Info from Telecom Towers

During Trump’s last term, he declared war on Huawei, the Chinese telecom equipment (and phone) manufacturer saying they were installing backdoors and spying. So how secure are telecom networks? That is the topic Jordan Schneider discussed with his panellists and it is very interesting.

 

Since Huawei got banned in the West, China instead went after Western telecom providers and hacked them to get access to all kinds of data! No, they can’t hear what you say. No, they can’t read what you type on encrypted chat apps like WhatsApp. But:

“The telcos have the location data, call records, voicemails, and they can do many things without our knowledge or control.”

 

Everyone carries and uses their smartphone everywhere. Even soldiers (except in specific areas or operations where they are forbidden). Why? Well, to stay in touch with family and friends. Plus, telecom networks are far better than military telecom infra anyway in terms of coverage! This creates new scenarios, not just wrt soldiers but so many other areas.

 

Exhibit #1: At the start of the Ukraine war, when the Russians attacked, their soldiers’ phones began to automatically switch to Ukrainian telecom networks. Such spikes in new connections helped Ukrainian intelligence to know where the Russians were located. Once the Russians realized this, they ensured they only used local Ukrainian phones captured in areas they took over.

 

Exhibit #2: For GPS accuracy, it needs to be based on telecom tower signals, not just satellite signals. Unsurprisingly then, whenever the Russians detect a swarm of Ukrainian drones, they turn off the telecom towers in the area.

 

Exhibit #3: When Israel attacked Iran recently, the Iranian higher-ups knew that they should turn off their phones. But not everyone around them did that – the cooks, drivers etc. Israeli intelligence found quite a few of the higher-ups by tracking the phones of those close to the higher-ups.

 

Exhibit #4: The US embassy in Mexico has lots of federal agents who deal with narcotics. They are all under cover, and the drug cartels obviously want to identify them. Their solution? Triangulation of telecom signals. Who from the embassy is going where? To known drug dealer hangouts? Which numbers are being called? Combine enough of that and the drug cartels can know who the agents are and whom they are in touch with.

 

So you see the problem. Everyone uses smartphones. All the time. You can’t realistically ask anyone to turn off their phones (except maybe soldiers). If you turn off your phone, that itself is a dead giveaway that you are upto something. Can telecom companies store less of call related records? Not really:

“The reality is that selling customer data is part of the core business model for these carriers. They make a ton of money by collecting call records and geolocation data, then selling it to various data brokers.”

And if those records are stored, well, they can be hacked (like China did) or they can be bought (Mexican drug cartels).

 

In this new battlefield of telecom security between US and China, the US finds itself without any major telecom hardware manufacturer (Lucent was the last one; and it was sold to the French decades back). In turn, that has meant there are hardly any qualified American engineers who can work on the equipment or the lower level software that runs on it. China, on the other hand, has built more and more things in-country and has competent folks at all levels. Only time will tell how this new battlefront will play out.

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