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Jamming Cellphones with Text Messages
Steve writes "Some Penn State professors and students have published a way to jam cellular voice service with simple text messages. From the article: 'Because text messages are transmitted on the same signal that is used to set up voice calls, just 165 messages a second is enough to disrupt all cellphones in Manhattan.' Cellular providers, of course, fired back, one stating that it 'constantly and aggressively monitors potential threats to the integrity and security of its network.'"
Don't you think that there are already more than 165 text messages being sent out every second in Manhattan?
You could send 165 text messages a second OR you could keep calling the phone you want to disrupt!
Except this isn't about disrupting one phone - this is about disrupting the entire regional network. Just the sort thing a criminal or terrorist might want to do during or in the wake of some mal-behavior. So it costs a bunch to send those messages? So what? Bad guys can have some real (or fraudulant) financial resources when that's part of their plan.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Part of the blame rests on people who complain about spam but then buy things advertised through spam. Without this reinforcement spammers would be greatly diminished.
If you think 2 to 4 simultaneous telephone calls will take down a cellular network, the thing would have stopped working a long time ago.
But... I think it's not the vox bandwidth - it's that part of the system that manages the call overhead (per the summary, the part of the system that "sets up" the calls). I believe that housekeeping does indeed take place in a smaller, and separate piece of the spectrum and the network's plumbing. Of course, IANATE (I am not a telecommunications engineer). Text messaging piggy-backs on the data that keeps the system and the phones aware of each other - long before a call (and the related bandwidth) is actually assigned to an user that dials/answers. This would be when someone who works for Verizon or Spring would anonymously chime. We can hear you now, good.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I don't buy it for one very big reason - the cells are functionally independant and Manhattan has a *lot* of cells. That means you could shut down a single cell with text messages if you targetted a single phone but a simple throttle on the number of messages to a single phone number would prevent that.
Now if you could figure out how to send messages to a bunch of different phones all in the same cell then you may be able to take that one cell out of business for a while, but DoS all of Manhattan? I think not.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
The reason is in the EU areas, bandwidth isn't so TIGHTLY restricted. That's why they've got internet connections better than what most of the USA has. Most people I know of in the EU areas pay roughly equivalent to what we do for a 10 mbit down / 2 mbit up connection, if not higher. (These are people on IRC, I wouldn't know about those I know thru IM services)
We've got, what?? Comcast with 7 mbit (shared) down and 1.5 mbit (dedicated) up, as the "potentially best" service? (Roadrunner offers 10 mbit down, but only 512 kbit up, Speakeasy is 6 mbit down dedicated, 768 kbit up dedicated?)
These people have a much larger pipeline to use. *NOW* the big difference is the pipeline leaving their country to go to other countries. Any bets on where most of that data gets sent? You betcha, USA.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.