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 | CELLULAR SECURITY: USER AWARENESS IS KEY WHEN ANYONE CAN LISTEN IN January 24, 1997 |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
How can a cell phone user avoid eavesdropping?
What will cellular technology look like in five years?
Will competition drive cellular costs down?
When will there be worldwide cellular exposure?
NEWSHOUR BACKGROUNDERS
January 14, 1997:The Newt Gingrich ethics case becomes a cellular issue.
February 2, 1996: A NewsHour look at the Telecommunications Act.
When Newt Gingrich got caught making compromising statements during a cellular conversation recently, mobile phone technology made national headlines. But hundreds of thousands of users of the increasingly popular technology had already been aware of the new issues of security and privacy that go along with the freedom that cellular technology allows.
Rings of cellular-intercepting "cloning" criminals have staked out in big cities for years, often at airports, easily picking up people's cellular ID serial number codes and using them to place and sell free calls, usually to such non-local places as Bangladesh and Nigeria. Analysts of the ever-expanding, increasingly cheap cellular industry, which is creating legions of ear-gripping pedestrians in cities from Tempe to Tel Aviv, estimate that such interceptions cost $650 million dollars in 1995. On the eavesdropping front, Gingrich wasn't even the first politician to fall into a political quagmire over intercepted cellular comments.
A few issues should be known about cellular phone conversations: beaming calls point to point via analog radio waves makes a call interceptable with a common scanner (when modified according to instructions posted all over the Internet). Digital cellular technology, which is much more secure as the information is transmitted from point to point via zeroes and ones which sound like jumbled noise to unauthorized eavesdroppers when advanced security techniques are employed, is becoming more widely available, for now mostly in large metropolitan areas. 34 million people are cellular users. Fewer than 100,000 have digital exposure.
There are federal laws against interception of cellular calls, as a result of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act and a scanner law in 1994. While this might seem fair, there are theorists who insist that public airwaves belong to everyone, and that people should be largely responsible for their own security. In essence, in an information age, protecting one's data is like guarding one's wallet. You don't just leave it lying around. Laws don't change the technological reality that cellular calls are out in the open.
Like most security holes that have arisen in the electronic age, common sense can take care of a large part of the problem. Awareness that cellular conversations are equivalent to radio broadcasts is a good first step. Users of analog calls should never give personal information, read credit card numbers, or reveal political secrets over such lines. Also, migration to digital communications with the most modern encryption technology is always good if you don't want to see your illicit love whisperings appear on the cover of the Globe (in case members of the British Royal Family are reading).
Our forum asks: What is the safest cellular technology available? Can cellular calls be as safe and private as copper wire and fiber optic phone calls? Are cordless phones in home safe? What does the future of wireless telecommunications look like?
Our guests are Ron Nesson, President of the Cellular Telephony Industry Association (CTIA), and Steve Geimann, senior editor at Communications Daily, and President, Society of Professional Journalists.
Lucy Escue of Ponca City, OK asks:
I do not live in a major metropolitan area, I live in a small community 50 miles from the closest town of any size. I use my cell phone mostly as a way of letting my children know where I am. It is also listed as an emergency phone # for my children at school. As an ordinary citizen, just how worried should I be about cellular eavesdropping?
Steve Geimann, senior editor at Communications Daily responds:
Anyone with a modified police scanner can intercept your phone calls when you're using the telephone. Analog cellular calls, which account for more than 85% of the market today, are transmitted by radio signals, just like the AM and FM radio in your car.
Unlike the car, the signals are at a very high frequency. Anyone with the right equipment can listen in. Federal law makes it illegal to intercept the cellular phone signals, tamper with radio scanners to make them capable of intercepting such calls or making scanners that can hear the calls. It is more difficult to monitor a call from a moving vehicle, since as the call passes from one "cell" transmitter to a nearby "cell," it can become difficult to keep receiving the signal on a scanner.
In the most recent case, the cell phone that was intercepted wasn't moving. The caller was sitting in his car in a parking lot. It's also important to note that the only time someone can listen to a conversation is when the phone is on; if the phone isn't transmitting, it can't be used as a listening device.
Ron Nesson, President of the CTIA responds:
You use your phone just as the vast majority of wireless phone subscribers do--to stay in touch with families, friends, or business and as a safeguard in an emergency. While, occasionally, you may hear a few seconds of one-side of a conversation over the phone, it is highly unlikely that any major portion of a conversation will be overheard.
Eavesdropping on wireless phone conversations is not a casual undertaking. It takes equipment--that is illegal to operate for this purpose--and effort to focus on a single conversation. The voyeurs who purposefully listen to these conversations are breaking state and federal laws.
Hugh Lederman of College Park, MD asks:
Given that technology changes so rapidly, what are the guests' views on cellular technology changes in the next 5 -10 years? What will the effects be on the security of conversations and the reliability of transmissions?
Steve Geimann, senior editor at Communications Daily responds:
Operators of cellular phone systems are slowly converting their systems from analog, which has been in place for a decade, to digital technologies using various systems that will make it more difficult to listen to such mobile phone calls.
A new service that's beginning to appear in some communities, called PCS for Personal Communications Services, is almost completely a digital service. In New York, Washington, Los Angeles and other cities where these services are available, companies are promoting the security and difficulty of eavesdropping.
However, since digital transmission is a technology, someone with the proper equipment can intercept such calls, given the right kind of device. Companies operating such systems are confident that today, listening it to a digital call is very difficult.
Ron Nesson, President of the CTIA:
Although more than 42 million Americans subscribe to wireless phone service, the industry is still in its infancy. New technologies are already making phone conversations more secure and the expansion of antenna systems will make transmissions more reliable and of better quality.
In the next 5 - 10 years, we will be using mobile technology for an ever wider variety of services--not just voice communication. You will be able to transmit text, surf the Internet, collect your e-mail and turn on your lights at home from any place you find yourself.
Daniel Berg of Grand Rapids, MI asks:
When the next generation of mobile communications technology arrives, will the industry be more or less competitive? Will mobile prices come down in the long run, even making telecommunications cheaper than they ever have been? Will deregulation play a role?
Steve Geimann, senior editor at Communications Daily responds:
New technologies and the recent auction of five licenses for PCS services will mean intense jockeying for business in many communities. For many years, mobile communications were provided by two companies -- the local phone company and a non-local phone company.
These new PCS services are already driving down prices, offering more attractive financial arrangements and even changing the traditional pricing structure. For example, cellular calls in most cities cost the user when they place a call and when they receive a call. Many companies require lengthy contracts, and in return provide the phone without charge.
The PCS operators are providing off-the-shelf services, for lower costs per minute and often waiving the cost on the first minute of any call placed to your phone. This last feature is to avoid the customer paying when someone reaches their number by mistake.
Ron Nesson, President of the CTIA:
Wireless phones are leading the way in making the communications industry more and more competitive. We will see lower prices, better quality of service, more features, and more flexible payment plans. With eight or more wireless companies in each community competing for business, the customers will be the winners.
The Online NewsHour staff asks:
In developing countries, mobile networks are frequently being developed before traditional copper wire or fiber optic networks. When, if ever, will the whole world be plastered with enough satellite saturation to allow a phone call to anywhere, from anywhere, with a cellular or mobile unit? Will this be outrageously expensive? Are there border and business issues to deal with, for example, if I, as an American, make a call from Belgium to Moscow with my phone issued by a Kansas company?
Steve Geimann, senior editor at Communications Daily responds:
In the telecom industry, the process of installing mobile networks rather than building a landline system is called "leapfrogging." The telephone company "leapfrogs" over the conventional system and installs a wireless system to reach customers too expensive to reach by wire.
Still, in a world of more than 6 billion people, the latest estimates show just over 700 million phones lines and just under 100 million cellular phones. These projects are accelerating, not diminishing, especially as previously government-controlled phone companies are privatized, and phone markets are open to competition.
The latest development is a plan by at least three companies to build phone networks in the sky, with anywhere from several dozen to several hundred satellites, in low earth orbit, to handle phone calls from anywhere. Instead of using antennas on the tops of buildings, steel towers or trees, a phone would "look" into the sky and connect with an orbiting satellite, which would carry the call to its destination.
The Iridium network is scheduled to begin launching the first of 66 satellites this year, at a cost of $5 billion, and it's not expected to complete the work until 1998. The launch of the first three was delayed several weeks in early January. Other projects estimate the costs at $10 billion with five years to build, considering it takes time to launch all those satellites. It's still unclear how much such calls will cost, but right now the price is considerably above the average 39-cents to 99-cents for a cellular call, depending on the company and the service. Most satellite phone calls today cost more than $3 per minute.
International border issue are becoming irrelevant, thanks to technology. Making and receiving a call will become commonplace in just a few years. In the United States, many companies already have "roaming" agreements with other companies so that when their customers travel to another city, they can still make and receive calls. These costs are higher since you're not a customer of the other company. AT&T and Sprint are building a nationwide wireless system to avoid these costs.
When you travel outside the U.S., you need a different phone since other countries use a different frequency than U.S. companies. A few firms have developed phones that can be modified just by inserting a small card into the your telephone.
Ron Nesson, President of the CTIA:
The world is going wireless because it is dramatically cheaper to build wireless phone systems than the wired alternative. Also, countries no longer want to decimate their forests for telephone poles and string miles and miles of wires across their landscapes.
The satellite systems now being built will link to both existing cellular systems and wired systems on the ground to create a truly worldwide communication system. This future communication system has the potential of dramatically changing society because half the people in the world do not now have access to phone service.
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