really interesting read. i generally dont bat an eyelash when it comes to cellular networks having backdoors, for all intents i consider all of them vaguely nationalized for natsec reasons. '9-11 changed everything' etc etc. that said, if this was facilitated by an unauthorized party (eg the NSA modifying another countries cellular network), thats a much, much bigger deal... i skimmed but no one seems to be naming names at this point.

in any case, i think its really fascinating that the arms race between gov level encryption tampering and civilian level research being able to discover it is getting this hot and heavy.

GPRS was/is implemented worldwide so for years the NSA could decrypt messages if needed in west europe, africa the middle east etc, US mobil phone systems from that time used CMDA/CDMA-W not GPRS , today GPRS is phased out or no longer in use in western european parts because it was surpassed by EDGE,UMTS,LTE but a lot of african and middel east countries still use GPRS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ast_and_Africa

So if you wonder how the US 3 letter agencies know so much about every fucking move someone from those parts makes its because they are able to decrypt all of it probably since the early 2000´s, but yea you are right all Telephone networks have state owned backdoors or blackboxes so the gov is able to track you and record you but this is another level with this you can decrypt all cell phone communication in every part of the world including the secure leader ones

and because its fucking relevant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG

the double whammy first you undermine the standard so you can decrypt everything then if word gets out or there are suspicions just open a company selling secure phones which is run by the CIA from switzerland