Direct Satellite phone service

[Lyman Hazelton <lrh@crl.com>]

On Tue, 9 Aug 1994, David Koontz wrote:

> 
> Whats going to happen when direct satellite phone service becomes a
> reality ( as in the joint Loral/Qualcomm effort ) ?
> 
> When one notes that it is difficult to impossible to prevent service
> stealing in the cellular environment, how will it be prevented in
> direct broadcast?
> 
> It might not be possible to detect unauthorized encryption schemes
> without direct monitoring.  
> 
> Do the Feds think this is can be won?
> 

I am currently working on the IRIDIUM(r) effort.  IRIDIUM is an 
international consortium which will fly 66 (+spares) satellites in polar 
orbits to achieve a global space-based cellular phone system.  It is 
significant that *ALL* government involvement from *ANY* government or 
agency is being avoided by the IRIDIUM consortium.  This is just good 
business: Who in another country wants to use a system that they know will
be monitored in some secret way by their own or some other country's 
intelligence service?  Instead, no encryption will be included 
in the mission (telephone) data portion of the IRIDIUM system.  If a 
subscriber wants to use their own crypto-system on top of the basic 
communication service provided by the system, that is up to them.  On the 
other hand, if no encryption is provided by the subscriber, anyone can 
listen into their conversations.

As to preventing unauthorized use of the system, I know less.  While it 
would be relatively easy and cheap to use any of our well known 
authentication protocols with strong crypto to prevent such crimes, I 
don't know if its use as a standard part of the system is planned.

Finger lrh@crl.com for PGP 2.4 Public Key Block.