> The 2G standard also defined A5/2, a cipher for areas other than the EU and US. A5/2 was purposefully weaker to prevent the use of strong encryption everywhere.
From the book: Serious Cryptography.
So basically they made 2G A5/1 cypher insecure accidentally, but from the beginning designed a weaker A5/2 for the rest of the world on purpose...
m0wer
npub1w3…t4c5c
2026-03-03 09:31:32 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1w3vaxva0vcrx7pnvlpmede5smvafdl69xnu7ma82kaxl9us89zdsht4c5cPublished at
2026-03-03 09:31:32 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "3b52c569b110a8ffec2c8a9b7b3198577dd47c8a8115b78354cb93934c3bcd71",
"pubkey": "7459d333af66066f066cf87796e690db3a96ff4534f9edf4eab74df2f207289b",
"created_at": 1772530292,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "\u003e The 2G standard also defined A5/2, a cipher for areas other than the EU and US. A5/2 was purposefully weaker to prevent the use of strong encryption everywhere.\n\nFrom the book: Serious Cryptography.\n\nSo basically they made 2G A5/1 cypher insecure accidentally, but from the beginning designed a weaker A5/2 for the rest of the world on purpose... \n\n",
"sig": "c40d59b09258d551be0215994fd11e856b83fffddc0687d5ff3bff8023c8895a7307b201d080282759048ac0991c15c7dd04844a9f7ad463422eb1859a61d297"
}