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Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

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Re: Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

#61

Post by devmor »

NavinF wrote: post #43
jorvi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5G beamforming is not that accurate a proxy signal, and mmWave is phone vaporware, instead only significantly used for point-to-point connections. Line-of-sight requirements make it dead in the water for anything else.

> mmWave is phone vaporware Is it? I've definitely seen "5G UW" show up on my 15 Pro Max in the bay area. Att and Verizon are slowly expanding mmWave

I regularly see it in Atlanta in the big tech business areas (Buckhead, Midtown, etc) but it is hilariously bad.

Whenever I notice my cellular data has regressed to 3G speeds and reliability, I look up at the network status and see “5G UW”.

I don’t know if they deployed it without enough bandwidth on the trunk to handle all of the users or something else but I generally have to toggle airplane mode to drop back into 5G or LTE to get off of it.

Re: Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

#62

Post by joecool1029 »

esseph wrote: post #51
donnachangstein wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sprint deployed WiMAX (remember that?) fairly widely, lot of good that did them. mmWave is as dead as dead. The cellular Betamax. iPhone 16e (the everyman's iPhone) doesn't support it, and neither did the SE before it. VZW will be converting those base stations into birdhouses in 5-7 years.

That's sad for Apple, then. A poor decision on their part. Examples of Android phones that often support mmWave 5G: Samsung: Many Galaxy S and Z series models, including recent releases. Google: Pixel phones, especially the Pro models. OnePlus: Various 5G phones, including the 10 Pro, 10T, and Nord series. (etc) Apple should get their shit together.

> OnePlus: Various 5G phones, including the 10 Pro, 10T, and Nord series.

The 9 pro was the last model they sold with mmwave. The entire 10 and 11 series don't have it. The Nord never did.

> Apple should get their shit together.

They ship mmwave on everything but their budget models?

Re: Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

#63

Post by somenameforme »

IshKebab wrote: post #32
amelius wrote: post #21

I know very little about the protocol aspects of cellular communication, so can anyone explain how such a huge gaping security hole could come into existence?

It evolved from a time when this wouldn't have been considered a gaping security hole.

The phreaking [1] community was huge and becoming increasingly sophisticated long before mobile was even a thing. I think it's mostly that telecoms were traditionally discouraged from pursuing security. There's, at most, a minimal commercial incentive to it, and the government loves comms that can be easily spied on meaning you're going to get pushback from that side if you start aiming for security.

The idea to start using SMS for secure purposes was similarly probably never really about security, but an advertising/government driven effort given that it helps create a fairly reliable tracking identity for a person. It makes no sense otherwise to use SMS over something like a 2FA app which is completely cross platform, secure, free, and has basically 0 downsides relative to SMS, and a whole bunch of upsides. The only thing is that it's also anonymous.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking

Re: Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

#65

Post by vachina »

devmor wrote: post #61
NavinF wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mmWave is phone vaporware Is it? I've definitely seen "5G UW" show up on my 15 Pro Max in the bay area. Att and Verizon are slowly expanding mmWave

I regularly see it in Atlanta in the big tech business areas (Buckhead, Midtown, etc) but it is hilariously bad. Whenever I notice my cellular data has regressed to 3G speeds and reliability, I look up at the network status and see “5G UW”. I don’t know if they deployed it without enough bandwidth on the trunk to handle all of the users or something else but I generally have to toggle airplane mode to drop back into…

Ditto, I’ve disabled 5G entirely because it performs worse in high density areas compared to LTE.

Re: Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

#66

Post by ChuckMcM »

Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #49
ChuckMcM wrote: post #38

This is sort of meta to the article... Wow a web site generated using AI[1]. (or perhaps a human using AI) Anecdotally, when I was attending college there was a 12 year old girl also attending and in some of my classes, particularly my freshman physics class. She was knocking the curve off with high scores on all of the exams. I got a chance to talk to her at lunch one day and it turned out she had an eidetic memory.…

This is a very interesting comment. When I read your physics story, I thought you would be getting to the similarity to current llms. However hallucinations seem like a different issue that the young student might not have. If she incorrectly matches some scenario to a text match, maybe some hallucinations. Some humans are confident in making comments about things I don't understand, like you know who. But many human…

I pretty much agree with this, having some way to indicate model boundaries in an LLM parameter space to create back pressure on token generation would help a lot here.

For me though the interesting bits are how the lack of understanding surfaces as artifacts in the presentation or interaction. I'm a systems person who can't help but try to fathom the underlying connections and influences that are driving the outputs of a system.

Re: Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

#67

Post by ChuckMcM »

steadychilis wrote: post #53
ChuckMcM wrote: post #38

This is sort of meta to the article... Wow a web site generated using AI[1]. (or perhaps a human using AI) Anecdotally, when I was attending college there was a 12 year old girl also attending and in some of my classes, particularly my freshman physics class. She was knocking the curve off with high scores on all of the exams. I got a chance to talk to her at lunch one day and it turned out she had an eidetic memory.…

1) Yes, it's still possible to convince a phone to connect to older RAT generations. However, the idea is that as those are phased out, it's unlikely that they'll be enabled on UEs, so phones likely won't connect and "say hi" as you say. For example, 2G is already being disabled on many devices. It'll be a while before 2G-4G is fully phased out and IMSI Catchers become completely infeasible, but I think that it's saf…

I completely agree with you that I don't have much exposure to SUCIs. And thanks for the link.

Re: Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

#68

Post by Boldened15 »

somenameforme wrote: post #63
IshKebab wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It evolved from a time when this wouldn't have been considered a gaping security hole.

The phreaking [1] community was huge and becoming increasingly sophisticated long before mobile was even a thing. I think it's mostly that telecoms were traditionally discouraged from pursuing security. There's, at most, a minimal commercial incentive to it, and the government loves comms that can be easily spied on meaning you're going to get pushback from that side if you start aiming for security. The idea to star…

Don’t 2FA apps have the major downside that if you lose the specific mobile device you installed it on you’re SOL, unless you have backup codes that are too technical for most. SMS gets you more human support since you pay your carrier, I can walk into my nearest teleco branch with my ID if I lose my phone and change the SIM to another phone. So most of the time unless your SIM is hijacked it’s a good proxy for being actually you.

Plus having to download another app adds friction to the signup process and most users aren’t going to bother, so for most it’s SMS 2FA or nothing. Since apps often want your phone number anyway for bot prevention, and users are used to verification codes, it’s not a big deal.

Also a tail end of other issues with 2FA apps (and SMS 2FA predates the nice ones anyway); in other countries there are devices other than iOS/Android to suggest an authenticator app for, limited network speeds and device storage, etc. Heck, I know people in the U.S. with full device storage who can’t download new apps without deleting some stuff. If you’re a random app and not a tech company SMS 2FA is just going to be much easier to implement.

Re: Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

#69

Post by wtallis »

cyberax wrote: post #52
donnachangstein wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sprint deployed WiMAX (remember that?) fairly widely, lot of good that did them. mmWave is as dead as dead. The cellular Betamax. iPhone 16e (the everyman's iPhone) doesn't support it, and neither did the SE before it. VZW will be converting those base stations into birdhouses in 5-7 years.

mmWave is going to be useful in places like stadiums or large arenas, though. It works wonders in these kinds of applications. WiMAX never really worked well at all.

Stadiums are pretty much the only place where mmWave in phones makes sense. For the other 99.99% of usage, it's an expensive power-hungry extra radio that doesn't work. mmWave 5G is mostly a sunk cost for Verizon, and largely irrelevant to everyone else.

Re: Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher?

#70

Post by Nokinside »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #47
Nokinside wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common to discover IMSI-catchers in national capitals around the world. There are many interesting targets. Washington, D.C. mobile traffic is probably the most spied in the world. Especially now when it's run by technological cavemen and overly confident techbros. Israeli, Russians, Chinese, French and everyone.

The Soviet/Russian station in San Francisco was heavily involved in SIGINT back in the days of microwave radio trunks and analog mobile phones, and I would imagine the Chinese have taken the throne from them today.

Few years back suspected Israeli IMSI-catcher was fond in DC https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/12/israel-white-house...

APNewsBreak: US suspects cellphone spying devices in DC https://apnews.com/general-news-d716aac4ad744b4cae3c6b13dce1...

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