Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 16:39:00 EST Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator To: Comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V1#067 Computer Privacy Digest Tue, 28 Jul 92 Volume 1 : Issue: 067 Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears Re: cellnet privacy? Re: SSN & TV rental Re: Computer Privacy Digest V1#066 cellnet privacy? cellnet privacy? Re: Phone Tap in Murder Case Ruled Illegal 800 MHz receivers (was Re: Computer Privacy Digest V1#065) The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the effect of technology on privacy. The digest is moderated and gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy (Moderated). Submissions should be sent to comp-privacy@pica.army.mil and administrative requests to comp-privacy-request@pica.army.mil. Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil [129.139.160.200]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Life..." Subject: Re: cellnet privacy? Organization: Ursa Minor Beta, 402-476-8047 @ 2400 Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 17:01:50 GMT leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) writes: >Here in the US, rather than deal with this >by adding encrypted transmission options, the cellular phone industry >got together and convinced Congress to make monitoring cellular >calls *illegal*. Even if you *don't* tell anyone. > >This is *especially* silly when you realize that here, the cellular >phone system uses what used to be part of the UHF TV band. *Lots* >of old TV sets (especially *small* portables with analog tuning) >can listen in. I can tune into a celluar pager system with my TV, and I have CABLE! Noise goes right on top of VH-1, messing up the picture. (Funny thing is, VH-1 isn't always on that channel -- most of the time they have CNBC, a business channel!) It's an auto-tune TV, but not so smart that it'll switch off sound or picture if it doesn't get a clean signal. I discovered it by accident by switching channels that that was the cause. The cableco think they can't fix it, so they won't. I mentioned this on the net before, and one person suggested I ask them if they are getting interference, then it is quite possible that they have a signal leaking somewhere along the line, which is an FCC violation, and that perhaps might get them to fix it. >Leonard Erickson leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com >CIS: [70465,203] 70465.203@compuserve.com >FIDO: 1:105/56 Leonard.Erickson@f56.n105.z1.fidonet.org So it's illegal to intercept a message. Is it illegal to provide someone with the means to intercept the messages? And charging for that means? -- gberigan@cse.unl.edu (Life...) /// ____ \\\ "Sorry, did I say something wrong? Pardon me for | |/ / \ \| | breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't even \\_|\____/|_// know why I bother to say it oh God I'm so depressed. \_)\\/ Here's another one of those self-satisfied doors. `-' Life... don't talk to me about life...." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 16:42:25 PDT From: Mark Bell Subject: Re: SSN & TV rental SSN's march on. I wanted to rent a TV for the two weeks of the Olympics (not owning one myself). So they wanted the driver's license and SSN along with the names of six friends. They said this was so they could find the TV if a renter skipped. The two places I called, for some reason, both volunteered that they didn't do a credit check, only that they'd verify the friends. Well, I could see the sense of that but naturally I couldn't give my SSN. (Really, now, would I be on this list if I were willing to do that?) So I said that I certainly could understand their need to protect their property, could I speak to the manager? I then offered to put the entire value of the TV down as a cash deposit. Not a credit card chit -- actual hundred dollar bills. Shucks, I'd make the deposit be LIST price, not the street price! All in the legitimate effort to respect their security interest in the TV. No dice. So I asked if anyone had ever approached them this way, wanting to bypass the checking procedure with a 100% cash deposit? (You know the answer...) No, no one ever had. No one ever had a problem with giving the SSN. Yup. I have no doubt they're right. I even explained that I was trying to be ethical rather than, say, "buying" a TV from a store with a liberal return policy and bringing it back in two weeks. Oh well. (I wound up bowworing one from a friend. All upper-middle class households have a few extra anyway.) It probably isn't worth the trouble, but does anyone know if there is a way around this in California? Regards, Mark Bell Los Angeles "All opinions my own, not speaking for anyone else." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 16:29:40 PDT From: Mark Bell Subject: Re: Computer Privacy Digest V1#066 >From: "Willis H. Ware" >RE cellular phones and interception thereof >Moreover, I believe I'm correct in saying that it is also illegal to >market a product [e.g., scanner] that can intercept the cellular >frequencies. That reduces the number of people who can do it, if one >choses to ignore the law, from our 250M population to the subset of 25-40M >who are electronically astute enough of doing it on their own with parts >from radio shops. I guess that's what's called risk reduction! Cellular phone scanners: Are they illegal? I don't believe so. One can buy a nice Bearcat scanner from DAK in Canoga Park , California, for a little over $200. They put a message in the box that it is "ILLEGAL to use the scanner over the range of 845-860 MhZ according to Congressional law..." (I'm probably off a little on the range.) And they even mention in their advertisement, (paraphrase): "When I turned the scanner on, I heard voices discussing some business arrngements. I quickly switched away when I realized that I had overheard a call girl ring on the cellular frequencies!" So they say right in the ad that you're not 'sposed to do that. They have an 800 number for ordering. >choses to ignore the law, from our 250M population to the subset of 25-40M >who are electronically astute enough of doing it on their own with parts >from radio shops. That estimate sounds high. I'd say it's more like one in fifty, for a total of 5 million. For that five million, there is a book helpfully titled, "Scanner Modification Handbook" that steps 'em through it. Even covers those handheld units. Available at ham-radio type stores, survivalist bookstores, that sort of place. 1st amendment seems to cover the book OK. Mark Bell Los Angeles bell@ide.com "Opinions my own & not my employers..." ------------------------------ From: keith.willis@almac.co.uk Subject: cellnet privacy? Date: 27 Jul 92 23:41:02 GMT Organization: ALMAC PC Board LE> Are you sitting down? Here in the US, rather than deal with this LE> by adding encrypted transmission options, the cellular phone industry LE> got together and convinced Congress to make monitoring cellular LE> calls *illegal*. Even if you *don't* tell anyone. Wow! The ability of any given legislature to go out of its way to demonstrate that the law is in fact an ass, never ceases to amaze me! How can it _possibly_ be illegal to _receive_ the transmissions?! As you say, the only sensible course would have been to incorporate some form of on-the-fly scrambling or encryption. I must make the effort to find out how the law stands on this over here... --- ~ PQ 2.15 194 ~ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- **** Keith Willis **** email: keith.willis@almac.co.uk **** bangpath: ...mcsun!uknet!almac!keith.willis ------------------------------ From: keith.willis@almac.co.uk Subject: cellnet privacy? Date: 27 Jul 92 23:41:02 GMT Organization: ALMAC PC Board GE> > I wonder how long it is going to be before the business GE> > Cellphone users realise that all their conversations made GE> > over the Cellnet are easily intercepted, in 'cleartext', GE> > with a cheap shortwave scanner? I managed, completely GE> What is "cleartext" and at what frequencies do they broadcast conversations. GE> This is very disconcerning to me as I am an owner of a Cellularphone. GE> Is there anyway to scamble conversations so they are not as public. What I meant by 'cleartext' is 'unscrambled'. In other words, your conversations are bouncing around in the ether available to be picked up by anyone with a cheap (around 150) shortwave scanner. The frequencies involved are between 860MHz and 940MHz in the UK. As for ways of scrambling your conversations in order to render them private, the short answer is 'no'. It may be possible to modify a given pair of phones to transmit and receive scrambled signals, but ways of doing this are probably outside the scope of this conference (and of my limited knowledge of electronics!) --- ~ PQ 2.15 194 ~ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- **** Keith Willis **** email: keith.willis@almac.co.uk **** bangpath: ...mcsun!uknet!almac!keith.willis ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 8:47 GMT From: jeremy Subject: Re: Phone Tap in Murder Case Ruled Illegal >From: Graham Toal >Subject: Re: Phone Tap in Murder Case Ruled Illegal >Date: 25 Jul 92 16:35:39 GMT >Reply-To: gtoal@stack.urc.tue.nl >Organization: MCGV Stack, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands > > >In article MPA15AB!RANDY@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com writes: >>[I can understand it being illegal to tap one's own phone, and also >>that evidence received through government (police) misconduct should >>be suppressed. It also makes sense to me that if you illegally tap >>your phone, you shouldn't be able to profit from it, such as by using >>the tapes in a civil suit. But if the government had no hand in >>making the tape (didn't put you up to it, etc.), then the tape should >>be usable in a criminal case. -- RCG] [...] >The question relevant to this thread is would evidence gleaned by >a hotel employee hold up in court? [...] >This guy I met told me he was a senior employee of Howard Johnsons - >not a manager, but a worker. He said that he and his staff regularly >listened in on guest's telephone calls, and that they had a way of >monitoring all calls at once. He reckoned his hotel was often used >by drug dealers, and that several well publicised drug busts had >come through info he and his staff had passed on to police. > >He gave the impression that his hotel was no exception - that police >forces in many places use hotel staff to monitor hotel phones for >them and report anything suspicious. It isn't an organised operation >I should add - they don't do this *all* the time - just (it sounded >to me) when they're bored. > >Still, it's chilling to think that when you use a hotel phone you're >more likely to be monitored than not. And the thought that H-J's >phone system has special features to allow all lines to be ganged >together for simultaneous listening, followed by a way of scanning >through them to find a particular call amongst the 'cocktail party >effect', is a bit worrying... Here is some news on this issue from the UK. Contrary to the US position (stated above) that tapping your own phone is illegal, (and that you can't profit from it) there has been a recent incident over here which would suggest that in the UK it is still legal (warning: I'm not a lawyer, but I saw one on TV once..) The girlfriend of a senior minister in the government was staying in a flat where she talked on the phone with said minister (David Mellor). Unknown to either of them, she was renting the flat from a guy who was working in conjunction with a tabloid newspaper which wanted to get some info on the rumored affiar. He bugged his flat (though he was not living there; this girlfriend was) with a listening device hidden behind a picture frame (shades of 007) and, more relevant to us, he ran a second phone off the main one out the back and into a back patio, where a journalist from the tabloid had a novelty no-ring phone (a jaguar car which flashed its lights when a call came in). Said journo then recorded the conversation between Mellor and lover. In effect, and this may be his argument, he was only running an extension of his own phone. Nevertheless, he profited from it, in that he sold the story to the press etc. (For details, see _Sunday Times_, July 26, 1992). It seems to me that this should still be illegal, given that he was renting out his flat to someone else, and that he showed intent to surveil by hiding a bug in a picture frame. What do my American colleagues think of this? How much have you heard about this affair? Would this behavior stand up in court in the US? I should add that one other worrying thing for freedom and democracy in the UK is that the first reaction was, oh, we've got to muzzle the press from printing these stories, let's have some 'privacy' laws (ie more government secrecy laws). __ jeremy.. cramptonj@csovax.portsmouth.ac.uk [internet] or.. cramptonj@uk.ac.portsmouth.csovax [janet] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 11:14:50 -0700 From: "David W. Barts" Subject: 800 MHz receivers (was Re: Computer Privacy Digest V1#065) In article , willis@iris.rand.org (Willis H. Ware) writes: :Moreover, I believe I'm correct in saying that it is also illegal to :market a product [e.g., scanner] that can intercept the cellular :frequencies. That reduces the number of people who can do it, if one :choses to ignore the law, from our 250M population to the subset of 25-40M :who are electronically astute enough of doing it on their own with parts :from radio shops. I guess that's what's called risk reduction? I don't think so. Check in any ham radio or radio monitoring magazine and you'll find a number of mail order firms advertising receivers which can pick up cellular calls with no modifications. The ads always measure the frequency range of the receiver. Or perhaps you meant to say that it's illegal to market these devices _as tools for intercepting cellular calls_ (in which case it is still legal to market them for other purposes). This may very well be illegal; I've never seen these radios advertised as "cellular telephone receivers", onlu as UHF receivers that can tune to a specific range of frequencies. Anyhow, I bought my Yeasu FRG-9600 well after ECPA was passed, from a well-known US mail order firm, and it was (and still is) capable of intercepting cellular calls from the moment I unpacked it. ------------------------------ End of Computer Privacy Digest V1 #067 ******************************