New 5G protocol vulnerabilities allow location tracking(therecord.media)
therecord.media
New 5G protocol vulnerabilities allow location tracking
https://therecord.media/new-5g-protocol-vulnerabilities-allow-location-tracking/
157 comments
>There is NO POSSIBLE WAY anyone can be this incompetent.
All this stuff is designed and built by hardware companies. I haven't used a single piece of software written by a hardware company that didn't suck (not counting Apple as a hardware company). If hardware companies can't (or don't care about) writing decent software even when a bad user experience can affect their bottom line, I can't imagine they're particularly likely to write secure software.
This probably won't change unless hardware companies stop paying so poorly, as anyone who can code well can get a huge salary increase just by moving from a hardware company to a software company.
All this stuff is designed and built by hardware companies. I haven't used a single piece of software written by a hardware company that didn't suck (not counting Apple as a hardware company). If hardware companies can't (or don't care about) writing decent software even when a bad user experience can affect their bottom line, I can't imagine they're particularly likely to write secure software.
This probably won't change unless hardware companies stop paying so poorly, as anyone who can code well can get a huge salary increase just by moving from a hardware company to a software company.
I've wondered about this as well. There is an "innocent" explanation, aside from incompetence: there's layers upon layers of stuff, designed, owned and managed by a plethora of organizations. If no one organization is liable, they're not likely to be proactive about security.
The cynic in me, of course, suspects this is no accident.
The cynic in me, of course, suspects this is no accident.
I'd agree, but that doesn't explain why not only is the big picture absolutely broken, but so is every single detail. The indivisible parts are also broken.
AT&T is the public-facing company with a ton of cash. They want to advertise the next speed bump in cellular. They hire a contractor to build it nationwide. That contractor hires 4 contractors for regions of the US and pockets some profit. Each of those contractors hires another 20 contractors to handle the rollout and pocket some profit. The 20 contractors talk to a variety of hardware integrators about deploying the new technology and start getting permits.
The hardware integrators have a 90% chance of being from the world of industrial systems where closed networks and point to point runs means they get to pretend security isn’t their problem. They apply the same principles to their hardware installs.
AT&T wants to be able to administrate and manage their new hardware without keeping 1000 hardware integrators on payroll, so they have their contractors’ contractors develop a manual that can be used by AT&T Network Services, but this is out of the initial CAPEX quota, so it’s done on the cheap and no one does any real work. They just grab all the default passwords and architecture estimates from the integrators and put it into a set of hundred page books for different parts of the network.
The government, customers, and shareholders choose to not hold AT&T accountable for any failures in their network. They instead accept it as “the way things must be”, and AT&T is happy to buy into that story and do the exact same thing on every capital project and maintenance.
This is how you get telcos failing at security every time for decades. Their incentives as a customer-facing company running the worlds largest infrastructure projects encourage them to farm out all the infrastructure work to several layers deep of contractors with no real responsibility enforced by anyone.
The hardware integrators have a 90% chance of being from the world of industrial systems where closed networks and point to point runs means they get to pretend security isn’t their problem. They apply the same principles to their hardware installs.
AT&T wants to be able to administrate and manage their new hardware without keeping 1000 hardware integrators on payroll, so they have their contractors’ contractors develop a manual that can be used by AT&T Network Services, but this is out of the initial CAPEX quota, so it’s done on the cheap and no one does any real work. They just grab all the default passwords and architecture estimates from the integrators and put it into a set of hundred page books for different parts of the network.
The government, customers, and shareholders choose to not hold AT&T accountable for any failures in their network. They instead accept it as “the way things must be”, and AT&T is happy to buy into that story and do the exact same thing on every capital project and maintenance.
This is how you get telcos failing at security every time for decades. Their incentives as a customer-facing company running the worlds largest infrastructure projects encourage them to farm out all the infrastructure work to several layers deep of contractors with no real responsibility enforced by anyone.
But what you describe is not unique to telcos. And while I agree, you're talking about telco installation and operations, which is only one part.
Like I said, absolutely everything is broken. I've not seen this in other industries.
I've seen a vendor tell a telco "if you change the password from 'Secret' then your support contract is void", so yes, this part is completely broken.
But it's everything. Standards are broken, implementation is broken, one chassi running Linux with different architectures on the chassi, control card, and line cards. (x86, MIPS, and Sparc, not in that order). Another solution that had three boxes where they so shipped the org chart. One box ran linux, another freebsd, and the third openbsd. Why? "Uhm… well we have an openbsd core committer employed, so…".
And honestly that last example was one of the better ones. I had to read them RFCs to convince them their implementation was broken, but still.
Oh no, now you got me ranting about all sorts of things. Back on topic.
Take crypto. Some team designed the crypto in every single generation of phones. For more than 40 years the best possible interpretation of what they did is that they gave the job to someone fresh out of school, who said "neat! Crypto, that sounds exciting. I'll make some shit up, it'll be great!". But even then that can't be true. The crypto is too good to have been made by a newgrad. A newgrad's crypto would have been broken in 5 minutes my experienced attackers, but it took quite a while to crack e.g. A5/1, and some amount of resources.
It's baffling. It's both a lot of effort to make their shitty crypto, and also completely wasted. If they wanted to be lazy they should have slapped AES-ECB on it and called it a day. It would still have been shitty, but it would have been done in 5 minutes.
But maybe you're onto something there too. You can't make the cash by slapping on AES-ECB on anything. You need to make it look like it took all the billable time you charged for. And it probably did take all that time. I couldn't make something as good as A5/1 from scratch if my life depended on it.
But that is malice. And that's what I'm getting at. Whatever teams designed the crypto in phones for over 40 years have been malicious. They are at best liars and fraudsters, and at worst compromised by spy agencies and organized crime.
I can understand one generation. If it's just once you're just incompetent. But every single generation for half a century? Now you know what you're doing, and it's malicious.
There are people not born the first time these people screwed up, who now have grandchildren.
Yes, all big infrastructure has waste and corruption, but mobile networks don't have a single competently designed piece of infrastructure.
Like I said, absolutely everything is broken. I've not seen this in other industries.
I've seen a vendor tell a telco "if you change the password from 'Secret' then your support contract is void", so yes, this part is completely broken.
But it's everything. Standards are broken, implementation is broken, one chassi running Linux with different architectures on the chassi, control card, and line cards. (x86, MIPS, and Sparc, not in that order). Another solution that had three boxes where they so shipped the org chart. One box ran linux, another freebsd, and the third openbsd. Why? "Uhm… well we have an openbsd core committer employed, so…".
And honestly that last example was one of the better ones. I had to read them RFCs to convince them their implementation was broken, but still.
Oh no, now you got me ranting about all sorts of things. Back on topic.
Take crypto. Some team designed the crypto in every single generation of phones. For more than 40 years the best possible interpretation of what they did is that they gave the job to someone fresh out of school, who said "neat! Crypto, that sounds exciting. I'll make some shit up, it'll be great!". But even then that can't be true. The crypto is too good to have been made by a newgrad. A newgrad's crypto would have been broken in 5 minutes my experienced attackers, but it took quite a while to crack e.g. A5/1, and some amount of resources.
It's baffling. It's both a lot of effort to make their shitty crypto, and also completely wasted. If they wanted to be lazy they should have slapped AES-ECB on it and called it a day. It would still have been shitty, but it would have been done in 5 minutes.
But maybe you're onto something there too. You can't make the cash by slapping on AES-ECB on anything. You need to make it look like it took all the billable time you charged for. And it probably did take all that time. I couldn't make something as good as A5/1 from scratch if my life depended on it.
But that is malice. And that's what I'm getting at. Whatever teams designed the crypto in phones for over 40 years have been malicious. They are at best liars and fraudsters, and at worst compromised by spy agencies and organized crime.
I can understand one generation. If it's just once you're just incompetent. But every single generation for half a century? Now you know what you're doing, and it's malicious.
There are people not born the first time these people screwed up, who now have grandchildren.
Yes, all big infrastructure has waste and corruption, but mobile networks don't have a single competently designed piece of infrastructure.
The other side of this is that mobile networks are national infrastructure.
The concept of "lawful intercept" is baked into the networks from a fundamental standpoint.
This might be a reason why there's less care about these things.
The concept of "lawful intercept" is baked into the networks from a fundamental standpoint.
This might be a reason why there's less care about these things.
But this is not the way LI systems work. They have a "front door".
At least for police powers. For intelligence agencies, sure.
At least for police powers. For intelligence agencies, sure.
Indeed. My point was more that due to things like LI. It might influence an attitude towards security of "it doesn't really matter" when it comes to properly implementing secure controls
The mobile interop is really good, that is because standardization is done rather well technologically and widely followed. This also means that standardization is fought over harshly.
Anything that gets standardized will see wide use. What if the standardization picks a technology you are a market leader in? What if the standardization picks a technology you have a patent on? Yeah, you will be forced to let people license the patent. But you will be getting licensing fees.
Anything that gets standardized will see wide use. What if the standardization picks a technology you are a market leader in? What if the standardization picks a technology you have a patent on? Yeah, you will be forced to let people license the patent. But you will be getting licensing fees.
That is correct. It is the same reason why fax machines are considered secure transmission for medical data. National infrastructure is harder to compromise at scale compared to internet channels.
I don't see why we should even be trying to make base level protocols like this "secure". Focus on reliability and simplicity, leave security to another level of the stack. VOIP and web browsing services should be encrypted, who cares whether the low level protocol is encrypted or not?
Anything that needs to be standardized and stable for decades needs to be simple, and it shouldn't matter whether there are vulnerabilities, because those are inevitable.
Anything that needs to be standardized and stable for decades needs to be simple, and it shouldn't matter whether there are vulnerabilities, because those are inevitable.
Some things can't be done on the top level. E.g. anti-tracking and metering.
Also because airtime is a scarce resource it's not as simple as "just give me a lower layer and I'll run VOIP". The requirements (and performance and reliability) of voice calls is higher than skype over an IP network on mobile.
E.g. there's a reason SCTP is actually used here. Phone networks are in some ways rightly very different from pure packet Internet. Sometimes just for historical reasons from the olden times, but often also justifiably so.
I could go on and on, but tl;dr: it's not that simple, but you're also not wrong.
Also because airtime is a scarce resource it's not as simple as "just give me a lower layer and I'll run VOIP". The requirements (and performance and reliability) of voice calls is higher than skype over an IP network on mobile.
E.g. there's a reason SCTP is actually used here. Phone networks are in some ways rightly very different from pure packet Internet. Sometimes just for historical reasons from the olden times, but often also justifiably so.
I could go on and on, but tl;dr: it's not that simple, but you're also not wrong.
Back in the 90s, a Nokia researcher gave a guest lecture at our university about how the intelligence community specifically and intentionally sabotaged the GSM encryption. Similarly, the backbone was kept easy to wiretap, without those pesky warrants.
5g is unblockable corporate wifi, relaying unconnected 5g devices to connected ones. by accident.
What you're saying might be true, I have no idea, but then why don't we see more rampant vandalism from randos (ex. War Games)? It seems like in this day and age it wouldn't take any time for someone to brute force any of these nodes and cause a ruckus.
IMSI-catchers are in wide use by local law enforcement in much of North America[1], no warrant needed and law enforcement can do whatever it is they like with them with no oversight, too, except use them to present evidence in court without a warrant.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker
What, like SS7 phone hijacks and fake base stations tracking, and such, that happen all the time?
> it wouldn't take any time for someone to brute force any of these nodes and cause a ruckus.
1) Who says it doesn't happen? 2) Generally these things aren't on "the internet". They're behind firewalls and on this "other internet" I mentioned between the operators. You can legit buy access to this network for a few thousand dollars, sure. But if you're that serious you're probably not a rando after "rampant vandalism".
> it wouldn't take any time for someone to brute force any of these nodes and cause a ruckus.
1) Who says it doesn't happen? 2) Generally these things aren't on "the internet". They're behind firewalls and on this "other internet" I mentioned between the operators. You can legit buy access to this network for a few thousand dollars, sure. But if you're that serious you're probably not a rando after "rampant vandalism".
Because the 'randos' know very well that they cannot surface with any of their actions. Even the white hats are getting regularly punished for their disclosures, what makes you think someone making a living off of exploits would come clean?*
* Academic researchers excl.
* Academic researchers excl.
These networks are almost certainly compromised to high hell, except the actors don't broadcast their action.
A combination of factors like vilification of hacking, corporate PR managing embarrassing incidents and responsible disclosure can cause most of this activity to be under-reported.
5G baffles me. I hear about it from politicians. I hear about it from telecom companies. I hear about it from my tech-illiterate dad, who asked me "Does it have 5G?" when I told him I got a new smartphone.
But... what is it? Higher bandwidth? Lower latency? Is it the IoT dream, my smart microwave connects to a cell tower instead of my private subnet? Does it replace my wired home internet connection?
And, bonus question - what's the theoretical bandwidth limit per person for, say, a football stadium full of people? Does this limit improve on 5G vs older specs? At what point does physics prevent us from having better standardized wireless networks?
But... what is it? Higher bandwidth? Lower latency? Is it the IoT dream, my smart microwave connects to a cell tower instead of my private subnet? Does it replace my wired home internet connection?
And, bonus question - what's the theoretical bandwidth limit per person for, say, a football stadium full of people? Does this limit improve on 5G vs older specs? At what point does physics prevent us from having better standardized wireless networks?
I think it is more oriented towards saving money and stuffing more subscribers onto the infrastructure. So, it's about money.
It's simple. 5G is a marketing term to get you to buy stuff. It's 4G + 1, therefore it's better. There may be marginal technological improvements too. See: Veritasium's latest video about planned obsolescence
Given how US carriers tend to rebrand stuff (see: Verizon's "4G LTE" in my hometown is/was HSPA+, a 3G technology), this is my view on it. "5G" will likely be real 4G outside larger cities.
Regarding 4G and HSPA+ my understanding was that some providers (I believe AT&T was one, called HSPA+ a 4G). That's why providers that had the true 4G started using "4G LTE".
5G seems like it's just improvement over 4G. It can use the same frequencies, but uses them more efficiently. The millimeter communication that made most wear a tinfoil hat probably won't be used much. I think maybe it will be useful in open places where there a lot of people like stadiums.
I think most of improvement on 5G won't really be noticeable to average user.
5G seems like it's just improvement over 4G. It can use the same frequencies, but uses them more efficiently. The millimeter communication that made most wear a tinfoil hat probably won't be used much. I think maybe it will be useful in open places where there a lot of people like stadiums.
I think most of improvement on 5G won't really be noticeable to average user.
It added a whole bunch of different things. More efficient communication at existing frequencies and high speed communication at much higher frequencies are the main two.
The Wikipedia page is pretty good.
The Wikipedia page is pretty good.
From what I understand, it's one of the things that will be key to enabling large numbers of self-driving cars on the roads.
What is the specific technical reason that would be true?
Good question, I have no clue as I have nothing to do with 5G. From what I recall, it was something about how quickly the cars would be able to communicate with each other. Maybe this is just a very common misconception that is shared widely, but I know I've read it before in numerous places online.
EDIT: Link to Verizon talking about it. It could all just be hype to make people want 5G and to get governments to invest in it, I don't know.
"Today, internet-connected cars rely on 4G LTE technology to stream music and engage other connected services, but 5G will usher in a step change not only for in-car connectivity, but for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication.
The implication is clear: Cars will not only “talk” with one another in near-real time, but also with sensors installed in streets and traffic lights, sharing information on roadways and weather conditions, and alerting drivers on the same stretch of highway to potential hazards. Connected vehicles will be able to crowdsource near-real-time routing information to avoid backups and streamline traffic flow. Next-generation networks should also lead to improvements in driver safety by helping mitigate the unknown—a truck, for example, sensing that its driver is about to run a red light and alerting other vehicles approaching the intersection of the hazard. The National Highway Safety Administration has concluded that the introduction of systems to prevent collisions at intersections alone could save 1,300 lives a year."
https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-5g-ultra-wideband-can...
EDIT: Link to Verizon talking about it. It could all just be hype to make people want 5G and to get governments to invest in it, I don't know.
"Today, internet-connected cars rely on 4G LTE technology to stream music and engage other connected services, but 5G will usher in a step change not only for in-car connectivity, but for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication.
The implication is clear: Cars will not only “talk” with one another in near-real time, but also with sensors installed in streets and traffic lights, sharing information on roadways and weather conditions, and alerting drivers on the same stretch of highway to potential hazards. Connected vehicles will be able to crowdsource near-real-time routing information to avoid backups and streamline traffic flow. Next-generation networks should also lead to improvements in driver safety by helping mitigate the unknown—a truck, for example, sensing that its driver is about to run a red light and alerting other vehicles approaching the intersection of the hazard. The National Highway Safety Administration has concluded that the introduction of systems to prevent collisions at intersections alone could save 1,300 lives a year."
https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-5g-ultra-wideband-can...
5G is just capitalist marketing bs to give you a reason to buy new devices.
One of the posts on the rhizomatica blog argues that 5G is being driven by the desire of SoC vendors to sell more chips, apparently even the network operators do not want it:
https://www.rhizomatica.org/blog/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/talkin-bout-my-5th-generation/
https://www.rhizomatica.org/blog/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/talkin-bout-my-5th-generation/
It’s not just that, but certainly some firms have sort of turned it into that.
Is there currently any real world use-case where 5G is being used by end-users for solutions that were not possible with 4G? As far as I know, for the average consumer that gets targeted by 5G ads, the benefits are marginal or non-existent.
That's why capitalism has given humanity it's biggest leap in technology advances in under 200 years, marketing bs
Edit: typo
Edit: typo
I am not sure what you are replying to. My point was that 5G is not that huge of a technological improvement as 3G was over 2G or 4G over 3G.
The 4G speeds nowdays are fast enough that they are usually not the limiting factor in day-to-day usage of mobile internet. The advantages of 5G are not that big for the average mobile user, there are more drawbacks than advantages for using 5G, at least in the upcoming 5-10 years.
I said that it's capitalism marketing bs, because that's what it is: hyping the technology to more than it is for the sole purpose of increasing profits for telecom and hardware manufacturers.
The 4G speeds nowdays are fast enough that they are usually not the limiting factor in day-to-day usage of mobile internet. The advantages of 5G are not that big for the average mobile user, there are more drawbacks than advantages for using 5G, at least in the upcoming 5-10 years.
I said that it's capitalism marketing bs, because that's what it is: hyping the technology to more than it is for the sole purpose of increasing profits for telecom and hardware manufacturers.
Actually 5G is a big improvement on the system architecture. More and more of (dedicated) HW is moved to SW entities and virtualized computing (cloud stuff). This should bring down the investments for large deployments and coverage everywhere.
> This should bring down the investments for large deployments and coverage everywhere
Does this imply that in the near future 5G will have better coverage and will be cheaper than 4G?
Does this imply that in the near future 5G will have better coverage and will be cheaper than 4G?
From what I'm reading in other comments looks like 5G primarily fixes issues that 4G has, so perhaps it should be called 4.1G.
In that case it feels like maybe it will just replace 4G.
In that case it feels like maybe it will just replace 4G.
It does fix the max number of devices and bandwidth, but it introduces drawbacks too: a lot more infrastructure needed, shorter range (worse signal for your mobile), worse mobile battery life. In my opinion 5G is not the upgrade from 4G, it's a different technology that will co-exist with 4G and be used in very specific cases.
I think the huge marketing campaign for a technology that most people do not understand is to hide the fact that it's for mass surveillance (let's call it "analytics") and end-user manipulation (we'll say "marketing").
My point is that you critic to 5G is not only ideologically charged, but lacking of fundamentals. Obviously you don't have enough information about 5G if you think the leap between 2G and 3G was more qualitative, but you decided that this is just a for profit extraction systematic of the capitalism system based on marketing without lacking added value.
This critic could be made about almost all of the technological advances made possible by the capitalism system. Long live "marketing bs" that allows incremental improvements like this one
Regards
This critic could be made about almost all of the technological advances made possible by the capitalism system. Long live "marketing bs" that allows incremental improvements like this one
Regards
> incremental improvements
Exactly, it is an incremental improvement that is marketed as a revolutionary one. When 4G and 3G came out they were simple stating that it is much faster, but now with 5G everywhere you see how it will revolutionize the world and make new things possible that were never possible before, like remote surgery, articles like this one: https://www.digi.com/blog/post/5g-and-the-future-of-telemedi...
If you want lowest latency, use a wired connection which has existed for many years. Why would you use a more unreliable like 5G that might lose connection when someone waves his hand instead of a faster, more reliable wired one? There are tons of other examples like this.
For the average user in most cases the download connection speed is actually limited at the server end, not at his end so even if he has 10GB/s download speed, it won't be able to use it. Not only that, but also data caps, storage write speed, infrastructure and other current limitations make the promoted benefits of 5G simply non-existing for at least several years.
If you want a future-proof phone, yes you can get a 5G one, only that it's not future proof. Other components of the device must be drastically improved too before they can take advantage of 5G, which means that you would still have to change your device before you can actually use the promised benefits.
I love technological advancements, but I hate it when the public is tricked into thinking something will greatly and instantly improve their life when it reality it won't change anything.
Exactly, it is an incremental improvement that is marketed as a revolutionary one. When 4G and 3G came out they were simple stating that it is much faster, but now with 5G everywhere you see how it will revolutionize the world and make new things possible that were never possible before, like remote surgery, articles like this one: https://www.digi.com/blog/post/5g-and-the-future-of-telemedi...
If you want lowest latency, use a wired connection which has existed for many years. Why would you use a more unreliable like 5G that might lose connection when someone waves his hand instead of a faster, more reliable wired one? There are tons of other examples like this.
For the average user in most cases the download connection speed is actually limited at the server end, not at his end so even if he has 10GB/s download speed, it won't be able to use it. Not only that, but also data caps, storage write speed, infrastructure and other current limitations make the promoted benefits of 5G simply non-existing for at least several years.
If you want a future-proof phone, yes you can get a 5G one, only that it's not future proof. Other components of the device must be drastically improved too before they can take advantage of 5G, which means that you would still have to change your device before you can actually use the promised benefits.
I love technological advancements, but I hate it when the public is tricked into thinking something will greatly and instantly improve their life when it reality it won't change anything.
> like remote surgery
This one annoys me so much. I've seen this exact promise every other year for 20 years. And it's never going to happen (outside of some PR stunts maybe).
This one annoys me so much. I've seen this exact promise every other year for 20 years. And it's never going to happen (outside of some PR stunts maybe).
I don't know about you, but occasionally some location services on my or my family phones say that we are in another city. I think that happens based on IP and that IP probably is in another city, latency comes from providers tunneling all that traffic to their centers first, probably for many legitimate reasons, not just on a whim. 5G is supposed to solve that, at least that's my understanding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPRS_Tunnelling_Protocol
https://techmonitor.ai/techonology/cybersecurity/gtp-protoco...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPRS_Tunnelling_Protocol
https://techmonitor.ai/techonology/cybersecurity/gtp-protoco...
My theory is that 5G will be like IPv6. Nobody wanted it, nobody understands it, it makes everything more difficult, and it will take ages to become the standard.
IPv6 makes a great deal of things more easy. It allows smaller routing tables for example. No more NAT makes p2p communication much easier. Yes, addresses are way harder to type now, and that's obviously annoying. But ip addresses weren't made to be typed manually, that's what DNS is for.
> ip addresses weren't made to be typed manually, that's what DNS is for.
I’ve heard this a lot but it doesn’t ring true. I believe I’m in a category with many others where your work involves configuring networks, especially LANs, and you are often entering IP addresses.
I’ve heard this a lot but it doesn’t ring true. I believe I’m in a category with many others where your work involves configuring networks, especially LANs, and you are often entering IP addresses.
I feel this worry about having to type in /128s is overblown. The only times I've had to type a full /128 when setting up my IPv6-only homelab was for adding DHCP static leases for my pet machines.
If you're configuring LANs you're unlikely to be configuring anything deeper than a /64 per LAN, so the effort is approximately the same as IPv4 (four numbers, except that each number is four hex digits instead of three decimal digits).
Similarly, if you're setting up IP rules on a firewall, you're unlikely to care about anything smaller than a /64. If you want to ban a bad actor, blocking a specific /128 isn't going to achieve anything, since the bad actor likely has the ability to use any address within the /64 (SLAAC). You'd just ban the /64.
Lastly, if you're picking your /128s like the static DHCP leases case I mentioned above, nothing prevents you from zeroing all the segments you don't care about. Each of my static leases has all zeroes in the lower /64 except for the last hex digit. Net result is 2001:db8:1234:1::1, 2001:db8:1234:2::1, 2001:db8:1234:3::1, etc. The 2001:db8:1234::/48 is what I get from my ISP so it's already in my muscle memory, so it's negligible extra effort to remember individual machines' IPs.
If you're configuring LANs you're unlikely to be configuring anything deeper than a /64 per LAN, so the effort is approximately the same as IPv4 (four numbers, except that each number is four hex digits instead of three decimal digits).
Similarly, if you're setting up IP rules on a firewall, you're unlikely to care about anything smaller than a /64. If you want to ban a bad actor, blocking a specific /128 isn't going to achieve anything, since the bad actor likely has the ability to use any address within the /64 (SLAAC). You'd just ban the /64.
Lastly, if you're picking your /128s like the static DHCP leases case I mentioned above, nothing prevents you from zeroing all the segments you don't care about. Each of my static leases has all zeroes in the lower /64 except for the last hex digit. Net result is 2001:db8:1234:1::1, 2001:db8:1234:2::1, 2001:db8:1234:3::1, etc. The 2001:db8:1234::/48 is what I get from my ISP so it's already in my muscle memory, so it's negligible extra effort to remember individual machines' IPs.
The OP is probably talking about implementation rather than design, which to this day is very fragile and prone to breakage and misconfiguration, at least on consumer grade networks.
And with certain ISP's being done with DS-Lite which is the worst possible solution at the moment. Sure, your core network is now IPV6, but everyone is going through CGNAT for the parts of the internet that are IPV4 only.
It's one of the reasons I moved from Virgin Media (Cable in the UK) to Zen (FTTP) ... proper dual stack so I have native IPV4 AND IPV6.
It's one of the reasons I moved from Virgin Media (Cable in the UK) to Zen (FTTP) ... proper dual stack so I have native IPV4 AND IPV6.
> DS-Lite which is the worst possible solution at the moment
No, CGNAT-only is the worst solution.
> everyone is going through CGNAT for the parts of the internet that are IPV4 only.
What choice do they have? There are more humans than IPv4 addresses, so if every ISP were dual-stack, the price would go to infinity. It would be more productive to complain about CGNAT-only ISPs, than those who are actually trying to fix the problem.
No, CGNAT-only is the worst solution.
> everyone is going through CGNAT for the parts of the internet that are IPV4 only.
What choice do they have? There are more humans than IPv4 addresses, so if every ISP were dual-stack, the price would go to infinity. It would be more productive to complain about CGNAT-only ISPs, than those who are actually trying to fix the problem.
Implementation, design, and adoption. All in all, for the wonderful claims it's supporters make, adoption is the elephant in the room.
Nah, it will be taken into use. Just like 3G and 4G was. Though true visibility for end user when everyone is using it probably isn't that special.
5G is for integrating very low-cost ICs into every "smart" device, TV, car, etc. to track you without you noticing.
No, that's what 5G enables but 5G itself is something else.
[deleted]
5G can be many things, but it isn't gigabit wireless speeds, or low latency, or smart microwaves. It can enable those technologies, but what it really is is a telecommunications standard, telling companies how to build out networks.
5G uses the same radio waves that 4G has, in many cases - T-Mobile US, for example, uses 600MHz and 2.5GHZ frequencies for 5G (and 4G). Sprint has been using 2.5GHz for 4G since 2008.
The biggest change that 5G could bring today honestly is capacity - if you've ever tried to use LTE in a busy train station, you can tell the impact that congestion has on that network's subscribers. Thousands of people connected to a few cells leads to significant slowdown. Generally, higher frequencies lead to shorter range and higher throughput, so in specific circumstances like Airports[0] with multiple antennas, 5G can allow for much higher throughput to many devices at once, alleviating congestion.
5G can also more efficiently make use of spectrum, which means 5G networks can reach further than 4G networks built on the same frequency.
There's a lot more to this, and I'd recommend reading into the Wikipedia page[1] on 5G for an in-depth look if you have time - but the basics are, 5G is a standard, not any one set of devices or antennas or expectations.
[0] https://news.tampaairport.com/tpa-welcomes-5g-and-enhanced-4... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
5G uses the same radio waves that 4G has, in many cases - T-Mobile US, for example, uses 600MHz and 2.5GHZ frequencies for 5G (and 4G). Sprint has been using 2.5GHz for 4G since 2008.
The biggest change that 5G could bring today honestly is capacity - if you've ever tried to use LTE in a busy train station, you can tell the impact that congestion has on that network's subscribers. Thousands of people connected to a few cells leads to significant slowdown. Generally, higher frequencies lead to shorter range and higher throughput, so in specific circumstances like Airports[0] with multiple antennas, 5G can allow for much higher throughput to many devices at once, alleviating congestion.
5G can also more efficiently make use of spectrum, which means 5G networks can reach further than 4G networks built on the same frequency.
There's a lot more to this, and I'd recommend reading into the Wikipedia page[1] on 5G for an in-depth look if you have time - but the basics are, 5G is a standard, not any one set of devices or antennas or expectations.
[0] https://news.tampaairport.com/tpa-welcomes-5g-and-enhanced-4... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
The other fun use case related to trains is tons of subscribers on a moving train doing handoffs between towers. Ideally everyone would use the train's wifi, but that rarely happens because the service is shit. Instead you likely have gigantic traffic hitting the MME trying to detach and reattach phones... and then everyone moves out of the new tower's service area... so on and so forth. Hopefully the 5G core's separation of some of MME's responsibilities will help this scenario.
Could the train not have a 5G base station to aggregate traffic over reliable backhaul?
I think it might be more difficult than it would seem... everything I’ve seen so far in telecom has the assumption that the gNB (the base station) has a fixed location relative to neighboring gNBs. That’s what would facilitate handoffs. You would have to reconfigure parts of the core network as the train moves, so that you could smoothly handle the instance where someone takes a call on the train, disembarks, and the train pulls away. I don’t think the topology is that malleable.
I don't know if this feature got dropped or if it's just not very well covered, but...
There's a feature that allows devices to go into a low power mode. The tower can then "wake up" a device remotely. It's designed for a variety of IOT usecases.
There's a feature that allows devices to go into a low power mode. The tower can then "wake up" a device remotely. It's designed for a variety of IOT usecases.
Going into low-power mode and then being woken up by the tower is standard function (even of 4G) - it's called paging, and pretty much all devices support it.
Unfortunately, although listening for these paging messages requires less power than having a full connection, it's still non-zero.
For really lower-power applications, 5G (and I think some of the later 4G extensions) support Mobile-Initiated Connection Only, which essentially means the device goes into low-power mode but doesn't even listen for paging messages - instead, it wakes up occasionally (maybe even just once a day) and sends and receives messages. The tower knows to not even bother trying to page it.
Unfortunately, although listening for these paging messages requires less power than having a full connection, it's still non-zero.
For really lower-power applications, 5G (and I think some of the later 4G extensions) support Mobile-Initiated Connection Only, which essentially means the device goes into low-power mode but doesn't even listen for paging messages - instead, it wakes up occasionally (maybe even just once a day) and sends and receives messages. The tower knows to not even bother trying to page it.
Paging goes back to the original GSM (so even before 2G). In fact, the technology of paging predates mobile voice. The technology was used in pagers!
It is a staple of any always-available battery powered device.
It is a staple of any always-available battery powered device.
Busy train stations should have DAS antennas to support the high density of devices.
A multicarrier DAS is $5-$10 per square foot up front and expensive to maintain - these costs typically do not fall on the carrier but deals can be struck depending on volume. 5G looks to minimize the number of locations that need a DAS in the first place so the places that couldn't get a deal don't need one and the ones that could can be covered cheaper by the carrier than the deal would have been for the carrier. Solutions like Wi-Fi Passpoint look to provide a far cheaper alternative (and avoid things like single carrier DAS which is cheaper but only fixes the problem for some) for cases density is sky high (like stadiums) or the location not otherwise coverable.
A DAS can certainly be an answer but it's never been a very attractive one, and that's from when there weren't other options on the horizon.
A DAS can certainly be an answer but it's never been a very attractive one, and that's from when there weren't other options on the horizon.
> 5G can be many things, but it isn't gigabit wireless speeds, or low latency, or smart microwaves. It can enable those technologies, but what it really is is a telecommunications standard, telling companies how to build out networks.
True enough. In some sense, 5G is just the next version of the protocol that mobile operators run. Its more than just a technical protocol, it comes with organizational practices as well.
However, the current standard was made with much intentionality. It was very much designed to enable gigabit wireless speeds, low latency and smart microwaves.
True enough. In some sense, 5G is just the next version of the protocol that mobile operators run. Its more than just a technical protocol, it comes with organizational practices as well.
However, the current standard was made with much intentionality. It was very much designed to enable gigabit wireless speeds, low latency and smart microwaves.
5G can also more efficiently make use of spectrum, which means 5G networks can reach further than 4G networks built on the same frequency.
This part I don't understand. I spend a lot of time on business and pleasure in places where cellular coverage is unavailable or unreliable. I thought that 5G signals don't go as far as 4G, so how can they reach "further" into towns and places that don't have cellular service?
(FWIW, there are a number of places in my regular [pre-pandemic] travels where the 3G signal is better and even faster than 4G signals.)
This part I don't understand. I spend a lot of time on business and pleasure in places where cellular coverage is unavailable or unreliable. I thought that 5G signals don't go as far as 4G, so how can they reach "further" into towns and places that don't have cellular service?
(FWIW, there are a number of places in my regular [pre-pandemic] travels where the 3G signal is better and even faster than 4G signals.)
There's a common misconception that 5G specifically means you need to use millimeter wave (very high-band) networks. 5G can be on the same frequency as 4G, and it is more efficient than 4G - so with greater efficiency, it's easier to get usable output from that signal than with 4G. The signals will go "as far" regardless of 3G/4G/5G assuming they're broadcasted at the same frequency and power level, but the device being able to use it is a different story.
The reason 2G and 3G can sometimes reach further than LTE is for a similar reason - because it's easier to "hang onto" a 2/3G signal. The reason it's easier though is different - not because 3G is more efficient, but because it's less complex. This reddit thread[0] explains it better than I can, so I'll paste a comment from it here:
>>> The modulation scheme (how the digital "data" is packed into the "analog" wave to transmit it over the air) is simpler for [2G], which requires a lower wave quality to decode. It's the same reason you are more likely to get an [2G] signal farther away than LTE
Note that the reason 3G might be "faster" is probably due more to the congestion issue I talked about before - when the LTE network is oversubscribed, meaning too many people are connected to it and are slowing it down, sometimes dropping back to 3G (which very few people are connected to in 2021) can lead to you fighting less over your data.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/lwwkrl/when_was_th...
The reason 2G and 3G can sometimes reach further than LTE is for a similar reason - because it's easier to "hang onto" a 2/3G signal. The reason it's easier though is different - not because 3G is more efficient, but because it's less complex. This reddit thread[0] explains it better than I can, so I'll paste a comment from it here:
>>> The modulation scheme (how the digital "data" is packed into the "analog" wave to transmit it over the air) is simpler for [2G], which requires a lower wave quality to decode. It's the same reason you are more likely to get an [2G] signal farther away than LTE
Note that the reason 3G might be "faster" is probably due more to the congestion issue I talked about before - when the LTE network is oversubscribed, meaning too many people are connected to it and are slowing it down, sometimes dropping back to 3G (which very few people are connected to in 2021) can lead to you fighting less over your data.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/lwwkrl/when_was_th...
True, millimeter wave bands, introduced in 5G, don't go as far as 4G. But those bands are in the 5G standard additionally to the lower bands similar to 4G, and are beneficial in places like busy airports, train stations and urban areas. 5G does not mandate to only use the millimeter wave bands (or, for the mater of act, to use them at all).
So in rural areas 5G signals would still use frequencies similar to 4G,so the more efficient use of spectrum will improve coverage and speed.
Regarding the observation that sometimes 3G signals are better than 4G - that might as well be because 4G has problems with congestion when many clients are connected to the same base station. One of areas which also 5G is also improving.
So in rural areas 5G signals would still use frequencies similar to 4G,so the more efficient use of spectrum will improve coverage and speed.
Regarding the observation that sometimes 3G signals are better than 4G - that might as well be because 4G has problems with congestion when many clients are connected to the same base station. One of areas which also 5G is also improving.
5G is several parts. The high frequency, hugh bandwidth stuff doesn't go far.
The same as existing mobile frequency stuff has about the same penetration as existing service, but because its more efficient, it allows towers to increase power to expand their coverage area. Generally towers will modulate their output power to reduce coverage when congested, hoping devices will attach to other towers; works well when there's enough towers with overlapping coverage, but not as well when towers are sparse.
It doesn't have to be purely power either, antenna angle makes a big difference, and phased antennas mean you can change effective angle without mechanically changing the angle.
The same as existing mobile frequency stuff has about the same penetration as existing service, but because its more efficient, it allows towers to increase power to expand their coverage area. Generally towers will modulate their output power to reduce coverage when congested, hoping devices will attach to other towers; works well when there's enough towers with overlapping coverage, but not as well when towers are sparse.
It doesn't have to be purely power either, antenna angle makes a big difference, and phased antennas mean you can change effective angle without mechanically changing the angle.
5G is just instructions on how devices should talk over radio waves. The waves the devices decide to talk over very dramatically. On the short-range end, they can talk on 30-60ghz bands; these bands have lots of room to talk, but they’re hard to hear, especially through walls or long distances. On the other end, they can talk on frequencies as low as <600mhz. These are great at penetrating barriers (they’re probably what you use in the middle of nowhere) but there’s less room (free spectrum real estate available) to talk.
> FWIW, there are a number of places in my regular [pre-pandemic] travels where the 3G signal is better and even faster than 4G signals
This will rely heavily on the network design decisions made. Where I live, the digital TV switchover happened after LTE buildout was well on it's way, so all those juicy 700 MHz bands went to LTE. I literally can't remember the last time I saw my phone on 3G here, even out in the countryside with marginal coverage/dropouts. It's been at least 4 years.
This will rely heavily on the network design decisions made. Where I live, the digital TV switchover happened after LTE buildout was well on it's way, so all those juicy 700 MHz bands went to LTE. I literally can't remember the last time I saw my phone on 3G here, even out in the countryside with marginal coverage/dropouts. It's been at least 4 years.
The thing that is confusing is two things are wrapped up together as "5G": (a) the actual 5G standards, and (b) the spectrum that is used. To add to the confusion, (b) is composed of frequency and bandwidth, and those are often different both between and within countries.
For instance, one of the biggest benefits of 5G is that channels (bandwidth) can be much wider, and several can be stacked together, which means more data can be transferred. But even though that can be done, there may not be enough spectrum at a specific frequency to be able to take advantage of that.
Then the high-band (millimeter wave) can have even more channels than the low- and mid-band 5G. But high-band doesn't travel far and it doesn't penetrate walls well.
If you want a good primer on it that is accessible, I recommend the regularly updated "What Is 5G?" article from Sascha Segan at PCMag.[1] I think he's the best journalist writing about 5G.
[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/what-is-5g
For instance, one of the biggest benefits of 5G is that channels (bandwidth) can be much wider, and several can be stacked together, which means more data can be transferred. But even though that can be done, there may not be enough spectrum at a specific frequency to be able to take advantage of that.
Then the high-band (millimeter wave) can have even more channels than the low- and mid-band 5G. But high-band doesn't travel far and it doesn't penetrate walls well.
If you want a good primer on it that is accessible, I recommend the regularly updated "What Is 5G?" article from Sascha Segan at PCMag.[1] I think he's the best journalist writing about 5G.
[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/what-is-5g
My understanding of 5G has always been that it’s just more short range nodes which should provide better service in densely populated areas.
That’s pretty much it. Some telecoms seem to be positioning this as an opportunity to provide home internet access running through 5G infrastructure which would cut down on last mile costs, but at the same time it seems like it would saturate the spectrum pretty quickly.
During all the 5G hype I’ve been buying up stocks of companies based on how much backbone fiber they own, because as far as I can tell that’s where the real staying power is anyway.
That’s pretty much it. Some telecoms seem to be positioning this as an opportunity to provide home internet access running through 5G infrastructure which would cut down on last mile costs, but at the same time it seems like it would saturate the spectrum pretty quickly.
During all the 5G hype I’ve been buying up stocks of companies based on how much backbone fiber they own, because as far as I can tell that’s where the real staying power is anyway.
5G wasn't designed for the consumer... only the marketing was.
5G allows for more granular management of network capacity, so you could think of a stadium deployment as somewhere between existing LTE and a WiFi mesh network. The carriers can look at dashboards and maps, and figure out where people are getting slowdowns so they can put up some more 5G nodes.
This granularity can mean more precise location data/telemetry and some interesting opportunities for edge caching and edge compute.
Existing GPS, in my experience, is far from perfect for geocoding more dense areas, so the idea that 5G can reliably put you out in front of a restaurant, or even in a particular floor and room of a building is promising (and a bit scary).
What if your games were streamed from a local edge node, and you only played with people on the same node at near-zero latency? Or maybe you're at a stadium, and your phone is streaming replays of the game directly from the stadium without going over the internet. And your phone knows exactly where the nearest vending machine is, and the vending machine is used as an edge device to give you live stock data and process the transaction.
I think it's a good supplement to LTE. People are going crazy because it's not an in-your-face speed improvement, but the reality is that it can mature to keep dense urban areas connected in a way that LTE wasn't really designed for.
In terms of it replacing WiFi/fixed line, I think one good reason it might is that it's simple. Down the line, some people might look at the process of "getting internet installed" and setting up a modem/access point as archaic, when you can just buy a device and have it connect. I kind of like having a separate fixed internet line though, because if one goes down for some reason, I still have the other.
This granularity can mean more precise location data/telemetry and some interesting opportunities for edge caching and edge compute.
Existing GPS, in my experience, is far from perfect for geocoding more dense areas, so the idea that 5G can reliably put you out in front of a restaurant, or even in a particular floor and room of a building is promising (and a bit scary).
What if your games were streamed from a local edge node, and you only played with people on the same node at near-zero latency? Or maybe you're at a stadium, and your phone is streaming replays of the game directly from the stadium without going over the internet. And your phone knows exactly where the nearest vending machine is, and the vending machine is used as an edge device to give you live stock data and process the transaction.
I think it's a good supplement to LTE. People are going crazy because it's not an in-your-face speed improvement, but the reality is that it can mature to keep dense urban areas connected in a way that LTE wasn't really designed for.
In terms of it replacing WiFi/fixed line, I think one good reason it might is that it's simple. Down the line, some people might look at the process of "getting internet installed" and setting up a modem/access point as archaic, when you can just buy a device and have it connect. I kind of like having a separate fixed internet line though, because if one goes down for some reason, I still have the other.
Fixed line internet has the massive advantage of not contending for the physical medium against all your neighbors.
5G is the next generation of mobile connectivity. I can't list all of the detailed changes off the top of my head, but some of the biggest changes I'm aware of are;
The use of a different radio band, therefore less contention in the existing mobile bands - less congestion results in better speeds overall.
Reducing the range of base stations. shorter range means less clients, less congestion and therefore better speeds, whilst also deploying them more densely to cope with wider areas and higher bandwidth densities. Also, shorter range reduces the power requirements, meaning mobile devices will have longer battery life (nothing magical, probably not even noticeable to the average user), or it can be built into smaller/low power devices such as IoT.
Utimately, 5G is irrelevant to end users until it's actually deployed widely. Just like 3G and 4G, the end user has no impact on the deployment of the network other than the demand for it. So, all the hype around 5G is almost entirely marketing, politics etc. It only really matters once 5G is deployed across the areas you visit daily, and until then the previous generations of mobile connectivity will continue to serve just fine.
Your suggestion about a football stadium is an interesting test case. Ideally, an area that size would be served by up to a dozen base stations, spread throughout the stadium. Compare this with a single 3G base station that would cover the stadium, plus a large portion of the local area, and you can see the pros/cons fairly easily. But how many people are surfing the web whilst watching a game? or taking calls, answering texts etc. Very few during active play time, but there'll be large bursts of traffic in any breaks in play which will stress the older mobile generations to breaking point whereas 5G is designed to deal with that scenario fairly well.
The use of a different radio band, therefore less contention in the existing mobile bands - less congestion results in better speeds overall.
Reducing the range of base stations. shorter range means less clients, less congestion and therefore better speeds, whilst also deploying them more densely to cope with wider areas and higher bandwidth densities. Also, shorter range reduces the power requirements, meaning mobile devices will have longer battery life (nothing magical, probably not even noticeable to the average user), or it can be built into smaller/low power devices such as IoT.
Utimately, 5G is irrelevant to end users until it's actually deployed widely. Just like 3G and 4G, the end user has no impact on the deployment of the network other than the demand for it. So, all the hype around 5G is almost entirely marketing, politics etc. It only really matters once 5G is deployed across the areas you visit daily, and until then the previous generations of mobile connectivity will continue to serve just fine.
Your suggestion about a football stadium is an interesting test case. Ideally, an area that size would be served by up to a dozen base stations, spread throughout the stadium. Compare this with a single 3G base station that would cover the stadium, plus a large portion of the local area, and you can see the pros/cons fairly easily. But how many people are surfing the web whilst watching a game? or taking calls, answering texts etc. Very few during active play time, but there'll be large bursts of traffic in any breaks in play which will stress the older mobile generations to breaking point whereas 5G is designed to deal with that scenario fairly well.
The radio frequencies aren't necessarily different, but there are options for frequencies that weren't available in lte.
The jury is still out about real world mm-wave 5g becoming widespread any time soon outside few exceptionally crowded public places. Besides network support, a lot of phones don't support it either.
The jury is still out about real world mm-wave 5g becoming widespread any time soon outside few exceptionally crowded public places. Besides network support, a lot of phones don't support it either.
All I know is that I get double the bandwidth when connected to a 5G network than their 4G one
So now you can blow through your data cap twice as fast?
To me the whole angle of this seems wrong. Who out there has a solid LTE signal and is going “oh if only this were faster”.
On the other hand when I have 1 bar I might has well have nothing at all. Shortening the range of the base stations doesn’t seem like it would help this.
To me the whole angle of this seems wrong. Who out there has a solid LTE signal and is going “oh if only this were faster”.
On the other hand when I have 1 bar I might has well have nothing at all. Shortening the range of the base stations doesn’t seem like it would help this.
But keep in mind, that data caps exist to limit the impact of single users to the overall capacity. With 5G capacity everywhere, the will look different (way higher).
>With 5G capacity everywhere, the will look different (way higher).
In the US I went from unlimited data 3G to 10gb during the 4G LTE days, down to eventually 5gb (Verizon).
There are many I know with the same personal experience.
I have no doubt that big data plans will one day be ubiquitous -- but I have much more doubt that mobile providers are actually trying to provide me with a better experience and more freedom to do what I want.
They care about profit, and that's about it.
They gave away big data plans when few people cared about actually using them, and now that the phones and the userbase has caught up to those numbers the providers pull the rug from under them in order to secure further profits -- god forbid the user demand forces upgrades, that'd ruin the profits even further.
In the US I went from unlimited data 3G to 10gb during the 4G LTE days, down to eventually 5gb (Verizon).
There are many I know with the same personal experience.
I have no doubt that big data plans will one day be ubiquitous -- but I have much more doubt that mobile providers are actually trying to provide me with a better experience and more freedom to do what I want.
They care about profit, and that's about it.
They gave away big data plans when few people cared about actually using them, and now that the phones and the userbase has caught up to those numbers the providers pull the rug from under them in order to secure further profits -- god forbid the user demand forces upgrades, that'd ruin the profits even further.
You can see this where I live - all the main carrier 5G data plans are unlimited data, whereas they never offered any unlimited LTE plans (the last time there was an unlimited plan was on the original WiMAX)
That's what they said about 4G, and 3G. We've seen this movie before.
My SIM only contract has no data limit, for £37pm. I have replaced fibre broadband with a 5G router. I've been using this set up since September and have hardly had any connectivity issues (vpn, ssh, video conferencing, netflix etc). Pings are a bit higher for gaming though.
Me. I frequently have LTE in places I use the internet, and miss the gigabit connection I have at home.
10Gbps would, of course, be even better, at home and mobile.
10Gbps would, of course, be even better, at home and mobile.
In what scenario can you tell the difference between 40 Mbps and 1000 Mbps on a mobile phone?
20-40 Mbps is more than enough for streaming. So I suppose you’re regularly downloading very large files or something?
Genuinely curious what use cases you notice a difference.
Or maybe it’s the better latency of your gigabit that you notice more so than the throughput?
20-40 Mbps is more than enough for streaming. So I suppose you’re regularly downloading very large files or something?
Genuinely curious what use cases you notice a difference.
Or maybe it’s the better latency of your gigabit that you notice more so than the throughput?
Oh, I don't use LTE on a mobile phone. All of my devices (phones included) connect to a router with LTE uplink that runs VPN 24/7; the mobile carriers can't be trusted with any unencrypted data any longer, as T-Mobile is happily publicizing. None of my phones get sim cards.
I was referring to a laptop in my original statement. I usually plug it into the LTE router directly with a gigabit cable, or use Wi-Fi which generally exceeds the uplink capacity. 5G fixes that, for a wireless LAN.
As for why you'd need higher bandwidth on a mobile device, it is simple: to live-stream the 2160p@60fps captured from the device's sensors. Another good reason is app updates: doing app updates on a mobile device frequently includes a few gigabytes of downloads. Same with laptops, of course, which are increasingly connected via mobile data. Many AAA games have updates in the 20-200GB range.
A lot of this kind of stuff assumes that someone is on mobile temporarily until they get back to a "real" wifi connection (iOS didn't let you download any apps over 2GB on mobile data for a long while). For some of us, or all of us at some times, there isn't a "real" connection to go back to.
I was referring to a laptop in my original statement. I usually plug it into the LTE router directly with a gigabit cable, or use Wi-Fi which generally exceeds the uplink capacity. 5G fixes that, for a wireless LAN.
As for why you'd need higher bandwidth on a mobile device, it is simple: to live-stream the 2160p@60fps captured from the device's sensors. Another good reason is app updates: doing app updates on a mobile device frequently includes a few gigabytes of downloads. Same with laptops, of course, which are increasingly connected via mobile data. Many AAA games have updates in the 20-200GB range.
A lot of this kind of stuff assumes that someone is on mobile temporarily until they get back to a "real" wifi connection (iOS didn't let you download any apps over 2GB on mobile data for a long while). For some of us, or all of us at some times, there isn't a "real" connection to go back to.
> For some of us
I suspect it's a small enough minority nobody is too worried about it from a policy point of view.
I suspect it's a small enough minority nobody is too worried about it from a policy point of view.
Long-haul truckers are 1% of the US population, which is something like 3 or 4 million people.
I'm sure that number pales in comparison to the number of truckers, oil workers, and construction types globally that spend weeks or months on the road at a time. It's probably easily 100 million people that will immediately directly benefit from increased mobile bandwidth.
That's not even counting the dozens of developing countries where they just skipped cabling altogether and mobile data is the only internet access available. That probably boops the figure up to a billion or more.
I'm sure that number pales in comparison to the number of truckers, oil workers, and construction types globally that spend weeks or months on the road at a time. It's probably easily 100 million people that will immediately directly benefit from increased mobile bandwidth.
That's not even counting the dozens of developing countries where they just skipped cabling altogether and mobile data is the only internet access available. That probably boops the figure up to a billion or more.
Sure, and internationally I think it's a big deal. I'm certainly not going to argue that people wouldn't benefit from increased mobile bandwidth.
However, huge chunk of those people you mention are nothing like mobile only, and for many the model of heavier downloads on wifi works just fine.
My point was particularly about catering to the mobile only crowd, which is pretty small (US/ EU etc., anyway).
However, huge chunk of those people you mention are nothing like mobile only, and for many the model of heavier downloads on wifi works just fine.
My point was particularly about catering to the mobile only crowd, which is pretty small (US/ EU etc., anyway).
Data caps are a rarity in many countries.
Cost savings for carriers and more precise tracking of users for marketing and other purposes.
My previous job was working for $major_telco in the US, I was in network (not RF engineering). I left right as the "5G" train was starting, however I did get training and have pretty decent familiarity with the implementation plan and 3GPP release 15, the first release with the official New Radio (NR) spec. I also have a large understanding of LTE (3GPP release 10-14), so I'm happy to dive as deep as anyone would like.
For the details below I'm going to not use the term "5G", 5G like 4G is marketing. The technical specifications that more or less make up "5G" are the 3GPP standards releases[1]. The 3GPP is the standards body that ratifies the wireless network standards that nearly the entire world uses. For this discussion I'll ignore alternatives since "5G" effectively means the 3GPP standard.
The standard of 3GPP Release 15 (and newer) are improvements and build off the existing standards of LTE (releases 8-14). Its an evolution of the standard, much like 3GPP Release 8 (first LTE release) was an evolution on Release 5-7 (HSDPA-HSDPA+). While release 15+ are evolutionary, they are not revolutionary in that there is no magically discovered new physics behind it. The improvements largely lie with increased support for higher modulation levels (256 QAM was introduced with Release 14 LTE-Advanced), increased spectrum efficiency (variable sized framing allowed across difference devices and upload/download), mixing upload/download division types (i.e. using TDD[2] for download and FDD[2] for upload), improved MIMO (up to 64x64 in massive MIMO), improved beam-forming and additional frequencies.
Some of these improvements in Release 15+ were available in Release 14 or unofficially rolled out in release 14 + NR draft. I know one carrier that was pushing 64x64 MIMO for TDD LTE.
The new frequencies, many in the "millimeter wave" range, will help with with congestion in the "football stadium". There are two main limitations in high capacity events, the first is backhaul. Have to connect the stadium back to the core, and this is _always_ a bottleneck. The second limitation is available spectrum. No matter how many antennas you have in the DAS, there is a physical limitation to the amount of data that can be sent over the frequencies. The new millimeter wave help here, because while its very short range, its large width allows for a significantly higher number of concurrent connections.
The new frequencies, along with increased efficiency in existing frequencies, plus core changes are the main driver for the "latency" and "bandwidth" improvements. The "connected cars" and "connected IoT to cell network" are just marketing/sales departments pushing for new customers. The main "advantage" "5G" brings here is an increased capacity in the network to handle this.
A few other notes, unlike "3G"->LTE, the upgrade to Release 15+ for carriers will be a lot smoother. First, everyone is now on LTE, aka the precursor so there is no CDMA/EVDO networks that are incompatible that need rip and replace + compatibility modes (ehrpd). Second "NR" is designed to be compatible and multiplexable with existing LTE/LTE-Advanced enodebs, this means in one area you can have NR and LTE towers, and the NR towers can broadcast LTE for devices that are LTE only. This was not the case with the original eNodeBs, which could not handle backwards compatibility without physically separate BTS/nodeBs. Third, the new core for release 15 is designed with backwards compatibility with existing enodeb's. Unlike the previous transition which required a new core that was largely incompatible due to major design changes. So with "NR" RAN elements and existing LTE enodeb's the core can be seamlessly upgraded without having to run two complete networks for multiple years like in the LTE transition.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP#Standards
[2] TDD-> Time Division Duplex, FDD -> Frequency division duplex. Most LTE networks are FDD, a few (i.e. Sprint, Softbank, China mobile..) have certain spectrum they use as TDD. The difference is with TDD, you use the same exact frequencies for upload and download but you divide the by time. So basically t0->t2 is for download, t3->t4 is upload, etc. With FDD the frequency or "band" is divided into to two parts, one for upload and one for download. There is no time division for FDD but you lose of the size of the channel.
For the details below I'm going to not use the term "5G", 5G like 4G is marketing. The technical specifications that more or less make up "5G" are the 3GPP standards releases[1]. The 3GPP is the standards body that ratifies the wireless network standards that nearly the entire world uses. For this discussion I'll ignore alternatives since "5G" effectively means the 3GPP standard.
The standard of 3GPP Release 15 (and newer) are improvements and build off the existing standards of LTE (releases 8-14). Its an evolution of the standard, much like 3GPP Release 8 (first LTE release) was an evolution on Release 5-7 (HSDPA-HSDPA+). While release 15+ are evolutionary, they are not revolutionary in that there is no magically discovered new physics behind it. The improvements largely lie with increased support for higher modulation levels (256 QAM was introduced with Release 14 LTE-Advanced), increased spectrum efficiency (variable sized framing allowed across difference devices and upload/download), mixing upload/download division types (i.e. using TDD[2] for download and FDD[2] for upload), improved MIMO (up to 64x64 in massive MIMO), improved beam-forming and additional frequencies.
Some of these improvements in Release 15+ were available in Release 14 or unofficially rolled out in release 14 + NR draft. I know one carrier that was pushing 64x64 MIMO for TDD LTE.
The new frequencies, many in the "millimeter wave" range, will help with with congestion in the "football stadium". There are two main limitations in high capacity events, the first is backhaul. Have to connect the stadium back to the core, and this is _always_ a bottleneck. The second limitation is available spectrum. No matter how many antennas you have in the DAS, there is a physical limitation to the amount of data that can be sent over the frequencies. The new millimeter wave help here, because while its very short range, its large width allows for a significantly higher number of concurrent connections.
The new frequencies, along with increased efficiency in existing frequencies, plus core changes are the main driver for the "latency" and "bandwidth" improvements. The "connected cars" and "connected IoT to cell network" are just marketing/sales departments pushing for new customers. The main "advantage" "5G" brings here is an increased capacity in the network to handle this.
A few other notes, unlike "3G"->LTE, the upgrade to Release 15+ for carriers will be a lot smoother. First, everyone is now on LTE, aka the precursor so there is no CDMA/EVDO networks that are incompatible that need rip and replace + compatibility modes (ehrpd). Second "NR" is designed to be compatible and multiplexable with existing LTE/LTE-Advanced enodebs, this means in one area you can have NR and LTE towers, and the NR towers can broadcast LTE for devices that are LTE only. This was not the case with the original eNodeBs, which could not handle backwards compatibility without physically separate BTS/nodeBs. Third, the new core for release 15 is designed with backwards compatibility with existing enodeb's. Unlike the previous transition which required a new core that was largely incompatible due to major design changes. So with "NR" RAN elements and existing LTE enodeb's the core can be seamlessly upgraded without having to run two complete networks for multiple years like in the LTE transition.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP#Standards
[2] TDD-> Time Division Duplex, FDD -> Frequency division duplex. Most LTE networks are FDD, a few (i.e. Sprint, Softbank, China mobile..) have certain spectrum they use as TDD. The difference is with TDD, you use the same exact frequencies for upload and download but you divide the by time. So basically t0->t2 is for download, t3->t4 is upload, etc. With FDD the frequency or "band" is divided into to two parts, one for upload and one for download. There is no time division for FDD but you lose of the size of the channel.
This focuses heavily on the "new-radio" part of 5G. The layer 0-1 protocol for data transfer.
5G also comes with a lot of changes higher in the stack. Many of them essentially fully internal to the telco's themselves. Part of this we might notice are new protocols for registering a device with a cell tower, new protocols when roaming or getting higher speeds (and more packet drops) for specific applications when requested.
Other parts are having lower latency because the packets get routed closer to the cell-tower. Having your own private 5G network at your job-site with guaranteed uptime. Having more reliable service in busy moments because the operator back end is more virtualized and can thus spin up more capacity when needed.
5G also comes with a lot of changes higher in the stack. Many of them essentially fully internal to the telco's themselves. Part of this we might notice are new protocols for registering a device with a cell tower, new protocols when roaming or getting higher speeds (and more packet drops) for specific applications when requested.
Other parts are having lower latency because the packets get routed closer to the cell-tower. Having your own private 5G network at your job-site with guaranteed uptime. Having more reliable service in busy moments because the operator back end is more virtualized and can thus spin up more capacity when needed.
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This is the best writeup I've seen on the topic. Thank you for taking the time.
This is fantastic, and I'd suggest making a gist or something to store this permanently. Good, useful write-up of the actual standards, and now whatever AT&T decides is “5G”.
Thank you!
I hear about it from politicians. I hear about it from telecom companies. I hear about it from my tech-illiterate dad, who asked me "Does it have 5G?" when I told him I got a new smartphone.
Reminds me of when Bill Gates was on breakfast television flogging Intel's Pentium processor. My mom was suddenly of the opinion that all of my computer equipment was obsolete and that this one chip was going to solve all of the world's problems.
Reminds me of when Bill Gates was on breakfast television flogging Intel's Pentium processor. My mom was suddenly of the opinion that all of my computer equipment was obsolete and that this one chip was going to solve all of the world's problems.
“5G” is a marketing umbrella term. It refers both to the next generation of LTE (Long Term Evolution, the incremental improvements that have been added to 4G) and also New Radio, a new cellular protocol which uses new portions of the radio spectrum.
The features of 5G are higher bandwidth (especially in situations with high interference/poor reception), a higher density of users supported (up to 100k users/per square kilometer iirc), and better performance at high speeds (e.g. on bullet trains).
The features of 5G are higher bandwidth (especially in situations with high interference/poor reception), a higher density of users supported (up to 100k users/per square kilometer iirc), and better performance at high speeds (e.g. on bullet trains).
5G is quickly getting a reputation for reduced battery life.
Are there any technical mitigations coming? Or just heavier phones with bigger batteries?
Are there any technical mitigations coming? Or just heavier phones with bigger batteries?
It’s three things. It helps push out legacy 3G tech that reduces throughput, it enables cellular carriers to displace cable companies without running fiber with mmWave, and it is enabling stuff like smart roads that made it a national security issue.
Telematics in cars will be mandated shortly and enable stuff like road vs fuel taxation and congestion pricing. That enabled regulatory changes that basically eliminated most local autonomy over cellular tower placement. Basically, the FCC is “yimby” for anything 5G, and used national security regulations to limit permitting, taxation, etc.
Telematics in cars will be mandated shortly and enable stuff like road vs fuel taxation and congestion pricing. That enabled regulatory changes that basically eliminated most local autonomy over cellular tower placement. Basically, the FCC is “yimby” for anything 5G, and used national security regulations to limit permitting, taxation, etc.
That’s the bit that doesn’t make sense.
They can’t really avoid running fibre with mmWave cos they have to backhaul it. Sure there is point to point radio, but in the main they’ll need to get fibre almost as close to you as with a fixed line direct to you. But instead it’ll be fibre to base stations on top of every building? It’s almost the same cost in terms of fibre infra.
They can’t really avoid running fibre with mmWave cos they have to backhaul it. Sure there is point to point radio, but in the main they’ll need to get fibre almost as close to you as with a fixed line direct to you. But instead it’ll be fibre to base stations on top of every building? It’s almost the same cost in terms of fibre infra.
For Verizon at least, they sub out the 5G local towers to a third party and avoid paying CWA unionized guys. They would set mounds of dollar bills in fire to spite the union.
I think they use wireless backhaul too.
I think they use wireless backhaul too.
Generally there is said to be 3 parts to 5G.
The first is eMBB: Enhanced Mobile Broadband. In other words faster mobile internet. This is where most operators start.
The second is URLLC: Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications. This is mainly aimed at using 5G for things like self-driving cars. But also things like long distance remote control. This is where people see potential for innovation without being clear what the exact innovation will be.
The third is mMTC: Massive Machine Type Communications. This is meant for IOT but also for factory control. The IOT thing is mostly allowing extra low battery useage, low speed, cheap connnectivity. The factory control thing is about getting the advantages of 5G (and e.g. URLLC) and allowing a factory to quickly set up their own private 5G network.
This is on the consumer facing side. On the operator facing side, infrastructure is moving more towards virtualization and decoupling. Trying to make it easier to use multiple vendors, and stop requiring custom made hardware. And in general, moving towards commodity hardware and something closer to 'infrastructure as code'.
This also helps roaming and virtual operators (for e.g. the factory control). It also helps a bit with the ultra low latency part by decentralizing the routing part and moving it closer to the devices.
So "what is 5G gonna do for me" is mostly the 'faster internet'. But the idea is that it will enable widespread innovation that you can later use. With some luck (governments are thinking) being ahead in deploying 5G might also help boost your economy by boosting innovation.
The first is eMBB: Enhanced Mobile Broadband. In other words faster mobile internet. This is where most operators start.
The second is URLLC: Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications. This is mainly aimed at using 5G for things like self-driving cars. But also things like long distance remote control. This is where people see potential for innovation without being clear what the exact innovation will be.
The third is mMTC: Massive Machine Type Communications. This is meant for IOT but also for factory control. The IOT thing is mostly allowing extra low battery useage, low speed, cheap connnectivity. The factory control thing is about getting the advantages of 5G (and e.g. URLLC) and allowing a factory to quickly set up their own private 5G network.
This is on the consumer facing side. On the operator facing side, infrastructure is moving more towards virtualization and decoupling. Trying to make it easier to use multiple vendors, and stop requiring custom made hardware. And in general, moving towards commodity hardware and something closer to 'infrastructure as code'.
This also helps roaming and virtual operators (for e.g. the factory control). It also helps a bit with the ultra low latency part by decentralizing the routing part and moving it closer to the devices.
So "what is 5G gonna do for me" is mostly the 'faster internet'. But the idea is that it will enable widespread innovation that you can later use. With some luck (governments are thinking) being ahead in deploying 5G might also help boost your economy by boosting innovation.
I don't believe that governments promote massive multi-billion dollar infrastructure-upending projects on optimism and "luck". Your 3-part explanation notably leaves out any effect that 5G might have on mass surveillance, i.e., the annihilation of privacy and private communications. But maybe that's simply implied when we say "IoT".
> and allowing a factory to quickly set up their own private 5G network.
Where does their own WiFi network fail here?
Where does their own WiFi network fail here?
I found these posts from rhizomatica about 5G quite interesting:
https://www.rhizomatica.org/talkin-bout-my-5th-generation/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-right-to-the-network-on-capi... https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-manifest-destiny-of-telecomm...
https://www.rhizomatica.org/talkin-bout-my-5th-generation/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-right-to-the-network-on-capi... https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-manifest-destiny-of-telecomm...
It seems the world is driving towards some kind of "unique conscious collective intelligence". I guess the idea is that machine learning and AI are hungry for data, and as long as there is money, it's obvious that privacy won't matter, but data will.
It's important to understand the positive aspects of the consequences of data collection. Of course information is power and it short circuits democracy. But on the other hand, computers give the extraordinary possibility to gain an insight through actual statistics. It's a loss for a gain. Maybe that's how democracy will evolve, and maybe it will help voters, in the end?
It's murphy's law.
It's important to understand the positive aspects of the consequences of data collection. Of course information is power and it short circuits democracy. But on the other hand, computers give the extraordinary possibility to gain an insight through actual statistics. It's a loss for a gain. Maybe that's how democracy will evolve, and maybe it will help voters, in the end?
It's murphy's law.
Why worry about an unknown group who MIGHT obtain your location when the location data is for sale by the carriers right now, along with browsing history, ad IDs etc etc. It's billions on the table, while their pet agency will fine them a tiny fraction of that, for a giant net profit. There's zero reasons for them to stop selling.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/technology/fcc-cellphones...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/technology/fcc-cellphones...
The sale of location data by carriers is a USA specific phenomenon afaik.
It's not afaik.
idk if they sell user-specific data, but german operators DO at least sell agregate info from cell-tower usage.
idk if they sell user-specific data, but german operators DO at least sell agregate info from cell-tower usage.
At the moment.
No, in the EU it's a violation of your personal rights due to GDPR and in many EU Countries there are local laws that mirror this. This is very much an American failure to have democratic control over what large businesses do.
Location data is being collected and sold by EU carriers. They just "anonymize" and/or aggregate the data before they sell it. And hey presto, it's suddenly "GDPR compliant". Of course we all know that no anonymized is ever really anonymous, and that aggregated data can be just as problematic.
Couple of sources, in Dutch: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/118145/belgische-provider-proxim... https://itdaily.be/nieuws/infrastructuur/proximus-orange-en-...
Couple of sources, in Dutch: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/118145/belgische-provider-proxim... https://itdaily.be/nieuws/infrastructuur/proximus-orange-en-...
thank you! I just found out i can opt out of this and did. However, selling anonymized data is better then selling non-anonymized data. Nevertheless, these carriers and the people who think this is in any way shape or form even remotely ok deserve to be stood in front of a wall...
>no anonymized is ever really anonymous
Here's an anonymized email address, please tell me how to de-anonymize it:
Here's an anonymized email address, please tell me how to de-anonymize it:
<redacted>@gmail.com
Location data isn't anonymous if you can follow the tracks of a single person throughout a week. Because where a person spends the majority of their time -- at work and at home -- are very personally identifiable. Then it doesn't matter if the dataset has "John Doe" or "<random id>" as the user identifier.
Don't believe "anonymous" data is shared like that? Look at what New York Times could do when purchasing one of these datasets.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/loca...
Don't believe "anonymous" data is shared like that? Look at what New York Times could do when purchasing one of these datasets.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/loca...
Yes it's hyperbolic and home-brew encryption can be safe too. It just almost never happens.
<redacted>@gmail.com + pfundstein is how it almost always fails.
<redacted>@gmail.com + pfundstein is how it almost always fails.
Is this a bug or a feature?
Go and read the peer reviewed publications about 5G/6G. Localization, identification and "sensing" are what the whole project is about. There's no requirement that someone have a phone for the antenna arrays to be able to perform those functions either. I saw one industry whitepaper that mentioned collecting "physiological data" as an explicit goal. The mm-wave and sub mm-wave frequencies used in these projects are specifically good for this purpose, for relatively high resolution sensing. Electromagnetic waves in these spectra have nearly optical properties, and definitely resolve enough information to be highly invasive. So who's getting access to this information?
Maybe this specific vulnerability wasn't intentional, but somebody is meant to get this data. That's the whole point of this project.
Go and read the peer reviewed publications about 5G/6G. Localization, identification and "sensing" are what the whole project is about. There's no requirement that someone have a phone for the antenna arrays to be able to perform those functions either. I saw one industry whitepaper that mentioned collecting "physiological data" as an explicit goal. The mm-wave and sub mm-wave frequencies used in these projects are specifically good for this purpose, for relatively high resolution sensing. Electromagnetic waves in these spectra have nearly optical properties, and definitely resolve enough information to be highly invasive. So who's getting access to this information?
Maybe this specific vulnerability wasn't intentional, but somebody is meant to get this data. That's the whole point of this project.
> Electromagnetic waves in these spectra have nearly optical properties, and definitely resolve enough information to be highly invasive. So who's getting access to this information?
In my uninformed opinion this is a likely reason for five eyes nations to put up strong a strong fight against Huawei 5G hardware.
In my uninformed opinion this is a likely reason for five eyes nations to put up strong a strong fight against Huawei 5G hardware.
Not being an RF engineer, maybe I’m being naive. But surely any radio transmitter is trackable with some form of triangulation. Although the vulnerability maybe a little easier and the beam forming in 5G make triangulation a little harder.
It's not just that. From the article:
> This opens the door to situations where if an attacker manages to compromise an operator’s edge network equipment, they could abuse 5G protocol functions to launch denial of service attacks against other network slices or extract information from adjacent 5G network slices, including customer data such as location tracking information.
> This opens the door to situations where if an attacker manages to compromise an operator’s edge network equipment, they could abuse 5G protocol functions to launch denial of service attacks against other network slices or extract information from adjacent 5G network slices, including customer data such as location tracking information.
There are different degrees of tracking. If my transmitter only transmits completely random data you can triangulate me at any one time, but you can't tell me apart from others[1]. This is what I would like to have. People may be able to tell where a specific signal is coming from but they can't reliably track a single device around the city as the only connection between my signal now and 1min ago is that the source moved continuously between those two locations. In practice it will never be perfect (patterns in traffic volume could give a specific user away) but it would be nice to strive towards this.
[1] (Well if you have perfect reception of my signal following me around constantly you may be able to track my specific signal, but once you lose me for a second in a group of people you don't know which one I am coming out)
[1] (Well if you have perfect reception of my signal following me around constantly you may be able to track my specific signal, but once you lose me for a second in a group of people you don't know which one I am coming out)
Can you have a separate device that will send fake location data to your phone? Has anyone built something like this?
Basically something that will pretend to be a GPS satellite and fake wifi network generator, so that device won't be able to pick up actual networks around it, but only those programmed ones?
I believe that is highly illegal in many countries.
Here's what FCC has to say about jammers: https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-and-gps-jamming
Why telco can't make any good thing. From protocols to specifications everything is worst. And the worst part is they are milking people money freely and government is doing nothing against them :(
Wasn't that implicit? When you connect to a network down to a tower every few blocks you are broadcasting location.
This seems bit more special, but in general it is no different from your network admin being able to tell which WiFi station you are connected to at any time. And it's bit worse as WiFi generally doesn't use directional antennas...
Is true that 5G enables high precision, real-time tracking of all connected devices?
Like, high-precision and real-time enough to kill anyone from a satellite/drone/missile/etc at any time with no additional effort?
Like, high-precision and real-time enough to kill anyone from a satellite/drone/missile/etc at any time with no additional effort?
Probably not. If they are not ready to flatten a city block to go after one device... The areas where they can pinpoint without getting data from device will still be tens or hundreds of meters in size...
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"vulnerabilities"
"it's not a bug, it's a feature"
Sounds like by design.
Couldn't possibly be on purpose, right?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/11/crypto-ag-ci...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/11/crypto-ag-ci...
5G design is quite clean. But in real world networks an awful lot of backward compatible stuff is used.
TIL: I do't need 5g on my next phone (to be acquired late 2021) I can wait till my next phone (2-3 years down the road).
Every single layer, and every single generation, is broken.
Example: The encryption has been home-grown in every generation, and every generation has been broken. They keep reinventing their own shit, even though EVERYONE knows you DO NOT DO THAT.
Another example: The backbone of cross-operator traffic has ZERO authentication. If you're lucky it has ACLs on IP addresses. (and if you thought BGP hijacking on the internet was lax and unmonitored...)
Another: The GTP protocol on this network has a "high security" mode, where it only allows clients who set the "yes, I'm authenticated" bit in the header. Yes, really. A bit.
And operationally like half the nodes in phone networks have a password of "letmein", "password", or "Secret" (capital 's', very high security).
I've seen companies accidentally log in to their competitors nodes, because the both used "letmein" as password!
There is NO POSSIBLE WAY anyone can be this incompetent. I give the benefit of doubt, but we're approaching half a century of EVERY SINGLE THING, standards, implementation, policies, and operations, being completely broken. At what point can we say for certain that this is malice, this is deliberate backdooring of all phone infrastructure?