Cellphone phreaking?

I do not know if this was posted, but there are some "Cell Phone Hacking" links at http://astalavista.box.sk if you haven't checked it. It's always the first place I go when I have a question or am looking for guides and tutorials.

All,

I haven't read through all the posts, but any cell network that utilises the SIM card has not to date been compromised. Cell phone phreaking and attacking the network are 2 completely different things. Cell phreaking for me is to make the cell phone act or behave in a way that it wasn't supposed too, where finding out information such as call records, location information with current services offered by operators is more observing network parameters not necessarily using a cell phone ;)

In order to get any call information e.g. snoop into a current phone call (eavesdrop), one has to try and break the encryption algorithm that is associated with the underlying bearer i.e. GSM has an algorithm that is not public, thus information from the cell phone up to the base station will use some form of encryption, GSM uses A5. By the way IMEI number has no relevance nor is involved in any security protocols associated with GSM. It is merely a serial number provided by handset manufacturers.

The other attack is to try impersonate a user i.e. masquerade. Again, today's cellular networks use a form of authentication and this is not done on session bases, however, the authentication keys are kept in the SIM card and the other within the operator. Again the authentication algorithm for GSM is private it uses A3.

Note: UMTS (or 3G) will use public algorithms.

Location information can be retrieved by identifying which cell a subscriber is in and their is no way you can pin down someone to the nearest centimeter as described by another member just from cell info this can only be achieved by using GPS. This information cannot be directly retrieved because when a location update is carried out the network will determine that the location information passed to it by the cell phone is encrypted - this is mandatory within GSM.

Regards,

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IMEI number has no relevance nor is involved in any security protocols associated with GSM

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Yeah, it's like the MAC address of a NIC card so to speak.

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Originally posted here by therenegade
Welcome to AO kaci_girl5,that's a pretty borderline question,sure you've read the site FAQ right?:)
Anyways,to put it simply,you cant...just likeyou cant hope to attack a computer without knowing it's ip..unless you own nextel fcourse lol

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And that is a load of ****. You may have to do some Social Engineering but you can get information. Do you have physical access to the phone? Can you take it to a dealer? there are a few things you can do. Nextel is a bad company, take it form me, I've seen what they do, as I work in a Cell phone shop right now.