The UK is currently awash with stories about mobile phone ‘hacking’. The general public is largely confused as to how this has happened. Particularly since the 'hacking' we are talking about in this instance is almost certainly a reference to hacking into somebody's voice mailbox. It isn't a reference to actually listening in to somebody talking on the phone. On top of this, there are now reports that news journalists have also indulged in a practice called 'pinging' which relates to discovering somebody's location based on where they have been using their mobile phone.
Let's get one myth out of the way first. Practically speaking, we don't believe you can break the encryption using on a GSM mobile phone (which is the system we now use in the UK for digital handsets). A number of hackers have, of course, claimed that they are able to break the stream cipher called A5/1 which GSM uses. There's a report on these claims on ZDnet here.
We do, however, believe a bunch of researchers in Israel who did openly prove that it is possible to 'crack' the encryption used in GSM phones. There was, however, one huge snag to this breach. You actually had to be standing within range of their supercomputer for the call to be decrypted. And you can't load up a supercomputer in a van and travel around listening into people's calls.
There's a much easier way to go about listening into mobile phone conversations. The government has a perfect right to ask the mobile phone network operators to let them listen into the conversation of persons they regard to be a threat to the State. It's called a legal or lawful intercept.
The suggestion has been made that the number of these lawful intercepts requested by the police might be suspiciously high. One network alone has allegedly been asked by the police in one year nearly 4,000 times – just for calls made in London. That's one hell of a lot of suspected terrorists. However, no-one yet seems to be claiming that journalists bribed the police to lawful intercept the calls being made by one of their targeted persons.
There's also a degree of confusion surrounding the whole issue of phone hacking. Those with long memories might remember the Camillagate scandal when excerpts of the conversation between the UK's Price Charles and his then mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, were published in the tabloids. They forget that this couple were actually using analogue mobile phones which 'could' be listened into with a relatively inexpensive scanner. You can't do that with a GSM phone as we explain above.
So what kind of hacking were these people doing, then? Well, it seems that the voicemail systems employed by the UK phone companies leak like sieves. The mobile phone companies don't seem too keen on letting their customers know how to stop this. Why? Well because it could seriously impact their revenues from voice calls.
If you call somebody's mobile handset and they don't answer, then the mobile phone company doesn't make any money. But, if the handset goes over to voicemail, then a call is delivered and they increase their revenues. So the operators aren't keen on the general public discovering that – by using some very simple commands on any modern mobile phone – it is perfectly possible to turn off the voicemail facility altogether.
From the degree of success enjoyed by the rogue journalist, it seems that celebrities were unaware that it would be A) A good idea to set a password on your handset's voice mailbox or B) to change the default password from something which is very easy to guess. Techeye's own feeling is that the hacks had a list of known default passwords for each of the major mobile phone networks. If your voice mailbox number is 1234 or 0000 change it now.
The UK mobile phone networks provide a telephone number which you can call into to listen to your voicemail messages while you are abroad. For Orange, for example, the actual number is 07973 100123. The rogue hack could call this number and feed in the Orange telephone number of the celebrity they wish to hack. If actually set at all, the password to listen to these messages appears to have been compromised very readily.
The latest revelations about the implications of the hacking of the Milly Dowler's mobile phone – see The Guardian’s coverage here – are deplorable. The journalist weren't just listening into voicemails being left on Milly’s voicemail mailbox. They were deleting them because the voice mailbox had filled up. By deleting those messages, Milly's family were given false hope that she might still be alive because somebody was obviously listening into the messages. But tragically not Milly herself.
Now we come onto the latest technique being used by rogue journalists to spy on celebrities – a practice which is apparently known as 'pinging'. With all cellular mobile phone systems, it is relatively simple to calculate the rough location of a person's mobile phone. It's known as cell site triangulation because you work out from the strength of the signal being received from three different cell sites roughly where that handset is located. Remember that you don't actually need to make or receive a phone call for this to work. You could send or receive a text message/SMS, for example. Just moving around triggers the handset into checking with the nearest cell sites which has the strongest signal.
These days there are literally hundreds of applications which legally make use of cell site location. In theory, the person who owns the handset has to give his or her permission for the location to be given out. However, Techeye would guess that it wouldn't be too difficult to bribe some-one with knowledge of how these systems work to add in the celebrity's mobile phone number and therefore discover where the handset is roughly located.
For example, if the handset was being used in Esher in Surrey, you could guess the celebrity is at home; drinking in the local pub or eating in his or her favourite restaurant. Of course, these days the latest smartphones are equipped with a GPS/satellite receiver. We have no idea if it is actually possible but in theory it might be feasible to send a command to the victim's handset and get it to turn the GPS on. In which case you'd know exactly where the handset is located.
So the moral of the story is ... come up with a memorable four digit password and change your voicemail right now. And if you don't want the tabloids to know where you are ... turn it off. Maybe even take the battery out just in case.
Berny
Hi Berny. You are probably right that a 'butt phone' (which is the test set employed by ISDN technicians) would be able to spoof a mobile phone's telephone number. Technically that's an MSISDN (Mobile Subscriber Integrated Services Digital Network Number) and GSM is, of course, based on much ISDN technology. That would save you having to work out which network a mobile phone is actually connected to. But, it wouldn't by-pass the PIN requirement if a PIN has been set. I suspect that the rogue journalist hackers had a list of the common default passwords and got straight in.
Eva Glass
Mobile phone conversations have been listened into for "trigger" words like, "V.A.T" or "Use your imagination" since The Latest Addition To Chosen Fewery was still a relatively naive Rosened Labourite fantasising about his skull capping moment. Those were the days when mobile-addressed mobile numbers could be bought at any outlet by VAT scamsters, smugglers, Druggists & Chemists Peddlars and what have you's which gave Fuzzy Boy a headache bigger than the mistress. It is still an ongoing problem but then “Inland Revenue” is just another business whose model/bottomline is “Fiscal Profits” and little else. Jest like “Credit Card” Jesters and “Banks”.
The quality of life within Taxation-cum-Credit based economies’ have been resolved to a business model, Taxation-cum-Credit being the Holy Grail of The Business of Governance within “Westernised”/”Developed” economies, developed in the art of Hypocrisy & Insincerity, the nett effect/aim which is to groom its populace to becoming Beggars & Thieves, excused as Opportunity and Right. As it stands, The Charge of The Lemming is not reversible because the momentum-cum-inertia of Stupidty-cum-Dumbness, oka The Middling Blankness, is too great.
"Terrorists", real, patsy-ed, imagined, political or financial have all learned to adapt their mobile conversations accordingly. Which stupido-cum-dumbo believes that toothfairies, goody-2-shoes, hypocrisy, "reality-shows", "newspapers" and “Rights” are not only for real but forever real? These are the fence-sitting grass greeners who offer "Transience"/The Temporal a foothold within Humanity.
Believe only in what you'd experience and not who told you what. Be your own master and try not to master others nor be mastered by others. Be immunised to nonsense such as frivolity, abandonment and ritualism. Problems are only for those who have too little or too many, vacuous busybodies and voyuers who enable The Bookie to re-present His version of Infinity as that which goes round and round and not that which is helical in nature. It is sheer stupidity-dumbness to comms 25/8 just because The Digital Option is not only deployable, but will become the noose around one’s neck when the moment arrives. To replace The Living with The Living-Dead and calling that “Developed”.
Digital within Humanity means Brain-Dead and little else. Especially when, say, “ESP” is real but is only realisable when The Brain’s seemingly hidden thoughtless [yes, “ESP” has no thoughts but how will any thinker realised this reality?] capacity is utilised - the exact opposite of trying to own/fully-materialise The Brain by materialists, be they via the religiosity of might-intellect, oka rejection, or through the religiosity of the conditioned, oka acceptance.
When a human either accepts or rejects, he is not going to get what he is trying so easy or so hard to obtain. In this instance, the sincerity, honestly, truthfulness and morality of The Newspapers, Law Enforcement, Politicians and finally, the Control Freaks cum Abandoned Nutters who put those jokers where they are - for the destruction of others - whilst not forgetting that the biggest destruction is the lack of Truth, oka Freedom, one’s true freedom. One’s Reality. Hands up those who ‘fink that this mickey-mouse sideshow of Nailing the Crook is for real. No wonder Humanity is in such a mess. Realise that when Ali Baba sacrifices his patsies to satiate blood-lusts, he is still Ali Baba. Jest like “Libya”, “Iran”, Russia”, “China” and more but nevah, evah, The Real Crooks, those who refuse to look at the mirror other than constantly drivelling about others’ tarnished reflections.