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Guide to DIY Wiretapping
Geeks are Sexy writes "ITSecurity.com has a nice piece this week on how wiretapping works and how you can protect yourself from people who wants to snoop into your life. From the article 'Even if you aren't involved in a criminal case or illegal operation, it's incredibly easy to set up a wiretap or surveillance system on any type of phone. Don't be surprised to learn that virtually anyone could be spying on you for any reason.'" Maybe I'm on the wrong track here, but I guess I assumed that wiretapping now happened in secret rooms at the telco, and not by affixing something physically to a wire in your home, but I'll definitely be aware next time I hear a stranger breathing next time I'm stuck on hold.
If someone is dumb enough to leave the microphone connected on an intercept phone, they deserve to get caught.
The official, albeit illegal kind do occur at the telco, at least these days. Before modern switching a residential tap would have be the way it was done.
Most of the land line suggestions in that article don't seem to bother with taking care of the noticeable voltage drop caused by adding an extra phone to a call. You can tell when somebody else in your house picks up the phone while you're on it because the person on the other end gets quieter. The same thing would happen if you plugged a phone into the line outside your house. I thought professional surveillance systems did something to make up for this, so there's no noticeable change in volume when the wiretapper starts listening.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
And I posted it back in August:
http://slashdot.org/~pegr/journal/180007
Still, if you're feeling paranoid, by all means check your phones. It's true, nosy neighbors could indeed be spying on you. Never underestimate the average person's voyeurism urges...
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Hard lines went out when The Matrix went out of theaters. I know there is some frequency scanning intercept type things they can do, but I thought digital cells w/ voice privacy and all that were pretty good from phone to switch???
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
It's the 90s bomb making/revenge/wiretapping text file guides all over again. Only this time it's Web 2.0
Not sure about strangers breathing, but I often hear several other conversations while on my cellphone (AT&T). If you can tap into other folks' lines by accident, I figure it's readily feasible to do so on purpose.
A-Bomb
Ah, the days of a beige box made out of a cordless phone and some batteries... Unfortunately those are also the days of getting a 90 volt shock when the phone rings unexpectedly.
"I worry that some day my child will ask me, 'Dad, where were you when they took freedom of the press from the internet?
Yes, because corporate espionage is so often carried out by nefarious time travelers from the 70s and 80s. This gem should also include look for men with wavy hair and bright rays from the nearest time gate.
From TFA
"Listen to other people's calls through your own basic telephone by hooking up your phone to a part of the original line that runs outside the house of your target."
I can just see the Darwin awards on this one when some idiot mistakes the main power line for a phone line when looking for the "red and green wires". ZAP
In theory, couldn't you use a current loop probe? You wouldn't even have to connect any wires. Just the right signal processing and you're done.
Disclaimer: I'm not an EE
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
just an fyi folks.
a proper t1 test set for example can easily drop
a DSO from a T1 and listen in on a call. You just
jack into the monitoring ports on a DSX panel in
the central offices. I have seen fancier test sets
that can do larger circuits but I cannot afford them.
next they would get a T1 drop from the voice switch.
CALEA for example. Feds use that.
Actually attaching wires to the FXS/copper is so
old fashioned that it boggles my mind it is mentioned.
If your listening device uses capacitive coupling, then there's no current drain to draw down the nominal 50 volts across an on-hook POTS line. Radio Shack used to sell a little box that coupled like that and also would turn on a recorder when the line went off-hook. Also, since it's a listening only device, there's no risk of being overheard while breathing heavily.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Me: Honey, should I get the fish or the Lamb.
Wife: It's up to you, dear.
Well, no. YOu pick honey. I picked last time.
Oh, I don't know. What do you think?
It's up to you.
No, you decide.
Ok, fish.
How about we go out?
Ok. Where?
Oh, I don't know. What do you think?
Thai?
No, we jut had that. How about Mexican?
Well, but you know we'll hit the Margarittas and you need to sleep. You have to work tomorrow.
No, I'm off. You see, Judy and Sam chose these past couple of days but then decided that since their kids are visiting, they need these other days. So, I stepped up to the plate and....
Then I heard this gun shot across the line. Apparently, the neighbor committed suicide for some reason.
They recommend Skype, which encrypts its traffic.
... you can simply open it up and look at it. Computers not so much.
But the computer is even more vulnerable than a phone to bugs. Tons of malware exists that can "own" a computer, which has given rise to an entire new security market. A phone is easy to tell if it has a bug
It also recommends using a cellphone for confidential calls. Just make sure neither provider uses ATT.
Just wanted to say thanks for these articles. Now every single one of our paranoid customers is going to call us up and demand an inspection of their line.
I just want to get this off my chest for most people.... You aren't interesting enough to tap, nobody cares about your private business.
The 80s called and their want their wiretapping tech back.
This is great if you're worried about the neighbor kid listening in, but not for anyone serious. Wiretapping is done at the telco level and you can't tell you're being tapped. In the digital age there is no clicking, breathing, voltage drops or any other indication. There is a big long checklist when implementing a CALEA node for making certain there is no way the target can tell they're being monitored.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Wiretapping might happen in a telco if it was a legitimate government operation. If it's a rogue operation, a private investigator or just some stalker, they won't be using the telco company to do it.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
The article also links to this product. They never had toys this fscking cool when I was a kid.
Sounds like a DIY one-way ticket to gitmo, if you ask me.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
go walk with them on a beach. if this seems like too much effort, then whatever it is you have to talk about isn't that important to you, and therefore not worth the effort to ensure its privacy
if you are upset at your government spying on you, then what strange notion of yours convinced you that an expansive public network would have no spying on it? i'm not talking about the government passing this law or that law about surveillance, i'm talking about the surveillance that woudl happen anyway, regardless of the laws. duh. which brings us to:
the creeps and slimy types interested in spying on other people's conversations. congratulations, you are as bad as the government who spies on people, because your motivations are certainly no better than their's
so this article sucks, in three different ways:
1. the lazy and indolent who don't want to ensure their privacy by just talking face to face in an obscure place
2. the naive and stupid, who somehow believe it is possible to have a network free of government intrusion, anywhere in the world, regardless of any laws
3. the evil and creepy, who actually want to listen in on other people's conversations, never mind what the government is doing
this whole article is a loser's ball
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
due to a blotto box!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
You mean there's a device you could attach to a phone line to listen to a call? Amazing!
For people in the know, there's an easier method to listen in on calls which is only detectable by the phone company: a Direct Access Test Unit or DATU. Find one of these "secret" numbers on the exchange your victim is on and you have the ability to snoop on their calls using the phone company's own test equipment. Messing with these numbers is also a very quick way to go to jail, but you sorta run that risk with an illegal wiretap anyway (unless you work in the Executive branch).
Couple of years ago, one of my neighbors narced on me because they thought I was playing video games too loud. This led to me getting a set of wireless headphones to listen to TV with.
:/
It completely surprised me the first time I put them on and couldn't get them to tune into the TV's transmitter because all the channels were full of wireless phone conversations.
Sadly, none of my neighbors have any secrets worth listening to. And even worst, most of them seem to have no issues with taking the phone into the shitter with them
In revenge, I've hooked up the transmitter to a cheap dvd player and leave anime porn running on a loop just before going to work, every few days....
This is old information which didn't ever work properly and is increasingly irrelevant today.
Coming up next: how to get free long-distance by whistling down the phone ...
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
As a embedded software developer at a major telco equipment manufacturer I can verify that when the government wants a wiretap, they can do it easily at the telco. Several times telcos came to us and said "the government has asked for a wiretap how can we use your equipment to comply?" The process to do the wiretap was the same used to setup a conference bridge, which digitally duplicates the DS0 or T1. The government could then get a digital copy of all voice/data of the lines.
Remember how easy it was to listen on conversations over cellular phones back then? A piece of tinfoil or a soldered wire (some even allowed you to enter this mode via keypad) was all you needed to listen in on conversations. Not that I did any of this stuff... not me, no sir.
"Who modded this informative? Whoever it is must've been smokin' some of that martian pot!"
I remember when I was younger, going around with a handset with roach clips at the end of the wire, opening phone boxes and plugging in. It was always a bit of a surprise when we tapped an active line, but MAN! So easy to do. I don't know if things are still setup the same way these days - I know the phone boxes around here are locked - not sure if the same key opens all of them anymore, but yeah - easy to tap a phone line? Sure, as long as you don't mind sitting in the bushes! I'm sure there is technology that can make it easier than that, these days.
Oh, the above story? Not me, of course. When I say I, I'm talking about someone else I heard stories about, of course. I'd never do anything remotely approaching illegal, such as making long distance phone calls on other people's lines. That's crazy!
Why would I want to wiretap myself?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
just the other day, i called my wife cell2cell just as she was accessing her voicemail...i could hear her v.m. prompts:-( verizon sux...
I eavesdropped one of my family member's conversation using a small SW radio (it was a cordless phone.)
That won't help me: all my calls consist of heavy breathing.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
From now on, I'm just gonna use my wireless!
Why only phone conversations, when a laser microphone can listen in on all conversations. They are also easy to build.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
First /. has the confession of a wi-fi thief who steals from his neighbors, and now we get a DIY guide on wiretapping.
Obligatory quote from "Spy Game":
Secretary: Feeling a little paranoid on our last day?
Muir: When did Noah build the ark? Before the rain. Before the rain.
I sometimes feel bad about flaming Skype. They really are more resistant to eavesdropping than most everything else, and it's nice they used AES256. They almost got it right.
But saying it's mathematically impossible to crack 'em is bullshit, because Skype's design is flawed (in at least one way that we know of -- and there's a lot we don't know about it, because it's closed and hasn't been really audited by crypto-nerds -- that's Skype first problem). AES256 is useless if the key itself has been compromised by MitM, and Skype's design allows that (that's Skype's second problem). Skype depends on a central server to introduce identities to one another, and that central point is potentially subject to compromise (or coercion). There's no reason VoIP users can't (in many cases, at least) cert each other directly, but unfortunately, that's not how Skype works.
Skype can be tapped, and all this talk about how its heavy crypto prevents that, is a smokescreen. AES is believed to be a strong link in this chain, but don't forget that we're talking about a chain.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The Government avoids spying by using STU phones. If tapping stays in the news, I wonder if projects like OpenMoko will incorporate similar techniques. It's good enough for gov't TS - so it is probably good enough for me chatting with my friend about what to do this weekend. It would only be a matter of time before cracking these streams would be easily doable, but at least there would be a small barrier to unfettered access.
... from 30 to 50 MHz. Then scan some of the higher ranges.
Gotta love mixing old and new technologies. It's amazing how many people enter their credit card info into cordless phones. Baby monitors are also easy to pick up. Most conversations aren't worth listening to, though.
About a year after 9-11, I was talking on my phone with my wife. Now, to really understand this story, you have to know that my wife is from Iran, her father was a former General or the Air Force there, and she knows multiple folks who had fairly high positions at one time in the government. And she calls home all the time. We spend 50-60 hours a month connected to Iran via phone.
So I'm sitting in a bookstore, and she calls. Right in the middle of the call there is a strange squeaking noise, reminiscent of digital audio "static" noises, sort of a cross between a cd skip and a modem. Sudden it ends, and we are no longer on the phone alone. Somehow our conversation was crossed with another cell phone conversation.
The strange part is this. The other folks now joined to our conversation were also from Iran. They were speaking Persian.
After about 30 seconds or mass confusion, the call went dead. For about 5 minutes my wife's phone and mine refused to connect out to make a call. Full signal, no access. When we finally got back in contact with each other, she told me that the other people on the line were trying to meet at a restaurant on the other side of Dallas. One had just landed at DFW from Frankfurt, on his way home from Iran. She understood them, I don't know the language.
Now, what are the chances of 4 mobile phones, separated by 20 miles a piece, suddenly crossing conversations at the servers, and being the same fairly limited ethnic/nationality group that just happens to be on the "Axis of Evil" list?
I tell this story to my freinds under the title "My conversation with the NSA" Since then it is a running joke for my freinds to randomly yell "bomb", "assassinate", "Jihad" and "Mohamed" while talking to me on the phone.
How can I intercept somebodys cell phone signals? Me and my crew are going to grow rip a local drug house, but we want to make sure we know how many people are there and jut find out more info in general about their operation etc. These are pretty low level dealers, they're strapped, but I doubt any one of them knows how to use a gun well (2 of us are ex-IRG,1 was training to join Mossad, and the rest are just decent with guns.) They also have a wireless surveilance system, is it possible to intercept that with a wireless laptop and no hacking skill?
This is cool. I'm going to wiretap my sister, just for fun. ;)
There have been numerous instances of "terrorist sympathizers" who hunt around online for people who say things they don't like, about their religion, their objectives, etc. They attempt to shut the blog down, even to discover the identity of the blogger to cause further trouble.
Can you imagine if this grew to further proportion, where you would be in danger of being "discovered" by some amateur terrorist or terrorists, who decided to make your life a living hell, or even to cut it short?
Sure, you had Theo van Gogh killed because he made a film that "they" didn't like, but what if they start aiming a bit "lower" on the food chain, start cyberstalking and tapping the phone lines of some guy who's an outspoking blogger or letter-to-the-editor afficianado?
How do you protect yourself at that level of obscurity?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
This old answering machine (back when tapes were common) used to randomly pick up neighbors' entire phone conversations on occasion. You'd know when you came home and the tape was full. It later died from a lightning storm, and I never did figure out why it did what it did.
It may have been a case of new and old technologies clashing as well.
If we talk about our jobs to anyone who doesn't have the exact same job, it only takes like 5 minutes before their eyes glaze over. Even if they used to have the same job. That's why we make the big bucks - a very, very small percentage of the population find the details of our industry interesting enough to simply stay awake through, let alone learn.
Same goes for me. If I'm too pumped up from a programming breakthrough to get to sleep, I'll ask my Engineer or Project Manager friend what they did that day. Zzzzzz.
The only people who could successfully tap our phones would be people who *wanted* to do our jobs, but weren't good enough at them and had to settle for eavesdropping in on us. My guess is, even though they could stay awake for it, the bulk of it would be way over their heads.
It's the equivalent of having horrible credit and no money to protect yourself against identity theft. Just make all your phone conversations lethally boring. I'd bet that Al Quida could probably get away with anything over the phone if they only recruited people at Star Trek conventions and Hannah Montana concerts. But no one's written an Arabic to Klingon translation dictionary.
Have you ever heard the expression a little knowlege is a dangerous thing? Your clue should have been the definition of the word duplex.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Use the internet. Drop an IP camera with sound into the room, or in the ceiling tile, plug it in or use wireless onto the targets network. And if your using a Yoics enabled camera you don't have to know anything else, just go view/record from home. -lp
You insensitive clods!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Hmm how to wiretap...
Step one, realize that electric current creates a magnetic field (i.e. phone wire).
Step two, realize that a magnetic field induces current on a coiled wire
Step three, realize you could wrap a wire around an iron nail, and tape it to a phone line.
Step four, attach a battery to amp up the current to your earpiece.
Voila, cheap easy wiretap that won't cause a noticeable signal degradation.
If you're worried about someone tapping your calls you probably shouldn't be talking on a phone anyhow, just FYI.
When I was in my rebel years (around age 13) I stumbled on textfiles.com
After spending a few months enjoying their vintage erotica, I moved onto the anarchy and phreaking sections. One of the first things I did was build a beige box... I only used it once, to see if it worked, and some lady was on the line. She heard me and started getting weirded out.
So I yelled "TAP DETECTED, PULL BACK PULL BACK" into the phone, hung up, and ran for it.
There was a phone company van at that junction box later. Scared the crap out of me.
Especially in field operations knows how insecure our phone pedestals (the little green and brown enclosers along your neighborhood roadds) are. Typically they use just a standard hex wrench to open. Dress in the right clothing, grab your butt set and go to town. Commercial bldgs are not much different. If you can talk the lingo and have a tool bet, its not hard to use a little social engineering to get into building telco closets. Having worked in telco for many years I can't count how many times I have been let into bldgs by just saying "I am with xyz telecom, and tenant abc needs us to work on their phone". 9 times out of 10 I don't have to present ID, they don't call the tenant they simply unlock the door. I have worked in telco closets where I have tapped onto a copper pair to hear lawyers discussing divorce cases with a cleint. Or a stock broker discussing financials with one of their clients.
Really scary stuff since I had just gotten the scanner and wasnt 100% sure that THEY couldnt hear ME too! They wouldnt be too happy :P
---
I like the article's advice to call the police if you're being wiretapped. 'Hello, police? My phone's being tapped!' 'Yes, we know.'
This means the terrorists can wiretap you.
So yeah while you don't have anything to hide from your government, how about Bin Laden?
it's this kind of thinking that lead to the 911 attacks in the first place. You don't have to be very interesting,maybe you just happen to work in the world trade center or some important high paying career and that alone gives terrorists a reason to wiretap you.
And believe me, they are out to get you and WILL wiretap you. I don't know why people think Iran, Syria, and whatever terrorist cells are only going to do dumb shit like ram planes into buildings but at the same time they give personal information out over the phone.
Nothing stops the terrorists from monitoring and spying on us.