  In the almost 20 years since GSM was deployed several security problems have
been found, both in the protocols and in the - originally secret -
cryptography. However, practical exploits of these weaknesses are complicated
because of all the signal processing involved and have not been seen much
outside of their use by law enforcement agencies.
  This could change due to recently developed open-source equipment and
software that can capture and digitize signals from the GSM frequencies. This
might make practical attacks against GSM much simpler to perform.
  Indeed, several claims have recently appeared in the media on successfully
eavesdropping on GSM. When looking at these claims in depth the conclusion is
often that more is claimed than what they are actually capable of. However, it
is undeniable that these claims herald the possibilities to eavesdrop on GSM
using publicly available equipment.
  This paper evaluates the claims and practical possibilities when it comes to
eavesdropping on GSM, using relatively cheap hardware and open source
initiatives which have generated many headlines over the past year. The basis
of the paper is extensive experiments with the USRP (Universal Software Radio
Peripheral) and software projects for this hardware.
