[HN Gopher] New 5G protocol vulnerabilities allow location tracking ___________________________________________________________________ New 5G protocol vulnerabilities allow location tracking Author : DyslexicAtheist Score : 206 points Date : 2021-03-28 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (therecord.media) (TXT) w3m dump (therecord.media) | BigBalli wrote: | bug or feature? The key benefit is enhanced tracking. | nerbert wrote: | Feature indeed. Highlighted from the beginning. | bscvbscv wrote: | Is true that 5G enables high precision, real-time tracking of all | connected devices? | | Like, high-precision and real-time enough to kill anyone from a | satellite/drone/missile/etc at any time with no additional | effort? | Ekaros wrote: | Probably not. If they are not ready to flatten a city block to | go after one device... The areas where they can pinpoint | without getting data from device will still be tens or hundreds | of meters in size... | [deleted] | SMAAART wrote: | TIL: I do't need 5g on my next phone (to be acquired late 2021) I | can wait till my next phone (2-3 years down the road). | jmakov wrote: | Sounds like by design. | ng55QPSK wrote: | 5G design is quite clean. But in real world networks an awful | lot of backward compatible stuff is used. | beckman466 wrote: | Couldn't possibly be on purpose, right? | | https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/11/crypto-ag-ci... | hk1337 wrote: | Well, it's intent is for IoT devices so that makes sense. | datameta wrote: | The 'S' in IoT stands for Security | skocznymroczny wrote: | "vulnerabilities" | imglorp wrote: | Why worry about an unknown group who MIGHT obtain your location | when the location data is for sale by the carriers right now, | along with browsing history, ad IDs etc etc. It's billions on the | table, while their pet agency will fine them a tiny fraction of | that, for a giant net profit. There's zero reasons for them to | stop selling. | | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/technology/fcc-cellphones... | Ovah wrote: | The sale of location data by carriers is a USA specific | phenomenon afaik. | ng55QPSK wrote: | At the moment. | dtx1 wrote: | No, in the EU it's a violation of your personal rights due | to GDPR and in many EU Countries there are local laws that | mirror this. This is very much an American failure to have | democratic control over what large businesses do. | elric wrote: | Location data is being collected and sold by EU carriers. | They just "anonymize" and/or aggregate the data before | they sell it. And hey presto, it's suddenly "GDPR | compliant". Of course we all know that no anonymized is | ever really anonymous, and that aggregated data can be | just as problematic. | | Couple of sources, in Dutch: | https://tweakers.net/nieuws/118145/belgische-provider- | proxim... | https://itdaily.be/nieuws/infrastructuur/proximus-orange- | en-... | dtx1 wrote: | thank you! I just found out i can opt out of this and | did. However, selling anonymized data is better then | selling non-anonymized data. Nevertheless, these carriers | and the people who think this is in any way shape or form | even remotely ok deserve to be stood in front of a | wall... | crb002 wrote: | Wasn't that implicit? When you connect to a network down to a | tower every few blocks you are broadcasting location. | Ekaros wrote: | This seems bit more special, but in general it is no different | from your network admin being able to tell which WiFi station | you are connected to at any time. And it's bit worse as WiFi | generally doesn't use directional antennas... | helsinkiandrew wrote: | Not being an RF engineer, maybe I'm being naive. But surely any | radio transmitter is trackable with some form of triangulation. | Although the vulnerability maybe a little easier and the beam | forming in 5G make triangulation a little harder. | dvfjsdhgfv wrote: | It's not just that. From the article: | | > This opens the door to situations where if an attacker | manages to compromise an operator's edge network equipment, | they could abuse 5G protocol functions to launch denial of | service attacks against other network slices or extract | information from adjacent 5G network slices, including customer | data such as location tracking information. | 2bitencryption wrote: | 5G baffles me. I hear about it from politicians. I hear about it | from telecom companies. I hear about it from my tech-illiterate | dad, who asked me "Does it have 5G?" when I told him I got a new | smartphone. | | But... what is it? Higher bandwidth? Lower latency? Is it the IoT | dream, my smart microwave connects to a cell tower instead of my | private subnet? Does it replace my wired home internet | connection? | | And, bonus question - what's the theoretical bandwidth limit per | person for, say, a football stadium full of people? Does this | limit improve on 5G vs older specs? At what point does physics | prevent us from having better standardized wireless networks? | elil17 wrote: | "5G" is a marketing umbrella term. It refers both to the next | generation of LTE (Long Term Evolution, the incremental | improvements that have been added to 4G) and also New Radio, a | new cellular protocol which uses new portions of the radio | spectrum. | | The features of 5G are higher bandwidth (especially in | situations with high interference/poor reception), a higher | density of users supported (up to 100k users/per square | kilometer iirc), and better performance at high speeds (e.g. on | bullet trains). | AndrewDucker wrote: | It added a whole bunch of different things. More efficient | communication at existing frequencies and high speed | communication at much higher frequencies are the main two. | | The Wikipedia page is pretty good. | Tempest1981 wrote: | 5G is quickly getting a reputation for reduced battery life. | | Are there any technical mitigations coming? Or just heavier | phones with bigger batteries? | zaptrem wrote: | LTE had that same reputation for a few years. They improved | it then and I don't see why they wouldn't improve it now. | ng55QPSK wrote: | 5G is the improved LTE. | DaftDank wrote: | From what I understand, it's one of the things that will be key | to enabling large numbers of self-driving cars on the roads. | CyberDildonics wrote: | What is the specific technical reason that would be true? | DaftDank wrote: | Good question, I have no clue as I have nothing to do with | 5G. From what I recall, it was something about how quickly | the cars would be able to communicate with each other. | Maybe this is just a very common misconception that is | shared widely, but I know I've read it before in numerous | places online. | | EDIT: Link to Verizon talking about it. It could all just | be hype to make people want 5G and to get governments to | invest in it, I don't know. | | "Today, internet-connected cars rely on 4G LTE technology | to stream music and engage other connected services, but 5G | will usher in a step change not only for in-car | connectivity, but for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle- | to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. | | The implication is clear: Cars will not only "talk" with | one another in near-real time, but also with sensors | installed in streets and traffic lights, sharing | information on roadways and weather conditions, and | alerting drivers on the same stretch of highway to | potential hazards. Connected vehicles will be able to | crowdsource near-real-time routing information to avoid | backups and streamline traffic flow. Next-generation | networks should also lead to improvements in driver safety | by helping mitigate the unknown--a truck, for example, | sensing that its driver is about to run a red light and | alerting other vehicles approaching the intersection of the | hazard. The National Highway Safety Administration has | concluded that the introduction of systems to prevent | collisions at intersections alone could save 1,300 lives a | year." | | https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-5g-ultra-wideband- | can... | XCSme wrote: | 5G is just capitalist marketing bs to give you a reason to buy | new devices. | gassius wrote: | That's why capitalism has given humanity it's biggest leap in | technology advances in under 200 years, marketing bs | | Edit: typo | XCSme wrote: | I am not sure what you are replying to. My point was that | 5G is not that huge of a technological improvement as 3G | was over 2G or 4G over 3G. | | The 4G speeds nowdays are fast enough that they are usually | not the limiting factor in day-to-day usage of mobile | internet. The advantages of 5G are not that big for the | average mobile user, there are more drawbacks than | advantages for using 5G, at least in the upcoming 5-10 | years. | | I said that it's capitalism marketing bs, because that's | what it is: hyping the technology to more than it is for | the sole purpose of increasing profits for telecom and | hardware manufacturers. | ng55QPSK wrote: | Actually 5G is a big improvement on the system | architecture. More and more of (dedicated) HW is moved to | SW entities and virtualized computing (cloud stuff). This | should bring down the investments for large deployments | and coverage everywhere. | XCSme wrote: | > This should bring down the investments for large | deployments and coverage everywhere | | Does this imply that in the near future 5G will have | better coverage and will be cheaper than 4G? | gassius wrote: | My point is that you critic to 5G is not only | ideologically charged, but lacking of fundamentals. | Obviously you don't have enough information about 5G if | you think the leap between 2G and 3G was more | qualitative, but you decided that this is just a for | profit extraction systematic of the capitalism system | based on marketing without lacking added value. | | This critic could be made about almost all of the | technological advances made possible by the capitalism | system. Long live "marketing bs" that allows incremental | improvements like this one | | Regards | XCSme wrote: | > incremental improvements | | Exactly, it is an incremental improvement that is | marketed as a revolutionary one. When 4G and 3G came out | they were simple stating that it is much faster, but now | with 5G everywhere you see how it will revolutionize the | world and make new things possible that were never | possible before, like remote surgery, articles like this | one: https://www.digi.com/blog/post/5g-and-the-future-of- | telemedi... | | If you want lowest latency, use a wired connection which | has existed for many years. Why would you use a more | unreliable like 5G that might lose connection when | someone waves his hand instead of a faster, more reliable | wired one? There are tons of other examples like this. | | For the average user in most cases the download | connection speed is actually limited at the server end, | not at his end so even if he has 10GB/s download speed, | it won't be able to use it. Not only that, but also data | caps, storage write speed, infrastructure and other | current limitations make the promoted benefits of 5G | simply non-existing for at least several years. | | If you want a future-proof phone, yes you can get a 5G | one, only that it's not future proof. Other components of | the device must be drastically improved too before they | can take advantage of 5G, which means that you would | still have to change your device before you can actually | use the promised benefits. | | I love technological advancements, but I hate it when the | public is tricked into thinking something will greatly | and instantly improve their life when it reality it won't | change anything. | anitil wrote: | > like remote surgery | | This one annoys me so much. I've seen this exact promise | every other year for 20 years. And it's never going to | happen (outside of some PR stunts maybe). | minitoar wrote: | It's not just that, but certainly some firms have sort of | turned it into that. | XCSme wrote: | Is there currently any real world use-case where 5G is | being used by end-users for solutions that were not | possible with 4G? As far as I know, for the average | consumer that gets targeted by 5G ads, the benefits are | marginal or non-existent. | brightball wrote: | My understanding of 5G has always been that it's just more | short range nodes which should provide better service in | densely populated areas. | | That's pretty much it. Some telecoms seem to be positioning | this as an opportunity to provide home internet access running | through 5G infrastructure which would cut down on last mile | costs, but at the same time it seems like it would saturate the | spectrum pretty quickly. | | During all the 5G hype I've been buying up stocks of companies | based on how much backbone fiber they own, because as far as I | can tell that's where the real staying power is anyway. | xaduha wrote: | I don't know about you, but occasionally some location services | on my or my family phones say that we are in another city. I | think that happens based on IP and that IP probably is in | another city, latency comes from providers tunneling all that | traffic to their centers first, probably for many legitimate | reasons, not just on a whim. 5G is supposed to solve that, at | least that's my understanding. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPRS_Tunnelling_Protocol | | https://techmonitor.ai/techonology/cybersecurity/gtp-protoco... | Black101 wrote: | 5G wasn't designed for the consumer... only the marketing was. | david-cako wrote: | 5G allows for more granular management of network capacity, so | you could think of a stadium deployment as somewhere between | existing LTE and a WiFi mesh network. The carriers can look at | dashboards and maps, and figure out where people are getting | slowdowns so they can put up some more 5G nodes. | | This granularity can mean more precise location data/telemetry | and some interesting opportunities for edge caching and edge | compute. | | Existing GPS, in my experience, is far from perfect for | geocoding more dense areas, so the idea that 5G can reliably | put you out in front of a restaurant, or even in a particular | floor and room of a building is promising (and a bit scary). | | What if your games were streamed from a local edge node, and | you only played with people on the same node at near-zero | latency? Or maybe you're at a stadium, and your phone is | streaming replays of the game directly from the stadium without | going over the internet. And your phone knows exactly where the | nearest vending machine is, and the vending machine is used as | an edge device to give you live stock data and process the | transaction. | | I think it's a good supplement to LTE. People are going crazy | because it's not an in-your-face speed improvement, but the | reality is that it can mature to keep dense urban areas | connected in a way that LTE wasn't really designed for. | | In terms of it replacing WiFi/fixed line, I think one good | reason it might is that it's simple. Down the line, some people | might look at the process of "getting internet installed" and | setting up a modem/access point as archaic, when you can just | buy a device and have it connect. I kind of like having a | separate fixed internet line though, because if one goes down | for some reason, I still have the other. | reaperducer wrote: | _I hear about it from politicians. I hear about it from telecom | companies. I hear about it from my tech-illiterate dad, who | asked me "Does it have 5G?" when I told him I got a new | smartphone._ | | Reminds me of when Bill Gates was on breakfast television | flogging Intel's Pentium processor. My mom was suddenly of the | opinion that all of my computer equipment was obsolete and that | this one chip was going to solve all of the world's problems. | bjt2n3904 wrote: | My theory is that 5G will be like IPv6. Nobody wanted it, | nobody understands it, it makes everything more difficult, and | it will take ages to become the standard. | est31 wrote: | IPv6 makes a great deal of things more easy. It allows | smaller routing tables for example. No more NAT makes p2p | communication much easier. Yes, addresses are way harder to | type now, and that's obviously annoying. But ip addresses | weren't made to be typed manually, that's what DNS is for. | user3939382 wrote: | > ip addresses weren't made to be typed manually, that's | what DNS is for. | | I've heard this a lot but it doesn't ring true. I believe | I'm in a category with many others where your work involves | configuring networks, especially LANs, and you are often | entering IP addresses. | Arnavion wrote: | I feel this worry about having to type in /128s is | overblown. The only times I've had to type a full /128 | when setting up my IPv6-only homelab was for adding DHCP | static leases for my pet machines. | | If you're configuring LANs you're unlikely to be | configuring anything deeper than a /64 per LAN, so the | effort is approximately the same as IPv4 (four numbers, | except that each number is four hex digits instead of | three decimal digits). | | Similarly, if you're setting up IP rules on a firewall, | you're unlikely to care about anything smaller than a | /64. If you want to ban a bad actor, blocking a specific | /128 isn't going to achieve anything, since the bad actor | likely has the ability to use any address within the /64 | (SLAAC). You'd just ban the /64. | | Lastly, if you're picking your /128s like the static DHCP | leases case I mentioned above, nothing prevents you from | zeroing all the segments you don't care about. Each of my | static leases has all zeroes in the lower /64 except for | the last hex digit. Net result is 2001:db8:1234:1::1, | 2001:db8:1234:2::1, 2001:db8:1234:3::1, etc. The | 2001:db8:1234::/48 is what I get from my ISP so it's | already in my muscle memory, so it's negligible extra | effort to remember individual machines' IPs. | colordrops wrote: | The OP is probably talking about implementation rather than | design, which to this day is very fragile and prone to | breakage and misconfiguration, at least on consumer grade | networks. | bjt2n3904 wrote: | Implementation, design, and adoption. All in all, for the | wonderful claims it's supporters make, adoption is the | elephant in the room. | philjohn wrote: | And with certain ISP's being done with DS-Lite which is | the worst possible solution at the moment. Sure, your | core network is now IPV6, but everyone is going through | CGNAT for the parts of the internet that are IPV4 only. | | It's one of the reasons I moved from Virgin Media (Cable | in the UK) to Zen (FTTP) ... proper dual stack so I have | native IPV4 AND IPV6. | p1mrx wrote: | > everyone is going through CGNAT for the parts of the | internet that are IPV4 only. | | What choice do they have? There are more people than IPv4 | addresses, so if every ISP did dual-stack the price would | go to infinity. IPv6+CGNAT is "free", and strictly more | useful than CGNAT alone. | Ekaros wrote: | Nah, it will be taken into use. Just like 3G and 4G was. | Though true visibility for end user when everyone is using it | probably isn't that special. | laurowyn wrote: | 5G is the next generation of mobile connectivity. I can't list | all of the detailed changes off the top of my head, but some of | the biggest changes I'm aware of are; | | The use of a different radio band, therefore less contention in | the existing mobile bands - less congestion results in better | speeds overall. | | Reducing the range of base stations. shorter range means less | clients, less congestion and therefore better speeds, whilst | also deploying them more densely to cope with wider areas and | higher bandwidth densities. Also, shorter range reduces the | power requirements, meaning mobile devices will have longer | battery life (nothing magical, probably not even noticeable to | the average user), or it can be built into smaller/low power | devices such as IoT. | | Utimately, 5G is irrelevant to end users until it's actually | deployed widely. Just like 3G and 4G, the end user has no | impact on the deployment of the network other than the demand | for it. So, all the hype around 5G is almost entirely | marketing, politics etc. It only really matters once 5G is | deployed across the areas you visit daily, and until then the | previous generations of mobile connectivity will continue to | serve just fine. | | Your suggestion about a football stadium is an interesting test | case. Ideally, an area that size would be served by up to a | dozen base stations, spread throughout the stadium. Compare | this with a single 3G base station that would cover the | stadium, plus a large portion of the local area, and you can | see the pros/cons fairly easily. But how many people are | surfing the web whilst watching a game? or taking calls, | answering texts etc. Very few during active play time, but | there'll be large bursts of traffic in any breaks in play which | will stress the older mobile generations to breaking point | whereas 5G is designed to deal with that scenario fairly well. | secondcoming wrote: | All I know is that I get double the bandwidth when connected | to a 5G network than their 4G one | charrondev wrote: | So now you can blow through your data cap twice as fast? | | To me the whole angle of this seems wrong. Who out there | has a solid LTE signal and is going "oh if only this were | faster". | | On the other hand when I have 1 bar I might has well have | nothing at all. Shortening the range of the base stations | doesn't seem like it would help this. | lucian1900 wrote: | Data caps are a rarity in many countries. | ng55QPSK wrote: | But keep in mind, that data caps exist to limit the | impact of single users to the overall capacity. With 5G | capacity everywhere, the will look different (way | higher). | reaperducer wrote: | That's what they said about 4G, and 3G. We've seen this | movie before. | ng55QPSK wrote: | And your 4G cap is what you had with 3G? | reaperducer wrote: | When 4G came online, yes it was. | serf wrote: | >With 5G capacity everywhere, the will look different | (way higher). | | In the US I went from unlimited data 3G to 10gb during | the 4G LTE days, down to eventually 5gb (Verizon). | | There are many I know with the same personal experience. | | I have no doubt that big data plans will one day be | ubiquitous -- but I have much more doubt that mobile | providers are actually trying to provide me with a better | experience and more freedom to do what I want. | | They care about profit, and that's about it. | | They gave away big data plans when few people cared about | actually using them, and now that the phones and the | userbase has caught up to those numbers the providers | pull the rug from under them in order to secure further | profits -- god forbid the user demand forces upgrades, | that'd ruin the profits even further. | sneak wrote: | Me. I frequently have LTE in places I use the internet, | and miss the gigabit connection I have at home. | | 10Gbps would, of course, be even better, at home and | mobile. | cj wrote: | In what scenario can you tell the difference between 40 | Mbps and 1000 Mbps on a mobile phone? | | 20-40 Mbps is more than enough for streaming. So I | suppose you're regularly downloading very large files or | something? | | Genuinely curious what use cases you notice a difference. | | Or maybe it's the better latency of your gigabit that you | notice more so than the throughput? | sneak wrote: | Oh, I don't use LTE on a mobile phone. All of my devices | (phones included) connect to a router with LTE uplink | that runs VPN 24/7; the mobile carriers can't be trusted | with any unencrypted data any longer, as T-Mobile is | happily publicizing. None of my phones get sim cards. | | I was referring to a laptop in my original statement. I | usually plug it into the LTE router directly with a | gigabit cable, or use Wi-Fi which generally exceeds the | uplink capacity. 5G fixes that, for a wireless LAN. | | As for why you'd need higher bandwidth on a mobile | device, it is simple: to live-stream the 2160p@60fps | captured from the device's sensors. Another good reason | is app updates: doing app updates on a mobile device | frequently includes a few gigabytes of downloads. Same | with laptops, of course, which are increasingly connected | via mobile data. Many AAA games have updates in the | 20-200GB range. | | A lot of this kind of stuff assumes that someone is on | mobile temporarily until they get back to a "real" wifi | connection (iOS didn't let you download any apps over 2GB | on mobile data for a long while). For some of us, or all | of us at some times, there isn't a "real" connection to | go back to. | ska wrote: | > For some of us | | I suspect it's a small enough minority nobody is too | worried about it from a policy point of view. | sneak wrote: | Long-haul truckers are 1% of the US population, which is | something like 3 or 4 million people. | | I'm sure that number pales in comparison to the number of | truckers, oil workers, and construction types globally | that spend weeks or months on the road at a time. It's | probably easily 100 million people that will immediately | directly benefit from increased mobile bandwidth. | | That's not even counting the dozens of developing | countries where they just skipped cabling altogether and | mobile data is the only internet access available. That | probably boops the figure up to a billion or more. | ska wrote: | Sure, and internationally I think it's a big deal. I'm | certainly not going to argue that people wouldn't benefit | from increased mobile bandwidth. | | However, huge chunk of those people you mention are | nothing like mobile only, and for many the model of | heavier downloads on wifi works just fine. | | My point was particularly about catering to the mobile | only crowd, which is pretty small (US/ EU etc., anyway). | secondcoming wrote: | My SIM only contract has no data limit, for PS37pm. I | have replaced fibre broadband with a 5G router. I've been | using this set up since September and have hardly had any | connectivity issues (vpn, ssh, video conferencing, | netflix etc). Pings are a bit higher for gaming though. | fulafel wrote: | The radio frequencies aren't necessarily different, but there | are options for frequencies that weren't available in lte. | | The jury is still out about real world mm-wave 5g becoming | widespread any time soon outside few exceptionally crowded | public places. Besides network support, a lot of phones don't | support it either. | tannhaeuser wrote: | 5G is for integrating very low-cost ICs into every "smart" | device, TV, car, etc. to track you without you noticing. | skeeks wrote: | No, that's what 5G enables but 5G itself is something else. | [deleted] | rocqua wrote: | Generally there is said to be 3 parts to 5G. | | The first is eMBB: Enhanced Mobile Broadband. In other words | faster mobile internet. This is where most operators start. | | The second is URLLC: Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications. | This is mainly aimed at using 5G for things like self-driving | cars. But also things like long distance remote control. This | is where people see potential for innovation without being | clear what the exact innovation will be. | | The third is mMTC: Massive Machine Type Communications. This is | meant for IOT but also for factory control. The IOT thing is | mostly allowing extra low battery useage, low speed, cheap | connnectivity. The factory control thing is about getting the | advantages of 5G (and e.g. URLLC) and allowing a factory to | quickly set up their own private 5G network. | | This is on the consumer facing side. On the operator facing | side, infrastructure is moving more towards virtualization and | decoupling. Trying to make it easier to use multiple vendors, | and stop requiring custom made hardware. And in general, moving | towards commodity hardware and something closer to | 'infrastructure as code'. | | This also helps roaming and virtual operators (for e.g. the | factory control). It also helps a bit with the ultra low | latency part by decentralizing the routing part and moving it | closer to the devices. | | So "what is 5G gonna do for me" is mostly the 'faster | internet'. But the idea is that it will enable widespread | innovation that you can later use. With some luck (governments | are thinking) being ahead in deploying 5G might also help boost | your economy by boosting innovation. | Spooky23 wrote: | It's three things. It helps push out legacy 3G tech that | reduces throughput, it enables cellular carriers to displace | cable companies without running fiber with mmWave, and it is | enabling stuff like smart roads that made it a national | security issue. | | Telematics in cars will be mandated shortly and enable stuff | like road vs fuel taxation and congestion pricing. That enabled | regulatory changes that basically eliminated most local | autonomy over cellular tower placement. Basically, the FCC is | "yimby" for anything 5G, and used national security regulations | to limit permitting, taxation, etc. | topranks wrote: | That's the bit that doesn't make sense. | | They can't really avoid running fibre with mmWave cos they | have to backhaul it. Sure there is point to point radio, but | in the main they'll need to get fibre almost as close to you | as with a fixed line direct to you. But instead it'll be | fibre to base stations on top of every building? It's almost | the same cost in terms of fibre infra. | splithalf wrote: | Cost savings for carriers and more precise tracking of users | for marketing and other purposes. | Shelnutt2 wrote: | My previous job was working for $major_telco in the US, I was | in network (not RF engineering). I left right as the "5G" train | was starting, however I did get training and have pretty decent | familiarity with the implementation plan and 3GPP release 15, | the first release with the official New Radio (NR) spec. I also | have a large understanding of LTE (3GPP release 10-14), so I'm | happy to dive as deep as anyone would like. | | For the details below I'm going to not use the term "5G", 5G | like 4G is marketing. The technical specifications that more or | less make up "5G" are the 3GPP standards releases[1]. The 3GPP | is the standards body that ratifies the wireless network | standards that nearly the entire world uses. For this | discussion I'll ignore alternatives since "5G" effectively | means the 3GPP standard. | | The standard of 3GPP Release 15 (and newer) are improvements | and build off the existing standards of LTE (releases 8-14). | Its an evolution of the standard, much like 3GPP Release 8 | (first LTE release) was an evolution on Release 5-7 (HSDPA- | HSDPA+). While release 15+ are evolutionary, they are not | revolutionary in that there is no magically discovered new | physics behind it. The improvements largely lie with increased | support for higher modulation levels (256 QAM was introduced | with Release 14 LTE-Advanced), increased spectrum efficiency | (variable sized framing allowed across difference devices and | upload/download), mixing upload/download division types (i.e. | using TDD[2] for download and FDD[2] for upload), improved MIMO | (up to 64x64 in massive MIMO), improved beam-forming and | additional frequencies. | | Some of these improvements in Release 15+ were available in | Release 14 or unofficially rolled out in release 14 + NR draft. | I know one carrier that was pushing 64x64 MIMO for TDD LTE. | | The new frequencies, many in the "millimeter wave" range, will | help with with congestion in the "football stadium". There are | two main limitations in high capacity events, the first is | backhaul. Have to connect the stadium back to the core, and | this is _always_ a bottleneck. The second limitation is | available spectrum. No matter how many antennas you have in the | DAS, there is a physical limitation to the amount of data that | can be sent over the frequencies. The new millimeter wave help | here, because while its very short range, its large width | allows for a significantly higher number of concurrent | connections. | | The new frequencies, along with increased efficiency in | existing frequencies, plus core changes are the main driver for | the "latency" and "bandwidth" improvements. The "connected | cars" and "connected IoT to cell network" are just | marketing/sales departments pushing for new customers. The main | "advantage" "5G" brings here is an increased capacity in the | network to handle this. | | A few other notes, unlike "3G"->LTE, the upgrade to Release 15+ | for carriers will be a lot smoother. First, everyone is now on | LTE, aka the precursor so there is no CDMA/EVDO networks that | are incompatible that need rip and replace + compatibility | modes (ehrpd). Second "NR" is designed to be compatible and | multiplexable with existing LTE/LTE-Advanced enodebs, this | means in one area you can have NR and LTE towers, and the NR | towers can broadcast LTE for devices that are LTE only. This | was not the case with the original eNodeBs, which could not | handle backwards compatibility without physically separate | BTS/nodeBs. Third, the new core for release 15 is designed with | backwards compatibility with existing enodeb's. Unlike the | previous transition which required a new core that was largely | incompatible due to major design changes. So with "NR" RAN | elements and existing LTE enodeb's the core can be seamlessly | upgraded without having to run two complete networks for | multiple years like in the LTE transition. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP#Standards | | [2] TDD-> Time Division Duplex, FDD -> Frequency division | duplex. Most LTE networks are FDD, a few (i.e. Sprint, | Softbank, China mobile..) have certain spectrum they use as | TDD. The difference is with TDD, you use the same exact | frequencies for upload and download but you divide the by time. | So basically t0->t2 is for download, t3->t4 is upload, etc. | With FDD the frequency or "band" is divided into to two parts, | one for upload and one for download. There is no time division | for FDD but you lose of the size of the channel. | mh- wrote: | This is the best writeup I've seen on the topic. Thank you | for taking the time. | lukec11 wrote: | 5G can be many things, but it isn't gigabit wireless speeds, or | low latency, or smart microwaves. It can _enable_ those | technologies, but what it really is is a telecommunications | standard, telling companies _how_ to build out networks. | | 5G uses the same radio waves that 4G has, in many cases - | T-Mobile US, for example, uses 600MHz and 2.5GHZ frequencies | for 5G (and 4G). Sprint has been using 2.5GHz for 4G since | 2008. | | The biggest change that 5G could bring today honestly is | capacity - if you've ever tried to use LTE in a busy train | station, you can tell the impact that congestion has on that | network's subscribers. Thousands of people connected to a few | cells leads to significant slowdown. Generally, higher | frequencies lead to shorter range and higher throughput, so in | specific circumstances like Airports[0] with multiple antennas, | 5G can allow for much higher throughput to many devices at | once, alleviating congestion. | | 5G can also more efficiently make use of spectrum, which means | 5G networks can reach further than 4G networks built on the | same frequency. | | There's a lot more to this, and I'd recommend reading into the | Wikipedia page[1] on 5G for an in-depth look if you have time - | but the basics are, 5G is a standard, not any one set of | devices or antennas or expectations. | | [0] https://news.tampaairport.com/tpa-welcomes-5g-and- | enhanced-4... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G | reaperducer wrote: | _5G can also more efficiently make use of spectrum, which | means 5G networks can reach further than 4G networks built on | the same frequency._ | | This part I don't understand. I spend a lot of time on | business and pleasure in places where cellular coverage is | unavailable or unreliable. I thought that 5G signals don't go | as far as 4G, so how can they reach "further" into towns and | places that don't have cellular service? | | (FWIW, there are a number of places in my regular [pre- | pandemic] travels where the 3G signal is better and even | faster than 4G signals.) | toast0 wrote: | 5G is several parts. The high frequency, hugh bandwidth | stuff doesn't go far. | | The same as existing mobile frequency stuff has about the | same penetration as existing service, but because its more | efficient, it allows towers to increase power to expand | their coverage area. Generally towers will modulate their | output power to reduce coverage when congested, hoping | devices will attach to other towers; works well when | there's enough towers with overlapping coverage, but not as | well when towers are sparse. | | It doesn't have to be purely power either, antenna angle | makes a big difference, and phased antennas mean you can | change effective angle without mechanically changing the | angle. | pottertheotter wrote: | The thing that is confusing is two things are wrapped up | together as "5G": (a) the actual 5G standards, and (b) the | spectrum that is used. To add to the confusion, (b) is | composed of frequency and bandwidth, and those are often | different both between and within countries. | | For instance, one of the biggest benefits of 5G is that | channels (bandwidth) can be much wider, and several can be | stacked together, which means more data can be transferred. | But even though that can be done, there may not be enough | spectrum at a specific frequency to be able to take | advantage of that. | | Then the high-band (millimeter wave) can have even more | channels than the low- and mid-band 5G. But high-band | doesn't travel far and it doesn't penetrate walls well. | | If you want a good primer on it that is accessible, I | recommend the regularly updated "What Is 5G?" article from | Sascha Segan at PCMag.[1] I think he's the best journalist | writing about 5G. | | [1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/what-is-5g | enkrs wrote: | True, millimeter wave bands, introduced in 5G, don't go as | far as 4G. But those bands are in the 5G standard | _additionally_ to the lower bands similar to 4G, and are | beneficial in places like busy airports, train stations and | urban areas. 5G does not mandate to only use the millimeter | wave bands (or, for the mater of act, to use them at all). | | So in rural areas 5G signals would still use frequencies | similar to 4G,so the more efficient use of spectrum will | improve coverage and speed. | | Regarding the observation that sometimes 3G signals are | better than 4G - that might as well be because 4G has | problems with congestion when many clients are connected to | the same base station. One of areas which also 5G is also | improving. | zaptrem wrote: | 5G is just instructions on how devices should talk over | radio waves. The waves the devices decide to talk over very | dramatically. On the short-range end, they can talk on | 30-60ghz bands; these bands have lots of room to talk, but | they're hard to hear, especially through walls or long | distances. On the other end, they can talk on frequencies | as low as <600mhz. These are great at penetrating barriers | (they're probably what you use in the middle of nowhere) | but there's less room (free spectrum real estate available) | to talk. | lukec11 wrote: | There's a common misconception that 5G specifically means | you need to use millimeter wave (very high-band) networks. | 5G can be on the same frequency as 4G, and it is more | efficient than 4G - so with greater efficiency, it's easier | to get usable output from that signal than with 4G. The | signals will go "as far" regardless of 3G/4G/5G assuming | they're broadcasted at the same frequency and power level, | but the device being able to use it is a different story. | | The reason 2G and 3G can sometimes reach further than LTE | is for a similar reason - because it's easier to "hang | onto" a 2/3G signal. The reason it's easier though is | different - not because 3G is more efficient, but because | it's less complex. This reddit thread[0] explains it better | than I can, so I'll paste a comment from it here: | | >>> The modulation scheme (how the digital "data" is packed | into the "analog" wave to transmit it over the air) is | simpler for [2G], which requires a lower wave quality to | decode. It's the same reason you are more likely to get an | [2G] signal farther away than LTE | | Note that the reason 3G might be "faster" is probably due | more to the congestion issue I talked about before - when | the LTE network is oversubscribed, meaning too many people | are connected to it and are slowing it down, sometimes | dropping back to 3G (which very few people are connected to | in 2021) can lead to you fighting less over your data. | | [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/lwwkrl/when_w | as_th... | kodah wrote: | I don't know if this feature got dropped or if it's just not | very well covered, but... | | There's a feature that allows devices to go into a low power | mode. The tower can then "wake up" a device remotely. It's | designed for a variety of IOT usecases. | maffydub wrote: | Going into low-power mode and then being woken up by the | tower is standard function (even of 4G) - it's called | paging, and pretty much all devices support it. | | Unfortunately, although listening for these paging messages | requires less power than having a full connection, it's | still non-zero. | | For really lower-power applications, 5G (and I think some | of the later 4G extensions) support Mobile-Initiated | Connection Only, which essentially means the device goes | into low-power mode but doesn't even listen for paging | messages - instead, it wakes up occasionally (maybe even | just once a day) and sends and receives messages. The tower | knows to not even bother trying to page it. | dkdk8283 wrote: | Busy train stations should have DAS antennas to support the | high density of devices. | zamadatix wrote: | A multicarrier DAS is $5-$10 per square foot up front and | expensive to maintain - these costs typically do not fall | on the carrier but deals can be struck depending on volume. | 5G looks to minimize the number of locations that need a | DAS in the first place so the places that couldn't get a | deal don't need one and the ones that could can be covered | cheaper by the carrier than the deal would have been for | the carrier. Solutions like Wi-Fi Passpoint look to provide | a far cheaper alternative (and avoid things like single | carrier DAS which is cheaper but only fixes the problem for | some) for cases density is sky high (like stadiums) or the | location not otherwise coverable. | | A DAS can certainly be an answer but it's never been a very | attractive one, and that's from when there weren't other | options on the horizon. | fnord77 wrote: | I think it is more oriented towards saving money and stuffing | more subscribers onto the infrastructure. So, it's about money. | umvi wrote: | It's simple. 5G is a marketing term to get you to buy stuff. | It's 4G + 1, therefore it's better. There may be marginal | technological improvements too. See: Veritasium's latest video | about planned obsolescence | saltminer wrote: | Given how US carriers tend to rebrand stuff (see: Verizon's | "4G LTE" in my hometown is/was HSPA+, a 3G technology), this | is my view on it. "5G" will likely be real 4G outside larger | cities. | CyberDildonics wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G | knorker wrote: | The mobile phone industry has failed security and privacy with | every single technology for over 40 years. | | Every single layer, and every single generation, is broken. | | Example: The encryption has been home-grown in every generation, | and every generation has been broken. They keep reinventing their | own shit, even though EVERYONE knows you DO NOT DO THAT. | | Another example: The backbone of cross-operator traffic has ZERO | authentication. If you're lucky it has ACLs on IP addresses. (and | if you thought BGP hijacking on _the internet_ was lax and | unmonitored...) | | Another: The GTP protocol on this network has a "high security" | mode, where it only allows clients who set the "yes, I'm | authenticated" bit in the header. Yes, really. A bit. | | And operationally like half the nodes in phone networks have a | password of "letmein", "password", or "Secret" (capital 's', very | high security). | | I've seen companies accidentally log in to their competitors | nodes, because the both used "letmein" as password! | | There is NO POSSIBLE WAY anyone can be this incompetent. I give | the benefit of doubt, but we're approaching half a century of | EVERY SINGLE THING, standards, implementation, policies, and | operations, being completely broken. At what point can we say for | certain that this is malice, this is deliberate backdooring of | all phone infrastructure? | elric wrote: | I've wondered about this as well. There is an "innocent" | explanation, aside from incompetence: there's layers upon | layers of stuff, designed, owned and managed by a plethora of | organizations. If no one organization is liable, they're not | likely to be proactive about security. | | The cynic in me, of course, suspects this is no accident. | knorker wrote: | I'd agree, but that doesn't explain why not only is the big | picture absolutely broken, but so is every single detail. The | indivisible parts are also broken. | creato wrote: | I don't see why we should even be trying to make base level | protocols like this "secure". Focus on reliability and | simplicity, leave security to another level of the stack. VOIP | and web browsing services should be encrypted, who cares | whether the low level protocol is encrypted or not? | | Anything that needs to be standardized and stable for decades | needs to be simple, and it shouldn't matter whether there are | vulnerabilities, because those are inevitable. | knorker wrote: | Some things can't be done on the top level. E.g. anti- | tracking and metering. | | Also because airtime is a scarce resource it's not as simple | as "just give me a lower layer and I'll run VOIP". The | requirements (and performance and reliability) of voice calls | is higher than skype over an IP network on mobile. | | E.g. there's a reason SCTP is actually used here. Phone | networks are in some ways rightly very different from pure | packet Internet. Sometimes just for historical reasons from | the olden times, but often also justifiably so. | | I could go on and on, but tl;dr: it's not that simple, but | you're also not wrong. | Jonnax wrote: | The other side of this is that mobile networks are national | infrastructure. | | The concept of "lawful intercept" is baked into the networks | from a fundamental standpoint. | | This might be a reason why there's less care about these | things. | rocqua wrote: | The mobile interop is really good, that is because | standardization is done rather well technologically and | widely followed. This also means that standardization is | fought over harshly. | | Anything that gets standardized will see wide use. What if | the standardization picks a technology you are a market | leader in? What if the standardization picks a technology you | have a patent on? Yeah, you will be forced to let people | license the patent. But you will be getting licensing fees. | knorker wrote: | But this is not the way LI systems work. They have a "front | door". | | At least for police powers. For intelligence agencies, sure. | Jonnax wrote: | Indeed. My point was more that due to things like LI. It | might influence an attitude towards security of "it doesn't | really matter" when it comes to properly implementing | secure controls | ampdepolymerase wrote: | That is correct. It is the same reason why fax machines are | considered secure transmission for medical data. National | infrastructure is harder to compromise at scale compared to | internet channels. | teawrecks wrote: | What you're saying might be true, I have no idea, but then why | don't we see more rampant vandalism from randos (ex. War | Games)? It seems like in this day and age it wouldn't take any | time for someone to brute force any of these nodes and cause a | ruckus. | mikehotel wrote: | A combination of factors like vilification of hacking, | corporate PR managing embarrassing incidents and responsible | disclosure can cause most of this activity to be under- | reported. | heavyset_go wrote: | IMSI-catchers are in wide use by local law enforcement in | much of North America[1], no warrant needed and law | enforcement can do whatever it is they like with them with no | oversight, too, except use them to present evidence in court | without a warrant. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker | xvector wrote: | These networks are almost certainly compromised to high hell, | except the actors don't broadcast their action. | grenoire wrote: | Because the 'randos' know very well that they cannot surface | with any of their actions. Even the _white hats_ are getting | regularly punished for their disclosures, what makes you | think someone making a living off of exploits would come | clean?* | | * Academic researchers excl. | knorker wrote: | What, like SS7 phone hijacks and fake base stations tracking, | and such, that happen all the time? | | > it wouldn't take any time for someone to brute force any of | these nodes and cause a ruckus. | | 1) Who says it doesn't happen? 2) Generally these things | aren't on "the internet". They're behind firewalls and on | this "other internet" I mentioned between the operators. You | can legit buy access to this network for a few thousand | dollars, sure. But if you're that serious you're probably not | a rando after "rampant vandalism". | varispeed wrote: | Can you have a separate device that will send fake location data | to your phone? Has anyone built something like this? Basically | something that will pretend to be a GPS satellite and fake wifi | network generator, so that device won't be able to pick up actual | networks around it, but only those programmed ones? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-28 23:00 UTC)