Overview of Lawful Interception systems

This article on (ISC)2 provides a short overview of the architecture Lawful Interception systems. It’s short and only touches the basics.

Swedish Parliament to vote on wiretap law

The Swedish Parliament is voting on June 17th on the new wiretap law that will give the national and militairy intelligence services far ranging powers to investigate all communications entering or leaving Sweden. For Sweden that’s a rather radical thing, I guess. The same powers are available to the USA and UK intelligence agencies.

Is it a big deal?

Timbro according to the article says it is. But they fail to mention it on their site as “news and views” (at least in the English site, my Swedish is too bad to be able to be sure that they didn’t mention it at all). Fact is that this is the way to world is heading in general. I don’t like that too much. An investigation without probable cause is not something that should be done lightly. However, the argument “this goverment is quite ok, but the next may not be” is bogus. If the next government is bad, it will get the powers anyway, but then you won’t know it probably. Or you will if it’s too late. I think the genie got from the bottle a long time ago, too long ago to actually make a difference. Because it’ll end up like: they (use a broad concept of they) know all my secrets because they’re doing it, so why shouldn’t we be doing it?

It’s going to be interesting which way the vote will go. Apparently, the change is mostly that the powers were described as ‘all military interests’ are now ‘all interests’. I wasn’t able to find any documentation, yet, on how the parliament thinks on this issue.

GSM A5/1 cracking

Well, it’s finally happened. The encryption standard for GSM communications is really broken. I myself cannot wait until there is a paper released which describes the inner workings of the attack. But, it is true, it will put a very powerful capability in a lot of hands. It’s very questionable if we really want that.

3GPP (UMTS) is using A5/3, which is not currently mentioned in all the articles. Calling via UMTS is safe(r) then?

From the blackhat introduction:

11. Presentation Title: Build your own GSM interceptor for $900

Presentation Details:

This presentation is an introduction to the GSM Scanner Project. I will will present the hardware and software required to build your own GSM interceptor. I will explain how the protocol works and how to intercept GSM packets. I will show some example packets that should make us worried worried. I will then explain weaknesses in A5/1 and discuss some ideas of how to (practicaly) crack A5/1. The last part of the presentation focuses on various ideas of what else you can do with a GSM interceptor.

This presentation will open the eyes of the audience who still believe that GSM is secure. It will spark some ideas of future attack and research on the GSM network. It will explain how to use hardware for 900 USD to build your own GSM receiver. The goal of the talk is to make the audience never again make a gsm phone call without beeing worried that 3 other people are listening in and to give new ideas on how to attack a gsm network.

Wiretap laws in the USA

The Bush administration has created some stopgap legislation that enables the NSA to basically wiretap just about anyone anytime. Well, as a European, we’re used to that. But now the US citizens are also under surveillance, which is a bad thing.

Enter the new RESTORE act, and SecurityFocus wrote an article on the matter.

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Technorati Tags: Lawful Interception

Tapping Gigabit Ethernet (Copper)

LoveMyTool has an insightful article (and also some promo material) on the subject of wiretapping an ethernet cable and how to do it. For some who have not read the entire IEEE 802.3 specification it is good to notice that the solution you were using for tapping 100Mbit may not be suitable for 1000Mbit.

Technorati Tags: Forensics, Lawful Interception, Security

State Secrets?

This article gives me the willies on the subject of the whole FISA revisioning.

McConnell described the hectic week of negotiations that led up to the passage of this month’s FISA legislation, and he denied charges that he had negotiated in bad faith. Several versions of the legislation were circulated on Capitol Hill in the last week before the August recess, and McConnell said he didn’t have time to review the Senate’s latest draft until Friday evening. At that point, he found provisions he considered unacceptable and insisted that the Senate pass a different version that had first circulated two days earlier. The Senate passed McConnell’s preferred version and adjourned, forcing the House to either pass the Senate’s language or no language at all.

Point&Click wiretaps

Documents recently declassified under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that the FBI has constructed a point-and-click surveillance system capable of instantaneously tapping into almost any communications device. The Digital Collection System Network (DCSNet) links FBI wiretapping stations to switches run by landline operators, Internet-telephony providers, and cellular companies. The system consists of software that captures, filters, and stores phone numbers, calls, and text messages, and directly connects FBI wiretapping rooms throughout the nation to a wide-ranging private communications network. The outposts are connected via a private, encrypted backbone that is independent of the Internet and is run by Sprint for the government. Telecoms’ installation of telephone-switching gear that meets wiretapping standards was mandated in 1994 with the passage of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), thus giving the FBI the ability to log directly into the telecom’s network. CALEA’s coverage was recently extended to require broadband ISPs and certain VoIP companies to enable their networks for federal wiretapping. Since telecoms became more wiretap-friendly, the volume of criminal wiretaps rose 60 percent from 1,150 to 1,839 in the past 10 years, and in 2005 92 percent of those wiretaps targeted cell phones, according to a 2006 report. CALEA wiretaps and the processing of all calls collected by DCSNet have racked up substantial costs, and security experts are worried that the system introduces new vulnerabilities to the telecommunications network. The declassified documents point to numerous flaws in DCSNet that Columbia University computer science professor Steven Bellovin finds appalling, especially because they indicate the FBI is ignorant of inside threats. “The underlying problem isn’t so much the weaknesses here, as the FBI attitude towards security,” he says.
Click here to View the Full Article
Thanx to the ACM TechNews.

Technorati Tags: Lawful Interception, Security

Police Phone Taps Stolen

The Independent reports that ‘a server’ was stolen from a private firm.

Police chiefs have launched a major investigation after the theft of a computer database containing thousands of top-secret mobile phone records from terrorism and organised crime investigations.

One of the worrying points (to me) is that the server was operated by a private firm. If the data was indeed top-secret, why was a private firm operating it?

But, to be able to walk out of a facility which is supposed to safeguard top-secret data, is a good enough reason to evaluate some decisions…

Technorati Tags: Forensics, Lawful Interception, Security