I don't know who downmodded you -- at least half of the coverage (in Norwegian) reads like a planted story. That doesn't mean the story doesn't have merit, though.
There's an additional nice quote:
"Måten dette overvåkingsutstyret opererer på, tyder på at det er svært avanserte systemer med en prislapp på mellom 500.000 kroner og to millioner kroner. Dette er utstyr som ikke er tillatt solgt til privatpersoner i NATO-land."
"The way in which this monitoring equipment [the IMSI-catchers] operate, indicate that it is highly sophisticated, with a price tag from 500K NOK to 2M NOK [67K USD - 272K USD]. This is equipment that is illegal to sell to private citizens in NATO countries."
(my translation, emphasis).
Pertinent quote, at the end: "the most common way to build an IMSI-catcher comes directly from the R&S patent itself and is based entirely on off-the-shelf commercial equipment. Nearly any BTS or BTS simulator can be used as the basis of an IMSI-catcher.".
So yeah, typical "security industry" big words. Sure this stuff is illegal (if for nothing else, for operating in a regulated radio frequency band). Sure it's pretty sophisticated. I'm sure you'd have to pay through the nose if you bought it MILSPEC and off-the-shelf. But it's not like it's a fission device. Which is what the "illegal to sell to private citizens in NATO countries" sort of underhandedly implies.
The reason we even heard about some of these IMSI-catchers, like here in Norway or in that cryptophone firewall article, which mentions they discovered multiple across US, is because the guys behind Cryptophone used their product to look for them. That's what it does, and it's probably quite unique in the industry right. And yes, they go to the press to tell them about it, and then tell them how the product works to detect them.
I don't really see this as an infomercial no more than all the thousands of the initial articles on touchscreen phones talked about the iPhone in them, since the iPhone was the first real touchscreen phone, and then all the other phones had to be compared to it.
( "'Stingray' Phone Tracker Fuels Constitutional Clash" is the headline if you need to bounce it through Google)
The information there came from a court case and the Stingray patent (they publish an image of one). It's useful and interesting to be able to look for them, but it seems that the US legal system also played a part in disclosing the practice of using them.
It's not just the makers of the cryptophone, but also these security companies that employ "former mil.intelligence" people that get some great product placement here. I don't fault the companies for manipulating the press (they're former spies after all...) - but the jornalism doesn't impress. Don't get me wrong: the story is news worthy. I'm not saying it shouldn't be published. But, come on, a single google search on IMSI-catchers reveal plenty of follow up sources on how hard it is to make one...
Note that last weekend it was PIs (staffed by "former police and intelligence personell") that got a free front page ad for investigating Christmas parties (and doing "counter surveillance")...
I also seem to recall some talk from the people behind Cyanogen about detecting "strange" tower behaviour? Can't find the link right now, though -- so I might be misremembering that one.
I can't understand that somebody can see how many "catchers" were detected there and not be surprised unless he's actually working in that "industry."
The value of the article is much higher than in mentioning a security product: we see how widespread these devices are. Don't forget, almost every phone is vulnerable on that level -- the operator's actions aren't protected by the phone's main operating system.
There's an additional nice quote: "Måten dette overvåkingsutstyret opererer på, tyder på at det er svært avanserte systemer med en prislapp på mellom 500.000 kroner og to millioner kroner. Dette er utstyr som ikke er tillatt solgt til privatpersoner i NATO-land."
"The way in which this monitoring equipment [the IMSI-catchers] operate, indicate that it is highly sophisticated, with a price tag from 500K NOK to 2M NOK [67K USD - 272K USD]. This is equipment that is illegal to sell to private citizens in NATO countries." (my translation, emphasis).
On the other hand, we have eg:
http://openbts.blogspot.no/2009/04/some-comments-on-imsi-cat...
Pertinent quote, at the end: "the most common way to build an IMSI-catcher comes directly from the R&S patent itself and is based entirely on off-the-shelf commercial equipment. Nearly any BTS or BTS simulator can be used as the basis of an IMSI-catcher.".
So yeah, typical "security industry" big words. Sure this stuff is illegal (if for nothing else, for operating in a regulated radio frequency band). Sure it's pretty sophisticated. I'm sure you'd have to pay through the nose if you bought it MILSPEC and off-the-shelf. But it's not like it's a fission device. Which is what the "illegal to sell to private citizens in NATO countries" sort of underhandedly implies.