“With US $400 worth of equipment and freely available software, you can start right away intercepting Iridium communications in an area with a diameter of hundreds, sometimes even thousands of kilometers…”
Four hundred dollars of gear intercepts Iridium traffic across thousands of kilometers. Civilian phones still use a 30-year-old protocol with no encryption. Iridium calls it old news because the military encrypts its own traffic. Everyone else pays for a satellite phone that broadcasts in the clear.