If you are using a GSM phone (AT&T or T-Mobile in the U.S.), you
likely have a few more months before it will be easy for
practically anyone to spy on your communications. Security
researcher Karsten Nohl is launching an open-source, distributed
computing project designed to crack the encryption used on GSM
phones and compile it into a code book that can be used to
decode conversations and any data that gets sent to and from the
phone. Karsten Nohl talks about his distributed computing, open-
source AE/1 cracking project at the Hacking at Random
conference. “We’re not creating a vulnerability but publicizing
a flaw that’s already being exploited very widely,” he said in a
phone interview Monday. This weakness in the encryption used on
the phones, A5/1, has been known about for years. There are at
least four commercial tools that allow for decrypting GSM
communications that range in price from $100,000 to $250,000
depending on how fast you want the software to work, said Nohl,
who previously has publicized weak