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Security Flaws Allow Wiretaps to be Evaded

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-coming-from-inside-the-house dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times is reporting that a team of researchers led by Matt Blaze has discovered that 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. It is also possible to falsify the numbers dialed. The flaws are detailed in a paper being published by the IEEE. Someone who thinks he's being wiretapped can apparently just send a low tone down the line that turns off the recorder. The link has a demo."

6 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. quickest way to Cuba by RY · · Score: 5, Funny

    Try it and find out...

  2. Let me get this straight... by dada21 · · Score: 5, Funny



    High frequency tones turn off teenagers.

    Low frequency tones turn of the NSA.

    Slashdotter vocal tones turn off women.

    Did I miss anything?

  3. Wanna get rid of a wiretap on your phone? by kcbrown · · Score: 5, Funny
    Seems to me there's a, um, more permanent solution:

    1. connect disposable phone to phone line
    2. call some unimportant number
    3. connect 50,000 volt source to the phone line
    4. ZAAAAAP!!!!
    5. Watch feds exit the van across the street. You know, the one with the smoke billowing out of it.

    Oh, yeah, guess I forgot a step: flee the country, because they'll be after your ass now!

    --
    Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
  4. It's a trap! by Jeremi · · Score: 4, Funny
    1. Make up fake story about how to disable phone tapping via special tone
    2. Get story published on Slashdot (etc)
    3. If the people you are wiretapping start sending the tone, you now know they suspect they are being monitored
    4. Better yet, having used the tone, they now think they can talk freely
    5. gather evidence!
    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  5. Re:In other news... by ikkonoishi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Attn. Agent Snowman:The cows have jumped the moon. I repeat the cows have jumped the moon. It is too late to close the barn door.

  6. Yeah, right... by garyok · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is this some sort of darwinian IQ test for terrorists? You can just imagine the gleeful delight on their simple, child-like faces and the unrestrained joy they will experience with unfettered access to telecommunicaions this will allow.

    [low hum down a phone line]

    "Hello. Is that you Omar?"

    "Why, yes it is Osama. How are you today? And what's the weather like like in your donkey burrow in Yemen? The weather's great here in Florida. My view from the Delano Hotel's room window is fabulous - I am also ordering martinis like James Bond."

    "Yes, yes... quit your bragging. Just because you weren't born with the most recognisable stripey beard in the world... Now can we please start planning our next atrocity?"

    "Ah yes. It is pleasing that we can freely discuss our locations and plans now that the engineers of the American military-industrial complex have told us how to easily counteract their most sophisticated surveillance. Their foolishness in revealing this technique to the entire world, via the internet, has allowed us to dispense with our counter-surveillance training, techniques, and equipment. It is truly a golden age for violent reactionaries wishing to impose a totalitarian pseudotheocracy on the idol-worshipping, hemp-smoking, fornicating, soulless infidels!"

    "Wait! Who THE FUCK did you say told you this would work?!"

    "Yes, the Americans. They said we'd be safe if we did this. How typically naive of them. Their destruction is assured!"

    --
    One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato