Clive, i definitely want to hear your phreaking memoirs 🙂

Sadly here not too much – we had pulse dialing here…

And long distance was out of question here anyway – from

ordinary phone lines no long distance, everything was under

KGB strict control.

&ers •

July 28, 2023 6:36 PM

hxxps://news.err.ee/1609040312/estonian-interior-ministry-wants-ban-on-non-personalized-pre-paid-sim-cards

Ismar •

July 28, 2023 7:41 PM

https://tetraburst.com/

Despite being widely used and relying on secret cryptography, TETRA had never been subjected to in-depth public security research in its 20+ year history as a result of this secrecy

Clive Robinson •

July 28, 2023 8:08 PM

@ &ers, ALL,

This got grabbed by the auto-mod so I apologise for having to chop it into parts.

Part 1,

Re : Zero Day meaning.

“Not all know from where the term 0day came (Clive knows).”

Yes he does and it will supprise many.

It actually comes from “Zero Hour D-day” and similar military speak.

The term “Zero Hour” was the mark point for the end of the count down time to military action such as “Going over the top” from “The Great War” (later called World War One).

Military actions are not planed by a date and time but “-hours” and “+hours” where “-” was effectively somthing that was to be kept hidden from the enemy pre the start of action (note hidden not secret, because build ups were visable to observers in balloons, using odd looking perescopes on jack up masts and later aircraft).

The reason for not using dates and times was mostly a practical one, amoungst other things “the weather” which could change so much in a very short period of time that a planed action would have to be delayed. Sometimes for nearly a month… Think full moon every 28days and heavy cloud blocking the needed moon light to bring stuff upto the front.

Whilst many “Officers” and “Senior NCO’s” were used to using it, it did not make it into the public memes psyche untill “The Space Race” where every one talked of the “count down” and “zero hour” with big digital clocks in days hours minutes and seconds “counting down”.

In the early 1970’s Burnie Taupine wrote the words to the song “Rocket man” which many remember as Elton John’s 1972 smash hit. The first few words are,

“She packed my bags last night pre-flight

Zero hour, nine AM

And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then.”

The second line linking the countdown time to the actual launch pad time zone.

The other two lines have various meanings that both Bernie and Elton implied differently at various times.

But the hidden / secret action of things happening before zero-hour on D-Day kind of stuck due to the way history was taught to kids in the US and UK in the 1950’s through atleast the 1990’s when things started to diversify into “World Cultures”.

So ‘Zero Hour D-Day’ from WWII history teaching became ‘Zero Hour Launch Day” in the 1960’s for the Space Race, then just got shortened to ‘Zero Day, Zero hour’ for a planed day and time event in what we now call “Managment Speak”. And anthropology speaking so on into other Cultural “patois or slang” depending on how big the culture is. As the various “geek / nerd” kid groups were small and often insular it was a “slang” that was also used by other groups to deride members of another group.

Clive Robinson •

July 28, 2023 8:12 PM

@ &ers, ALL,

Part 2,

Back in the start of the home computer days in the late 70’s through 80’s I’d kind of passed over all the alarm bending, phone phreeking, tapping and bugging devices early on and through Pirate Radio and into Radio and Computers professionaly. So I’d kind of got a lot of it out of my system, and got into what we used to call “Old School” Hacking.

“Clive, i definitely want to hear your phreaking memoirs”

Two points to note about the UK,

1, It does not have a statute of limitations…

2, The first UK computer legislation was in the 1990’s and it was and still is draconian.

So I still practice care in what I say (remember having the UK Priminister wanting to turn you into a criminal, is kind of a salutary lesson in life).

But in the teen-scene of the 1980’s 8bit home computers, I was seen by many as an “elder”, especially as I owned my own house and had a lot of experience with mini-computers and building networks and massively parallel computer systems from the discrete components upwards. My job was seen by many of the kids to “talk managment” in one direction and liase with the “kids” in the other direction. The fact that I could do “managment”, “Design of electronics/computers” and could problem solve at what looked like a glance made me fairly unique and I jumped jobs for frequently. Not for the money but for the fun of something new to investigate and solve.

One area my earlier phone experience came in handy was the design of telephone line bridges to give a safe “demark” to 2wire and 4wire lines. I also designed modems, not just the “approved standards” type but for interfacing over radio systems as well. Also I added “crypto” to them for some “banking” and similar financial market interests.

But in the 80’s I started investigating attacking systems without touching or connecting to them. You will with a search find earlier posts where I describe “Active Fault Attacks” by EM Radiation. I was also doing what some would call TEMPEST which is a smaller part of EmSec. Which also came out of research work into “Low Probability of Intercept”(LPI) systems including lighting bits of London up, with lasers through telescopes etc to provide highly secure communications. There was also the design of “jamming systems” to be used in various ways to deal with what we now call “terrorist devices” such as “Improvised Explosive Devices”(IEDs) to protect VIPs and similar.

Clive Robinson •

July 28, 2023 8:15 PM

@ &ers, ALL,

Part 3,

I have plenty of stories, though some would technically be covered by NDA’s and even the UK DORA and OSA (I&II). Which is why I can talk a lot about other nations misbehaviours –with France high on the list– but not other nations “who club together” as say a pentagram of Shakespearean style “Hubble bubble toil and trouble” pot using witches. Or passing the eye around as the Gorgan’s sisters, Deino –dread–, Enyo –horror–, and Pemphredo –alarm– did to spy on the mortal world.

SpaceLifeForm •

July 28, 2023 10:53 PM

Re: Twitter implosion

Who knew that Apple does not allow single character app names?

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