A team of university researchers has devised a new side-channel attack named 'Freaky Leaky SMS,' which relies on the timing of SMS delivery reports to deduce a recipient's location.
SMS delivery reports are handled by the SMSC (short message service center) of the mobile network to inform when a message has been delivered, accepted, failed, is undeliverable, has expired, or has been rejected.
While there are routing, network node propagation, and processing delays in this process, mobile networks' fixed nature and specific physical characteristics result in predictable times when standard signal pathways are followed.
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