kalleboo
The one thing that's not redacted is the existence of a 2100 MHz converter. I
guess that suggests UMTS support rather than only GSM, which means they've
either broken the authentication UMTS terminals do of the network or they have
the full cooperation of the network operators.

~~~
lazyjones
They (NSA, GCHQ) stole many SIM card authentication keys, so they can probably
eavesdrop on UMTS conversations with them:
[http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2015/02/nsa-and-gchq-
steal...](http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2015/02/nsa-and-gchq-stealing-sim-
card-keys-few.html)

~~~
tmosleyIII
There currently is no need to use stolen SIM card authentication keys.

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Sanddancer
Hmm, looking at Appendix B, it seems that the hardware is using something with
a 4 clause BSD-style license. Could they be using OpenSSL for this product,
perhaps?

Other than that, it seems that the Kingfish is their portable unit that's
designed to be out in a field location, judging by the remote antenna input on
the unit, and a section discussing battery charging. The Stingray unit seems
to be something that's in a more controlled location, and as such, has an
ethernet port, serial port, and a pair of usb a ports. External hard drive
ports, perhaps?

~~~
hydrogen18
What would the use of open source software matter?

~~~
calgoo
If its GPL code.... We could try to make a request for the source.

~~~
hydrogen18
You may not understand how the GPL works. Just because I have Linux on my
Banana Pi board doesn't mean I need to share with anyone the source code for
every piece of software that is running on it.

If you did somehow make a request under the GPL, you would probably get
vanilla source for a large number of software packages such as the Linux
kernel and a libc implementation. You would not get the proprietary
components.

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BetaMechazawa
Too bad most of it has been censored. This means that even though the manual
has been published a lot of it is useless.

I'm not that familiar with the US FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act). But why
is so much of the document censored? Is the US government just allowed to
censor whatever they please in documents they have to send due to FOIA
requests? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

~~~
cnvogel
Just glancing at the document, the censoring is marked "Ex.4" (exemption #4)
in all places.

Exemption 4 is: "A trade secret or privileged or confidential commercial or
financial information obtained from a person".
[[https://www.sec.gov/foia/nfoia.htm](https://www.sec.gov/foia/nfoia.htm)]

Add: Frankly, I directly jumped to the (redacted) PDF of the user-manual,
without even bothering to read the article. But the article nicely explains
this, too...

~~~
bediger4000
There's absolutely no way that everything they marked "FOIA Ex.4" is exempt
under than that wording. If trade secret laws were that strict, then literally
_everything_ would be a trade secret. The "exemption 4" marking is a big
middle finger to the MOIA requester. But it does raise the question of what's
so important about Stingray and Kingfisher that everything about them has to
be kept under wraps? We know in general what they do. We know that they have
delicate screw threads. Unless there's some general and very obvious 4th
Amendment abuse going on, I can't see why you'd keep it under wraps.

~~~
ethbro
Not necessarily.

Stingray is actually built by the Harris Corporation, so it seems entirely
logical that a public corporation would consider the technical manner it's
designed to glean intelligence from a standard cell phone a trade secret.

They are, after all, selling that very product to the US Government.

------
mwexler
For those wondering: Stingray appears to be "a once-secret cellphone
surveillance device distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement,"
taken from the first line in the article.

So, not the car or bicycle, as I was secretly hoping to see.

