Nerding Out. Playing with the Internet. Flipping Bits n' Shit.

I just finished going through Karsten Nohl's presentation and project notes on cracking the A5/1 encryption key used to protect GSM networks.  Usually mobile phones and base stations quickly and randomly change their radio frequencies across a spectrum of 80 channels to prevent eavesdroppers from picking off and assembling a conversation floating through the air waves.  With his team's new channel hopping crack, software can now be used to control radios that makes the frequency changes at precisely the same time, and in the same order, that the cellphone and base station do.  Karsten's presentation above describes a practical means to capture calls for under $5000 USD.  Although the current software still requires the use of pre-calculated decryption keys,  it is only a matter of time before they finish calculating the rainbow tables required to deduce any unique key that encrypts a call and eavesdrop in real-time.  At that point, I will probably want to build one for myself.  It would be kinda cool to build a GSM base station (advertising itself on an unused GSM frequency band) and have it intercept and route outgoing calls from home or from the office through the Internet via Asterisk.  Maybe then I can keep the dropped calls to a minimum. 

Launching a new operating system used to be an event.  It used to represent the latest and greatest set of productivity enhancing technologies that would change the way we did things.  It usually meant a shopping trip to buy a new computer and a bunch of other toys.  The operating system has maxed out.  It has gotten so good  (or good enough) at what it does that even large scale changes are cosmetic and evolutionary in nature.  The operating system has been relegated to the back seat, powering our web browsers and the docking stations on our mobile phones. Tomorrow, when Microsoft officially launches that new service pack they call Windows 7, I doubt it will make much of a splash unless there is a new device or web service that goes along with it.

Interface designer Joshua Porter presents some interesting ideas regarding how software adoption works these days in the context of social media.  He deconstructs the social software adoption process into three separate stages that each require a different design philosophy.  The most interesting part of this presentation is how he frames the design problem as a social psychology problem whereby the friction of the user acquisition process is circumvented by leveraging concepts such as social leverage and community influence. Lots of examples.  Definitely worth flipping through.