I live in NYC. On the 11th, several phone calls that I placed on my mobile phone triggered a display on my phone. It said “Encryption” and then there was a little icon of a circle with a slash through it.
Since my phone’s manual is written in some strange mix of Pig Latin and Wookiee, I can’t figure out what this means. It occurred to me that maybe it meant that my conversation wasn’t secure. Was someone listening in?
My phone is a Siemens S40 and my network provider is Voicestream.
Isn’t it an indication that you’re using WAP and what you’re connected to isn’t using WAP encryption?
In which case it’s no big deal unless you’re connected to your bank account or something.
You phone can’t tell is someone is listening in.
If your phone has encryption and the phone company has a secret way of turning it off remotely, I doubt they would have an icon come on.
More than likely, your network used antennas on the WTC. After the attack, the antennas were lost and the phone switched systems, maybe even back to analog. The new system did not support encryption, not all do, so your phone switched.
The FBI says they intercepted several phone calls after the attack, so they were monitoring some phones.
I think it is a well known fact that the National Security Agency in the USA and GCHQ in the UK both have the capabilities to listen in to any cell-phone conversation. They even have special computer programs which listen out for key words like “bomb” and other incriminating phrases.
while the government has the ability to listen in on cell phone calls, they don’t have the manpower or resources to monitor all phone calls, or even most phone calls. i’ve also heard that the programs detecting key words don’t really exist.
Siemens own site has a good encryption FAQ here.
“…FBI Director Louis Freeh says. ‘I can tap a man’s phone today if I have probable cause. All I ask is that encryption allows me to do it tomorrow too.’”
Ummm… Cite, please? I know this was mentioned in “Enemy of the State”, but I’ve never heard/seen any hard facts on it. Can’t say I’d be surprised if it’s true, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just a U/L.
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Ummm… Cite, please? I know this was mentioned in “Enemy of the State”, but I’ve never heard/seen any hard facts on it. Can’t say I’d be surprised if it’s true, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just a U/L. **
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All I can say that I have heard respected BBC correspondants say the above, but by its very nature you will not find any Goverment admit to this. Here in the UK several books and articles on GCHQ have mentioned not only the monitoring aspect but also those computer programs. Sorry I cannot be more specific.It’s true, all right. Popular Mechanics recently had a story about it. Not the best cite in the world, perhaps, but I believe 'em. Since the link to the article won’t work, go to the site and search for “Echelon” or “National Security Agency.” The article is called “No Such Agency” or something like that.
What Cecil says
I’m serving in the Israeli in an Intelligence base. There are all kinds of listening devices here. “Field Security” states that I can’t talk about classified material over the cell phone, and that I’ll be punished if I get caught. How will they know? Well, there’s a special unit for tapping different phone calls and if one of them gets bored he can monitor phone calls on base, for the sake of Field Security. Moreover, I have to seperate the battery from the phone when I go inside the building, because cell phones can be listened to even when they’re not turned on…
Two excellent books on the National Security Agency, its capabilities and its shortcomings: Body of Secrets and The Puzzle Palace, both by James Bamford.
They’re fascinating studies of the agency – and they back up the contention that your calls (most notably those to people outside of the country) are and have been monitored.
Actually, you can assume that any call routed through a communications satellite (or in some cases, undersea cable) is screened by NSA computers with filters examining traffic for specific watchwords such as “anthrax” or “nuclear bomb.”
Conversations that meet their various screening criteria (a tiny fraction of the millions and millions of calls intercepted) are weeded out by computer programs and then forwarded to security and/or language experts for further analysis or action. Consequently, the volume of communications they intercept and analyze each day is absolutely astounding, but most of it is discarded before a human ever hears it.
IIRC, if you’re a U.S. citizen, under almost every circumstance, the NSA is legally required to trash all intercepted recordings to which you are party (or, failing that, simply delete every shred indentifying info about you before the intercept is passed on to other agencies like the FBI or CIA.). If you’re a foreign national, no such protection exists.
The NSA not chartered for domestic intelligence and formal legal constraints now exist to stop them from doing so, especially after the Agency got burned for domestic ops back in the 70s and 80s.
(At least, that’s my recollection. Keep in mind, I’m still practicing Brain Cell Darwinism via my ever-flowing kegerator.)
>>>Moreover, I have to seperate the battery from the phone when I go inside the building, because cell phones can be listened to even when they’re not turned on…
What??? Even when they aren’t on?
^^^
Well, from a Physics perspective (wildly over-simplified but essentially correct)…
An audio mike (or speaker) converts sound to electricity to sound by using a vibrating membrane that induces a vibration in a magnet (hence a magnetic field) which inturn generates an oscillating electric current in the circuit. The phone, when powered, then amplifies this current and rebroadcasts it. Even when not powered however, the membrane is still vibrating and generating a current, and emiting an extremely small radio signal. It would theoretically be possible to receive this signal from a short distance away with a hyper-sensitive receiver.
The range would be extremely limited however, and it would be more reliable and effective for a snooper just to use an audio microphone.
Let’s not get all paranoid. This is mostly a precaution against the user accidently turning the cell phone on unnoticed. A few years ago a fan at a football game here int he US repeatedely dialed 911 by accident every time he stood up to cheer. Same idea.
I agree with evilhanz in that it is to prevent accidental calling.
However, it is impossible to simply listen in on today’s newer phones, essecially when they are off. Even if there were such a thing as a hyper-sensitive receiver, there would be way too much ambient noise to pull the signal out. Also, in Isreal, you would probably have a GSM phone which means they would have to also find out what frequency the phone would be tuned to as well as the time slot. Since the phone doesn’t broadcast voice traffic until it is assigned a particular channel and timeslot by the base station, there wouldn’t be any voice signal going to the antenna even if the phone were powered up.
Now, someone might try to mimic the base station and attempt to get the phone up on a traffic channel without you knowing. That is impossible since the software in the phone requires the user to acknowledge the paging message by pressing the green button. I am very familiar with the standards and there are no messages in the standards that allow the base station to bring a phone up on traffic without the users knowledge. In fact, most manufactures cannot get the advertised features to work correctly much less a super secret feature. With the cellular industry moving at such a great pace, companies have a difficult time getting new features working before they ship the product. They would not divert manpower to such a project.
In case you haven’t guessed, I have some experience with cellular networks. For the past 3+ years I have worked as a system test engineer for a large company that rhymes with Notorola. I essentially pretend that I am a network operator, such as Sprint, Verizon, etc, and develop tests that mimic situations that they would encounter. I’ve never tested, nor have known anyone that has tested, any type of eavesdropping technology. So even if the code is there, it probably doesn’t work, because we haven’t tested it. But I highly doubt (98% certainty) the code is even there.