Site simulators aren't very new technology. Police departments have had these devices for so long that they were even mentioned in The Wire (2002) with the exact brand name (StingRay).
Handsets will always connect to the basestation with the strongest signal, there is no authentication involved. They then "exploit" (it's really by design) a feature of GSM where you can simply tell the handset not to use any encryption, and since the interface between baseband chip and application processor (the ARM that runs your Android or iOS) is more akin to a cold war curtain than actual information exchange, your device won't ever notify you. Even if they enable the old A55 encryption, that can be cracked in realtime nowadays.
One popular use is to mount them on a drone, wait for it to detect a particular IMSI and then bomb the general area. That is the reality of the so called "precision strikes" in Afghanistan or Iraq.
> One popular use is to mount them on a drone, wait for it to detect a particular IMSI and then bomb the general area. That is the reality of the so called "precision strikes" in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Holy crap. Do you have a good source for that? I've somehow never heard this before.
Handsets will always connect to the basestation with the strongest signal, there is no authentication involved. They then "exploit" (it's really by design) a feature of GSM where you can simply tell the handset not to use any encryption, and since the interface between baseband chip and application processor (the ARM that runs your Android or iOS) is more akin to a cold war curtain than actual information exchange, your device won't ever notify you. Even if they enable the old A55 encryption, that can be cracked in realtime nowadays.
One popular use is to mount them on a drone, wait for it to detect a particular IMSI and then bomb the general area. That is the reality of the so called "precision strikes" in Afghanistan or Iraq.