You can find a lot of weird shit for sale on eBay, including, apparently, a used police Harris Stingray that could allow you to intercept the cellular traffic of your friends and enemies.
The Stingray is a widely used law enforcement tool that allows police to intercept cell phone signals and data. Known technically as an IMSI catcher or a “Cell Site Simulator,” it essentially conducts a Man-in-the-Middle attack, emulating the signals of a cell phone tower and drawing in unsuspecting mobile traffic. There are other IMSI catchers on the market, though the Stingray is easily the most recognizable brand.
Stingrays are controversial for many reasons, and civil liberties advocates contend they operate in a legally gray area that has the potential to violate (or, at least, undermine) mobile users’ Fourth Amendment rights.
Well, now you can buy one. Maybe. If you have $100,000 to spare.
Yes, this device is selling for a cool hundred grand—which is a lot of money but is, actually, within the approximate price realm of what these devices used to sell for (in 2016, Vice News got ahold of sales documents showing that new Stingray packages typically sold for as high as $160,000 to interested cops).
In this case, the eBay seller, “buynsave2005,” appears to specialize in arcane and vintage hardware, with over 10,000 sales under their belt. That said, if you want to lay claim to this bad boy, you also have to live with the fact that it may not work. Indeed, the listing includes the following disclaimer: “Device is UNTESTED – We only know that it powers on. Includes: Only items pictured. We do not have the required equipment to test unit. Sold As Is.”
That’s not great. It seems unlikely that the casual eBay user is going to want to spend $100k for an untested, “sold as is” device that could potentially get them in legal trouble. The product also does not include a product guide, so you’ll need to somehow figure out how to use it. In 2016, The Intercept published several different Stingray user manuals belonging to the Harris Corporation, which was the original seller of the Stingray (Harris has since merged with L3Technologies, another defense contractor, to become L3Harris). So, if you’re the lucky winner of this item, you can thank us for the link.
