Hacking Mobil Telephone System ?

Allgaeuer Zeitung, 9.9.96 says:
(A German newspaper)

The German Company MobilCom wants to proove
that the German GSM networks D1,D2 and E+ are
secure.

There have been rumors that it's possible to
phone with a hacked code.

If a hacker is able to phone using the number
0171 / 3 28 99 66 in Germany with a hacked code,
the company will pay 100.000 DM (~65.000$) to a non
profit organisation of the hackers choice.

Is someone able to do this ? :)

(No responsibility taken for the translation.)

-stephan

On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, Stephan Schmidt wrote:

> The German Company MobilCom wants to proove
> that the German GSM networks D1,D2 and E+ are
> secure.
> 
<snip>
> 
> If a hacker is able to phone using the number
> 0171 / 3 28 99 66 in Germany with a hacked code,
> the company will pay 100.000 DM (~65.000$) to a non
> profit organisation of the hackers choice.
> 
> Is someone able to do this ? :)

While there's dubious wisdom in trying to tell Der Polizei, "I was just
responding to an authorization that I found on the Internet that says it's
OK to phreak your phones - honest," I'd also expect to get paid a hell of
a lot more than $65 for doing a penetration test on their network.  Sixty
five bucks won't even pay the per diem, none the less a reasonable wage.
And Der Polizei is *NOT* known for having a sense of humor about anything,
at any time, with anyone.  Remember, kids, they may look like shit in
uniform, but those automatic weapons they carry are real, so's the ammo,
and they know how to use both of 'em.

And *I'll* decide if and when I want to give it to charity, just like I do
with the rest of my salary, thank you....

------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
|And if Dole wins and dies in office, they|        Mark Aldrich         |
|could just pickle him and no one would   |   GRCI INFOSEC Engineering  |
|notice.  It wouldn't be the first time we|     maldrich@grci.com       |
|had a dill-dole running the country.     | MAldrich@dockmaster.ncsc.mil|
|               -- Alan Olsen             |                             |
|_______________________________________________________________________|
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wed, 11 Sep 1996, Mark O. Aldrich wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, Stephan Schmidt wrote:
> 
> > the company will pay 100.000 DM (~65.000$) to a non
> 
> OK to phreak your phones - honest," I'd also expect to get paid a hell of
> a lot more than $65 for doing a penetration test on their network.  Sixty
> five bucks won't even pay the per diem, none the less a reasonable wage.

Actually 65.000$ is pronounced sixty five thousand dollars not sixty five
dollars, at least in Eastern and Central Europe. 

Jüri Kaljundi
AS Stallion
jk@stallion.ee

On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, [ISO-8859-1] Jüri Kaljundi wrote:

> Actually 65.000$ is pronounced sixty five thousand dollars not sixty five
> dollars, at least in Eastern and Central Europe. 
> 

Ok, Juri - you win the award of having been the FIRST of the 875,00
(actually, 27 - count 'em, 27) people who sent me mail to say that in
Europe they use a comma, not a period, for their decimal point.  Sorry to
all of the rest of you who entered the contest, but you don't win squat.
Juri, you don't win squat either, but you do get this nifty little
proclamation that you were the very first.

After having traveled in Europe, I was certainly familiar with the
difference in the notation.  You also think, however, that I would have
paid more attention to what the hell I was reading before I shot off my
mouth (via my keyboard), but I didn't.  I think this is called a "brain
fart" (note to our European brothers and sisters - over there, I think you
call it a "mental fugue" or "Parliamentary election," I'm nor sure which).

This concludes our contest of the day.  I would like to thank EACH and
EVERY one of you who contributed an entry.  No further submissions will be
accepted.  Void where prohibited.

BTW, $65,000.00 USD (translate per local convention as necessary) is
*STILL* not enough to a) go up against the German police, and b) fund a
penetration attack that would bring about the opportunity to play with
really cool toys.  After all, screw the profit or charity, right?  When
it's all said and done, IT'S THE TOYS THAT REALLY MATTER. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
|And if Dole wins and dies in office, they|        Mark Aldrich         |
|could just pickle him and no one would   |   GRCI INFOSEC Engineering  |
|notice.  It wouldn't be the first time we|     maldrich@grci.com       |
|had a dill-dole running the country.     | MAldrich@dockmaster.ncsc.mil|
|               -- Alan Olsen             |                             |
|_______________________________________________________________________|
|The author is PGP Empowered.  Public key at:  finger maldrich@grci.com |
|    The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author     |
|         and my employer gets no credit for them whatsoever.           |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>>>> Mark O Aldrich <maldrich@grci.com> writes:
  > On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, Stephan Schmidt wrote:

  >> If a hacker is able to phone using the number
  >> 0171 / 3 28 99 66 in Germany with a hacked code,
  >> the company will pay 100.000 DM (~65.000$) to a non
  >> profit organisation of the hackers choice.

  > ... I'd also expect to get paid a hell of
  > a lot more than $65 for doing a penetration test on their network.  Sixty
  > five bucks won't even pay the per diem, none the less a reasonable wage.

Um, that's 65 *thousand* bucks, which should pay the per diem for a
week or so... ;-)

-- 
Roger Williams                         finger me for my PGP public key
Coelacanth Engineering        consulting & turnkey product development
Middleborough, MA           wireless * DSP-based instrumentation * ATE
tel +1 508 947-8049 * fax +1 508 947-9118 * http://www.coelacanth.com/

On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, Mark O. Aldrich wrote:

> OK to phreak your phones - honest," I'd also expect to get paid a hell of
> a lot more than $65 for doing a penetration test on their network.  Sixty

In Germany, the decimal point is used in place of the comma.  So, 
65.000$ would be $65,000 when you switch the notation to US figures.


---

Zach Babayco

zachb@netcom.com  <----- finger for PGP public key
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/4127

Mark O. Aldrich wrote:
> 
> While there's dubious wisdom in trying to tell Der Polizei, "I was just
> responding to an authorization that I found on the Internet that says it's
> OK to phreak your phones - honest," I'd also expect to get paid a hell of
> a lot more than $65 for doing a penetration test on their network.  Sixty
> five bucks won't even pay the per diem, none the less a reasonable wage.

These continental europeans tend to type '.' instead of commas, and ','
instead of points when they write numbers.  (They also have funny ones
and sevens, but that's a another story.)

I thought the offer of 100,000 DM very respectable, and a tad unusual
for a [usually conservative] telecoms company.  It sure beats baseball
caps and T-shirts.

> And Der Polizei is *NOT* known for having a sense of humor about anything,
> at any time, with anyone.

I 100% agree ...

> Remember, kids, they may look like shit in
> uniform, but those automatic weapons they carry are real, so's the ammo,
> and they know how to use both of 'em.

... but the semi automatics they carry are not much different to ones US
cops have.
 
> And *I'll* decide if and when I want to give it to charity, just like I do
> with the rest of my salary, thank you....

And *they'll* decide what sort of deal *they* want to offer.  They did
say the money could be donataed to any non-profit organisation, so this
covers a wide range of organisations (your school or university perhaps,
or computer society, or even the Church of Scientology, The Vatican,
Mitre Corp, NFL, etc. etc.).  I wonder if Radikal is a non-profit  :-)


Gary
--
"Of course the US Constitution isn't perfect; but it's a lot better
than what we have now."  -- Unknown.

pub  1024/C001D00D 1996/01/22  Gary Howland <gary@systemics.com>
Key fingerprint =  0C FB 60 61 4D 3B 24 7D  1C 89 1D BE 1F EE 09 06

> 
> ... but the semi automatics they carry are not much different to ones US
> cops have.

I thought the US cops also use H&K MP5 or such things.
The same as in Germany :)

> And *they'll* decide what sort of deal *they* want to offer.  They did
> say the money could be donataed to any non-profit organisation, so this
> covers a wide range of organisations (your school or university perhaps,
> or computer society, or even the Church of Scientology, The Vatican,
> Mitre Corp, NFL, etc. etc.).  I wonder if Radikal is a non-profit  :-)

Taken in account that they are leftist, they should be non-profit ;)

-stephan