From: "Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger@lehman.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 93 20:09:35 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Escobar and Cellular Ph0n3z
In-Reply-To: <Qh0JBWi00VpDN1q0pY@andrew.cmu.edu>
Message-ID: <199312050405.XAA29292@snark.ts.lehman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Matthew J Ghio says:
> First of all, you can't make an encrypted cellular call so easily. 
> There do not yet exist many widely availiable systems which can compress
> digitized sound in real time to fit within the bandwidth limitations of
> cellular telephone technology or most wireline telephone channels. 

Untrue. There are many systems I can buy off the shelf from companies
like Cylink or Crypto AG. True, some of the systems are not widely
available outside the U.S. or Europe, but when you are smuggling
Cocaine by the planeload taking a few phones back with you on the
return trip seems perfectly feasable.

> We've been over this in our discussions of building secure telephones;
> it's not easy, and radio noise caused by cellular makes it even more
> difficult.

Its not easy because people have been lazy, not because it isn't
perfectly available. "Radio noise" on cellular isn't nearly so bad as
you make it out.

Perry