"If someone intercepted the encryption keys used in 3G or 4G SIMs they would not be able to connect to the networks and consequently would be unable to spy on communications."
I don't understand this. First, it's well known that intelligence services passively listen to and collect any and all radio traffic. The issue then is can that traffic be decrypted, not can the traffic be spied on. Related to that is of course the use of frequency hopping -- but as I understand it, if frequency hopping uses N bands, and you have N antennas/radios at your disposal, you could listen and record all of them.
Secondly, we all know that if you have a sim card, you can connect to a 3g/4g network. What they seem to be implying, is that 3g/4g uses asymmetric encryption (certificates) for authentication, and that only the sim card knows its own secret key. Does anyone know is this is true? Did 3g/4g move away from shared-secret to asymmetric keys?
I hope I'm missing something -- because if not this press release is basically full of placating lies.
I don't understand this. First, it's well known that intelligence services passively listen to and collect any and all radio traffic. The issue then is can that traffic be decrypted, not can the traffic be spied on. Related to that is of course the use of frequency hopping -- but as I understand it, if frequency hopping uses N bands, and you have N antennas/radios at your disposal, you could listen and record all of them.
Secondly, we all know that if you have a sim card, you can connect to a 3g/4g network. What they seem to be implying, is that 3g/4g uses asymmetric encryption (certificates) for authentication, and that only the sim card knows its own secret key. Does anyone know is this is true? Did 3g/4g move away from shared-secret to asymmetric keys?
I hope I'm missing something -- because if not this press release is basically full of placating lies.