About Your Phone Conversations…

This is amusing, given that the security problems in SS7 have been long known — in fact, I knew about them in the 1990s!
German researchers have discovered security flaws that could let hackers, spies and criminals listen to private phone calls and intercept text messages on a potentially massive scale – even when cellular networks are using the most advanced encryption now available.
The problem with not running end-to-end encryption is that you are trusting everyone in the middle. SS7 was designed for billing exchange more than anything else, and yet the phone companies don’t give a damn about hardening it either — despite the fact that it can be exploited to (and occasionally is) rig bills.
They just consider that a cost of doing business, which is a legitimate choice for them to make — but the impact on you is that your information (e.g. location, who you communicate with and what you communicate) may be stolen as well.
Wake up America.

This post was published at Market-Ticker on December 20, 2014.