Android phones could soon warn you of “Stingrays” snooping on your communications
19 points by strugee
19 points by strugee
The problem, however, is that no current phones can do this. To unmask fake cell towers, Android phones need to have version 3.0 of Google’s IRadio hardware abstraction layer, which has to be supported at the modem level. Even Google’s latest Pixel phones lack support, so the network security settings page is hidden in current builds of Android 16.
Worth noting this title makes it sound like current Android phones may be able to do it. This will only work on new, as yet-unreleased, hardware, keeping it out of reach from most for a while.
The Pixel 10 will support this, and is predicted to be released at the end of August. I think the “soon” in the title means “in 2 months”.
Yes, the article said the Pixel 10 may be the first to support it. But when I read “Android phones could soon….” I’m reading that as 1) more than one phone and 2) a broad swath of them (i.e. it is related to Android the OS, not the hardware.). In this case, the vast majority of Android users will not have this available for years until they get their next generation phone and can afford a higher end model. That’s all I’m saying.
Perhaps “The Google Pixel 10 could soon be the first to…” would be clearer?
Edit: Also, the article could focus on Android phone writ large being able to turn off 2G connections. That’s a software update available to all, it seems.
I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that IMSI catchers haven’t really been that effective since 2/3G networks started getting phased out
Is this feature years too late? Or perhaps targeted at countries that have older cellular network stacks?
Active IMSI catchers (Stingray (brand) or Cell Site Simulators) present as a 2G tower even if there is no legitimate 2G tower in the area, and hope that your phone will connect to them because the signal strength is just so much more attractive.
Passive collection doesn’t work as well when legitimate 2G/3G towers are phased out. The changes here are to make the Android OS suspicious of new 2G towers showing up.
If you’re worried about 2G in particular, iPhone users can set 2G to disabled.
I have 2G set to disabled. I feel like it is not really useful anyways — only if you want to make legacy calls over the phone network or receive unencrypted SMS.
What I heard from some people is that certain countries (eg Germany) still operate legitimate 2G infrastructure, because car manufacturers use it for connectivity, and 2G chips are cheaper than 3G or 4G ones.
Do you think that there is a timeline whereby all phones will disable 2G by default? It does seem like an odd design, allowing anyone with a bit of hardware to capture all of your audio calls, messages and device identifiers in clear text.
The impression I got from the Android blog posts is that the plan appears to be disabling 2G based which cellular network brand you’re connecting to