Rayhunter – The Free Tool That Lets You Spot Stingrays Before They Hoover Up Your Life

11 Mar

Welcome to 2025 – Where Your Phone Betrays You Before Your Morning Coffee

You know that thing in your pocket? No, not that. The phone. The thing you use to scroll doom-laden news, order a Greggs sausage roll, and occasionally answer a work call. Well, congratulations — it’s also a 24/7 government tracking device, and all it takes is a Stingray to flip it into full snitch mode.

For years, law enforcement, shady contractors, and god-knows-who-else have quietly deployed these IMSI catchers (or cell-site simulators) to mimic mobile towers, tricking your phone into connecting to them instead of the real thing. Once that happens, every juicy morsel of data your phone emits (location, call logs, texts, possibly the content of calls) gets hoovered up faster than a Dyson at a crumb convention.

But don’t worry! You’re no longer completely helpless. Thanks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), you can now download Rayhunter, an open-source tool that sniffs out Stingrays and raises the alarm. That’s right — privacy now comes in app form. And you thought technology was only good for cat filters.

What’s a Stingray Anyway? (And Why Should You Give a Toss?)

Stingrays are the Swiss Army knife of sneaky surveillance. They sit quietly in a van, or a backpack, or possibly down the local Pret, pretending to be a normal cell tower. But instead of just letting your phone check Instagram, they:

Trick your phone into connecting directly to them.
Track your location to within a few metres.
Hoover up identifying information like your IMSI number.
In some cases, intercept your calls and texts — because who needs encryption when you can just fake being Vodafone?

Once only seen in spy thrillers and dystopian novels, Stingrays are now tools of the trade for law enforcement, private contractors, and — let’s be honest — anyone with a bit of money and a total lack of ethics. (Wikipedia)

Rayhunter – Because Nobody Else Was Bothered to Build This for You

So why did a small civil liberties organisation have to build a defence tool against government-grade surveillance hardware? Great question. Maybe ask your mobile network provider, who has known about these devices for years but preferred to shrug and cash your direct debit.

Rayhunter doesn’t stop Stingrays — but it tells you they’re there. It’s basically the burglar alarm for your phone’s privacy. You’ll still get robbed, but at least you’ll know who to blame.

How Rayhunter Works – Techy Bit (Don’t Skip It)

Here’s the clever bit: Rayhunter watches the mobile networks your phone interacts with. Real towers follow predictable patterns — stable signals, expected tower IDs, all that stuff. But Stingrays? They’re the drunk uncle at Christmas — erratic, suspicious, and up to no good.

Rayhunter flags up anomalies, like:

Towers with weird IDs that don’t match the real network.
Sudden changes in signal strength that don’t make sense.
Networks that mess with encryption settings.

If you’re anywhere near a protest, a government building, or simply unlucky enough to wander into Stingray country, Rayhunter gives you the heads-up.

(EFF’s GitHub Repo)

Stingrays in the Wild – They’re Everywhere (But Nobody Admits It)

If you’re thinking, “Surely my peaceful village in Surrey doesn’t have Stingrays?” — think again. These devices aren’t just used for anti-terror operations. They’ve been deployed:

At protests, because god forbid anyone express an opinion unmonitored.
Near embassies, because international espionage is just local spying with a passport.
At events like the 2024 DNC, where journalists suspected Stingray use but got shrugs and denial from the authorities. (WIRED)

If you ever wondered why your phone signal goes weird near political hotspots, now you know.

Why Rayhunter Matters – Even If You’re Not a Spy or a Protester

You might think, “I’m just a boring small business owner — who cares where I am?” And usually, that’s true. But the second your phone connects to a Stingray, your location and identity are fair game. Plus, if you ever happen to walk past the wrong place at the wrong time, congrats — you’re now part of someone’s surveillance dataset. Privacy isn’t just for activists and whistleblowers — it’s for everyone.

The Real WTF Moment – Why This is Still Legal-ish

Here’s where the rant kicks in. In the UK, there’s no clear law banning the use of Stingrays by police or government agencies. Everything about their deployment is shrouded in secrecy, with the usual “We neither confirm nor deny” bollocks whenever anyone asks. In the US, it’s slightly better — but only slightly.

That means you can be tracked, monitored, and logged via Stingray — with zero warning, no warrant, and no recourse. And your mobile provider? They’ll happily stay silent because admitting they know about it opens a regulatory can of worms they’d rather avoid.

Rayhunter exists because the system failed. Full stop.

What You Can Do – Because Ignorance Won’t Save You

If you care even slightly about your personal or business privacy, here’s your action plan:

✅ Download Rayhunter. It’s free. It’s open-source. It works. (Rayhunter on GitHub)
✅ Use a VPN for all sensitive communications. Stingrays can grab unencrypted data. Don’t make life easy for them.
✅ Encrypt your calls and messages. Use apps like Signal — not WhatsApp, which bends over backwards for governments.
✅ Stay informed. If you work near political, legal, or corporate hotspots, assume you’re being watched. Paranoia is your friend.

This Shouldn’t Be Your Problem

The fact that you need a third-party open-source tool to detect government spying devices is a national embarrassment. But here we are. Until laws catch up, Rayhunter is your only early warning system. And if your phone pings a Stingray in your local Tesco car park, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Source	Description	Link
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)	Official announcement and technical documentation for Rayhunter	EFF Official Website
Wikipedia	Overview of Stingray phone trackers and how they work	Stingray Phone Tracker - Wikipedia
WIRED	Investigation into cell-site simulator detection during the 2024 DNC	WIRED Article - DNC Signal Hunt
EFF Rayhunter GitHub Repository	Source code and technical documentation for Rayhunter	Rayhunter GitHub Repo
The Intercept	Historical reporting on Stingray use by law enforcement	The Intercept - Stingray Reporting

Noel Bradford

Noel Bradford – Head of Technology at Equate Group, Professional Bullshit Detector, and Full-Time IT Cynic

As Head of Technology at Equate Group, my job description is technically “keeping the lights on,” but in reality, it’s more like “stopping people from setting their own house on fire.” With over 40 years in tech, I’ve seen every IT horror story imaginable—most of them self-inflicted by people who think cybersecurity is just installing antivirus and praying to Saint Norton.

I specialise in cybersecurity for UK businesses, which usually means explaining the difference between ‘MFA’ and ‘WTF’ to directors who still write their passwords on Post-it notes. On Tuesdays, I also help further education colleges navigate Cyber Essentials certification, a process so unnecessarily painful it makes root canal surgery look fun.

My natural habitat? Server rooms held together with zip ties and misplaced optimism, where every cable run is a “temporary fix” from 2012. My mortal enemies? Unmanaged switches, backups that only exist in someone’s imagination, and users who think clicking “Enable Macros” is just fine because it makes the spreadsheet work.

I’m blunt, sarcastic, and genuinely allergic to bullshit. If you want gentle hand-holding and reassuring corporate waffle, you’re in the wrong place. If you want someone who’ll fix your IT, tell you exactly why it broke, and throw in some unsolicited life advice, I’m your man.

Technology isn’t hard. People make it hard. And they make me drink.

https://noelbradford.com