SkyTel 2Way pagers DOWN all US

Wed May 20 15:23:20 UTC 1998

On Wed, May 20, 1998 at 02:44:42AM -0400, John Fraizer - Administrator wrote:
> >Interesting. Of course, we know from the OJ saga that Cellphones can be
> >located well enough to find a moving vehicle...
> 
> Anyone who thinks they can hide or have a private conversation for that
> matter and owns a cellular phone is sadly mistaken.  The fact of the matter
> is that it is possible to send commands to the phone from the MTSO and
> cause it to turn on the hands-free mic and transmit on channel xxx at a
> power level of yyy with a SAT tone of zzz.  It is then trivial to put one
> of the scanning receivers in each of the cell sites in the area surrounding
> the LKA of the phone into receive on that channel, voting S/N on the SAT
> tone to get the best audio from the best receiver and piping the audio to a
> test jack on the switch which has a recorder/speaker/whatever connected.
> 
> While we're at it, since we know you're on transmitting on channel XXX, it
> is trivial to DF you based on foreign-carrier-detect alarms alone within
> about 1000 yards.  Beyond that, anyone with the most antiquated DF
> equipment could find you in minutes.
> 
> Of course, I've never done this.  Especially not with an EMX-2500.  And
> most definitely not in Charlotte, NC while working for the B carrier there.
> 
> Still, very big-brotherish.

The fix for that is to turn the frigging phone OFF unless you're using it
for a conversation.  If you ARE using it for a conversation, treat it as a
party line on which you can be heard - because it is - unless your MTSO
supports encrypted transmission (some phones can do this - does ANY MTSO
support it?  I've yet to find one that does).

--
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