IP: GSM cellphones cloned -- [weakened so the fbi could handle it

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

From: Lucky Green <shamrock () cypherpunks to>


The Smartcard Developer Association (SDA) and two U.C. Berkeley
researchers jointly announced today that digital GSM cellphones are
susceptible to cloning, contrary to the belief of even the
telecommunication providers that have fielded them.
[...]
One of the discoveries that the SDA made about GSM security was a
deliberate weakening of the confidentiality cipher used to keep
eavesdroppers from listening to a conversation.  This cipher, called A5,
has a 64 bit key, but only 54 bits of which are used.  The other ten bits
are simply replaced with zeros.
[...]


See http://www.scard.org/ for more info.


[Special thanks to Tim Hudson for authoring the smartcard interface code
that made our work possible. We wouldn't have achieved what we did it with
out it].


-- Lucky Green <shamrock () cypherpunks to> PGP v5 encrypted email preferred.
   "Tonga? Where the hell is Tonga? They have Cypherpunks there?"