--- "Major Variola (ret)" <mv@cdc.gov> wrote:

...

From: Gadi Evron <ge@linuxbox.org> 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