The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#1

Post by frandroid » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 7:30 PM UTC

The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle
firstlook.org

Re: The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#2

Post by uptown » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 7:45 PM UTC

Absolutely everything is compromised.

Re: The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#3

Post by leesalminen » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 8:25 PM UTC

Do they want me to be apathetic about the actions of our government? I'm getting close.

Re: The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#4

Post by rsingel » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 8:32 PM UTC

This is yet another good argument for TextSecure and RedPhone, which don't depend on the SIM card encryption.

https://whispersystems.org/

Re: The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#5

Post by chinathrow » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 8:33 PM UTC

rsingel wrote: post #4

This is yet another good argument for TextSecure and RedPhone, which don't depend on the SIM card encryption. https://whispersystems.org/

Yet they do depend on a good RNG, don't they? Is that a given on common smartphones these days?

Re: The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#6

Post by xai3luGi » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 8:40 PM UTC

At this point, we might as well just go back to landlines and fax machines.

Re: The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#7

Post by mpclark » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 8:41 PM UTC

uptown wrote: post #2

Absolutely everything is compromised.

...and so deeply.

Re: The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#8

Post by pixl97 » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 8:46 PM UTC

chinathrow wrote: post #5

rsingel wrote: post #4

This is yet another good argument for TextSecure and RedPhone, which don't depend on the SIM card encryption. https://whispersystems.org/

Yet they do depend on a good RNG, don't they? Is that a given on common smartphones these days?

I'm not sure about hardware RNG, but many if not most phones have sources of 'random' enviornmental data they can use to generate a random number such as cameras and phone movement.

https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/42428/is-genera...

Re: The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#9

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 8:50 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

#10

Post by dthal » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 8:56 PM UTC

>>The document noted that many SIM card manufacturers transferred the encryption keys to wireless network providers “by email or FTP with simple encryption methods that can be broken … or occasionally with no encryption at all.”

If that's true, then NSA/GCHQ aren't the only people who could have grabbed a big pile of keys.