GSM has been cracked

[apples]

old news, but seeing as how i didn't see any threads that referenced this already, i might as well post it here.
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/30/gsm-cracked/

[insomaniacal]

Interesting... this passed me by somehow.

Still, it seems pretty expensive, impractical for the average joe, but for anyone with the money, it sounds like it would be simple enough.

[r-ID]

First of all not all operators encrypt calls. Actually non of them encrypts calls from where i am. Secondly that's a sad news :/ better encryption could be used here (even aes256), but what cost? More cpu power required, less battery life and do not forget implementation cost.

-- Sun Feb 14, 2010 6:00 am --

Oh and i don't think that you need something expensive for that.

[insomaniacal]

For around $700 they bought a Universal Software Radio Peripheral, which can pick up any kind of frequency up to 3GHz.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/143969/common_mobile_security_doesnt_cut_it_hackers_say.html
Pretty steep to just go out and buy for tinkering around.

[r-ID]

you can buy gsm antenna starting from 10$