cell phone communications are not as secure as you might think

[Darren Dirt]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/08/12/codebreaker-karsten-nohl-why-your-phone-is-insecure-by-design/

a bit heavy content at times, but "code-breaker" guy tells us what he and others have found ... but he can only speculate why it is the way it is.

[Thorin]

Glad to see that there are still white-hat hackers that break things to show they can be broken and need to be improved, instead of to steal people's identities.

[Mr. Analog]

Interesting reading so far, given how fast cell phones proliferated over the last 20 years I'd be surprised if those systems were NOT a labyrinthine mess...

[Lazybones]

iOS 5 'Unsecured Calls' warning lets users know if they are talking on unencrypted networks
http://spybusters.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-feature-in-iphone-ios5-unsecured.html

[Darren Dirt]

fyi the white hat in the OP as identifying the so-called "secured" protocols as ... not so much. But also yes it seems some carriers or regions will be truly "un"secured communications. yikes. Makes a certain Pulp Fiction telephone scene come to mind