-- Cellular networks are not designed to delivery emergency-scale traffic
loads
-- Cellular networks are not the Internet
-- Targeting users in a specific location is extremely difficult
-- There is no way to authenticate the source of messages, making
fraudulent alerts easy to send
-- SMS is not a real-time service
-- Message delivery order is not always predictable
"As reported by the media, we had a reasonably good demonstration of
wide-scale text messaging efforts by the Obama campaign recently," Traynor
stated. "However, even though the population participating in this campaign
announcement was not necessarily as dense as a major disaster messaging
effort, there were still significant message delivery issues reported
similar to the ones described in my research paper."
Traynor shows through a series of experiments, that even under optimal
conditions, networks cannot meet the ten minute alert goal generally set
forth by the public EAS charter. Moreover, it is further demonstrated that
the extra text messaging traffic generated by third party EAS will cause
congestion in the network and may potentially block the delivery of
critical information, such as calls between emergency responders or the
public to 9-1-1 services. The report concludes that it is critical that
legislators, technologists and the general public understand the current
limitations of these systems.
Solutions such as the efforts undertaken by the Commercial Mobile Service
Alert Advisory Committee (CMSAAC) set up by the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) will allow cellular networks to take an active role during
emergencies. The report suggests that through the creation of new standards
such as Cell Broadcast, many of the problems created by the current "point
to point" architecture can be avoided. In particular, by allowing each base
station to act as a virtual megaphone, cellular networks will be able to
rapidly distribute up to the moment emergency messages to all phones. While
nearly all major cellular providers are actively working to design, test
and deploy such systems, it will take time before this piece of our
critical infrastructure can perform such tasks.
"Characterizing the Limitations of Third-Party EAS
Over Cellular Text Messaging Services" white paper, a third party
academic research report, is available for free download on the 3G Americas
website at www.3gamericas.org.
About Patrick Traynor, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the School of Computer
Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology
Patrick Traynor's research focuses primarily on security for cellular
networks and the impact of connecting these systems with the larger
Internet. His work on this subject has been presented in top security and
mobile networking conferences and journals and has also been covered by The
New York Times. Previous research reports include "On Attack Causality in
Internet-Connected Cellular Networks"; "Exploiting Open Functionality in
SMS Capable Cellular Networks"; "Mitigating Attacks on Open Functionality
in SMS-Capable Cellular Networks"; and a Ph. D. thesis entitled,
"Characterizing the Impact of Rigidity on the Security of Cellular
Telecommunications Networks."
Contact Information: Contact: Vicki Livingston (262) 242 3458