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Feature Phone Hack Can Block Calls, Texts On Some Networks

Posted by Unknown on from the security-through-obscurity-problems dept.

Trailrunner7 writes, quoting Threat Post "By tweaking the firmware on certain kinds of phones, a hacker could make it so other phones in the area are unable to receive incoming calls or SMS messages, according to research presented at the USENIX Security Symposium. The hack involves modifying the baseband processor on some Motorola phones and tricking some older 2G GSM networks into not delivering calls and messages. By 'watching' the messages sent from phone towers and not delivering them to users, the hack could effectively shut down some small localized mobile networks. Essentially the hacked firmware ... can block ... pages by responding to them before the phones that were initially intended to receive them do, something Kevin Redon and company called during their research 'the race for the fastest paging response time.'" Thanks to the power of Osmocom BB, which has implemented Free Software baseband for several GSM devices. Also see the research paper.

21 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. first useless reply! by themushroom · · Score: 1

    I'd love to be able to block texting around me.

    --
    Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
    1. Re:first useless reply! by je+ne+sais+quoi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Shoot, I couldn't care less about blocking other people's texting, what I want is to block texting to my own phone selectively. If they aren't in my contacts list, I don't want their text message. This is mostly, but not entirely due to AT&T's (and everyone else's) abusive pricing strategy for texts. What I would call fair is rates for text messages that are charged the same as the equivalent amount of voice data. As it is, Apple never did a better thing by creating Messages for iOS and imessage.app for OS X. It's a pity they don't open their standard so that android devices or linux computers can use the same protocol and I would never have to pay for another text message.

      --
      Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
    2. Re:first useless reply! by DavidClarkeHR · · Score: 1

      I'd love to be able to block texting around me.

      A cell phone jammer is inexpensive ... and illegal. This is the same thing - it breaks FCC broadcast rules.

      --
      - Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
    3. Re:first useless reply! by cheater512 · · Score: 1

      But...but it has a FCC sticker on it!

    4. Re:first useless reply! by DontScotty · · Score: 1

      You can do this.

      Pretty easy...
       
          google yourself a solution.... (hint)

    5. Re:first useless reply! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You can do this.

      Pretty easy...

          google yourself a solution.... (hint)

      All the 'solutions' do not actually block messages. You MUST have a Carrier who offers SMS/MMS blocking at the provider level to actually BLOCK unsolicited messages. All the app-based and OS-based solutions do not block the message, they merely suppress notifications, alerts, some auto-delete the item or otherwise hide it. But the cell company still will show a text was sent to your phone. (Which might not matter if you're on an unlimited texting plan) I haven't tested the iPhone to verify, but I suspect the built-in blocking feature in iOS doesn't really block either, just suppresses.

      I do know of one way to do it on the phone itself, but it will most likely void your phone's warranty, and will 100% violate your TOS agreement with your carrier. I won't get into gritty details but essentially it's a hack which reads the message header then fails to provide an 'Ack' back to the tower indicating the handset got it. This will result in the tower retrying the send until it eventually and times out fails... but until then you won't get any messages from other sources either, and some carriers will fail all the messages in the 'pending to-send' pool at once. So it's not very practical for most people.

    6. Re:first useless reply! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It would be pretty difficult to be caught jamming, unless you remain completely stationary with your jammer for days on end.

    7. Re:first useless reply! by Trogre · · Score: 1

      Wait, you pay to receive text messages where you live?

      WTF?

      Having said that, there's a few good IM apps for android that

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    8. Re:first useless reply! by Trogre · · Score: 1

      (stupid submit button) ... that let you send/receive text messages, but of course require the other parties to have the same app installed. Viber comes to mind.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    9. Re:first useless reply! by Errtu76 · · Score: 1

      Also, I found out that if you're in a train and sit close enough to the engineer(? the person who operates the train ..) and switch on the jammer while the train is at the station, the train won't move anymore because you're blocking the signal used by the train to communicate with the station. Was kind of funny at first, but then too many people came in asking questions and being upset ... Also, I was getting late for work and people complaining about their phone not working was worse than when they were quietly texting.

    10. Re:first useless reply! by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 2

      It's a setting in Cyanogenmod 10.2

      Add number
      no phone calls from that number
      no texts from that number

      yay CM!

      --


      "Lame" - Galaxar
    11. Re:first useless reply! by ameen.ross · · Score: 1

      And it works about 900 times better than any app I tried before CM10.2 for that purpose.

      --
      $(echo cm0gLXJmIC8= | base64 --decode)
    12. Re:first useless reply! by oPless · · Score: 1

      Then there's KIK too

  2. Cool by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Funny

    But can it re-open closed tabs?!1? I just wish there was a hot-key or menu option for this essential but rarely used feature.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    1. Re:Cool by immaterial · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't be ludicrous. That would be tantamount to creating "undo" for the entire Internet. It would be a technological marvel to pull that off!

    2. Re:Cool by kesuki · · Score: 1

      Shift+control+t for firefox which also has it under 'history' 'recently closed tabs'
      i knew about the menu method but noticed today that you can use the afore mentioned keyboard shortcut. it remembers forms though so can be used to recover forensic data...

      --
      https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
    3. Re:Cool by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      Shift+control+t for firefox

      Apparently you missed the target of the snark in this thread.

  3. Not legal in USA by craigminah · · Score: 1

    There are devices you can buy that do the same thing but they are called "jammers" and are illegal in the USA (http://www.jammer-store.com/).

  4. If they can respond to the messages... by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    If they can respond to the messages, can they read them too?

    Glad I'm not a Vodafone customer anymore though. I'll be safe until they crack WCDMA

  5. Re:Jamming GSM & GPS by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    It's probably not a good idea to launch WMD's if you live near a major airport, at night, in zero to low visibility.

  6. First post! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    ...but it got delayed somehow.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.