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World's First Voice Call From a Free GSM Stack

Posted by timothy on from the but-it-takes-more-than-a-pdf-exploit dept.

zycx writes "As Dieter Spaar has pointed out in a mailing list post on the OsmocomBB developer list, he has managed to get a first alpha version of TCH (Traffic Channel) code released, supporting the FR and EFR GSM codecs. What this means, in human readable language: He can actually make voice calls from a mobile phone that runs the Free Software OsmocomBB GSM stack on its baseband processor. This is a major milestone in the history of the project."

7 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Pardon me, but.... by WED+Fan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Pardon me, but what does this really mean? Does this mean that we could develop our out cell phones, a kind of born unlocked? Would this allow us to create our own devices that include GSM without relying upon the industry providing us feature sets we don't want or need?

    Is this really historic, or just a really nerdy, geeky milestone?

    In other words: What will this do for me?

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    1. Re:Pardon me, but.... by jack2000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Your phone could just LIE about it's IMEI, as i see it if it's all open source you can make it return whatever IMEI you want.

    2. Re:Pardon me, but.... by Shoe+Puppet · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I bet you can fake the IMEI if you control the GSM stack.

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      (+1, Disagree)
    3. Re:Pardon me, but.... by dave420 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Which is illegal in some places, such as the UK.

  2. Got more links about GSM patents? by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you've any other links, I'd like to add them here:

    http://en.swpat.org/wiki/GSM

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  3. Re:First Call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    As far as I know, the primary reason why rms doesn't have a cell phone is because he doesn't want to be tracked , and not because it contains non-free software (though that may be an additional reason...):

    Police in the US use cell phones to track people's movements, real time. They can collect records of your past movements without meeting even the usual standard for a search warrant. Now courts are considering whether they must meet that standard for real-time tracking.

    This is why I do not have a cell phone: I don't want to give the police a record of everywhere I go. It's not that I have something specific to hide; rather, it's my duty as a citizen to resist the total surveillance state.

  4. Phreaking by uvajed_ekil · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A new era of phreaking is just around the corner, with commodity hardware, free software, and the will to continue to hack service networks. We're not there yet, but it is looking more and more like we may get there. Not a modern day equivalent of the good ol' blue box yet, but we'll keep trying.

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    This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.