bk99.de entertain the web since 1997

bk99.de
hß · SecurityCurated

Fast and without gaps: Bavaria wants to expand mobile and internet coverage

Summary

In 2016 the Bavarian economics minister Ilse Aigner announced a “Mobile Future Initiative” intended to close coverage gaps in the state. An immediate programme of 5 million euros was to fund new radio installations until 2020, and providers were to be obliged to cover blank spots when frequencies were allocated. In total, the ministry had more than one billion euros available in each of 2017 and 2018.

Ideas

  • Funding programmes are meant to expand mobile coverage where it does not pay off for providers.
  • Coverage obligations in licence allocation are a lever against dead spots.
  • Digitalisation was understood above all as economic support for small and medium-sized businesses.

Insights

  • Area coverage is an infrastructure problem that market mechanisms alone do not solve.
  • Announcements with target years can only be measured by later coverage.

Facts

  • The economics budget rose by more than 13 percent, or 120 million euros.

References

Critique

  • The report reproduces political announcements without checking them against coverage data measurable at the time.

Recommendations

  • Check network coverage at your own locations with measurements instead of provider maps.
  • For critical locations, plan a second connection independent of mobile networks.

Read the original article

Search the Web Archive

hß · 2024

Wednesday: Meta annoys AR developers, security hole at internet providers

Alongside Meta ending third-party AR effects and the Polaris Dawn launch, heise’s news round-up of 28 August 2024 reported an attack on internet providers. An unpatched hole in the network software Versa Director (CVE-2024-39717) was used to gain a foothold in at least four ISPs. There the attackers intercepted customer credentials in plain text before they were stored hashed; Lumen attributed the attack to the Chinese group Volt Typhoon.

hß · 2021

Data breach at T-Mobile US: hacker exploited devastating security hole

In August 2021 John Binns claimed responsibility for the break-in at T-Mobile US, in which data of more than 50 million customers and prospects was leaked. According to the Wall Street Journal, the attacker used a publicly available scanner to find an unprotected router and penetrated the network from there. Stolen data included names, addresses, social security, driving licence and IMEI numbers.

hß · 2014

TR-069 remote maintenance hole in DSL routers: German internet providers call their networks secure

After Shahar Tal’s DEF CON talk about holes in TR-069 remote maintenance servers, heise asked German providers in 2014 how they were protected. Telekom, Vodafone, 1&1 and others considered their networks secure because their routers reject self-signed certificates or only contact preset servers. Tal had shown that a hijacked Auto Configuration Server can redirect or read out thousands of routers.