Re: Newt's phone calls

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

Greg Taylor <gtaylor@gil.com.au> writes:
> After following this thread for some time, I have to question whether
> Americans realise how far behind the rest of the world they are in
> cellphone technology.
> 
> Most of the world has been using GSM digital technology for some years
> now, with automatic international roaming, unless you travel to the USA.

> No one in their right mind uses an analogue mobile phone any more if they 
> are concerned about eavesdropping.  The Newt incident simply could not 
> happen with GSM.
> 
> Of course in most countries the government controls the federal police, 
> not the other way round.  

Using GSM would add protection against casual eavesdroppers, but would
not provide that high a degree of protection.

GSM encrypts only the links to the station - the traffic goes in the
clear through the station.  Plus A5 (crypto algorithm used in GSM) is
weak, 40 bits of effective key space.

It could be worse to have poor crypto, than no crypto,

Adam
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