Western governments seek to lock down 6G before it even exists

A group of Western governments has launched a fresh bid to shape 6G before it's even standardized, unveiling a set of security and resilience principles to bake supply chain controls and cyber safeguards into the next generation of mobile networks. The announcement, made at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, marks the …

[b0llchit]

Aye Eee Connectivity

...vendors are busy selling 6G as AI-native...

That simply means that the Aye Eee Connectivity will be sending data to the proper prompt-injected receiver and all your data are belong to us. And if they do it right, you will get hallucinated calls to where ever on the planet and premium numbers will be called whenever you ask a (nasty, dirty or too innocent) question.

This must be the biggest wet dream for all the telcos. Think of all the money they can rake in with this Aye Eee thingy that will be absolutely abundant, native, naive and well willingnicely prompt-injected to spend the mobile owner's money.

[Roland6]

Re: Aye Eee Connectivity

>” That simply means that the Aye Eee Connectivity will be sending data”

From recent evidence presented in ElReg, the Aye Eee will be telling everyone it has sent data, when instead it has quietly discarded it..

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

RFC 666.999

The first byte of the 6G header shall represent

Bit0.- contains data critical of the government

Bit1 - contains data that will upset mumsnet/Daily Mail

Bit2 - contains opensource that threatens profits

Etc etc

[Roland6]

Re: RFC 666.999

“First byte”? This is an AI enabled network, so that byte needs to be able to handle an over 2 billion parameters…

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: RFC 666.999

The original evil bit isn't enough for modern hyper-connected inter-wibble threats so we had to expand to an evil byte

[Dan 55]

Re: RFC 666.999

A byte doesn't look very future proof to me.

[An_Old_Dog]

6G Security

By the time the proposed 6G Security gets through the committees, reviews, and political processes, it will be nearly as good as WEP.

[martinusher]

Re: 6G Security

Don't be too unkind to WEP. It was actually quite secure if you changed the key often enough. Its just that most people don't understand 802.1x and so don't use it. As recently as yesterday I read a paper describing how to hack pre-shared keys (needless to say, it doesn't matter how fantastic your encryption is if you can't keep your keys under control). PSKs are fine for domestic and similar small scale operations, keeping the power low and the range limited ("but I want more range / faster speeds so must have more power...,,..").

[Roland6]

Re: 6G Security

> PSKs are fine for domestic and similar small scale operations

Back in 2006, 1024 bit certificates on their own weren’t sufficient for some secure networks, you had to adjust both the length (ie. Go to 2048 bit certificates) and the lifespan.

I note there is an expectation for SSL/TLS/WiFi certificates to only have a life of 47 days by 2029… stuff is going to break…

[Eric 9001]

Re: 6G Security

WEP was never secure - having to change a key after only 5000 packets, or even every 30 seconds to avoid easy to pull off attacks is not "quite secure", as changing a key that often is not practical.

[martinusher]

Its political, isn't it?

I notice that this working group conspicuously omits China. Says it all, really.

The reason why 6G exists at all is that by the time we got around to banning China from anywhere and everywhere it pretty much had a lock on 5G. That was a few years ago and by now our offerings may have caught up (although I've yet to see working 5G in the flesh -- here in the US we're lucky to have working 4G although things gradually improve.)(I live in suburbia but still need a picocell to get reliable cell coverage. I'm probably providing for my neighbors as well.) Anyway, after this banning of Huawei etc. I recall our government saying that it would 'leapfrog' 5G and go directly to 6G. So having a focus on governmental concerns -- always lockdown/security -- before figuring out what it is and what it's supposed to do seems pretty much business as usual.

[Xalran]

Re: Its political, isn't it?

Come to Europe, despite having to tear down all those Huawei radios, we have multiple (more or less) reliable 5G networks in each country... to the point that even in very remote areas you have 5G coverage if you're subscribed on the operator that covers that area.

for example in France : map of French coverage per operator

[VoiceOfTruth]

The conceit of it

>> Global Coalition on Telecoms

It consists of 7 countries. Hardly global. Perhaps a case of false advertising. No, this is not a global thing. It is designed to exclude China and nothing more.

I doubt the UK even makes telecoms equipment these days, not to a mass scale. So what does the UK do at these meetings? Supply the tea and biscuits?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The conceit of it

Until Trump put the boot into HUAWEI, the top 5 5G equipment manufacturers were: Huawei (China), Ericsson (Sweden), Nokia (Finland), ZTE (China), and Samsung (South Korea)

Note the absence of Trumpistan…

[Xalran]

Re: The conceit of it

And Samsung is not really present abroad, especially beyond Asia.

So it all boil down to the two Nordic companies and the Chinese ones...If you don't want to buy Chinese kits, you end up buying Finnish or Swedish kits.

(That is unless you are a Korean operator or a Japanese Operator, then you'll buy local kits)

[Dan 55]

6G

Forget AI, will we get roaming as ubiquitous as 3G, reliable emergency calling, and operators not fucking round with LTE/5G configuration so it becomes another method of locking phones to their network this time?

[Eric 9001]

Re: 6G

You get the opposite - more network overload by enhanced spying, with even more proprietary, undocumented, incompatible implementations of SIP+RTP and even less reliable emergency calling as a result.

[David Pearce]

Chinese companies hold more 6G patents than anyone else

[Scene it all]

And China is [already running trials of 6G](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202511/1348131.shtml).

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make sure that 6G doesn’t cause Covid and autism

So the conspiracy weirdos don’t start chopping masts down again.