[127] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Ireland: Bid To Ban "Tamper Proof" Phones
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mani)
Sun Feb 2 16:36:04 1997
Date: Sun, 02 Feb 1997 14:32:27 +0000
To: dc-stuff@dis.org
From: Mani <mani@gateweb.co.uk>
Cc: aaa-list@access.org.uk, krypto@rhein-main.de, efi-talk@efi.ie,
cryptography@c2.net
>From today's Sunday Independent:
Bid to ban "tamper proof" telephones.
Liz Allen, Crime Correspondent
The Department of Justice will this week host an international conference
aimed at banning the manufacture of telephone systems that cannot be easily
intercepted.
Representatives of 22 countries will attend for three days at Dublin Castle
next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
At present not all telephones can be easily tapped. Mobile telephones on the
GSM network (they have 087) prefixes) are particularly hard to intercept.
Justice Minister Nora Owen is presiding over the conference which will agree
on a memorandum of understanding whereby all of the 22 governments will
agree to allow the sale of only telephones which can be intercepted. The
highlight of the conference will be a dinner at the Royal Hospital
Kilmainham on Tuesday night.
Security sources say that the move is designed "for the investigation of
serious crime where all other means have failed to produce required
results". Among the countries which will be in attendance at the conference
are America, Australia, Hong Kong, and Britain.
At any one time in Ireland, just under 20 telephone taps are operated by
gardai [Irish Police], the source added. "There seems to be a view that
hundreds of people are being tapped and that is not the case. It's a very
expensive and private procedure and if it was abused it would lose its value
and its secrecy", he said.
-------------------------------------------------
It seems strange how this mentions the sale of phones and not the import or
use. This needs to be clarified methinks. If it's legal to bring voice
crypto devices into the country I for one will be coming back with a bag of
them every time I go abroad. Anyone feel like sending lots of crypto kit
into Ireland before the law passes (a few stu-III's would be nice) ?
Actually if this is what they put into law it won't ban crypto devices at
all, just crypto-enabled phones, so something on the wire, or external to
the phone would be ok. Probably just a matter of time before we lose strong
crypto too....
More details to follow as I get them.
Mani
mani@gateweb.co.uk
