Understanding IMSI Privacy

By Ravishankar Borgaonkar and Swapnil Udar It is said that 80 of the world s population now has a mobile phone. They use mobile devices to make calls, send SMS messages, and to access the Internet via the cellular network infrastructure. Endusers carrying mobile phones 24 hours trust cellular network operators and believe that the provided mobile communication link is secure. However, on the other hand, mobile operators, device manufacturers, OS providers, and baseband suppliers do little to provide b