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The Gemalto hack is the product of poor use of cryptography that requires the private key exist somewhere other than on the SIM. The NSA/GCHQ took advantage of it, but they are one of many actors who are capable of doing so. Perhaps the result will be that GSM is redesigned so that it's no longer vulnerable to such an attack. If that happens the result will be GSM being banned in China. I.e. China aren't just taking advantage of other's incompetence, they are mandating incompetence. I think on that basis, the US does have the higher moral ground, if not exactly high moral ground. Of course our PM says he want so to take the same position as China, so perhaps we really should have an ISO standard back door.