RE: Silicon.fr reporting GSM crypto broken

["Brian Morrison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

On Thu, 4 Sep 2003 14:57:56 +0100, Owen Blacker wrote:

>Brian Morrison:
>> 
>> Someone recently asked me (because they seem to think I know about
>> phones and stuff) what the little exclamation mark in a triangle was on
>> her phone display.
>
>Don't think I've ever seen that.  Do Nokias do it?  :)

Not sure, recent ones might, but I don't recall seeing anything in a
6100 manual. It is shown in the manual for my T610 and T68 so recent
Ericsson and Sony Ericsson phones do it and I know Siemens do it
because apparently the Germans are very concerned about eavesdropping
and had speech inversion scrambling back in the days of C-Netz during
the mid '80s(450MHz analogue system similar to NMT and TACS).

>
>> "Oh, I said, that means that for some reason your conversation is not
>> encrypted across the radio link to the base station. Probably a glitch
>> in the phone network, I've seen it once or twice before"
>> 
>> Her reply was to the effect that she couldn't see it mattered really
>> "as anyone listening in would do so at the exchange wouldn't they".
>
>Surely the correct answer would be "Not if they're crooks trying to take
>advantage of you, they wouldn't"?  :)

But we all know that it would only be spooks attempting to take
advantage of you....

;-)

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