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CellularPrivacy
Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector
Java2014–2025
CellularPrivacy / Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector

Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector

AIMSICD • Fight IMSI-Catcher, StingRay and silent SMS!

Mobile & Desktop
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
21Distinct people
25Mentions
2Explicit recommenders
5.4KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

AIMSICD • Fight IMSI-Catcher, StingRay and silent SMS!

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

Buy a broadcom smartphone. Turn bluetooth off, and set it to airplane mode. Then Bluepwn your device, with bluetooth turned off. Funny how airplane mode didn't work. That's…

h4ck_th3_pl4n3t used a recommendation phrase. 2 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year25 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2014-06-04 09:18:33 UTC to 2025-08-21 13:28:03 UTC.

02468102014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 9 mentions; 1 submissions, 8 comments20142015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC918
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

25 sources
h4ck_th3_pl4n3t·Aug 21, 2025Recommendation phrase
Buy a broadcom smartphone. Turn bluetooth off, and set it to airplane mode. Then Bluepwn your device, with bluetooth turned off. Funny how airplane mode didn't work. That's just one of the quirks. Baseband and what qualcomm is tracking is way worse. I recommend buying an old Motorola Calypso device and fiddling with osmocomBB, you can DIY an IMSI catcher pretty easily. And you'll be mind blown how many class0 SMS you'll receive per day, just for tracking you. Back in the days you could track people's phones remotely but the popularity of HushSMS and other tools made cell providers block class0 SMS not sent by themselves. This wiki article is a nice overview: https://github.com/CellularPrivacy/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Dete...
In Burner Phone 101
throwaway928675·Aug 24, 2023Submission

Ask HN: Can fake mobile cell tower install an app on the phone?

Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector [1] claims to prevent silent app installation through GTalkService, in this issue [2] from 2014. However I can't find any other source confirming this is possible. So is it probable to force remote install with fake cell tower? How about permissions of the app installed that way, would data be compromised? Would phone factory reset remove software installed that way? [1] https://cellularprivacy.github.io/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/ [2] https://github.com/CellularPrivacy/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/issues/151 NB: Android-IMSI-Catcher has been removed from F-Droid and Aptoide for some reason.
3 points · Open discussion
orangepurple·Jul 6, 2023
Looks like any app can be installed silently behind your back with GTalkService that is running on your Android phone https://github.com/CellularPrivacy/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Dete... https://jon.oberheide.org/blog/2010/06/28/a-peek-inside-the-... --------------------- Google Play Services spyware discussion https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/guide-insanely-better-bat... https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-disable-service-guide... --------------------- "...the cellular carrier can send blobs of FORTH code right to the radio. The radio firmware also seems to have an IP stack (with TCP) so it can do its own interesting things (both bad and good)..." https://boston.conman.org/2013/01/22.2 "...easily spotted loads and loads of bugs, scattered all over the place, each and every one of which could lead to exploits – crashing the device, and ev
Read the rest
en allowing the attacker to remotely execute code. Remember: all over the air. One of the exploits he found required nothing more but a 73 byte message to get remote code execution. Over the air..." "... It’s kind of a sobering thought that mobile communications, the cornerstone of the modern world in both developed and developing regions, pivots around software that is of dubious quality, poorly understood, entirely proprietary, and wholly insecure by design." https://www.osnews.com/story/27416/the-second-operating-syst... (archive: https://archive.is/FOR5V) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6722539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6722732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6722648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6738066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6724034 <-- Seems to be higher risk with Qualcomm basebands where everything is integrated ------------------- SIM card reader chips have their own operating system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_card#Design Rooting SIM cards https://archive.is/3ZohQ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6722896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6724215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6723236 -------------------
In France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
programbreeding·Jul 2, 2018
There is an Android app called IMSI-Catcher Detector[0] that is supposed to help you detect when you're connected to a stingray-type device. I ran it for around a year and it never once picked up on anything. I'm not involved on the project and can't personally say if it will catch anything or not, but it is open source[1]. [0] https://cellularprivacy.github.io/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detec... [1] https://github.com/CellularPrivacy/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Dete...
In How a Hacker Proved Cops Used a Stingray to Find Him
SecUpwN·Dec 23, 2015
This is SecUpwN, the project maintainer of mentioned app. Let me say this: Before discrediting an eager project like ours, RTFM! Obviously you closed your eyes the whole time when doing the "full code review", otherwise you would have read: * https://github.com/SecUpwN/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector#war... * https://github.com/SecUpwN/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/blo... * What is the first thing popping up in our app? Right, our DISCLAIMER! Bummer, huh? Furthermore, where are your contributions to below Issue? * https://github.com/SecUpwN/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/iss... Everyone with a pair of eyes is able to clearly see the warnings, disclaimers and statements all over our project that our app is still in ALPHA development. And if you really are a skilled developer and not just a troll wanting to discredit our app in favour of makin
Read the rest
g another one more popular (which I think you actually are), you'd have contributed. But you're just a fake "security researcher", ranting on public sites about an open source project where everyone is invited and very welcome to add a bit to make it better. Next time, please think twice before publishing shit like yours above.
In Cell-Site Simulators Aren’t Secret Anymore
akerro·Dec 11, 2015
AIMSICD is very faulty. I made full code review in my spare time and tests on OpenBTS. It can't detect SilentSMS even if they claim it can. It doesn't detect fake BTSs nor connections using them. You can connect to fake BTS, make calls, send texts, it doesn't detect anything suspicious. This project sounds serious, but it doesn't do anything. Moreover it sends data about fake BTSs to remote service - OpenCellId (they get data about cells from OCID). Recently all of this what I say here was proven on their issue board on Github. https://github.com/SecUpwN/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/iss... Next week I will put my hands on SnoopSnitch.
In Cell-Site Simulators Aren’t Secret Anymore

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