> To me, this absolutely feels like a NOBUS vulnerability, if the SIM manufacturers and/or core network equipment vendors are in cahoots with the NSA and let the NSA take those keys, they can potentially listen in on all mobile phone traffic in the world.
This feels like the obligatory XKCD comic[1] when in reality there isn't any secretive key extraction or cracking...things are just sent unencrypted from deeper into the network to the three-letter-agencies. Telco's are well known to have interconnect rooms with agencies.
Not a requirement, but if for some reason you don't do the Right Thing that the NSA wants, oh dear your CEO goes to jail, he was a bad boy, look at all that insider trading. You'll do the Right Thing next time we ask, capiche?
There are also endless ramblings of some german blogger about how he has been sabotaged at the University of Karlsruhe, regarding very early development of encrypted digital telephony and data-transfer in the 80ies/90ies, by very incompetent and corrupted professors, connected to this.
This feels like the obligatory XKCD comic[1] when in reality there isn't any secretive key extraction or cracking...things are just sent unencrypted from deeper into the network to the three-letter-agencies. Telco's are well known to have interconnect rooms with agencies.
[1] https://xkcd.com/538/