From: Forrest Aldrich <visgraph!forrie>
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 20:46:04 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: PHONE PRIVACY
Message-ID: <199310090152.AA01311@visgraph.uucp>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Through e-mail, charliemerritt@BIX.com writes:
| 
| > A 1-900 number to ensure non-tracibility. Does anyone have this number?
| 
| I would not trust this for hiding from law enforcement.
[ ... ]

	I wouldn't either.  Anybody with a bit of sense shouldn't trust
	something like that.  If anything, it's likely a setup to
	attract certain types of callers anyways.

| If not law enforcement, then who do you need this to hide from?
| You can use a pay fone to fool caller-id boxes.  Well, I guess
| they dont hide the city.
[ ... ]

	Well, let's not assume someone wants to hide, but what about
	assuring the privacy of the phone call?  Afterall, this is
	what we use PGP for: for email privacy... though there has
	been speculation about just how secure this is.

	I correspond with people all over the world.  If the government
	is keeping a tab on people that correspond and is watching their
	email, then they must know me pretty well.  They can't be
	too concerned that I'm using PGP to correspond with someone
	in Moscow.  It's been over a year, and noone's came knocking
	on my door.  ;)

	Back to the subject:  

	What about phone privacy?  In this day and age, how can we
	absolutely guarantee a private phone call?  Even if we are
	using voice-encryption tech, the call can still be traced.  
	I think even more quickly than we are lead to believe.  For
	example, I never bought the notion that they had to keep
	the call on for a certain amount of time before an actual
	trace could be performed. Maybe in the stone-age of Ma Bell,
	but not today.  I suppose if one were able to use a setup
	like a remailer only on a phone network, whereby you got
	your call forwarded through different places to prevent a
	trace (doubt that's reasonably accomplished), it might make
	the trace a bit more difficult.

	There doesn't appear to be anything even cryptographically
	that we can do other than encrypting the voice and selectively
	using pay fones.  It would be neat if there were some way to
	interfere with Ma Bell's computer, in a non-destructive way,
	to alter what information they get when we dial out.  For instance,