GSM cracked

So now that Karsten Nohl finally showed everyone how you can be listening to GSM phone calls of other people in 10 Minutes flat using hardware you can almost pick up from anywhere, Something needs to be done fast.

GSM, a 20 year old system has become vulnerable with new processors that can compute faster and faster, to be more specific Karsten used nVidia CUDA’s (Yes, modern nVidia graphic cards in your PC), where hundreds of processors exist on every card with an instruction set large enough to do the computations.

it won’t be long before most networks find solutions, but it is the headsets that are going to be on the market that are the problem, it will probably take some time to get them out of the market and a bit longer to get the off the streets

The bottom line is this, people not so familiar with the security industry think he has done harm to everyone, while in reality, he has done you a favor that you should be grateful for, since he decided this is a public project, because usually, there are people who come to the same results and do not publish them, and you wouldn’t even know that eavesdropping is possible on your mobile phone, and those money driven companies would not be urged to do anything about it.

Don’t have this mixed up with the phone monitoring some governments like the American federal government practice, that one is not a vulnerability of GSM but rather the telecom recording your phone calls, but this one IS a vulnerability, and that girl next door that had a crush on you is listening to your phone calls :P

Anyway, if you want to know more, or even want to know who the guy living next door is seeing check out the AirProbe website (Official website for this project), and one last thing, i forgot to tell you you need a degree in CS more or less to make any sense of what is on that website, the bottom line is, this one is cracked, take us to the next level Motorola…

For the Karsten’s website see http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~kn5f/.

And for the presentation demonstrating the cracking see this http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/attachments/1479_26C3.Karsten.Nohl.GSM.pdf

Mind you that GSM is over 80% of the market, and it is the newer technology, i remember when one company in Israel had older technology where you sometimes hear other people’s conversations very clearly, I remember because one of my friends from Israel had a phone that worked from Jordan, and we could clearly here other people’s conversations, not intentionally, but you would be talking from his phone and suddenly you would hear the other party in addition to 2 more people talking, the plenty of fun it was is beyond the scope of this post :)

NOTE: It comes as no surprise that GSM has been cracked, for example 256bit SSL Certificates have become the standard these days because it is expected that breaking 128bit SSL Security will be possible in a timely manner in 2011, or to restate this better, in 2011 computers will be fast enough (CPUs and GPUs) to break 1024bit SSL security  in a timely manner.

Enjoy the complicated new world my friends :) where nothing is as it seems….

What is more stylish than your Aura?

The new Aura of 2009 is red and belongs to Motorola company. What’s more stylish than carrying a luxorious phone like this one. The phone is designed with a 62-carat sapphire crystal and is scedualed to be released mid-march. Celebrities like David Beckham already has one! The rest of us should wait a couple of weeks “as the official spokesman announced” to be able to buy it from special-retail-shops. Along with the unique design and features comes a relatively high price of around 2,000$.

Tech War

Paris Hilton Blackberry Pearl Mobile

Paris Hilton Blackberry Pearl Mobile

When it has to do with mobile phones, it seems that the war is fierce and never-ending. Whatever the brand is, celebrities seem to take sides in various teams. Famous tech names like Sony Ericsson, Black Berry, Motorola, LG, Samsung, and more, have been recently using their creative top-of-the-line weapon. It has been revealed to the public under the name “Celeb Kit“.

Celeb Kit is what we are familiar with since decades. We find a famous female singer posing on a magazine cover with a bag of chips in hand, and the title that sounds like this; “I eat THIS, and always stay in shape”, or when we watch a famous male athlete using “a special kind of formula” to keep his shaving experience smooth as a feather.

The charming star’s karma is currently powerful enough to influence fans and admirers to have same choices of their preferable celebrities. And when it comes to an essential add-on in life like mobile-phones, it is obvious that it should be stylish and up-to-date, and what would be better than owning the same phone as your celebrity idol!!

Eva LongoriaSome celebs carry their own phone of choice, while others are official ambassadors for a specific brand name. Usher’s  music video “Love in This Club” opens with a Sony Ericsson W350 as a major element for the scenario. Fergie’s music video “Clumsy” has a glimpse of an upcoming new Motorola mobile, not to mention that Fergie has already appeared in many printed ads for Motorola U9, and she is currently a spokesperson for the company. With paparazzis following our loved celebrities everywhere, it became easier to know what each of these celebrities opted as a personal phone. Many also don’t hesitate attending launching parties of special phones which obviously shows their own support.

Beyonce

While some choose to release a phone under their personal name like Beyonce, who promoted a “B’Phone” Samsung mobile phone, and I wonder what does the B stand for?? And Eva Longoria who attended the Blackberry Bold launch party in Beverly Hills and carried a custom-engraved one with her name on it. Others are are sticking to a none-tech-promo-career, but that does not hold true a hundred percent, as long as they definitely would use one to make calls!

Madonna Pamela Anderson

Madonna and Pamela Anderson has a a no-promotion intention, but none the less, they are spotted carrying their own choice of phones for everyday use “which is here a Blackberry Curve mobile phone”.

Jennifer Aniston


Jennifer Aniston won the war here with a less-aggressive and more natural impact when she was spotted about to get into her car after picking up a brand new Blackberry smartphone.

I guess as fan, seeing Jenny buying one on her own really makes it tempting for me to give this phone a second thought! Specially that she was not payed to go stroll in the streets with a sealed box, or so we think! But I can’t deny that it made an influence upon me, what do you think, should the Mobile companies pay celebrities to wear their casual outfits and go hunt the stores for their latest phone models??? I believe it would be obvious by then, so for now Jennifer is the winner.

On the masculine side of this war, Usher, Brad Pitt, and David Beckham have all used their Star-Power in the technology advertisement field.  Pitt shot a couple of video ads for a Cell-phone company in Japan called SoftBank, while Beckham stayed local and became the representative of Motorola Razor models. It even got him enthusiastic enough to hang the phone as a necklace over his topless chest in one of the commercial ads. And he didn’t stop there, he made it sexy and thrilling by in another ad, wrapping his neck with a golden-shaded snake for the golden model of Moto Razor. He is still waiting for more crazy ideas to come. So you’re welcome to suggest other out-of-the-ordinary ideas.

Famous Icons who are currently associated with Mobile Brands are:

Sony Ericsson has tennis champion Maria Sharapova
Motorola has Car Racer Danica Patrick and singer Wyclef Jean
Samsung has soccer players Michael Ballack and Didier Drogba .