Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bryancoxwell 107 days ago
Not sure what IMSI rotation has to do with baseband vulnerabilities?
1 comments

It stymies attempts to track mobile devices over multi-day periods using their IMSIs.

Trackability is definitely a vulnerability.

Right but it’s not a baseband vulnerability
Huh …?

IMSI tracking is a consequence of how baseband devices communicate over-the-air, just as WiFi MAC address tracking is a consequence of how 802.11 devices communicate over-the-air.

And it's definitely a vulnerability, because it's used to track end users and reduce their privacy.

So it IS a baseband vulnerability. And IMSI randomization mitigates it to some degree, just as WiFi and Bluetooth MAC randomization mitigate tracking via those identifiers.

I’m arguing that just because a baseband processor is involved that doesn’t mean IMSI tracking is a vulnerability of the baseband processor itself. IMSI provisioning and randomization cannot be done without cooperation with the network operator and has nothing to do with the baseband processor itself.