A5/2

A5/2 is a stream cipher used to provide voice privacy in the GSM cellular telephone protocol.

The cipher is based around a combination of four linear feedback shift registers with irregular clocking and a non-linear combiner.

In 1999, Ian Goldberg and David Wagner cryptanalyzed A5/2 in the same month it was published, and showed that it was extremely weak — so much so that low end equipment can probably break it in real time.

Since July 1, 2006, the GSMA (GSM Association) mandated that GSM Mobile Phones will not support the A5/2 Cipher any longer, due to its weakness, and the fact that A5/1 is deemed mandatory by the 3GPP association.

ee also

* A5/1
* KASUMI, also known as A5/3

External links

* [http://www.CryptoDox.com/A5/2 A5/2] at CryptoDox