Many of the mysterious cell phone towers that have been located do not belong to the U.S government.

However, the CEO of ESD America, Les Goldsmith told that the interceptors exist and it was not until now that the company has claimed to launch a real-time Overwatch service that will locate such spy towers.

The company has developed towers called IMSI catchers, short for International Mobile Subscriber Identity, an identity associated with all the mobiles. These towers are used as simulators for the original ones and they reroute cell phone transmissions that take place near them. The company says that the technology was developed as a result of testing military-grade secure Cryptophone 500 cell phone.


Through IMSI, 54 of the interceptors have been found that are located near the White House and the U.S Senate. The interceptors are nothing but boxes that facilitate call transmission. It is suspected that these interceptors are developed by the U.S government. However, Goldsmith and various experts reject the possibility that they belong to the National Security Agency (NSA).

On the other hand, it is also suspected that the interceptors might be the work of Harris Corporation based in Melbourne, Florida. The company is involved in manufacturing communication equipment for the U.S military and intelligence agencies.

Another proposition made was that the towers might have the involvement of the U.S law departments. However, Goldsmith said that there are only a few interceptors with domestic U.S configurations. He also said that considering the sophistication of many of the towers located, it is likely that they are not domestically engineered.

They more likely to be laptop devices as most of the interceptors use OpenBTS which implies that the towers are more likely to be used by laptop hobbyists. Moreover, most of the towers were of commercial-grade and non-domestic.

The IMSI catchers should not be explored according to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Also, the technology will be accessible only to the U.S government and its firm allies according to ESD.

Goldsmith pointed out that the service is aimed at enabling the U.S government to hunt down those who are putting up these towers and those who do not want the service, won’t be supplied at all.

The interceptors are caught using a technology that uses sensing devices to monitor connections to cell towers using a firewall from ESD devices. Also, Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 and S5 can be modified to track the location of an interceptor and report back.

Although Cryptophones are also useful for tracking IMSI catchers, they cannot report back any data. Also, the Federal Communications Commission will be running an investigation to find out who is using the IMSI catchers without being authorized.

There was also a road trip planned by ESD in vehicle that had specialized equipment and crew. It was meant to travel into areas nominated by the general public as to where the interceptors were. However, the road trip was cancelled because there were not many areas nominated and the service of hunting down interceptors through ESD sensors came in anyway.