Re: 'Sunday Times' article on GSM changes

[fnordbox!loydb@cs.utexas.edu (Loyd Blankenship)]

:(Thug writes)
:
:> According to what I read it seems that the whole issue of cellular radio
:> signal encryption is really a non-issue.  They could have the most secure
:...
:> What makes you think they don't have the same kind of REMOB/BLV capability
:> to the cellular telephone switches?	I mean, if a conversation is scrambled
:...

Eric Fogleman writes:
:
:If getting around GSM encryption is no problem, then why are governments
:pushing the issue?


This actually hits on one of my favorite rant topics. The feds like to
scream about how hard it is to tap a phone line with digital switching et
al, but don't talk about the fact that anyone with half a brain can tap a
line using the phone company's LMOS.

The only rational theory I've come up with to explain this is that the feds
aren't worried about court-ordered wiretaps, but about illegal wiretaps.
I bet there's a *lot* of monitoring going on out there that they can't get
a court order for, so they're doing it themselves. Monitoring without the
cooperation of the phone company will get harder when the company starts
paying more attention to security -- whether through encryption or simply
using a shredder. :-)

Loyd

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