[FedCom] Stingray legality

[gary]

The WSJ is precisely why I bought it up. The key text being

"A stingray works by mimicking a cellphone tower, getting a phone to 
connect to it and measuring signals from the phone. It lets the stingray 
operator "ping," or send a signal to, a phone and locate it as long as 
it is powered on, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The 
device has various uses, including helping police locate suspects and 
aiding search-and-rescue teams in finding people lost in remote areas or 
buried in rubble after an accident."



To me, this is more than packet sniffing. They must transmit on the cell 
bands to spoof being a cell site. Hackers are/were doing this now using 
femtocells (hacked of course).
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/14/voda_dismisses_femtocell_base_station_hack/


AT&T sells these GSM devices. T-Mob uses wifi instead.