Hacker Spoofs Cell Phone Tower to Intercept Calls

The device tricks the phones into disabling encryption and records call details and content before they're routed on their proper way through voice-over-IP.

Paget's system costs only about $1,500, as opposed to several hundreds of thousands for professional products. Most of the price is for the laptop he used to operate the system.

Encrypted calls are not protected from interception because the rogue tower can simply turn it off.

But Paget said he could also capture phones using 3G by sending out jamming noise to block 3G. Phones would then switch to 2G and hook up with his rogue tower. Paget had his jammer and an amplifier on stage but declined to turn them on saying they would "probably knock out all Las Vegas cell phone systems."