[mdlug] Curious - Phone Tapping Tech

[Michael Mol]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Robert Adkins II <radkins at impelind.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Robert Adkins II
>> <radkins at impelind.com> wrote:
>> > I am curious to know if phone tapping technology has
>> "caught up" with
>> > Holywood. In terms of being able to take a band and wrap it
>> around a
>> > bundle of phone lines and call that a tapped line.
>> >
>> > I'm curious, because everything that I know regarding this
>> technology
>> > requires that each individual line be physically
>> tapped/connected to
>> > in order to obtain anything.
>> >
>> > I'm talking about Plain Old Telephone Service. Nothing
>> fancy like IP
>> > based or similar.
>>
>> Oh, sure. When I was a kid, I could hear my parents'
>> telephone conversations by picking up the second phone line;
>> it's called crosstalk, and it's a form of accidental
>> inductive coupling.
>>
>> They've probably been making the accidental intentional since WWII.
>>
>> Doing the same thing with a *bundle* of cables would be a bit
>> tricker...but you could probably do a decent job filtering
>> crap out with enough signal processing. Filtering out DSL
>> frequencies to start, then finding any frequency band groups
>> that stop and start (as would happen with a human vocal
>> conversation), and locking in on those.
>> Eventually, you'd need to get a human involved to separate
>> out overlapping conversations.
>>
>> Though, no, I don't expect you could wrap around a bundle of
>> cables and hone in on a specific copper pair. It might be
>> easier just to get the circuit on the copper pair physically
>> closest to the one you're interested in. "Joe? Eavesdropper
>> on line two."
>
>
>  Yeah, that's what I was thinking, apparently this fella is dropping
> buzzwords like "Las Vegas Black Hat Convention". So, he's really
> "convincing". I'll have to ask him if he knows what 2600 is. I still don't
> know what his credentials are that make him an expert in the field or even
> knowledgeable about what he is talking about.

Have fun with it. Ask for a demo, with you providing the test case. If
he's trying to con you, he'll back out.

If he's not, either you or he will learn something...

-- 
:wq