Dirtbox (cell phone)

A dirtbox (or DRT box) is a cell site simulator, or a phone device mimicking a cell phone tower. The device is designed to create a signal strong enough within a short range that it forces dormant mobile phones to automatically switch over to it. It is used by the United States Marshals Service, mounted on aircraft all over the U.S., to detect and locate cell phones and thus collect information, and can be used to jam phones. The name stems from the company that originally developed it, Digital Receiver Technology, Inc., abbreviated DRT, owned by the Boeing company. Boeing describes the device as a hybrid of "jamming, managed access and detection". A similar device with a more limited range that has been widely used by United States federal entities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is the controversial StingRay phone tracker.

It is not known when Digital Receiver Technology, Inc. (DRT) first manufactured the dirtbox. DRT does not publicly advertise the dirtbox, stating, "Due to the sensitive nature of our work, we are unable to publicly advertise many of our products" on its Web site.The Wall Street Journal wrote that the program by the U.S. Marshals Service "fully matured by 2007". Boeing bought DRT in 2008.

Similar devices from the Harris Corporation, like the Stingray phone tracker, have been sold around the same time. Since 2008, their airborne mounting kit for cell phone surveillance has been said to cost $9,000.

On June 11, 2010, the Boeing Company had asked the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to advise the United States Congress that the "... Communications Act of 1934 be modified to allow prison officials and state and local law enforcement to use appropriate cell phone management". It suggested that special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams and other paramilitary tactical units could control wireless communications in a building during a raid.

...
Wikipedia