Fake Cell Towers

According to a number of reports swirling around this week, fake cellphone towers have been discovered hiding in plain sight across the United States. Details are still sketchy - some describe them as actual physical lookalike towers, while others suggest that they may actually be just a disguised device secretly operating from somewhere nearby - maybe a rooftop. Given that Florida loves disguising conventional cell tower tech as palm trees, they could be anywhere.

Whatever they look like, their signals have definitely been detected, and they are actually bypassing your phone's reception and encryption and monitoring your communications. Les Goldsmith, who's CEO of the super-creepy ESD America, is the one being credited with revealing their existence. I find that strange, though, since his company is exactly the sort that likes to equip spies with snooping technology in the first place. Since we now know - thanks to Edward Snowden - that the National Security Agency has been spying on practically every move you make on a computer or phone, the NSA is an unlikely explanation for these towers. They don't need such primitive and elaborate ruses. So who, then?

I think we can rule out foreign spies and corporate private intel agents, as many have theorized. The problem with the whole concept of phony cell towers is that in order to mimic a "real" phone company tower, they must transmit data as well as receive, in order to "talk" to your phone (and, some say, even implant cutting-edge malware).

That being so, it is an impossibility for the existence of these towers to go unknown to the phone companies or the FCC. It cannot happen. The resulting signal would cause great and noticeable disturbance in local reception, which would in turn be immediately noticed and the source could and would be tracked down. Since this has obviously not happened and the towers continue doing what they're doing even now that it's completely public knowledge, the only remaining answer is that these towers are operating with the blessing and cooperation of Federal entities and cell network providers.

If you see your phone inexplicably drop down from 4G to 2G, be aware your phone may be experiencing a spoof attack from one of these towers. I suggest trying to have a sense of humor about it, and sending a text to yourself that reads, "hey guys, you're not fooling anybody".

So.... specifically who is doing it?

I think it's a safe bet that there are more than one set of snoopers at work/play here, including the various entities that have spun off from Blackwater and still have considerable insider "pull" at the Pentagon. But I'm guessing that more often than not, these towers are utilized by none other than your local police force. In case you missed the memo and didn't watch the news during the Ferguson debacle, cops are nothing like Andy Griffith nowadays; they're increasingly militarized and are rapidly acquiring better technology at their disposal than some units of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

Now that the story has actually reached the mainstream media and has firmly risen above the purview of woo, I'm trying to track down an actual detailed list of where these alleged towers are. I find it troubling that this basic information doesn't seem to be available. The best I've come up with so far is the map shown above. It seems to show one of the spy spots as being around Ft. Myers, and another looks to be right here on The Peninsula.

I'm on the case.