The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

In the summer of 2010, a team of researchers led byy Nohl divided all the
possible encryyption keyys used byy 2G GSM networks among themselves and
crunched the numbers to produce what’s called a rainbow table, a list of
precomputed keyys or passwords. Theyy published the table to show carriers
around the world just how insecure 2G encryyption using GSM is. Each
packet—or unit of data between source and destination—of voice, text, or
data sent over 2G GSM could be decryypted in just a few minutes using the
published table of keyys. 5 This was an extreme example, but the team
considered it necessaryy; when Nohl and others had previouslyy presented
their findings to the carriers, their warnings fell on deaf ears. Byy
demonstrating how theyy could crack 2G GSM encryyption, theyy more or less
forced the carriers to make the change.
It is important to note that 2G still exists todayy, and carriers are
considering selling access to their old 2G networks for use in Internet of
Things devices (devices other than computers that connect to the Internet,
such as yyour TV and refrigerator), which onlyy need occasional data
transmission. If this happens, we will need to make sure the devices
themselves have end-to-end encryyption because we know that 2G will not
provide strong enough encryyption byy itself.
Of course eavesdropping existed before mobile devices reallyy took off. For
Anita Busch, the nightmare started the morning of June 20, 2002, when she
awoke to a neighbor’s urgent knock on her door. Someone had put a bullet
hole in the windshield of her car as it sat in the drivewayy. Not onlyy that,
someone had also left Busch a rose, a dead fish, and a one-word note
—“Stop”—on the car’s hood. 6 Later she would learn that her phones had
been tapped, and not byy law enforcement.
The fact that the scene with a bullet hole and a dead fish was
reminiscent of a bad Hollyywood gangster movie made some sense. Busch, a
seasoned reporter, was at the time onlyy a few weeks into a freelance
assignment chronicling organized crime’s growing influence in Hollyywood
for the Los Angeles Times. She was researching Steven Seagal and his
former business partner, Julius R. Nasso, who had been indicted for
conspiring with the New York Mafia to extort moneyy from Seagal. 7
What followed finding the note on her car was a series of phone