Extra credit: If it's not a wiretap, what is it?

Question

Two responses to my first question alluded to signals that don't pass through phone lines.

This is a distinction that USA Today couldn't make last year when it reported that the NSA was spying on millions of Americans.

A hard wire tap is what I described in my question.

There are obviously many kinds of surveillance, and the one involving cellular telephones is called "signal intelligence" because the signal doesn't pass through a line, it passes through the air.

Cellular phone calls are multiplexed together on a single frequency or frequency group. If you were to try to listen to them (and on my ship, I did), you would be forced to listen to dozens of phone calls all at the same time (that's what multiplexing does). To your ear, it would be gibberish.

You have to have a CDMA processor to break the signal down into it's component signals and rebuild them.

Can anyone introduce me to a human being with a brain that can do this?

sprcpt: Your legal definition is not correct. With regard to technical definitions, the law almost always defers to the industry.

Pfo: Cell phone signals are not encrypted.

That was one of the provisions of the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act.

Since I used to listen to cell phone calls on my ship (my ship had a CDMA processor), and since I never had the encryption devices in line with the signal, I'm a good witness to this. (This was in 1998-1999.)

Pfo: Cell phone signals are not encrypted.

That was one of the provisions of the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act.

Since I used to listen to cell phone calls on my ship (my ship had a CDMA processor), and since I never had the encryption devices in line with the signal, I'm a good witness to this. (This was in 1998-1999.)

Answer 1

If a vcr or cd can capture signals coming into your TV, I am quite sure there is software available to capture signals going to phone lines via the phone company. They can tap into any line they want. You can ask the operator to break into a conversation and they can. If they can, so can a computer program and the program can monitor or store the conversation.

Answer 2

Who says anyone has a brain that can do it?

Like you said, all they have to have is a CDMA processor (available to anyone with enough cash).

It sounds like you are trying to disprove the conspiracy theories regarding widespread phonetapping. I don't know whether it is actually going on, but I can gaurantee that if someone with enough political power and cash wanted to implement a massive surveillance system like the ones paranoid freaks believe in, then it would be 1) Completely feasible, and 2) Completely invisible to you.

Answer 3

There's another step with cell phone signals: you have to decrypt them, and it can take about 10 years to decrypt the message on a very powerful home desktop computer. Of course, the NSA has quantum processors, so they can do this in a matter of minutes, but they probably have all the encryption keys anyway.

Answer 4

So what you are saying is that our gov does not have this required equipment? What ever.

By legal definition any interception of a telephone signal is wire tapping weather it involves physically connecting to the conductors themselves or intercepting the microwave signal or what ever radio frequency that the signal is being transmitted at.

Answer 5

The bush regime has been spying on American citizens who have engaged in NO illegal activities or are suspected of illegal acitivities, since BEFORE 9/11.

Next?

Answer 6

Sorry, the murdered him 2007 years ago.

Answer 7

In the science section, your distinction would be important, in politics it isn't.