[Cryptography] Unencrypted SMS

[Hubert A. Le Van Gong]

On 18/11/2015 11:44, Jim Windle wrote:
> If my high school French is still any good, looks as if the phone
> recovered in Paris had been using unencrypted SMS to coordinate among
> the terrorists.  Perhaps someone can provide a good and complete
> translation.
> 
> http://www.numerama.com/politique/131220-un-sms-en-clair-sur-un-telephone-a-aide-les-enqueteurs-a-paris.html


Here is a quick translation.

Thanks,
Hubert


=========
As the RAID & BRI police forces were attacking at 4h30 AM to try to 
capture presumed accomplices of the terrorist attacks (among them, a 
woman who exploded her vest), revelation about the investigation could 
reignite the debate on mobile phone encryption.

Based on information from Mediapart, confirmed this morning by Le Monde, 
the investigators working on the Bataclan (concert hall) massacre have 
discovered a mobile phone in a trashcan and were able to read its 
content which apparently was not encrypted as is usually the case for 
iOS 9 or some Android phones.

On the phone, investigators have found a text message saying "we've left 
- we're starting".

Even though the name of the recipient and the exact identity of the 
sender are unknown, the police is convinced this is the message used by 
the coordinator of the attacks of Friday evening in Paris and 
Saint-Denis. The police was able to subpoena geolocation data associated 
to those numbers - e.g. which cell towers got activated - so that they 
could pinpoint one of the jihadists stop-off points, in Alfortville. A 
first clue that may have lead the police to the commando entrenched in 
Saint-Denis, commando that is under attack this Wednesday morning.

On Sunday, Le Figaro published the testimony of a man who was a few 
streets away from the Bataclan (concert hall) on Friday evening, and saw 
a black Polo (car) with Belgian license plates and suspicious looking 
passengers. "I clearly saw the driver and the passenger's faces because 
their faces were lit as they were typing on their smartphones".

Even though the debate around smartphone encryption will be reignited 
with this information and Tim Cook's firm position on preserving the 
privacy of his customers will become more and more difficult, it is 
important to note that the investigators could have done the same 
investigation without the discovery of this unencrypted text message. 
The phone by itself contains a SIM card which allows to retrieve the 
same geolocation data.
=========


-- 
email: hubert at levangong.org