US computer security specialists showed off a homemade drone aircraft capable of launching airborne cyber attacks, hijacking mobile phone calls, or even delivering a dirty bomb.

More mobile network operators are placing their bets on the same next-generation mobile networking technology to offer users faster connections, according to a report from the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA).

Twenty-four mobile network operators have formed the Wholesale Applications Community to avoid fragmenting the apps market and to give developers one point of entry to all the members, the GSM Association announced on Monday.

An encryption algorithm designed to protect calls on GSM phones has been broken by three cryptographers using only a dual-core, Intel-based Dell Latitude PC running Linux.

Computer security researchers say that the GSM phones used by the majority of the world's mobile-phone users can be listened in on with just a few thousand dollars worth of hardware and some free open-source tools.

Seventy-nine percent of organizations recently surveyed reveal their employees conduct confidential conversations over their mobile phones, yet only 18 per cent of those actually have mobile voice call security in place.

Motorola will sell an international version of its Android-based smartphone, dubbed the Milestone, in Germany, Italy and Argentina.

If Motorola's Milestone, a new GSM handset being introduced in Europe, looks familiar, there is a reason. It is a Droid with a different radio deck. It is also Europe's first Android 2.0 handset.

The unveiling of a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) encryption codebook compiled by a German security researcher and his team of collaborators lowers the bar significantly for the amount of money and technical expertise required to listen in on a GSM-based mobile phone call. More importantly, it illustrates just how old the current GSM encryption is and demonstrates why it's time for an upgrade.

How concerned should business users be about wireless security now that another group claims to have cracked the security scheme used by 80 percent of the world's cellular telephones?

For the past 10 years I've expected three constants when visiting the U.S.: friendly people, large portions of food and bad cell-phone coverage.