Code breakers crack GSM cellphone encryption

[Anton Stiglic]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Greg Rose" <ggr at qualcomm.com>
To: "Anton Stiglic" <astiglic at okiok.com>
Cc: "John Doe Number Two" <johndoe2 at mail.anonymizer.com>;
<cryptography at metzdowd.com>
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 1:39 PM
Subject: Re: Code breakers crack GSM cellphone encryption


> At 11:43 AM 9/8/2003 -0400, Anton Stiglic wrote:
> >I think this is different however.  The recent attack focused on the A5/3
> >encryption algorithm, while the work of Lucky, Briceno, Goldberg, Wagner,
> >Biryukov, Shamir (and others?) was on A5/1 and A5/2 (and other crypto
> >algorithms of GSM, such as COMP128, ...).
>
> No, that's not right. The attack *avoids* A5/3, by making the terminal end
> of the call fall back to A5/2, solving for the key in real time, then
> continuing to use the same key with A5/3.

That`s what I meant to say but did not use the right words to say.
The attack does however seem novel.
I haven`t seen the paper on the web yet (all I know is that it was
presented at Crypto 03 which I did not attend), I`m anxious to get my hands
on it.

--Anton


---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com