does vodafone use A5/1 encryption?

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › does vodafone use A5/1 encryption?

karatekid6666

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#40165 26-Aug-2009 15:27

Hey guys there is a major legal hacking tool coming out soon that will allow people to crack the gsm A5/1 encryption so anyone will be able to hear your calls and read your sms:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10316812-245.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

Does vodafone use A5/1 encryption or have they upgraded?

sbiddle

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#250705 26-Aug-2009 15:39

Vodafone use A5/1 for GSM. Vodafone 3G (as well as all other UMTS networks including XT) use A5/3 which is still secure. The USA has used A5/2 which is a weaker cipher than A5/1 or A5/3.

While it may be possible to decrypt calls you will still need an investment in hardware, it's not something everybody will be doing.

Anybody who'sparanoid about security over cellular and wants full end to end security uses a securephone anyway that uses CSD for voice traffic, Telecom's XT network doesn't have CSD which means there are organisations out there in NZ using these handsets who use them on Vodafone.

richms

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#250835 26-Aug-2009 21:26

the CSD phones still generate records however, from what I gater most of the use of electronic records for prosecuting crimes are not the content of the calls, but that they made the call.

Richard rich.ms

bender

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#251038 27-Aug-2009 16:50

Isn't a call over CSD hideously expensive?

sbiddle

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#251058 27-Aug-2009 17:59

bender: Isn't a call over CSD hideously expensive?

No.

I can't seem to find the pricing on the VF site but from memory it used to around 30c for the 1st 30 second block and then billed per second after that.

littlescott

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#251072 27-Aug-2009 18:45

If you're really worried I'm sure a dataplan with some encrypted voip should solve this problem..

bender

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#251086 27-Aug-2009 19:54

sbiddle:
bender: Isn't a call over CSD hideously expensive?

No.

I can't seem to find the pricing on the VF site but from memory it used to around 30c for the 1st 30 second block and then billed per second after that.

Now I'm curious. What handsets does one use for this? I know tons support it as I've seen the CSD settings, but presumably you need some kind of software to perform encryption at each end?

sbiddle

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#251089 27-Aug-2009 20:07

bender:
sbiddle:
bender: Isn't a call over CSD hideously expensive?

No.

I can't seem to find the pricing on the VF site but from memory it used to around 30c for the 1st 30 second block and then billed per second after that.

Now I'm curious. What handsets does one use for this? I know tons support it as I've seen the CSD settings, but presumably you need some kind of software to perform encryption at each end?

Yes.

Have a look at www.securegsm.com as an example. There are plenty of competing products.