Yeah, I seem to recall A5/1 was cracked quite a while a ago (by an Israeli team?)?

Hm, 1999? http://cryptome.org/a51-crack.htm

Yes. He (and other people) generated Rainbow Tables for the cracking of A5/1 and published them via Bittorrent. His mainpoint was that tapping GSM convos is not only feasible, but reasonably feasible even for private persons.

Also, imo, the main problem with the GSM or mobile security schemes is, that they seem to have been _deliberatly_ weakened and/or use ciphers that were known to be insecure.

This news just reaffirms what a lot of people have been suspecting all along.