The crux of this week’s ‘cast: GSM, the voice and data standard used the world over for mobile phones, is hopelessly flawed in a security sense and can be cracked in several different ways. The cost for the correct apparatus to crack the encryption: just a few thousand dollars. The expertise required: minimal. Read for yourself. Or here.

Granted, you probably won’t get your conversations spied upon, unless some enterprising Mines student with a wad of cash has nothing better to do and your T-Mobile or AT&T phone is not running in 3G mode at the time (though the latter can be forced). Still, it’s best not to have sensitive conversations over your non-3G phone (which includes the first-generation iPhone) if that non-3G phone is running off of AT&T or T-Mobile.