TA NEA conducted a research with a special mobile device “Cryptophone 500”, an Android-based secure mobile phone in the time period 6-18. January 2015. The measurements were made on daily basis and at different times of the day in areas around the headquarters of Greece’s two main political parties, Nea Dimokratia and SYRIZA, but also around ministries like the Finance ministry.
The newspaper research team covered more than 400 km within Athens and the suburbs and made 17,371 measurements.
The research team recorded:193 “very suspicious” incidents
64 “highly suspicious” incidents78 “moderate suspicious” incidents
263 “low suspicious” incidents
The apparatus used for the detection of suspicious activities, the “Cryptophone 500” is considered one of the most advanced mobile applications with protection from eavesdropping. The newspaper notes that the same device was used in similar investigation conducted by the Norwegian newspaper «Aftenposten», that revealed last month the existence of mobile phone monitoring stations.
“In several locations someone has installed secret transmitters which most probably behave like fake mobile base stations. These so called IMSI-catchers can monitor all mobile activity in the vicinity.
The people who run this surveillance equipment may in principle monitor every person moving in and out of the parliament building, the goverment offices or other institutions in the area. They can also select certain persons for eavesdropping and collecting data from their smartphones.
The fake base stations are very expensive ($85,000-$330,000) and cannot be legally sold to private persons in NATO member countries.
“Only organizations with strong resources are able to employ the kind of technical equipment involved here,” a security expert said.
Police and intelligence officials denied involvement.
Few people wish to speculate whether private companies, foreign intelligence or criminals have the resources to uphold such a large-scale espionage activity in Oslo’s mobile network.”
The dirty tricks in this campaign just seem to have got dirtier.