Bad Sector's Report on LINE TAPPING IN AUSTRALIA Federal police currently have the power to tap your phone lines given a proper warrant to do so. These taps are generally put in at the exchange than at a person's premises. The only way to detect one used to be to check for a voltage drop on the line, however with bugs that use a form of induction coil this may well be impossible to do anymore. Now state police in Australia such as the CIB etc. are attempting to have the law changed to allow them to tap into private lines. As hackers/phreaks etc. we have a vested interest in protecting our conversations over our home or friend's phone lines. However, this is also an example of our rapidly eroding civil rights, I urge you each to circulate this document and to send the following pre-written letter to your state Minister for Police and to the Police Commissioner. Over here in W.A. for instance, Ripmax (a previously busted hack/phreak) is believed to still have taps installed on his lines, when it's well known in the hack/phreak community that he is not involved in any illegal activity. Now do the feds/telco/cops have a warrant to listen into and possibly trace every call he makes, on the mere SUSPICION that he is involved in something illegal, with no basis in fact? If you believe your lines are bugged it may be worth the effort ringing the law courts and demanding to know whether someone is listening in, this is of course only if you feel you have nothing to hide :-) What does a tap look like? Well it can be a number of different styles of bug but they all have similar elements. _ Exchange _ | |------------------X-+ +-----------------| | home/office | | Friend | +------------------+ |_| | [] induction coil | or a splice | into circuit. | +---+ | | Circuitry +---+ | | +-----+ | _ | Voice activated tape recorder. | O O | +-----+ Electronic Bugging: With the new exchanges coming along I'm sure that they will able to bug with ease. Some electronic PBXs for example, sample digitally a few seconds of speech or data that is repeated onto the other line. With flash RAM the PBX acts as a form of multiplexer, taking huge amounts of data and sharing the electronic resources to service all lines. There's no reason why an exchange couldn't do just this and a bug would be absolutely UNDETECTABLE. This method I believe may be used on new AEX exchanges although there's not a lot of readily available information on Telecom's AEXs and most information is well out of date. (For a reason) Tapes: Tapes must be swapped periodically at the exchange, they tend to last a long time as the bug is voice activated, but eventually they have to be swapped over and taken away, where if the evidence is considered incriminating it will be typed up into transcripts for use against you in court! Power: Power for the bug may be from the phone line itself, which has roughly 50volts under normal operation I believe (quite a bit hey?) but I'm sure this method is archaic and undesirable as it is fairly easy to detect. (Voltage drop/ noisy lines/ clicking etc) The bug probably has some sizable capacitors it uses to charge up off the phone line. The bug may run on batteries, so if you hear wierd changes in your line frequently it may well be the batteries are being replaced. This type of bug will generally never be put in at an exchange, it's to much trouble to maintain. A separate filtered power source is what I suspect is used. This way the bug won't affect the line as much through voltage drop etc. This filtered power source will probably be a UPS battery backed up system at the exchange which could service hundreds possibly thousands of bugs. Connector: The bug may be connected in a couple of ways, it will either have leads coming off the line at the exchange that are spliced directly into the circuitry. Another method that has been discovered was a CIA method that involves a very sensitive induction coil that is placed around the line itself, this can be used anywhere along the line, so it's not exchange dependant, it's effectiveness in unknown, but if it's good enough for the CIA then it must work well. An induction coil would cause little if no interferenc/voltage drop. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now there are some important things to consider, if your dial tone or ring sounds unusual then it's possible that the tap is drawing some voltage off the line, you may notice this when the tap is first installed, but beware you may get used to the new line and not notice anything unusual. This may seem obvious but if your line goes dead for an hour one day or you hear someone talking over your line when you lift the receiver it's possible that you have overheard them actually installing the bug! This will probably happen in business hours, if you have just had a new line put in and you suspect you are being bugged then listen periodically on that line when its first activated, because a new bug may be put on it during it's first hours of operation! eg. "Hey Bob! Is the bug working ok??" Clicking on the line, this used to be common with some bugs but the new generation of bugs are practically transparent. Lift your reciever, wait for the dial tone to drop to the engaged signal, wait for about 15 more seconds, you may hear a click then a slightly different engaged signal kick in. Now I'm no expert but this seems unusual and may be a bug. Extra noise on a voice line when you hook a modem up can point to a bug interferring with the voltage of the line or putting out some of it's own electronic noise. Print and post this letter, defend your rights!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear ___________ State Minister for Police / Police Commissioner After hearing of the changes proposed by the local police authorities to allow them to eavesdrop on private phone conversations, which was previously the domain of the Federal Police only, I was alarmed that I probably wouldn't be consulted as a citizen as to my view of these changes. I feel that my business and personal dealings will be compomised if a member of the police department can obtain permission to bug my home/office line, and I will strongly oppose any changes in this area. The police department has a poor record in regard to corruption/misconduct and I feel that certain people within the police force may abuse these new powers if implemented. I believe that phone tapping should be restricted as much as possible to enable it to be regulated correctly. If these new powers are approved I will do everything in my power to have these decisions reversed. We are also currently considering a lobby for privacy in regard to the new technologies now available. ie. Fax machines / mobile phones / computers. Signed ______________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send a lot of these in signed in different coloured pen and with different names, even fax them there, and the government WILL change it's mind! Acronyms in this document: AEX - Automated Electronic eXchange PBX - Private Branch Exchange Thanks for checking out another document from DS2!