Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: nvuxr!deej@bellcore.bellcore.com (David Lewis) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Two apartments on one telephone line Message-ID: Date: 30 Jun 89 15:04:01 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Bell Communications Research Lines: 32 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 220, message 10 of 10 In article , lloyd!kent@husc6.harvard. edu (Kent Borg) writes: ] >I might add this is how the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA ] >also listen to you (assuming authorized taps, of course). When telco is ] >served with a court order to apply a tap to your line, they tie another ] >pair on your line in the office and send it through a coil and off to the ] >FBI. **And they charge both YOU and the FBI for the price of the line!!** ] Is it really done that way with modern electronic switches? ] If so, does this mean that the electronically inclined and paranoid ] among us might be able to keep track of when we are being bugged by ] measuring the impedence and capacitance of our lines? Actually, it's already been done. ] Maybe Sharper Image will start selling a box to watch your line and ] tell you when its electrical properties change in a suspicious way? I don't know if Sharper Image sells them, but there are any number of "security consulting" firms which do. They include boxes which sit beside/beneath the phone to a replacement microphone for a 2500 set which has a little LED that lights up if the characteristics of the line change... -- David G Lewis ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower."