DPL-Surveillance-Equipment.com

The
technology used for decades by law enforcement agents to wiretap
telephones has a security flaw that allows the person being wiretapped
to stop the recorder remotely, according to research by computer
security experts who studied the system. It is also
possible to falsify the numbers dialed, they said.

Someone being wiretapped can easily employ these "devastating countermeasures" with off-the-shelf equipment.

PROFESSIONAL
WIRE TAP DETECTOR

This
has implications not only for the accuracy of the intelligence that can
be obtained from these taps, but also for the acceptability and weight
of legal evidence derived from it.

A spokeswoman for the F.B.I.
said "we’re aware of the possibility" that older wiretap systems may be
foiled through the techniques described in the paper. Catherine
Milhoan, the spokeswoman, said after consulting with bureau wiretap
experts that the vulnerability existed in only about 10 percent of
state and federal wiretaps today.

"It is not considered an issue within the F.B.I.," Ms. Milhoan said.

According
to the Justice Department’s most recent wiretap report, state and
federal courts authorized 1,710 "interceptions" of communications in
2004.

To defeat wiretapping systems, the target need only send
the same "idle signal" that the tapping equipment sends to the recorder
when the telephone is not in use. The target could continue to have a
conversation while sending the forged signal.

The tone, also
known as a C-tone, sounds like a low buzzing and is "slightly annoying
but would not affect the voice quality" of the call. It turns the
recorder right off.

The paper can be found at http://www.crypto.com/papers/wiretapping.

"If
you are a determined bad guy, you will find relatively easy ways to
avoid detection," "The good news is that most bad guys are not clever
and not determined. We used to call it criminal Darwinism."

A
professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University and technical
director of the Hopkins Information Security Institute, called the
technique "exceedingly clever" - particularly the part that showed ways
to confuse wiretap systems as to the numbers that have been dialed. The
professor added, however, that anyone sophisticated enough to conduct
this countermeasure probably had other ways to foil wiretaps with less
effort.

                                    

                             COUNTERSURVEILLANCE PROBE / MONITOR

Not
all wiretapping technologies are vulnerable to the countermeasures, the
most vulnerable are the older systems that connect to analog phone
networks, often with alligator clips attached to physical phone wires.
Many state and local law enforcement agencies still use those systems.

More
modern systems tap into digital telephone networks and are more closely
related to computers than to telephones. Under a 1994 law known as the
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, telephone service
providers must offer law enforcement agencies the ability to wiretap
digital networks.

ADVANCED TRANSMITTER
(BUG) DETECTOR

But
in a technology twist, the F.B.I. has extended the life of the
vulnerability. In 1999, the bureau demanded that new telephone systems
keep the idle-tone feature for recording control in the new digital
networks, which are known as Calea networks because of the abbreviation
of the name of the legislation.

The Federal Communications
Commission later overruled the F.B.I. and declared that providing the
idle tone was voluntary. The researchers’ paper states that marketing
materials from telecommunications equipment vendors show that the
"C-tone appears to be a relatively commonly available option."

When
the researchers tried the same trick on newer systems that were
configured to recognize the C-tone, it had the same effect as on older
systems, they found.

"We were aware of it, we dealt with it, and we believe Calea has addressed it," she said.

The
research was financed by the National Science Foundation’s Cyber Trust
program, which is intended to promote computer network security.

The security researchers discovered the new flaw while doing research on new generations of telephone-tapping equipment.

           WIRELESS CAMERA FINDER 

In
their paper, the researchers recommended that the F.B.I. conduct a
thorough analysis of its wiretapping technologies, old and new, from
the perspective of possible security threats, since the countermeasures
could "threaten law enforcement’s access to the entire
spectrum of intercepted communications."

There
is some indirect evidence that criminals might already know about the
vulnerabilities in the systems, because of "unexplained gaps" in some
wiretap records presented in trials.

"The
people in the countersurveillance industry come from the surveillance
community," "We know what is possible, and our equipment needs to be
comprehensive and needs to counteract any form of surveillance."

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.