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From: pge!speedo!dag@uunet.uu.net (Alex Darren Griffiths)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Dr. Stoll's Secure Phone Calls
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Date: 14 Jan 91 21:38:29 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 39, Message 8 of 9


In article <72160@bu.edu.bu.edu> roeber@cithe1.cithep.caltech.edu
(Frederick Roeber) writes:

>A friend of mine, who does military security work, said this is the
>result of calling a non-secure phone from the government's secure
>phone system and trying to initiate a secure call.  When making a
>secure call on this system, one first makes an ordinary phone call --
>over any network, FTS, AT&T, or whoever.  When the other end has been
>reached, one presses the `secure' button.

I worked in the office next to Cliff at Lawrence Berkeley Labs for a
year or so, including part of the time documented in the book "The
Cookoo's Egg".  While Lawrence Livermore Labs is crawling with spooks,
special phones and phone networks I can assure you that nothing like
that existed at LBL.  Both Cliff and I simply had the standard PacBell
phones everyone at the lab was issued and the standard government
issue FTS lines.  The FTS lines were publicised as a cost saving
measure for calls between labs, we certainly didn't know of any
encryption on the lines and neither of us had anything like a secure
button, in fact the only security we had came from shutting the office
door when talking to our girlfriends (I, for one, didn't care who
listened when speaking to slimy spooks and I don't believe Cliff did
either).  

I suspect that any calls back to the lab were made so the spooks could
be sure of the person they were talking to.  They already had Cliff's
number and it's unlikely someone would sneek into his office and
pretend to be him, although considering the security at LBL it would
not be to difficult.

After Cliff left the lab for a year or so I did here that there was a
"special" phone somewhere, but I've no idea where it is at the lab or
what makes it special.

Cheers,

darren griffiths
dag%speedo%pgne@uunet.uu.net  (I know the address is gross but I only 
design networks now, I don't run them, thank god, so don't blame me.)