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back to article Prisoners' 'innovative' anti-IMSI catcher defence was ... er, tinfoil

Prisoners at a Scottish jail evaded an IMSI catcher deployed to collar them making illegal phone calls – by putting up tinfoil after bungling guards left the spy gear visible to inmates. “As you are also aware the invisible grabber at HMP Shott [sic] was visible,” Maurice Dickie of the Scottish Prison Service wrote in an …

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: cold turkey

        Comment Of The Week, right there

        1 0 Reply
  2. lukewarmdog

    Chances are, if you can see tinfoil up in a cell, that person has a phone and you should search the cell.

    You could surely make a positive out of this cockup.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Charles 9
      Reply Icon

      Unless, of course, the pillow or a blanket's between the catcher and the tinfoil. Prisoners quickly become experts at lines of sight.

      0 0 Reply
  3. HartyMan

    From what I have been told by prevous guest at HMS SPS Shotts , They charge the phones by hooking them up to the lights. How they do this, I don't know.

    0 0 Reply
  4. Stevie

    Bah!

    So to recap:

    invisible stalker installation - f*cked up.

    email redaction - f*cked up.

    Would it be jejune on the strength of this nought-for-two performance to call for a head count to confirm that there are actually any prisoners inside this gaol?

    4 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not So

    "They are used extensively in America, where law enforcement agencies must apply for a court warrant to use them."

    They are using the devices without warrants.

    2 0 Reply
  6. Trumpet Winsock

    New Build Houses

    There's a new house being built just around the corner and I noticed that the thermal insulation they are using between the blocks and the traditional red brick outer skin has foil on one side.

    Would this affect mobile phone reception?

    0 0 Reply
  7. Herby
    Joke

    A solution??

    Give the inmates Galaxy 7's and let nature take its course. Sounds like a plan to me!

    I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this yet!

    No, jammers aren't the solution. Just put a nice loud cell site in the prison and let it do location finding on the cell phones. Shunt the ones INSIDE to a nasty recording. Seems very doable to me.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A solution??

      They have. Problem is collateral damage since most jails (or is it gaols) are next to residences, meaning someone living next to a prison could get caught up in it: false accusations and all.

      And this is no joke.

      0 0 Reply
  8. arctic_haze
    Facepalm

    A simple solution

    Unban the phones.

    0 1 Reply
  9. The Vociferous Time Waster

    Faraday

    If only prisons could be surrounded by a high, earthed, metal mesh. Some sort of fence should do the trick.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Charles 9
      Reply Icon

      Re: Faraday

      You'd have to cover overhead, too. Impractical or they'd be using it to prevent air drops.

      0 0 Reply
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re.

    Interesting.

    I did wonder why old phones always show up on Ebay and attract high prices.

    In other news, seems that a certain 3G dongle which is now basically useless is *also* being utilized as a "klunge phone" (tm) by simple reprogramming of its embedded Flash chip and a convenient USB power source with the added benefit that IMEI can be "cycled" periodically using a lookup table harvested from similar dead phones known not to be in use.

    I found a hidden serial port in all of mine and it does indeed have the full command set.

    The "hack" is well documented on the dark web.

    0 0 Reply

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