Re: [IP] Cell phones for eavesdropping
--- Major Variola (ret) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Gadi Evron [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cell phones for eavesdropping - finally some public chatter Of course, the low-budget govt snoops go for the basestations and landline links. Oh, I don't know about that. What would it cost a small to medium sized 'security firm' to hire a couple of decent EEs with decent RF expertise? Given five years and a decent budget, I bet that you could mock-up a system to capture cell-phone calls in progress so long as you were in range of the target's phone. I suspect that the protocols for setup and teardown of cell calls, not to mention the OOB handoff signals, aren't so complex that one couldn't intercept them in real-time with cheap off the shelf hardware. Hell, we all know that encryption, where it exists in the cell-net as a capability, has gone unused to this day. The pending cell phone virus which calls 911 should be a real hoot. I bet that depends on whether the Java VM in modern phones is secure or not. I wonder if cell virii can carry a voice payload which they can inject as well. Or do we have to wait a few (viral) generations for that? Depends on how much RAM you've got in your phone, I guess. The ABCs probably have the complete specifications for most phones, software and hardware, and so may be able to arbitrarily fuck with any given model to their heart's content -- given sufficient motivation, however you might characterise that... What's your threat model? Regards, Steve __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
Re: [IP] Cell phones for eavesdropping
--- Major Variola (ret) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Gadi Evron [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cell phones for eavesdropping - finally some public chatter Of course, the low-budget govt snoops go for the basestations and landline links. Oh, I don't know about that. What would it cost a small to medium sized 'security firm' to hire a couple of decent EEs with decent RF expertise? Given five years and a decent budget, I bet that you could mock-up a system to capture cell-phone calls in progress so long as you were in range of the target's phone. I suspect that the protocols for setup and teardown of cell calls, not to mention the OOB handoff signals, aren't so complex that one couldn't intercept them in real-time with cheap off the shelf hardware. Hell, we all know that encryption, where it exists in the cell-net as a capability, has gone unused to this day. The pending cell phone virus which calls 911 should be a real hoot. I bet that depends on whether the Java VM in modern phones is secure or not. I wonder if cell virii can carry a voice payload which they can inject as well. Or do we have to wait a few (viral) generations for that? Depends on how much RAM you've got in your phone, I guess. The ABCs probably have the complete specifications for most phones, software and hardware, and so may be able to arbitrarily fuck with any given model to their heart's content -- given sufficient motivation, however you might characterise that... What's your threat model? Regards, Steve __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
Re: [IP] Cell phones for eavesdropping
From: Gadi Evron [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cell phones for eavesdropping - finally some public chatter Of course, the low-budget govt snoops go for the basestations and landline links. The pending cell phone virus which calls 911 should be a real hoot. I wonder if cell virii can carry a voice payload which they can inject as well. Or do we have to wait a few (viral) generations for that?
Re: [IP] Cell phones for eavesdropping
From: Gadi Evron [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cell phones for eavesdropping - finally some public chatter Of course, the low-budget govt snoops go for the basestations and landline links. The pending cell phone virus which calls 911 should be a real hoot. I wonder if cell virii can carry a voice payload which they can inject as well. Or do we have to wait a few (viral) generations for that?
[IP] Cell phones for eavesdropping - finally some public chatter (fwd from dave@farber.net)
- Forwarded message from David Farber [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: David Farber [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 16:11:00 -0500 To: Ip ip@v2.listbox.com Subject: [IP] Cell phones for eavesdropping - finally some public chatter User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.1.0.040913 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Forwarded Message From: RISKS List Owner [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 11:49:56 -0800 (PST) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [RISKS] Risks Digest 23.64 Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 20:39:48 +0200 From: Gadi Evron [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cell phones for eavesdropping - finally some public chatter /Pun intended on the subject line!/ Okay, so, we have all known cell phones are dangerous. Stepping out of the cellular protocols security and vendor-side systems, and forgetting for a second about interception of transmissions through the air, Trojan horses/worms that may install themselves on the cell phone and even bluetooth risks, there is the long talked of risk of operating a regular un-tampered cell phone from a far and the risk of modified devices. Sorry for stating the obvious, but cell phones are transmitters. For years now paranoid people and organizations claim that eavesdropping through a cell phone is a very valid risk. Much like somebody pressing send by mistake during a sensitive meeting is a very valid yet different risk. Some of the stricter organizations ask you to do anything from (top to bottom) storing the cell phone in a safe, through shutting it off or removing the battery, and all the way to *only* don't have that around here while we are in a meeting. Then again.. *most* haven't even heard of this risk. Forgetting even this risk, many of us even ignore the obvious. I usually ask people who talk to me while I'm on the phone even if the NSA (for example) is not interested in what I have to say or not capable of intercepting it and even that I don't care if they heard my conversations... Should the person I talk to hear our conversation? Lately there seems to be some more awareness about the dangers of cell phones. Knowing which risk is more of a threat than the other is another issue. It seems to me that other than in the protocols, where there has been a serious learning curve (and GPRS seems very promising), cellular companies keep doing the same mistakes, and we can see the security problems of the PC world reappearing in cell phones, much like those of the main frames re-appeared in PC's (to a level). History repeated. Heck, I can't even disable Java or the web browser in most cellular computers (we really should refer to them as computers now). Here are some URL's on the subject: Here is one about modified cell phones, which also mentions the risk of eavesdropping through a cell phone as mentioned above: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200206/msg0003 1.html Here is a product for sale, a cellular phone BUILT for eavesdropping: http://wirelessimports.com/ProductDetail.asp?ProductID=347 Also, check out the IEEE Pervasive article that mentions this problem area, although discusses more the issue of malware: http://csdl.computer.org/comp/mags/pc/2004/04/b4011abs.htm Or Google for symbian +virus, for example. Thanks go to David Dagon for the links. -- End of Forwarded Message - You are subscribed as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ - End forwarded message - -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net pgppBdP4JDwel.pgp Description: PGP signature
