A new piece of software is set to launch in the UK, which will allow public mobile phone users the ability to encrypt all or some of their mobile comms. In partnership with German company: Safe-com, and the military, One Day Mobile is offering its encryption application, Babylon nG, to users in the public domain. Unfortunately, the software will send the encrypted traffic over the data channel via GPRS, rather than the voice channel. This could lead to breaks, lag and interruptions, as the GPRS system has no rigorous controls over transmission as GSM does.

Update: I have just been contacted by Danielle Newman of marketing & PR company Pazang Ltd, who has informed me that the mobile encryption software will only be available to businesses, the government and the military.

Earlier this week we reported on the re-application of the RIPA act with all of its glorious additions. Yet once again, as before, the proposal is coming under fire left right and center. For example, it is likely that people will start to disregard the security implications that encryption has to offer, after all, why encrypt data when you have to decrypt it for any moron who asks, and who wants to go to prison because they forgot their key to 2006_financial_report.pdf.enc

More Information: BBC - Police decryption powers ‘flawed’

With all the hype of the new 802.11n wireless spec floating around, it would appear that a number of manufacturers are starting to put out the required hardware. Unfortunately for the consumer, the 802.11n spec is still in the draft 1.0 phase, with a second draft not being planned until early next year.

802.11n, the upgrade from 802.11g, will give speeds of upto 600mbps, a vast improvement in wireless transmission speed. The current problems arise as the spec has not been fully resolved, meaning that many devices currently available will, likely, be incompatible with the final draft. Furthermore, initial testing has shown a very bad inter-manufacturer compatibilty.

On 30th August, the Home Office conclude their musing of, as yet, un-included portions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000). Portions that will give police not only full access to peoples encrypted data, but full a history of a person’s communications records.

Further Information: Spyblog Conference Details & information

With the new regulations being introduced in the UK allowing mobile network operators to block access to phones by invalidating its IMEI, the BBC are reporting on the relative ease of which the IMEI can be manually changed by the average user using , soon to be outlawed but publically available software.

The International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) is a 15 digit number that contains information about the device and is only used on GSM networks. Currently O2 and Vodaphone, operating the older networks, are unable to block via IMEI, but that will change when the new laws are passed into effect.

Your phones IMEI number can often be found on the inside cover of you device or displayed on screen by keying *#06# into your phone.

Blackberry devices are under scrutiny once again as, director of research for Germany’s Praetorian Global, Jesse D’Aguanno demonstrates its effectiveness as a hacking tool at this years DefCon. D’Aguanno plans to release a software suite later this month that will allow an attacker to penetrate a companies Intranet with veritable ease. The vunerability occurs as there is little to no segmentation between the Blackberry device and the internal network.

More Information : http://www.praetoriang.net/presentations/blackjack.html

Last night, mobile phone operator Orange managed to cripple services to its network. Reports state that just before 6pm, access in and out of the Orange network was severely disrupted. To make matters worse, calls to Orange Customer Service numbers where also plagued with problems. I can confirm, from first hand experience, as I was in the middle of trying to modify my tariff at the time. Calls to customer service were either dropped instantly, met with a message informing the user that the line was busy, or a nondescript beeping loop. Orange have made a statement on the issue claiming the problems were due to a technical bork in one of the areas managed by one of its network partners

The Register is reporting on a new scandal involving the Royals. From the article: “Police have arrested three men - including a reporter from the News of the World - as part of an investigation into allegations that the phone calls of staff working for Prince Charles were intercepted.”

Source : The Register - Three quizzed in Royal phone tap probe

Telecoms regulator Ofcom, are making efforts to increase the availability of wireless networks in rural parts of the UK where broadband isnt readily available.

The problem with wireless networks outside of urban areas is that, due to the relatively low range, a greater number of transmitters is required to provide wide coverage. This of course costs alot of money. Ofcom aims to increase the range of each node in order to reduce the number of transmitters required.

In a BBC article, Selina Lo of Ruckus said;

“A typical network will have hundreds or low thousands of access points. If you have power limits, these nodes have to be closer together and you need a lot more nodes.”

Need we go on? Blogger Rickard Liljeberg posts on his website of a strange phenomenon whereby a Dell desktop, model GX520, will spontaneously shut itself down if a mobile phone placed near it recieves an SMS text message. A video of the bug can be found on Lliljeberg’s site.

Initially baffled, Dell blame the problem on interference between the phone and the harddrive and recommend that people refrain from using their mobiles within a foot of their desktop.