Is This an ISMI-Catcher or What?

Over the last couple years, I have been tracking this oddity amongst the cellular networks. Somewhere around Waltham, Massachusetts, was some sort of rogue cell tower, I knew that much. Unfortunately I accidentally deleted most of the screenshots that I had of this data, but fortunately I have enough circumstantial evidence left to suggest that there is a military or police ran ISMI-Catcher (aka "Stringray") operating out of  Waltham, MA.

I first noticed this when my phone switched from 3G over to LTE when I was on the train to Boston, MA. That immediately made me feel suspicious because my phone should not be able to pick up any LTE bands in the United States, as my  radio firmware locks some of usable LTE bands and only supports certain spectrums used in other parts of the world, primarily Europe and Asia. So, it is very odd for this particular device to pick up any LTE band at all in the United States. As far as I know, there are no LTE bands in use by any legit carrier in the USA that my device picks up; band 1(2100mhz), 3(1800mhz), 5(850mhz), 7(2600mhz), 8(900mhz), and 20(800mhz).

Over the course of a few months I continued tracking the source of this strange signal, which finally lead me to Prospect Hill Park; a little wildlife reservation in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Up on the top of this little hill is what appears to be an ancient radio tower of some sort that has been retrofitted to be an all-in-one cellular surveillance monstrosity. Google seems to think it's an 'observation tower':

The tower is conveniently located in an area such that anyone that rides the T-Line from Fitchburg (possibly other lines) into Boston, or drives through this area on Route 95 will be "tagged" by this device (yes, you should feel quite violated if this the case).

If you don't know what I am talking about, than now is a good time to Google "Stingrays",  "ISMI Catchers", and "ISMI-Catcher-Detector" applications that you can use to  find these things...

Behold, on top of Prospect Hill, the source of the signal.

Note the variety of cellular antennas on top of that thing. Although some follow-up research still needs to be done, it appears that this thing could be an all-in-one, multi-band, stationary Stingray. These devices can remotely eavesdrop on your communications, man-in-the-middle your data, and in some cases, remotely manipulate and/or install malware on your device.

When I got closer to the device, the LTE signal became stronger. You may have heard about the 18 or so rogue towers identified across the United States, could this be the 19th? It's hidden in such an obscure, beautiful location that it's not surprising that nobody has noticed...

Obviously more research needs to be done, and I need to find the actual BTS measurements that I took while I was there before I can confirm this for sure. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted my entire sdcard a couple weeks ago, so it may be a while before I can recover that data.

In the mean time, here is a view of the tower from Google Earth, which oddly, does not appear to have the antennas on it. You may have to scroll in/out a little to see it.



If you think this a little strange, than you are not alone. If you think that this should not be legal, than you are correct. Technically, the use of these devices fall into a legal gray area thanks to the Patriot Act. Basically, the FBI would rather drop a criminal case than discuss the details of ISMI-Catcher usage. Now why would they want to do something like that?

I will update this post when I get more details.

Edit: I acknowledge It's possible that my carrier is simply testing some new technology, or perhaps planning to open up some of those LTE bands in the US, which would actually be pretty cool. So I need your help getting to bottom of it.