DeepSec 2015 Talk: A Death in Athens: The inherent Vulnerability of “lawful Intercept” Programs, and Why all Government authorized Backdoors are very dangerous – James Bamford
Some of you might remember the „Athens Affair“. In 2005 Ericsson found backdoors in the lawful interception systems of Vodafone Greece. The software on these modules was altered to successfully wiretap phone numbers without detection. When one of the tapped phones made or received a phone call, the exchange, or switch, sent a duplication of the conversation to one of fourteen anonymous prepaid mobile phones. The incident sparked an investigation, and Vodafone Greece was fined millions of Euros for breaching privacy laws. In February 2015 the Greek authorities issued a warrant for a suspect linked to the NSA. Lawful interception (LI) capabilities are mandatory for telecommunication equipment. In Europe the technical requirements and standards are developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI); the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) maintains the part relevant for