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- Newsgroups: sci.crypt
- Path: sparky!uunet!walter!qualcom.qualcomm.com!servo.qualcomm.com!karn
- From: karn@servo.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn)
- Subject: Re: Encrypted phones, keys, taps, ...
- Message-ID: <1992Nov10.172026.15136@qualcomm.com>
- Sender: news@qualcomm.com
- Nntp-Posting-Host: servo.qualcomm.com
- Organization: Qualcomm, Inc
- References: <gilchr.721309568@ee.ualberta.ca> <1992Nov9.181433.12025@shearson.com> <BxHn0t.MCL@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
- Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 17:20:26 GMT
- Lines: 32
-
- In article <BxHn0t.MCL@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> lcmyu@crypto2.uwaterloo.ca (Luis Ola Toshio Chi-Ming) writes:
- >Can someone tell me how these digitally encrypted phones provide
- >reasonable security in light of the following problem. Phones lines
- >can tolerate raw data rates of 9.6 kbps whereas voice requires
- >64 kbps. Let's say the CELP compression reduces the voice
- >requirement down to 9.6 kbps (voice becomes noticibly choppy thereafter).
-
- Actually, a common data rate for CELP is 8 kbps. This is the rate used
- in the TDMA digital cellular system, and it is also the peak rate of
- the vocoder in our CDMA system. Our vocoder also supports three lower
- speeds (1000, 2000 and 4000 bps) with the rate changing dynamically
- with voice activity. This would let you multiplex other things (e.g.,
- data) with vocoder data, using pauses in speech to full effect. In
- overload situations the vocoder can be told to run at a lower average
- rate with a slight degradation in quality.
-
- Error correction is not really an issue. We have a few bits in each
- frame devoted to a CRC on the most important bits, but voice is so
- redundant that you can withstand a fairly high frame error rate
- (several percent) before the quality degrades unacceptably. Voice is
- very redundant.
-
- >this would imply blocks of duration 6 seconds. An uncorrected channal bit
- >error would result in white noise for 6 seconds.
-
- I don't know where you get this figure. Our vocoder operates on 20
- millisecond frames. Lose a frame and you lose audio for 20
- milliseconds. All processing is done on a frame-by-frame basis, and if
- you wanted to add cryptography it too could be done separately on each
- frame.
-
- Phil
-