Greek, U.S. Officials Tapped For Years 236
Bruce Schneier posts on a story being reported in the Seattle Intelligencer. Greek and U.S. officials in Greece apparently had their phones tapped for over a year before the 2004 Olympics. From the article: "It was not known who was responsible for the taps, which numbered about 100 and included Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis and his wife, and the ministers of foreign affairs, defense, public order and justice. Most of Greece's top military and police officers were also targeted, as were foreign ministry officials and a U.S. embassy number. Also tapped were some journalists and human rights activists." Schneier gives a bit of technical background on how the tapping was accomplished.
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Informative)
>
>That was clever. How did they get access to the phones to flash the programming? Phones worked fine otherwise. Makes me think someone had access to them at the factory. How else would they be able to get the source. Or would they need it?
One of three ways:
1) A backdoor in phones for snooping; either placed there by design/regulation in concert with the manufacturer, or slipped in by means of some clever hackery. Read "Reflections on Trusting Trust" for just how clever said hackery could be.
2) By means of the normal process whereby automated firmware updates can be delivered to phones. Same sort of way a Tivo or satellite/cable decoder can be "updated" remotely. Except that the "update" only went to the "right" phones. Sort of a variant on #1.
3) Or the old-fashioned way: the same way a virus/worm author gets access to flash your BIOS, or overwrite the material on a hard drive. Sent 'em some HTML that exploited a flaw when rendered. Sent 'em a .JPG with corrupt headers.
A mobile phone is a computer with a writable storage device on it. Computers run code. Computers do what they're designed to do, unless the code they run contains flaws - in which case they do what they're told to do, which may not be what the designer intended, but it's precisely what the cracker intends.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Informative)
For the curious, here's a list [rcfp.org] of how each of the fifty U.S. states handle tape recording of telephone calls.
Like they weren't being tapped already? (Score:3, Informative)
Note to self: two tinfoil hat posts in one sitting... I need to cut back on the Mt. Dews after lunchtime
Re:Interesting (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why can't we have... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well duh (Score:2, Informative)
Wonder no longer.
From Article 18.20 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure:
"(15) "Electronic communication" means a transfer of signs, signals,
writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature
transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic,
photoelectronic, or photo-optical system. The term does not
include:
(A) a wire or oral communication;
(B) a communication made through a tone-only paging device; or
(C) a communication from a tracking device. "
Re:Organized Crime? (Score:2, Informative)
Something else that the fine article fails to mention is that the cells that the eavesdroppers used were spotted and all of them are very close and around the US embassy and most of the embassy people live in that area. There isn't any real doubt in Greece that the US embassy was at least involved.
From an anonymous greek Geek
Re:Anyone with real knowledge about phone tapping? (Score:3, Informative)
1) Is this story believable?
Somewhat. It would be possible to bribe someone in the phone company to set this up. Alternatively, someone with enough skill could hack into the local switch and set this up themselves, but in that case there would more than likely be no noises on the line. Kevin Poulsen had a setup similar to this. He hacked into his local switch, switched a radio stations phone lines to an office, and had the lines forwarded from there to the original office. He was able to cut off the incoming lines at the right time and be the magic caller to win cars, cash and other items.
2) Do you hear "clicks" if your phone line is being tapped?
If the phone company taps a line by order of the government, you will not hear any clicks or other noises, and you will have no way of knowing your phone is tapped. On the other hand, if it is an amateur tap, such as a tape recorder aligator clipped to the network interface on the outside of your house, you may hear some clicks.
3) Can any private organization arrange to have another wire leading from another phone?
This setup is possible to pull off, and if the company had a tape recorder attached to the line it could explain the clicking noises, such as when a voice activated recorder starts and stops recording. Sounds like a case of industrial espionage, maybe your friend was working for one of his ex-employers competiters? If that's not the case, I don't see why someone would go to all the trouble to set something like this up. Legit story? I don't know. Technically possible? Yes.