Anyone doing this would of course risk jail time but I wonder if not the only thing which would force them to fix the security issues in the cell phone protocols would be some large scale attacks from ordinary citizens. The cell phone protocols just seem like a total mess with security issues left in them for legacy reasons and various vulnerabilities used by police forces.
> Anyone doing this would of course risk jail time
I think the folks who would be most likely to be be using these exploits are the last people who would ever face fail time for it: folks working for some three letter agency. They're not going to go to jail for their government-sanctioned abuse of these flaws.
Maybe I expressed myself poorly but I think you missed my point. My point was that the only way to force people to fix the issues is if ordinary hackers who are not working for any three latter agency start attacking the infrastructure too. And if you do that you risk prison time, even if you only do harmless exploits to highlight weaknesses.
As an individualist nation, there's little likelihood anyone will throw themselves away for the collective. Doubly so because the collective is super fucking thankless and turns everything it gets into garbage.
I've really been debating the idea if there's any point of trying to help at all at this point, and my current conclusion is: we're already wayyyy down the dystopia line. The only hope at this point is AI which will either save us or (hopefully) bring the great filter sooner (which means less suffering). But I no longer believe in protest.
