For many years, the telecommunications industry has relied on the cost and complexity of network equipment to achieve many of its security goals. Sure, the standards had big security holes, but you needed really expensive equipment and a lot of expertise to exploit those holes. The problem, though, is that cost and complexity were often the only security measures. If you had network equipment, network exploitation was usually just a question of how you configure that equipment, and the attack configurations were usually obvious.
Right now, there are genuinely bad people using the public communications networks to plan genuinely bad things. There are state actors using network exploits to monitor or track these bad people. There are state actors using network exploits to abuse the privacy of their citizens. There are criminals using network exploits to commit fraud. There are targets using knowledge of network exploits to confound the state actors who are targeting them. When we see this cycle of measures and countermeasures in the world of radar systems, we call it "electronic warfare". To describe this cycle of exploits and counter-exploits in telecom networks, I'll introduce a new phrase: "communications warfare". The weapons in this type of warfare are IMSI-catchers, jammers and hacked handsets. Thanks to cost and complexity, communications warfare in the cellular networks has largely been the domain of large, well-funded organizations. Even hackers usually stayed out of this game because the equipment and know-how are at a premium, so much so that some mistake the most basic techniques for trade secrets.
Moore's Law and the open source movement are removing the cost and complexity of network equipment. VoIP projects have been doing that for wireline networks for several years now, but projects like OpenBTS and OpenBSC are starting to do the same for cellular. These projects remove barriers that prevent people from experimenting with cellular technologies in their homes and classrooms. They demystify the systems. They have the potential to democratize cellular communications, but thanks to the inherent failings of cellular security, these projects also have the potential to democratize cellular communications warfare.
I don't think that democratizing communications warfare is a good thing, but I think that democratizing cellular is a very good thing. I have spent some time this week wondering if it is possible to achieve the first without unleashing the second.
