NSA & British spies hack into Dutch company producing SIM cards

[Perspicuo]

NSA and British spies 'hack into Dutch company producing SIM cards'
http://www.dw.de/nsa-and-british-spies-hack-into-dutch-company-producing-sim-cards/a-18270000

US and British spies have stolen encryption keys of the world's largest SIM card manufacturer, according to a report citing NSA documents. As a result, mobiles can be monitored worldwide, The Intercept website claims.

Operatives from Britain and the NSA hacked into the internal network of Dutch company Gemalto, the world's largest manufacturer of SIM cards for mobile phones, The Intercept reported on Thursday, saying it had the information from documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

If so these countries are crooks. And if phone companies stop buying these Dutch SIM cards because of this, the political and economic repercussions are going to be hard to predict (to put it mildly).

 

[Jarhyn]

NSA and British spies 'hack into Dutch company producing SIM cards'
http://www.dw.de/nsa-and-british-spies-hack-into-dutch-company-producing-sim-cards/a-18270000

US and British spies have stolen encryption keys of the world's largest SIM card manufacturer, according to a report citing NSA documents. As a result, mobiles can be monitored worldwide, The Intercept website claims.

Operatives from Britain and the NSA hacked into the internal network of Dutch company Gemalto, the world's largest manufacturer of SIM cards for mobile phones, The Intercept reported on Thursday, saying it had the information from documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

If so these countries are crooks. And if phone companies stop buying these Dutch SIM cards because of this, the political and economic repercussions are going to be hard to predict (to put it mildly).

The problem is, the damage has already been done. This is akin to injecting polonium into the veins of international communications. In any given situation, there's a better than 75% chance that one or the other person has such a SIM card. I know right now that my phone contains one. I'm getting a new phone today, but I'd bet that I can't get a new sim without a compromised key even if I wanted to; they're my company's sole supplier. This is nothing short o state sponsored terrorism and my own government needs to be dragged in front of the ICC. The NSA needs to be defunded, and the leaders brought up on war crimes.

 

[repoman]

Well, theverge.com says it it not so bad. So I trust them.

 

[barbos]

Well, if something can be attempted to be done NSA/CIA will try it.
SIM cards are stupid, and were not designed for security. They need to get away from them to better authentication with keys generated by the cellphones themselves.

 

[barbos]

Well, theverge.com says it it not so bad. So I trust them.

It's not really a big deal if you live in US, because they can always get a court order against you anyway. This only means that CIA can listen to people in other countries, and to do so, they still need physically intercept communication, so they need to be close to you or have very big antenna on a satellite or something.