From: smb@research.att.com
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 94 11:06:34 PST
To: "Philippe Nave" <pdn@dwroll.dw.att.com>
Subject: Re: Crypto not being used where needed
Message-ID: <9401101905.AA27994@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


	 Although I sincerely agree that the data should be encrypted,
	 is it really that easy to intercept cellular phone calls? I
	 thought you had to go to considerably more effort than
	 programming a scanner to pick up these transmissions - I don't
	 know much about cellular phones, but I thought they hopped
	 frequencies and so forth such that it was a real pain to
	 listen in.

Yes, it's really easy to monitor cellular calls.  They only hop
frequencies when you move between cells -- and most cop calls will be
within a single cell, simply because most of the queries happen *after*
they've pulled someone over.

Things will change somewhat with the so-called personal communicators,
since they'll use much smaller cells -- but the basic problem is still
the same.