Eavesdropping on GSM calls

[diogen]

What does it take to eavesdrop on a GSM call? Not much
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news...all-thats-needed-to-eavesdrop-on-gsm-call.ars

This resembles the very first FBI demonstration of breaking WEP in WiFi communication.

This Chaos Computer Club Congress in Berlin is becoming very popular.
Last year they broke the GSM encryption. And this year they not only show how to eavesdrop on GSM calls with $15 phones and 3 minutes time, they also demonstrated dongle-less PS3 jailbreak and calculated its private keys.

Diogen.

 

[Big Dawg 23]

I read this on another site and not really surprised. Now it will be interesting to see if they do something about it.

 

[navychop]

This reminds me of the old analog cell days. I was riding with a friend in law enforcement, and in just a few minutes we picked up two separate phone calls of people who obviously were having affairs. This, in a small NC county with less than 100,000 people!

 

[Juan]

With 4G calls will be VoIP (Voice over IP) and this method won't work anymore

 

[Ilya]

As the article points out, it's really easy for the cellphone operators to patch this security hole.
Now, as this was brought to light, I am sure most of them will take some precautions, if they haven't done that already.

 

[diogen]

With 4G calls will be VoIP (Voice over IP) and this method won't work anymore

The interesting question is not whether a technology is secure out of the gate (all are),
but how long it will stay secure: 10+ years like GSM or 2 years like WiFi?

Diogen.

 

[mike123abc]

As the article points out, it's really easy for the cellphone operators to patch this security hole.
Now, as this was brought to light, I am sure most of them will take some precautions, if they haven't done that already.

It will probably take some politician's scandalous phone call being recorded before it happens. They will demand hearings and such and the cell phone companies will be forced to at least use random characters in the packets to prevent the lookup table attack from being useful.

 

[Juan]

The interesting question is not whether a technology is secure out of the gate (all are),
but how long it will stay secure: 10+ years like GSM or 2 years like WiFi?

Diogen.

Its harder to "record" an internet stream..not saying that it can't be done..just more sophisticated than a scanner and a tape recorder