Nearly everything we do with modern technology is encrypted. From cellphones, to credit cards, online banking, you name it. But now, 24 hackers from Berlin have hacked the 21-year-old technology of A5/1, which is an algorithm to encrypt GSM voice conversations. The 64-bit keys are now as easy as a book to read, and the only fix for this security breach is the newer 128-bit A5/3 algorithm.
Although of course the voice providers ignore Karsten Nohl, a PhD from the University of Virginia, saying that since it’s illegal to hack a GSM network, he (or anyone who has his 2TB codebook that’s available as a torrent) would ever do it.
[Via Phone News]
