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antdude
Matrix Ant
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join:2001-03-25
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antdude

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1980s technology can be used to hack any smartphone

»betanews.com/2014/12/24/ ··· rtphone/

"German researchers have discovered that technology from the 1980s can be used by hackers anywhere in the world to spy on your phone calls and text messages.

The Signaling System 7 (SS7) network, which is still in use today, could allow hackers using an African or Asian network, for example, to hack into a US or UK-based mobile..."

The rad(ical) (19)80s are back again. :P

StuartMW
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join:2000-08-06

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StuartMW

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said by antdude:

The rad(ical) (19)80s are back again. :P

I'm ready to go

• 3.5" MS-DOS 3.30 disk (Feb 1988). If you give me a 5.25" drive I can make a 5.25" copy.

• Norton Utilities 4.5 Advanced Edition (Jan 1989) 3.5" disks.

• McAfee VirusScan 2.2.11 for MS-DOS (March 1996).

With that lot I can fix your infected PC's Can't help with Smartphones though.

Blackbird
Built for Speed
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join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN

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Blackbird to antdude

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to antdude
What is missing from the article is any meaningful detail about how an attacker would actually "hijack a phone's forwarding function"... without which detail, the significance of that particular 'threat' avenue can't be judged for any given situation. Moreover, the use of antennas to collect calls is far older than the 1980's... going back to the early days of radio and radiophones.

The simple reality, ignored by many who view a cell phone as some kind of appliance, is that when you broadcast conversations, they will be received by somebody - occasionally 'somebody' you don't expect. The use of encryption is only as good as the security of the unit, its encryption module and the cipher itself... and a typical user has no clue about any of it, merely assuming they're somehow magically bulletproof against the possibility of interception.

StuartMW
Premium Member
join:2000-08-06

StuartMW

Premium Member

said by Blackbird:

...when you broadcast conversations, they will be received by somebody...

Yup. The German's were transmitting encrypted messages prior to and during WW2 using their Enigma machines. They were received and decrypted by the Allies.

There's currently a movie about the Brit's program to decrypt the messages.

The Imitation Game

Of course the radio transceivers are a lot smaller these days

Blackbird
Built for Speed
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join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN

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Blackbird

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said by StuartMW:

said by Blackbird:

...when you broadcast conversations, they will be received by somebody...

Yup. The German's were transmitting encrypted messages prior to and during WW2 using their Enigma machines. They were received and decrypted by the Allies. ...

As was the traffic of Japan's Foreign Office via its "Purple" code machinery and of Japan's Navy via its JN-25 encyphered code. When you realize how much of Allied military success in WWII was directly attributed to their repeated successful exploitation of Axis codes (particularly in the Pacific), you begin to wonder whether that war's outcome would have been anywhere near the same without such code-breaking. And that knowledge (of how close we were to disaster had we not been reading enemy traffic), percolating through the defense organs of Allied powers in the years following, has completely dominated their thinking ever since. Hence the preoccupation of the 3-letter agencies in attempting to read all the traffic in the world.

planet
join:2001-11-05
Oz

planet to antdude

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to antdude
said by antdude:

German researchers have discovered that technology from the 1980s can be used by hackers anywhere in the world to spy on your phone calls and text messages.

I get close to letting go of my LAN line but it's stuff like this that prevents that plunge.

When sending iMessage from Apple device to Apple device, it utilizes Apple servers so this SPECIFIC vulnerability is mitigated.

StuartMW
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join:2000-08-06

StuartMW to Blackbird

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to Blackbird
said by Blackbird:

Hence the preoccupation of the 3-letter agencies in attempting to read all the traffic in the world.

Yup. And that's the difference. They want it all

goalieskates
Premium Member
join:2004-09-12
land of big

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goalieskates to antdude

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to antdude
said by antdude:

German researchers have discovered that technology from the 1980s can be used by hackers anywhere in the world to spy on your phone calls and text messages.

This is what happens when people focus for years on fancier interfaces rather than functionality.

I'm always amazed at how little the current crop of techies knows about the software of the past. A constant refrain is "but that's OLD technology" (usually referring to something recent.) So they build the new stuff on top of the old stuff they don't understand, and wonder why they get bit.

Blackbird
Built for Speed
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Fort Wayne, IN

Blackbird to StuartMW

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to StuartMW
said by StuartMW:

said by Blackbird:

Hence the preoccupation of the 3-letter agencies in attempting to read all the traffic in the world.

Yup. And that's the difference. They want it all

Indeed. While I don't agree with their object of "grabbing it all" for a variety of reasons, it helps to at least understand some of the historical "why" behind their drive. My concern, apart from the entire 'freedom/privacy/Constitutionality' thing, is that there lies an additional reality: that in attempting to swallow the ocean, the forest gets missed for the trees. That is, the ensuing "data smog" of billions of details overwhelms both the analysts' focus and the common sense of everyone else involved so that otherwise obvious signs get missed. Sigh...

siljaline
I'm lovin' that double wide
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join:2002-10-12
Montreal, QC

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siljaline to antdude

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to antdude
(Wired.com)
Tech Time Warp of the Week: In the ’90s, Apple Celebrated Christmas by Bashing Microsoft

camper
just visiting this planet
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Bethel, CT

camper to StuartMW

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to StuartMW
said by StuartMW:

I'm ready to go..

 
What, no Hayes 1200 baud modem?

StuartMW
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StuartMW to goalieskates

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to goalieskates
said by goalieskates:

I'm always amazed at how little the current crop of techies knows...

Reminds me of this.
quote:
Ethan : "So the relay patch is the key?"
Frank : "...the nose on your face."
Ethan : "How did you bypass the heat exchange?"
Frank : "I didn't bypass anything."
Ethan : "You're not being very forthcoming on the workings of the guidance systems."
Frank : "Look kid, I just...I've done everything short of calculus instructions to bring you up to speed on this. What do you want me to do, draw you a picture? Connect all the little dots?"
Ethan : "Excuse me, I hold two master degrees from MIT, Dr. Corvin."
Frank : "Maybe you ought to get your money back."
Space Cowboys (2000)
StuartMW

StuartMW to camper

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to camper
Never had a 1,200 baud modem (but used one at work). I did have a 2,400 at one time though

Blackbird
Built for Speed
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Blackbird

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said by StuartMW:

Never had a 1,200 baud modem (but used one at work). I did have a 2,400 at one time though

Back then, we thought it was remarkable enough just to be able to pass alpha-numerics and binary code to another site via networks... nobody had figured it was also essential to deliver hi-def graphics, ads, music, videos, and countless other trinkets as well. It was a kinder, simpler, more civilized era...

StuartMW
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join:2000-08-06

StuartMW

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said by Blackbird:

It was a kinder, simpler, more civilized era...

Yup Dialing BBS'es long-distance at 1,200 baud. Those were the days
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

HELLFIRE to antdude

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to antdude
quote:
The second method uses radio antennas to collect all calls and texts in the area, with hackers even able to request a temporary encryption key through the SS7 network, if any information has additional security. This technique requires the attackers to be nearer to their victims, but also allows them to target many more individuals.
Agree on what was said earlier, that a broadcast can be detected by anyone nearby
with the right gear and will to do so...
quote:
There are two primary methods used to intercept phone calls over the SS7 network. The first sees attackers hijack a phone’s forwarding function, redirecting calls to themselves before sending them onto the intended recipient. This means hackers can listen in on conversations from anywhere in the world.
...this one's alittle more nebulous, and I suspect without a full understanding of
the operation of SS7, that seems to be the missing key. Based on what little I
know about SS7 -- which you could fit into an electron shell, by the way -- I suspect
an analogy of an (R)SPAN session or IP Policy Based Routing isn't too far off the mark.

...any SS7 experts wanna step in and/or correct me, please feel free to do so.

My 00000010bits

Regards

camper
just visiting this planet
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Bethel, CT

camper to StuartMW

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to StuartMW
said by StuartMW:

Never had a 1,200 baud modem..

 
I had a 300 baud modem, circa late 70's. But that was off the 80's topic of this thread. So I skipped to the 1200 baud modem.
camper

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camper to StuartMW

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to StuartMW
said by StuartMW:

Dialing BBS'es long-distance at 1,200 baud. Those were the days

 
Don't forget building your own computer, when building your computer meant soldering the parts onto the motherboard.

»www.imsai.net/

StuartMW
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StuartMW

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Been there, done that. Circa 1976. No "motherboard". No screen. You entered your programs via switches and LED's.

Blackbird
Built for Speed
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Fort Wayne, IN

Blackbird

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said by StuartMW:

Been there, done that. Circa 1976. No "motherboard". No screen. You entered your programs via switches and LED's.

Then, when you were satisfied your program was running properly, you could output the code to an ASCII teletype and print a paper tape for later auto-reload. Ultimately, you could use the tape to burn EPROMs for use out in the "real world". The biggest advantage to that process was you could actually annotate your code with pencil when needed, right there on the paper tape (try that with a flash stick, all you New-Millenium smarty-pants!); the biggest drawback was somebody always had to dump the chad bucket without them flying all over the place.

StuartMW
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StuartMW

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Teletype ASR33
said by Blackbird:

...you could output the code to an ASCII teletype and print a paper tape for later auto-reload.

Obviously you, or the place you worked at, had $$$.

. o O (Pretty sure the ASR33 worked at 110 baud)

camper
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camper to StuartMW

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to StuartMW
said by StuartMW:

No "motherboard".

 
Yeah, my bad. I assembled the system/CPU board that plugged into the backplane S-100 bus.

StuartMW
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StuartMW

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S-100 bus? I wish! My first computer was 100% custom boards. S-100 wasn't even invented at that time.

camper
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camper to Blackbird

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to Blackbird
said by Blackbird:

for later auto-reload.

 
Wish I had that "auto-load" capability for paper tapes.

I had to enter a 100-step paper tape loader (Intel Hex format) via the front panel switches before the thing was smart enough to load from paper tapes.
camper

camper to StuartMW

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to StuartMW
said by StuartMW:

My first computer was 100% custom boards.

 
Cool.

StuartMW
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StuartMW

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512 bytes of PROM. 256 bytes of RAM.

I too had to write my own "bootloader" (cassette tape interface) but I'd designed/built my own 1KB RAM board by then.

. o O (Wimps used paper punch )
StuartMW

StuartMW

Premium Member

In 2002 or so I found original parts and documentation on eBay and built a facsimile of my original 1976 "system". It didn't look like that above but the uP/PROM/RAM is the same minus all my modifications.

Last time I powered it up (some years ago) it still worked.

Blackbird
Built for Speed
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Fort Wayne, IN

Blackbird to StuartMW

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to StuartMW
said by StuartMW:

... Obviously you, or the place you worked at, had $$$. ...

Indeed, they did. We had rigged up a dedicated tape reader plus a green-wired interface board direct into the Intellec 8, and could load paper tape directly. Creating a tape was a bit more slow and cumbersome as we had to interface from the Intellec back through the teletype.

Typically, we developed and altered our software on the Intellec in the usual way, saving the various versions or day's work on paper tape for overnight storage until reloading the latest program the next day. There was always a unique odor associated with the oiled paper that intensified by heating up while zipping through the reader...

StuartMW
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StuartMW

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said by Blackbird:

There was always a unique odor associated with the oiled paper that intensified by heating up while zipping through the reader...

Smellable software

I did get to see a S-100 system (Altair 8800b I think) , with an ASR33 Teletype (plus paper tape reader), but didn't get to use it. As I recall they loaded the BASIC interpreter via paper tape.
StuartMW

StuartMW

Premium Member

said by StuartMW:

• McAfee VirusScan 2.2.11 for MS-DOS (March 1996).

I found a copy of "McAfee VirusScan v06v39" dated Sept 28th 1989 online.
quote:
VIRUSCAN version 0.6V39 can identify 39 major virus strains
and numerous sub-varieties for each strain. The 39 viruses include
the twelve most common viruses which account for over 90% of all
reported PC infections. These common viruses include:

- Pakistani Brain
- Jerusalem
- Alameda
- Cascade (1701/1704)
- Ping Pong
- Stoned
- Lehigh
- Den Zuk
- Datacrime (Columbus Day/October 13th)
- Fu Manchu
- Vienna (DOS 62)
- April First

In addition to these common viruses, VIRUSCAN can identify the
3066 virus (Traceback), The Icelandic virus, the Datacrime-2 Virus,
the 405 virus, Disk Killer, and other viruses that have been
detected in Europe, but as yet have not caused widespread problems
in the U.S.

Oh for a time when we only had to worry about 39 viruses.