re: Ain't no way I'm buying a phone with face recognition capability

UE (your phone) is always giving measurement data to nearby towers in the event that it goes into an active data state.

The diagram is a att customer calling a verizon customer or vice versa.

Your UE pings the eNB (tower). There are two planes of data involved. The control plane which sends control signaling to the network elements and the user plane which contains your data.

S1-U (User) is 100% bound by IPSec tunnels to make sure your data is protected but there have been quite a few instances where some really high level hacking has been able to penetrate these tunnels and sniff (aka download) your data and decrypt the ESP's with some fake key.

In normal conditions your call/text/media would be sent from the RAN portion (Radio) of the network to the IMS or Core portion of the network where your IMSI/MSDN is directed to the right path. The P-CRF is the policy charge rule function. It tells the core if you are allowed to proceed with data or voice depending on your subscriber plan that sits in your carriers Subscriber Profile Silo.

If everything is gucci, the core will transfer your signal to ATT or Verizon (whichever direction) and back out the perspective eNB closest to the person you are calling.


This is an extremely low level explanation. Your actual packets of data have significant meaning that I did not state.

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I was thinking a real downside is the cops pull you over and open your phone by holding it to your face when you won’t give them the passcode

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They recently added a feature where a button sequence (power button 5 times?) will disable all biometrics temporarily (which cops can take from you without a warrant) and replace it with passcode only, which cops can't ever force you divulge.