Seems like that would maybe be a game of cat-and-mouse, but fundamentally these IMSI catchers have to have an identifiable signature. That is, in order to work they need to mimic an existing cell tower as much as possible, but it is exactly because of that mimicry that they can be detected over time (e.g. because the signal is coming from a different location).
Using more than one antenna will expose a phase difference and drifting in time can't be avoided either unless they waste millions of tax money on ultra expensive TCXO's.
Herefore I suspect that they'll passively identify a signal and order the service provider to decrypt it at their backbone.
If France/the GSM foundation could pull of that encryption is to be downgraded in strategic countries; surely some other powerhungry nationstate will beat that record.
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Seems like that would maybe be a game of cat-and-mouse, but fundamentally these IMSI catchers have to have an identifiable signature. That is, in order to work they need to mimic an existing cell tower as much as possible, but it is exactly because of that mimicry that they can be detected over time (e.g. because the signal is coming from a different location).
Using more than one antenna will expose a phase difference and drifting in time can't be avoided either unless they waste millions of tax money on ultra expensive TCXO's. Herefore I suspect that they'll passively identify a signal and order the service provider to decrypt it at their backbone. If France/the GSM foundation could pull of that encryption is to be downgraded in strategic countries; surely some other powerhungry nationstate will beat that record.