TETRA hacking is coming: OsmocomTETRA
From Telecomix Crypto Munitions Bureau
It’s very exciting to see the release of OsmocomTETRA, the first opensource SDR (Software Defined Radio) implementation of TETRA demodulator, PHY and lower MAC layers. It’s the TETRA version of GSM airprobe that unlock access to the data and frame of TETRA communication protocol, thus giving great hacking opportunity! Now that also TETRA technology has been opened we should expect, during this 2011, to see opensource TETRA sniffers and most probably also TEA encryption (the Tetra Encryption Algorithm) cracked!
TETRA is used by Police, Emergency Services and Militaries as an alternative mobile communication network that can works even without the availability of network coverage (only mobile-to-mobile without a base station) and provide some special high availability services.
In OsmocomBB mailing lists there was already discussion about some TETRA network status:
Belgium Police TETRA ASTRID network: unencrypted
German Police test TETRA network in Aachen: unencrypted
Some ex-jugoslawia TETRA network: unencrypted
Netherland C200 TETRA network: TEA2 encrypted with static keys
UK Airwave TETRA network: TEA2 encrypted with TEA2
It will be really fun to see that new Police and rescue service hacking coming back from old analog ages to the new digital radios :-)