Protect Your Mobile Privacy with RayHunter #shorts

Our Take

Credit to STS Technologies LLC for putting a spotlight on RayHunter, the EFF's open-source project that turns a cheap Orbic hotspot into a homemade cell-site simulator detector. IMSI catchers — often called Stingrays — trick your phone into connecting to a fake tower so police or anyone else with the gear can log your location and metadata without a warrant. Most people have no idea when it's happening, which is exactly the point of these tools existing in secret for so long.

We cover license plate readers because they're the highway version of this same problem: dragnet location tracking built and sold with almost zero public oversight, often quietly funded by local budgets and installed without a real community debate. Cell-site simulators and ALPR networks like Flock's aren't the same technology, but they're cousins in the same surveillance family — both designed to harvest where you've been and who you are, both historically shielded from the people they watch. Open-source detection tools like RayHunter matter because they shift a little power back to regular people instead of leaving all the visibility with police departments and vendors.

If you want to see what's already watching your own streets, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back on unchecked surveillance in your town, our take-action page has concrete next steps.