Having myself been invited to join AARP (the most powerful lobby in US, google it) for a few years now I can attest that unfortunately some old people just can't learn internet, even ones with strong engineering background and otherwise highly functional today. What happens to today's users in their eighties only time will tell.
All TDM and Sigtran signaling links of world-wide SS7 network are configured manually peer-to-peer. The signaling traffic including SMS texts travels mostly unencrypted. Hence it's next to impossible to get a real SS7 Pcap log (requires an NDA), let alone access to the SS7 network, unless you work with a network operator.
Fortunately for Verizon customers, the company has since issued a patch to all affected femtocells. Sprint currently offers a femtocell that is similar to the vulnerable models from Verizon, but the company has said it plans to discontinue the device. And while AT&T also offers femtocells, it requires an extra level of authentication that makes much of the iSEC Partner’s findings irrelevant. Still, says Ritter, the femtocell vulnerability is a major problem.
And
Ritter suggests that all carriers that offer femtocells require owners to provide a list of approved devices that are allowed to connect to their femtocell. And also prevent customers’ cell phones from connecting to any unauthorized femtocell.
The Verizon vuln referenced above seems has nothing to do with SS7. Femtocell is rooted, and only cell phones in a close proximity are vulnerable. I thought the presentation in Hannover deals with a much broader issue. And yes, femtocell may be potentially a gateway to the remote hacking of MSC, HLR, etc. Unfortunately I have not seen the presentation, so I can't be sure what it's about.
I finally found the way to watch the presentation (BTW it's good), and the author mentions femtocell hacking as "if you hack femtocells you _may_ have a chance to have access to SS7", or something like that, i.e. very uncertain. He emphasizes a different method -- getting a "global title". That's what I meant in my original comment -- you have to join the telco club, and that is not trivial.
The traditional way to dealing with this from a computer crime perspective is to bribe a few officials in a third-world country, buy one basestation, and become a mobile operator there.
The only remarkable thing about this NYT article is that it appeared at all. Read Charlse Murray "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010".
The guy graduated from the same high-school a few years ahead of me (Moscow School 91). Me and my classmates had our ears full on how great he was from our homeroom teacher (yes, we had them in high-school). We were the bunch of pre-selected math wiz kids, but whatever we did, we often heard from the our homeroom lady "You are not Lesha Pazhitnov", or "Lesha did this...". We didn't quite know who he was, but hated him nonetheless :). This was way before he made Tetris.
You can now download the .msi installer separately. Not sure it'll make Chrome happy. If you want the folder with Pcap example files, download Ubuntu version, and tar xvf it. It still has the examples folder inside.
It's not. I use Chrome all the time. It may be the zip file which spooks it. The zip contains an .msi file + a folder with pcap examples. If you wait a couple of hours, I'll put a separate .msi for download.
You can install from any folder, not only your home folder. Most package installations under Linux do require sudo privileges, so WireEdit is in no way unique. You password is SAFE. Really. The README is trying to be pretty upfront about what it is, and how it works. See also my replies to other questions here.
I know. Sorry. Can't fix at the moment, will do later. Try to decrease the width of the browser, the video frame will decrease proportionally. Hope that helps.
