There is a stealth mobile phone base station disguised as "office printer"

ByVernon Chan

It is reported that there are fake cell phone base stations in the world, police, military, government, etc. are utilizing to collect personal information. Meanwhile, printers that can blend into the office, collect personal information of surrounding people with a harmless appearance of livestock are being developed.

Stealth Cell Tower
https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower

At first glance it seems to be just a HP printer, in fact it is a device to steal personal information of the surrounding people.


This device called Stealth Cell Tower pretends to be a base station of the GSM based mobile phone network by emitting strong radio waves. And you can catch calls of mobile terminal users, understand phone numbers, pretend to be acquaintances, and send messages by SMS. At this time, the sender can send a message without revealing his / her phone number.


If the user of the mobile terminal replies to the message, not only the reply message but alsoIMSIThe number and other personal information are printed on the printer. Also, it seems that it will be possible to make phone calls from the printer and to answer the phone.


This is the inside of the printer. Raspberry Pi 3 on the left, Nuand onDeveloped with investment by KickstarterdidBladeRFThe SDR product is located on the right side.


In order to output Raspberry Pi 3 and blade RF on the right side of the printer, a USB device charger for converting the voltage of 21 - 22 V of the printer to 5 V is installed.


This is the cartridge part. Transmitter and receiver antenna are connected to BladeRF with SMA cable.


Stealth Cell Tower, which seems to be HP's printer, was created by Julian Oliver, an artist / hacker based in Berlin, Germany. Originally Mr. Oliver was investigating the fact that police, government, intelligence agencies, military, and others monitored citizen's mobile phones using IMSI catcher.

IMSI catcher called "Stingray" can be understood better by reading the following article.

Actual condition of investigation method "Stingray" to gather individual identification information and position information of smartphone by spoofing mobile phone base station - GIGAZINE


With the IMSI catcher, if it is an organization with government or advanced technology,It is possible to collect location data of a specific user directly.The American Free Human Rights AssociationWhen I announced that IMSI catcher had been installed in more than 20 fake cell phone base stations in the UK, it made a big stir.

Mr. Oliver said he was interested in a cell phone base station of a fake that had been wearing trees and bricks. For example, the following are base stations of mobile phones that have been disguised as conifers.


Things pretending to be palm trees.


Mobile phone base station disguised as a streetlight pillar set next to a real streetlight pillar.


I can not hide it, but I also have a brick style.


Not only does it find a fake mobile phone base station like the above, it is HP's printer style Stealth Cell Tower made by trying to make it by oneself.