Encrypted cell phones in the US

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Welda - 08 Dec 2005 23:25 GMT

I am trying to gather information on how big the market is for secure
mobile phones, particularly in the United States. At the moment, I see
a lot of OEMs like General Dynamics, CryptoPhone and Qualcomm make
solutions, are there any others?

What is the reason behind companies being in only the voice or data
space, and not both. If I have a phone and want to make secure calls,
why do I have to buy another device to send encrypted e-mails?

The market of end users seems to be predominently for national security
agencies, but are there any companies making inroads into the
enterprise market?

There is even a question on whether its necessary or not. My research
has pulled up a number of articles stating that 3G systems are secure
anyway, so why would you need anything further.

Finally, the industry seems very small, and could really use a major
catalyst like a senator's conversation with a big donor, or a
stockbroker speaking to a client getting out onto the Internet. Does
anyone know if anything like this has happened?

Thanks!

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Simon VK3XEM - 09 Dec 2005 01:45 GMT

> I am trying to gather information on how big the market is for secure
> mobile phones, particularly in the United States. At the moment, I see
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> Thanks!

I have seen software for my Symbian phone for encrypted SMS. Haven't
had a need to use it and would need the recipient to run the same
software at the other end, so haven't bothered.

Have a look at http://www.handango.com/ or http://www.My-Symbian.com/

Signature

The views I present are my own and NOT of any organisation I belong to.

73 de Simon, VK3XEM.
http://www.aca.gov.au/pls/radcom/client_search.client_lookup?pCLIENT_NO=157452

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cryptonom - 09 Dec 2005 13:07 GMT

>> I am trying to gather information on how big the market is for secure
>> mobile phones, particularly in the United States. At the moment, I see
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
>
> Have a look at http://www.handango.com/ or http://www.My-Symbian.com/

There is also SpiderSMS (http://www.lucabarbi.it/lec/spidersms.htm),
FortressSMS (http://www.fortressmail.net/fortress_sms.htm),
Xecure (http://www.mynetsec.com/xms/), and sci.crypt's favorite,
CryptoSMS (http://www.cryptosms.com); all of which address the
same issue on different mobile platforms, i.e. your SMS can be
easily read by anybody who works for your provider, anybody who
can access the govt database of "stored" communications, or even
anybody with one of those commercially available cell phone monitors.

I do not use SMS, but if I did, I would definitely acquire whichever
one of these programs ran on my cell phone. The examples of SMS abuse
cited in the news reports are growing rapidly.

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Joseph Ashwood - 09 Dec 2005 21:59 GMT

Juat adding the missing word

and sci.crypt's [_*_*_*_*_*_LEAST*_*_*_*_*_] favorite,

> CryptoSMS (http://www.cryptosms.com)

We had extremely long discussions surrounding it. Not going back into them,
check google groups if you need a recap.
Joe

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Simon VK3XEM - 10 Dec 2005 00:07 GMT

> Juat adding the missing word
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> check google groups if you need a recap.
> Joe

Crypto SMS is not available for Nokia.

Signature

The views I present are my own and NOT of any organisation I belong to.

73 de Simon, VK3XEM.
http://www.aca.gov.au/pls/radcom/client_search.client_lookup?pCLIENT_NO=157452

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cryptonom - 11 Dec 2005 19:52 GMT

> Juat adding the missing word
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> check google groups if you need a recap.
> Joe

Guess it would have been appropriate for me to have put
a winky face on that "favorite" statement because you
obviously missed my joke. )-;

Surely everyone remembers those long running discussions.

As bullying in sci.crypt seems to be the topic du jour,
your response does bring up the question:

What bug did this SMS girl push up your a.s that makes
you jump to put her down as quickly as possible?

All throughout those long discussions, she claimed that you
emailed copies of your postings to her (presumably to keep her
coming back to sci.crypt for more abuse).

Was that true, or was she lying about your emails?

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Joseph Ashwood - 12 Dec 2005 08:07 GMT

>> Juat adding the missing word
>>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> a winky face on that "favorite" statement because you
> obviously missed my joke. )-;

I figured there was plenty of sarcasm in there to go around, but since the
OP hasn't been around I felt it was worth directly pointing out.

> Surely everyone remembers those long running discussions.
>
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> What bug did this SMS girl push up your a.s that makes
> you jump to put her down as quickly as possible?

I was grumpy that day, the window of opportunity for the funding of
development for one of my ventures had just expired and I freely admit I
took it out on a target of opportunity.

> All throughout those long discussions, she claimed that you
> emailed copies of your postings to her (presumably to keep her
> coming back to sci.crypt for more abuse).
>
> Was that true, or was she lying about your emails?

The only claim of that nature that I remember was that I had sent the first
message via email as well, and that one is true, you will in fact find a
notation at the beginning of my first response stating such.
Joe

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cryptonom@att.NOT - 12 Dec 2005 22:28 GMT

>>Surely everyone remembers those long running discussions.
>>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> development for one of my ventures had just expired and I freely admit I
> took it out on a target of opportunity.

So you admit to overdoing it in this instance?

If I recall correctly, that was what she said and what
her supporters pointed out on several occasions, and
which at the time, you denied.

After years of wading through sci.crypt's filth to find
nuggets of gold, I am glad that it is finally OK to call
bullies out on the carpet to explain their inappropriate postings.

I thank for admitting your misbehavior, unlike Tom, who continues
to insist he has not bullied people.

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Joseph Ashwood - 13 Dec 2005 01:29 GMT

>> I was grumpy that day, the window of opportunity for the funding of
>> development for one of my ventures had just expired and I freely admit I
>> took it out on a target of opportunity.
>
> So you admit to overdoing it in this instance?

I admit that my statements were probably overly blunt. My reason for this is
as explained in that thread, humans are trained societally to hear
soundbites, and to only really pay attention for the first few seconds, so
it is important to begin with a plain blunt statement in order for it to be
clearly remembered. My statements regarding the security of the system
remain accurate.

> After years of wading through sci.crypt's filth to find
> nuggets of gold, I am glad that it is finally OK to call
> bullies out on the carpet to explain their inappropriate postings.

Feel free to call me on it any time.
Joe

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Welda - 11 Dec 2005 18:35 GMT

Actually not really that interested in encrypted SMS messages but
thanks all the same.

What about secure cell phones? Which companies are deploying encrypted
mobile solutions for their senior management?

How do companies decide on what systems to purchase - is it looking at
the quality of the algorithms, or whether the phone can do voice and
data?

Finally, how secure is GSM, CDMA and 3G. Some experts say its almost
bulletproof, others say its hackable with equipment you can buy from
the Internet.

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cryptonom@att.NOT - 12 Dec 2005 00:18 GMT

> Actually not really that interested in encrypted SMS messages but
> thanks all the same.
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> bulletproof, others say its hackable with equipment you can buy from
> the Internet.

There is certainly plenty of cell phone monitoring equipment available.
Here are links to a couple of particularly scary looking ones:

http://www.chiare.com/products/spy/GSM900-1800e.htm
http://accelerated-promotions.com/consumer-electronics/cellular-interception.htm

Those were easy to find and there lots more to be found just by googling
for the obvious.

http://www.google.com/search?en&q=cell+phone+monitoring

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Joseph Ashwood - 12 Dec 2005 08:07 GMT

> Finally, how secure is GSM, CDMA and 3G. Some experts say its almost
> bulletproof, others say its hackable with equipment you can buy from
> the Internet.

These are all from memory so there might be some flaws. GSM and CDMA are
battered, bruised and broken from a security standpoint. 3GSM (there are
actually multiple 3G standards but 3GSM is the major player right now) in
it's native mode appears to be secure, it uses a variation of a published
and analyzed cipher, but I don't believe the actual 3GSM algorithm has
received noticable public attention. The bigger weakness in 3GSM is that all
implementations that I am aware of actually have a fallback mode to GSM, and
while I haven't looked at the exact protocol, this type of fallback behavior
has a history of problems (SSL makes a good example). Regardless, these are
all only between handset and basestation, not from handset to handset, there
are arguments on both sides of this, but it does provide a wiretapping point
which may or may not matter.
Joe

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