Cellphone eavesdroppers given the boot

[dArKeR]

By Sally Archibald (South Africa)

A technical glitch allowing eavesdropping on cellphone conversations had been corrected, South Africa's largest cellphone operator said on Friday.

"It is no longer possible. It cannot happen," said Vodacom chief operating officer Pieter Uys.

The scare arose after the media reported that it was possible to dial a certain sequence of numbers on a cellphone which would then randomly connect a caller with other people's conversations.

Vodacom spokesman Ivan Booth said the problem was purely technical and was not a procedure that had been purposefully created by the operator.

"It sounds unbelievable. But it really just was a coincidence arising out of the way the system was set up," he told Sapa.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=qw1093003381180B241

"Unbelievable", not to the members of the DU!!!!! I'd bet you a million bucks this is happening in the USA as a planned CIA/FBI/NSA operation!

[0007]

1. Doesn't police scanners pick up cell phone conversations?

I think they use too!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. police scanners

Not since April 1994. Sales of new scanners capable of receiving cellphone frequencies has been prohibited by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in the United States since then.

Of course, you can buy an older scanner at a yard sale or (illegally) import one and have the ability to listen to those frequencies. The catch to that is that cellphones using those frequencies were analog phones, and most cellphones are now digital phones. There are additional cellphone frequencies now as well.

The bottom line is that maybe you can hear an occasional cellphone call on an old or non-compliant scanner, but for practical purposes, you won't be doing so on a regular basis.

I ought to throw in a link. Try going to Strong Signals Frequency Board. At the bottom of the page you'll find a whole bunch of links that can elaborate on the topic.

Some sellers of old scanners on eBay think it's a big selling point that you can listen in on cellphones. I try to avoid cellphone users. Maybe it's the way they blow through stop signs and nearly run me over in pedestrian crosswalks. I guess I really don't want to hear what they have to say about anything.

Edited to add: Frequency Assignments

Cellphone frequencies are from 824 to 849 MHz, and from 869 to 894 MHz.

[bahrbearian]

5. I've still got my old scanner that can pick them up.

I never use it any more, it can pick up the military frequencies too.

[0007]

6. Thanks for the information update.

[CaptainClark23]

2. Rule Number One of Secure Communictions.

Don't assume that there is such a thing.

[Kellanved]

3. Cellphones aren't secure anyway

GSM's encryption has built-in flaws to allow eavesdropping, even more so in the export-variant used outside Europe.
Of course the used sliding-register encryption is trivial to break even without those flaws.