3 ms·

The next generation of the cellphone protocol should include some kind of PKI so the telco can't be spoofed without its permission. Don't know if that will act

• lithos 9y ago
  Do telcos get paid for wire taps? I can't imagine much enthusiasm to make enforcement agencies likely to want another another type of wiretapping system if they're underpaid for the current one.
• schoen 9y ago
  > The next generation of the cellphone protocol should include some kind of PKI so the telco can't be spoofed without its permission. 3G already does this. But apparently IMSI catchers have often been able to get around this by various means, including downgrading to an earlier GSM protocol (that lacks authentication), or spoofing a carrier from a different region (whose keys they have obtained somehow) in order to induce roaming, or somehow obtaining keys of a local carrier. I have heard there are a couple of other tricks too but I don't know what those are. > Don't know if that will actually help, because the telcos are already quite compliant about giving every bit of data that passes through their systems to the NSA. It's true that IMSI catchers can also be used to wiretap mobile telephony and SMS, which trust the carrier to provide confidentiality, but that doesn't cover everyone's use of mobile data services. But IMSI catchers often represent a very different kind of threat, which is not just wiretapping but real-time location tracking and/or enumerating devices that are present in an area.