Recent reports of airborne IMSI detectors (Wired link here) as a surveillance tool caused me to think about their benefits. Obviously they can scoop up vast numbers of IMSI numbers in a short period of time. To what end use of data value.
Obvious is picking out in real time a known IMSI needle in the haystack of a big city and tracking it.
What is the big data value of thousands of IMSI picked up in an airborne flight over a city. It is a one time snap shot of each unique IMSI associated to a specific location. What is the value of that?
If the plane/drone/helicopter is constantly running a circular pattern then tracking of all IMSI is a periodic snap shot depending on overhead range and timing. If the detecting airborne craft is periodic, every several days or weeks then what is the value of a one day scoop?
Maybe there is a value of a one night scoop. Everybody sleeps. During that time they are stationary, so is their cell phone. It would only take a few night flights collecting IMSI and location between midnight and 4 am to match IMSI and location to a fixed point over different time periods.
The conclusion? That is where the person related to the IMSI is sleeping.
Most cell phone owners are on a multi year provider plan. They have the phone for a long period. Identify where it is at night on a consistent basis and that is where the person associated with it is located. It becomes a data base. When an unique IMSI of interest is identified and input to the data base the location of where it generally or always found during the 12 to 4am period pops up.
Useful information. I would imagine that over period of month there is probably a 90% consistency of cell phone IMSI during that period? Just a guess. Maybe a higher rate if the update is weekly flights. Geographic location would further narrow locations to residential or business sectors indication night workers vs sleepers.
Seems like the airborne IMSI night sweep would be valuable data for a number of surveillance information applications? More than I can immediately think of beyond where a person sleeps.
We know where you sleep therefore we know where you live. The last part of that is a popular threat of potential action.
On the other hand maybe somebody just wants to know that you are sleeping well and getting a good nights rest. Maybe it is the tooth fairy or your mom.
Other times of the day? Airborne sniffer sweepers collect IMSI location of every cell phone in the city. Same location every workday for a large number of cell phones tells where a person probably works. 335 million cell phones in the USA (2013). In any given city how many workers spend the day in the same place with a cell phone in their pocket? Hmmm.....WAG here: half?
Ad this to "We know where you sleep": We know where you work!
The amount of big data generated by an airborne IMSI sniffer sweep is a fascinating speculation. The amount of information derived from this data is vast as is the knowledge about the owner of the cell phone when other data/information is analyzed.
Is this being done? I would bet my iPhone on it!
Are all the sniffers/cell tower simulators in the exclusive possession of legitimate/authorized entities? Most likely not. The value of information that IMSI vacuumed data of a city is immense. What it could be sold for or used for makes the cost of obtaining a sniffer by any means inconsequential. The legitimate cost of a unit is $9,000. Nothing compared to the marketing/intelligence/etc data that it can scoop up. Much of that info is certainly persistent and does not require frequent flights to update. It is only an IMSI number and location. Sold to someone that has access to who is related to that IMSI it becomes specific private info, for what it might be worth in locating anybody. In general it has demographic value.
How did San Diego pay so much for their sniffers?
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