Silicon.fr reporting GSM crypto broken

[[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brian Morrison)]

On Thu, 4 Sep 2003 12:21:16 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:

>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Brian 
>Morrison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>>I remember that the original GSM crypto was watered down at the
>>suggestion of the spooks, although of course that is always denied.
>
>It was a long time ago, but my recollection from speaking the people in 
>the industry at the time was that they in fact couldn't change the 
>crypto because it was already burnt into too much hardware already in 
>the distribution channel. (Which also might answer the upgrade 
>questions, but phones are very different twelve years on).

What I was referring to happened before there was any hardware out
there, pretty sure it would have been between 1985 and 1989 that the
algorithms were altered. But it would be very difficult to do much now
I think, the only real answer is superencryption on top of a data
rather than voice bearer.

-- 
Brian Morrison                                       [EMAIL PROTECTED]
              do you know how far this has gone?
               just how damaged have I become?
                                      'Even Deeper' by Nine Inch Nails