July 26, 2023, 11:05 a.m. | Bruce Schneier

Schneier on Security www.schneier.com

Seems that there is a deliberate backdoor in the twenty-year-old TErrestrial Trunked RAdio (TETRA) standard used by police forces around the world.


The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), an organization that standardizes technologies across the industry, first created TETRA in 1995. Since then, TETRA has been used in products, including radios, sold by Motorola, Airbus, and more. Crucially, TETRA is not open-source. Instead, it relies on what the researchers describe in their presentation slides as “secret, proprietary cryptography,” meaning it …

backdoor backdoors cryptography eavesdropping encryption etsi industry infrastructure law enforcement motorola old organization police products radio standard standards technologies telecommunications tetra world

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