Can you trust your phone? Head to https://brilliant.org/veritasium to start your free 30-day trial and get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
A huge thank you to Linus Sebastian and the team at Linus Tech Tips - check them out at @LinusTechTips
A massive thank you to Alexandre De Oliveira and Karsten Nohl (aka @hackingmatters) for making this demo possible. Karsten has made a great follow-up video on the subject, which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miXRoy-5LLo
A special thanks to Crofton Black at Lighthouse Reports, Cathal Mc Daid at Enea, and James Hobson at @hacksmith
00:00 I hacked Linus!
00:59 How Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak hacked the telephone network
02:22 Early history of the telephone
07:08 The kidnapping of Sheikha Latifa
08:41 How Signalling System No. 7 works
11:03 Why SS7 is vulnerable to hacking
12:15 How hackers gain access to phones
16:17 How I was able to spy on Linus’ phone
18:09 How hackers can intercept text messages
21:04 How your location can be tracked via SS7
29:03 How to protect your phone from hacking
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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters! Join the community to help us keep our videos free, forever: https://ve42.co/PatreonDE
Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Anton Ragin, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Bill Linder, Blake Byers, Bruce, Burt Humburg, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, I. H., Jack Cuprill, John H. Austin, Jr., john kiehl, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, TTST, Ubiquity Ventures and wolfee
If you’re looking for a molecular modeling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV
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References:
Black, C. (2020). Spy companies using Channel Islands to track phones around the world. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism - https://ve42.co/SpyTBIJ
It is dangerously easy to hack the world’s phones via The Economist - https://ve42.co/EconHack
Blake, H. (2023). The Fugitive Princesses of Dubai. The New Yorker - https://ve42.co/DubaiNY
McDaid, C. (2021). How Surveillance Companies Track You Using Mobile Networks. media.ccc.de - https://ve42.co/McDaid2021
Engel, T. (2014). SS7: Locate. Track. Manipulate. media.ccc.de - https://ve42.co/Engel2014
Nohl, K. (2014). Mobile self-defense. media.ccc.de - https://ve42.co/Nohl2014
How Cell Service Actually Works via WendoverProductions - https://ve42.co/CellWendover
How Telephone Phreaking Worked via The 8-Bit Guy - https://ve42.co/8BitGuy
Transmission Lines: Part 1 An Introduction via TheSiGuy - https://ve42.co/TheSiGuy
The Step-By-Step Switch via AT&T Tech Channel - https://ve42.co/SwitchATNT
Hacking Your Phone via 60 Minutes - https://ve42.co/60minHack
Rosenbaum, R. (1971). Secrets of the Little Blue Box. The Esquire Magazine - https://ve42.co/Rosenbaum1971
Black, C. et. al. (2023). Ghost in the network. Lighthouse Reports - https://ve42.co/Black2023
Kerr, D. (2019). The step-by-step telephone switching system. dougkerr.net - https://ve42.co/Kerr2019
Ecall and 2G/3G Network Obsolescence via PFA Plateforme Automobile - https://ve42.co/PFAAuto2021
Images & Video:
All references can be found here: https://ve42.co/PhoneSpyingImageVideo
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Directed by Henry van Dyck
Written by Henry van Dyck
Edited by Laura Mills
Animated by Fabio Albertelli, Ivy Tello, David Szakaly, and Jakub Misiek
Filmed by Derek Muller and Linus Media Group Team
Additional research by Gabe Bean
Produced by Derek Muller, Henry van Dyck, Rob Beasley Spence, Tori Brittain, Emily Lazard, Luke Lewis, Gregor Čavlović, and Emily Zhang
Thumbnail contributions by Ren Hurley and Peter Sheppard
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images and Storyblocks
Music from Epidemic Sound
Sorry for the formatting… Tried to remove the URL for better readability, but there seems some kind of bug.
TLDW
hack phones remotely just knowing it’s phone number
Intercept 2FA sms
Intercept phone calls
Reroute phone calls
Geolocation of a target
I dunno if it has already been posted/discussed here but this kinda blew my mind ! Sorry there’s a lot of clickbait but the general subject is interesting…
I never heard of SS7 and have actually no idea how the whole phone system communication works but that’s kinda scary…
Yes we are probably not the first target with this “hack” nor is it as easy as exposed in this video and nor do we have 14k $ to spend on this, but that’s not out of reach for some people. I mean it’s not as expensive as Pegasus and people with the mean and some good stable income can probably misuse this system for targeting specific vulnerable people (example in the video).
I’m not an expert in this field, so other people might have something else to add, but my takeaway is mostly - do not rely on phone services. Don’t use MFA via SMS, etc. Most of the issues described, you can avoid if you’re careful, except the geolocation issue.
Honestly it didn’t even occur to me that this could be a problem somewhere in this day and age. I don’t even remember when was the last time my bank sent me an SMS for MFA, but it’s a good point for people in US.
I’m not an expert in this field, so other people might have something else to add, but my takeaway is mostly - do not rely on phone services. Don’t use MFA via SMS, etc. Most of the issues described, you can avoid if you’re careful, except the geolocation issue.
If only we could convince US banks not to use MFA only via SMS
Honestly it didn’t even occur to me that this could be a problem somewhere in this day and age. I don’t even remember when was the last time my bank sent me an SMS for MFA, but it’s a good point for people in US.