Xref: utzoo sci.electronics:8283 rec.ham-radio:14185
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekcrl!tekgvs!jans
From: jans@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,rec.ham-radio
Subject: Re: Telephone privacy gadgets Add: Cryptography
Message-ID: <6191@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 19 Oct 89 17:48:03 GMT
Followup-To: sci.electronics
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.
Lines: 22

<On National Public Radio last week there was a story about baby monitors... 
The problem: Anyone with a radio scanner can hear just about every conversation 
in your house.>

Monitoring these is real interesting late at night, especially since so many 
babies sleep in their parent's rooms!  (Of course, this is what I've been told. 
 Being a mature adult, I have no need for such titilation.  :-)

Seriously, it's going to be tough to get manufacturers to add any cost at all 
in this price sensitive market.  I suspect encryption would double the price of 
a baby monitor.  The only hope I see is if a company *concentrates* on secure 
baby monitors, since in order to sell them at the higher price, they will have 
to explain why they are better than cheaper ones, which is an issue I imagine 
the baby-monitor industry would just as soon ignore.

The one that really upsets me is that the CMT lobby got EPCA pushed through 
congress to save a lousy $10 - $20 on a kilobuck device!

							   Jan Steinman - N7JDB
						  Electronic Systems Laboratory
					Box 500, MS 50-370, Beaverton, OR 97077
						(w)503/627-5881 (h)503/657-7703