Are cell phones safe for sensitive calls?

[fishbulb]

I've had a digital cell phone for about two years. Since I'm a student I change residences frequently, so I use my cell phone for everything. I don't have a land line.

I recently saw an article about cell phones being vulnerable to eavesdroppers with the right equipment. This got me thinking about the safety of using mine for things such as banking and other finance related calls. I'd prefer to not get cleaned out by some turkey tapping my phone.

Is this something worth worrying about, and if so is there anything that can be done about it?

 

[E__WOK]

Yes, it is very easy to listen in on cell phones. Don't say your CC # over the phone.

 

[DaveH]

I'm no expert, old cell phones in the 800 mhz are relatively easy to tune in, in fact supposedly if you have an old tv that has the clickie switch up through channel 83 you can use it.

Digital cell phone is not easy for the casual listener.

 

[Sid Post]

How much is it worth?

Given enough time and money, you could probably catch credit card numbers on the internet too. Is it worth ~$20K worth of hardware to catch a credit card number with a $1,000 limit?

If you are using a digital cell phone, you are pretty safe as long as you aren't drawing the attention of people or governments who are extremely well financed and technically savvy.

Analog cordless phones suffer the same weakness in ease of "cracking". When you can get a DSS (or similarly encryted/scrambled) cordless for ~$60, why use an easily eavesdropped analog cordless?

For what its worth, I'm not a lawyer. I heard at one time a wiretap wasn't required on a simple analog phone. Like baby monitors, there was no reasonable expectation of privacy so, eavesdropping wasn't the same as tapping a copper wire from a legal perspective. I think the legal distinction was similar do being photographed through an open window or door "in public" versus somewhere where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Any lawyers care to speak up and correct me

 

[Tightwad]

FWIW, remember that cell phones are actually.....
radio's. Much the same as the old "walky-talky".
Also the laws of our land require a court order
to tap a landline where "cell" (radio) phones
are open air for anyone to tap (listen) into.

So I guess the answer for you and all your student
friends is ........Keep sensitive business info
confined to a hardwired land line (no portable
phones as they also are low power radios.) With
the increase in identity theft ruining more and
more peoples lives there is no way I do business
on any "radio" based phone.

P.S. do your friends a favor and share this info
with them. My son got bit for a lot of money due
careless use of a cell phone not to long ago.

 

[bladefixation]

analogue cell phones work like normal radios and are easy to listen into but analogue cell phones are rare now. digital cell phones are virtually impossible to tap into unless you have government type resources and/or access to the telco

 

[fishbulb]

Originally posted by Tightwad

Also the laws of our land require a court order
to tap a landline where "cell" (radio) phones
are open air for anyone to tap (listen) into.

Thanks for the info. I'm not at all concerned about the government or anybody like that listening in, if thats an issue I've got much bigger problems. I was just concerned about private citizens who like spending other people's money.

 

[GlockDoc]

Originally posted by fishbulb
I'm not at all concerned about the government or anybody like that listening in...I was just concerned about private citizens who like spending other people's money.

And you don't think that the government likes spending other people's money?

 

[Sid Post]

If you have made a good faith effort to protect your conversatin via some legitimate encryption technique, it used to take a court order for law enforcement to "wire tap" your cell phone or cordless. Open unprotected analog is like leaving your windows uncovered to the street.

With the new homeland security laws, I believe this may have changed.

I am not a lawyer so, take it for what it's worth.

 

[AlphalphaPB]

Originally posted by Sid Post
For what its worth, I'm not a lawyer. I heard at one time a wiretap wasn't required on a simple analog phone. Like baby monitors, there was no reasonable expectation of privacy so, eavesdropping wasn't the same as tapping a copper wire from a legal perspective. I think the legal distinction was similar do being photographed through an open window or door "in public" versus somewhere where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Any lawyers care to speak up and correct me

Not a lawyer, but I recently took a course focusing on moral and legal aspects of privacy rights. Looking at the 1928 Olmstead v. United States Supreme Court case, the ruling in favour of the United States suggests that privacy doesn't apply to non-material things like telephone conversations. Another factor in the decision was that there was no physical intrusion into Olmstead's house; all the equipment was set up outside of the home.

This narrow reading of the 4th Amendment was reversed in Katz v. United States, where it was ruled that there was a reasonable expectation of privacy in a public phone booth, even though the recording device was set up on the outside of the booth. So the government can't tap your phone without a warrant (and therefore previously established probable cause), since you expect the conversation to be private.

New USAPA considerations aside (i.e. as long as Big Brother doesn't think you're a terrorist), I'd imagine that it's not legal to enter a suspect's house to tap their phone, analog or not. I'm not too sure about scanning wireless phone frequencies though. Kyllo v. United States comes to mind, but perhaps since there's DSS phones in general use, it's implied that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when you're using a non-DSS phone.

I recently had a dream, where a person called Bob told me: "I'm aware that the cellular phone networks in use three to four years ago in Hong Kong were not secure. I think that the popular networks used PCS and GSM at the time. My friend doesn't use his illegal equipment anymore though, so maybe relatively new cell phones use scrambled signals." What a strange dream.

So here's my opinion. I wouldn't worry about electronic eavesdroppers any more than I'd worry about a hacker breaking into a credit card database and getting my info. There's so many people out there that there's safety in numbers, especially if you're not exceptionally rich.

 

[Blue Jays]

Good Evening All-

Most banking and brokerage institutions can be reached via a toll-free number. It seems to me that it would be both easy and cost-effective to reach these places by using a public telephone. The security intrinsic to a landline can't be denied.

Most dormitories, student centers, gymnasiums, and college libraries have these telephones available. It is cheaper to make the call from a payphone because you do not pay for the airtime.

I was a starving college student many years ago. Just my $0.02.

~ Blue Jays ~

 

[fiver]

I gotta disagree here. To eavesdrop on a digital cell call would require a digital scanner, which is both hard to get, and expensive.

You can eavesdrop on any landline at the pole or on the side of the house with two alligator clips and any old handset. If someone really wanted to target you, for less them $50 they could buy common items from radio shack, and hide a micro-cassete recorder on the side of your house, recording every converstaion you had. As long as the recorder was well hidden, they could come change tapes & batteries in the middle of the night and you would never know.

Paranioa is good, but in todays world I don't think you have any more privacy one way or the other. If they want to get you, they will. Any punk high school kid could nab your calls from home... But it would take some sophistication to listen in on a digital cell.

With analog cells it is different, they are a joke to eavesdrop on, heck you can even use an old televison do listen in on some analog cells. So just dont use one.

 

[Tightwad]

Fiver, what you say is true.....to point. Sure any
person with dis-honest intent can steal anything
you have or use. However, a "What can I do to stop
them" attitude is like leaving the keys and money
laying in car for all to see.

What is important with this issue is you (or anyone
else) should do all the prudent things you can to
prevent ,or at least make it harder, for a thief
to steal from you. Also, failure to protect your
own property makes you (or anyone else) as guilty
as the thief. Your insurance company or LEO would
be very unhappy if you didn't at least attempt to
protect your property or service.

Remember , locks of any type only keep honest
people out. A thief will always find away to get
get the required tools to enable them to steal from
their target. The scarcity of the tool means
nothing.

The question here is..
"Are Cell phone safe for sensitive calls?"

The bottom line answer is .........NO!!

 

[knife_boi]

analogue cell phones work like normal radios and are easy to listen into but analogue cell phones are rare now. digital cell phones are virtually impossible to tap into unless you have government type resources and/or access to the telco

I gotta disagree here. To eavesdrop on a digital cell call would require a digital scanner, which is both hard to get, and expensive.

You're both right, and you're both wrong... To eavesdrop on a digital call is far far too much work...

But that's assuming that u're making a digital call, all that you need is the signal to drop a little bit in quality, and all your phone can do is connect in *ANALOG* that's right, all TDMA and CDMA (digital not GSM) phones drop back to ANALOG if there's poor signal. So all you need is to listen, and sooner or later *some* of the conversations will be broadcast in ANALOG w/ no encryption.

If someone was out to track *just you* this information would be useless, but what if someone's just listening, waiting for those ANALOG calls, and for something interesting to be said?


So my answer would be:

If it's GSM --> fairly secure.

If it's DIGITAL --> make sure you've got digital signal, and good signal strength and you should be okay... but *shrug*... don't be too complacent...