Suspected phone tap

Just ring a mate and tell him that you will swap the plutonium for the drugs at Waterloo Station...

It is illegal to gain access to another person's telephone under Section

There are no meaningful checks that you can do, or VM would do. Other than visually inspect whatever bits of your telephone line might be accessible to you.

If you are worried, but don't think that you have enough evidence to go to the police, then use a mobile phone or internet phone. Those are rather more difficult for an unspecified group of people to intercept.

Let me give you some advice... but first you need also to know what my qualifications are to provide that advice: I worked in the telecommunications industry for

Here's what I have known since perhaps a month after I began working in the industry: Do *NOT* *EVER* say anything on a telephone that you cannot tolerate being printed on the front page of the local newspaper the next day.

Take that serious. It applies to your personal life. It applies to your business. It applies if you are a criminal, or if you are a judge.

If you cannot tolerate something being in the newspaper, find a different way to communicate it to the people you need to exchange that information with. DO NOT USE A TELEPHONE.

Properly done taps are virtually impossible to detect.

They are even easier. Don't do it.

PeterD is dead on right. That is *absolutely* true.

If the police/spooks are doing it, they'll do it in software at the exchange so there'll be nothing to see.

Theo

They aren't easier for "unspecified groups of people" to do. Government agencies and others authorised to intercept communications are very well "specified".

In alt.engineering.electrical PeterD wrote: | On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:47:02 GMT, Foxtrot | wrote: | |>I have never been a conspiracy theorist but I suspect that a particular |>group of people may try to tap my landline. |>

|>I am in the UK and access to my phone wires is quite easy because I live |>in a block of flats. There are various oblong concrete covers for the |>BT and VirginMedia lines to the flats. |>

|>Currently I use VirginMedia for phone service. |>

|>I wonder if a tap which juts picks up the signal modulation on a line |>but does not interrupt it can be detected at all. |>

|>Can I perform any checks? |>Can I ask VM to do any checks? |>

|>As I am dealing with some odd folks, I would like to have the line |>checked regularly but would VirginMedia be prepared to do this? | | | Properly done taps are virtually impossible to detect.

Improperly done taps could be detected by means of a loss of signal or a reflection signal coming back. A well done tap would capture a miniscule level of signal via high impedance loading, and there is no way to see that by any means. What little reflection it might have would pale in comparison to the typical reflections along the wire at various patch panels and such. So you wouldn't know it was there.

It actually is easier, even for "unspecified groups".

Funniest damned thing I ever saw was a story printed on the front page of a newspaper giving a verbatim transcript of a cell phone call where a guy admited to committing murder. The newspaper had what amounted to an illegal wiretap. They were never so much as investigated, if for no other reason that the police

Why would anyone do an analog wiretap?

Why worry about wire taps?

Illegal or not in most cases these days they are done in the exchange and remotely.

It was alleged that there was a place in Chester that did the 'tapping' for the whole country - just tell the exchange to send you the audio, easy as that.

That would have been an analogue cell phone. The OP is in the UK, where these were phased out some time ago. IIUC, they will soon all be gone from the USA, too.

It is possible to intercept digital cellphone traffic, but decrypting it, without cloning the phone's key (which needs physical access to the phone) is rather more difficult than tapping a landline.

: : It is possible to intercept digital cellphone traffic, : : but decrypting it, without cloning the phone's key : : (which needs physical access to the phone) is rather : : more difficult than tapping a landline.

Read this article, posted elsewhere in this thread, to see how someone recently did exactly that:

Ivor

The article rather proves my point."Major network penetrations of any kind are exceedingly uncommon. They are hard to pull off, and equally hard to investigate."

Be sure to throw in "Allah Akbar" a few times.

;-)

The simplest attack on GSM is sniffing it over-the-air.

It's not easy, but the A5 cipher used by GSM (2G) has various vulnerabilities and there are some people working on a useful GSM cracker:

KASUMI in UMTS (3G) as yet doesn't have any practical attacks.

Theo

The challenge was to my words, ".. use a mobile phone or internet phone. Those are rather more difficult* for an unspecified group of people to intercept." *Than a land line.

I would suggest that those words are correct. Specified groups, such as Government Agencies, are a different matter.

Thank you. I would suggest, "not as easy as tapping a land line" as alternative wording.

The "unspecified group" isn't likely to contain experts on crypto.

The scope of this thread was the suspected tapping of a landline phone going to a flat. Generally extremely easy to do, needing little expertise or expensive equipment. The suggestion was to use a mobile phone - which, as the OP is in the uk, means a phone with an encrypted digital data stream. Intercepting that would need a great deal of expertise - it would be far easier to resort to other methods, eg eavesdrop on the sound signals in the room(s).

I thought it was part of Fylingdales - or maybe it's GCHQ in Cheltenham