Suspected phone tap

considering that virtually all phone lines have stubs along their route, echos and reflections are always expected and are also unpredictable in nature.

In message , PeterD writes

Properly done taps are impossible to detect.

In message , Woody writes

Do you mean??????????????????

In alt.engineering.electrical Floyd L. Davidson wrote: | snipped-for-privacy@ipal.net wrote: |>In alt.engineering.electrical PeterD wrote: |>| 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. | | Why would anyone do an analog wiretap?

They would if the line is analog. But even if digital, a poor tap can still be detected by using a TDR which would be pushing an analog signal on the wire and watching what comes back.

All telephone lines terminate in digital switching systems.

TDR cannot detect a digital tap.

I had a guy quite seriously ask me (5-6) years ago if it was possible that his phone line was being tapped. He'd heard strange sounds... I laughed and told him if it was, he'd never know it.

Of course then we got into a discussion of what would cause his line to be tapped... His son was married to a Chinese lady who happened at the moment to be in Indonesia. He was a 747 pilot flying into Afganistan and Iraq, with a long history of employment by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

I assured him he cannot make an international call without it being listened to by someone!

It's cheap, easy, fast, and convenient for those who want to tap a line without going through the official legal channels, red tape and associated paperwork that would usually stop you anyway.

It's dumb. Too easy to get caught.

The VM cabinet around the corner from my home has been unlocked for over a year (with the door simply wedged shut), despite having been reported. It would be simple enough to gain access to any line going through it, or even to jumper it to another subscriber's cable (they usually have a spare pair). I ceased my service with them a while ago!

In theory such a tap is often detectable, but the VM copper circuits usually only travel between the customer premises and the street cabinets - it's fibre from there to the exchange, so an electrical exchange test isn't possible.

If the suspected surveillance is "official" (and that can cover a great range of organisations in the UK), then of course they'd have no need for such low-tech methods.

Jim wrote: (snip)

I have had three occasions in past where my phone line was bridged to the premises of another subscriber. Once in an apartment where due to a remodeling error, the neighboring apartment had a phone jack accessible to my circuits. He used the line freely making toll calls. Next I had a house in the back woods of Tallahassee where the circuits were poor. A couple of times the phone repairmen bridged my circuit with a neighbors looking for a "good pair". This last time a neighbor moved into a vacant residence near mine, plugged in her phone and had instant service, on MY line. The phone repairman volunteered that the documentation was very poor.

The cabinets and pedestals in this neighborhood are unlocked and often left open to the elements.

VM are now doing fibre optic deals - quite cheap, cheaper than coax - atm. You get broadband and phone for less than 20/mnth. Let's see your "friends" tap into that :-)

mmmm. Sounds like the LA Times in 1984. The story concerned a certain sports personality! A jury of his peers still found him "not guilty".

When I was a kid, my dad was involved with some pretty serious DoD work. I suspect that anyone with his clearance had their phone tapped (and other things as well). They aren't so much worried about his conducting illicit business over the phone as they are about the possibility of blackmail by foreign intelligence forces.

That never happened, but we did have a guy in the neighborhood who had a screw loose. He wasn't above making strange phone calls to various people, but when we got one, I think it ws his last. The FBI looked into it and suddenly the nut-case mellowed out considerably. ;-)

That one turned out a little different. The fellow was convicted, and will never get out.

If I felt the need of a secure phone system, I would set up a secure private VoIP network.

At my end:

1) Set up an Asterisk server on my LAN; 2) Configure an IP phone to register with it; 3) Configure a secure VPN gateway to accept incoming connections.

At the other end(s):

1) Configure a VPN client box to establish a secure tunnel to my LAN's VPN gateway; 2) Configure an IP phone to register with my asterisk box over the VPN.

If you choose a good enough VPN implimentation, then I think it would be pretty secure.

If you want to be extra-paranoid, then....

If I was trying to hide from Government Agencies, I'd probably find an Open Source VPN soloution which I was confident had no back doors. I'd not trust a VPN box from ( for example ) a Big American Networking Corporation not to have been leaned on to provide back-door access to their VPNs by the American Security Services. After all, I'm talking about the kind of corporations that are complicit with other unpleasant regimes in the world to police their populations, in order to gain global market share. If they're prepared to roll over for foreign governments, then I have no doubt they would be even more complicit with their domestic security services.

But perhaps I'm being paranoid, and need to adjust my tinfoil hat :-)

In message , Bernie writes

Is it fibre to the home though? I thought it was just fibre to the street cabinet and then coax to the home?

Well I had a word with VM about this over the phone (twisted pair -

*cough*) and they told me it was fibre optic into the house. I was thinking of having it installed myself but for different reasons but like you say it may be twisted cable on the last leg, these ntl call centre lackies don't know their arse from their elbow. You'd have to pursue it further for a definitive answer.

[snip]

: : Or wait for one to turn up at a government auction. : : I picked up a complete 911 phone logging system and all : : the 10.5" reels of tape for next to nothing. I sold : : the recorders to a company that owned thousands of pay : : phones to use when there was a court ordered tap on one : : of their phones.

Is that likely in the UK..?

Ivor

But how can I detect it if it is being done (even if it is illegal)?

There are plenty of illegal taps. This is a web page which describes former police officers actually doing it.

"The company charged clients between £5,000 and £7,000 to hack into computers and £6,000 to bug telephone lines. The MPS was initially contacted by British Telecom, who had identified a number of devices attached to junction boxes, which they suspected were being used to intercept phone conversations."

As far as I am concerned it is by then, too late. The info has been leaked.