Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: MCMAHON%GRIN1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (McMahon,Brian D) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: What are Secure Lines? Message-ID: <16244@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 21 Jan 91 17:11:34 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 43 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 43, Message 3 of 12 (Here's hoping the list hasn't gotten tired of this thread yet... :-) Nigel Allen writes: >I remember seeing a conventional 500-type set at a military base in >Halifax with a warning sticker saying "This line is not secure". Which reminds me -- again -- of another Munich experience. My folks are over there with the University of Maryland's Munich Campus, set up for the college-age dependents of U.S. overseas personnel. UMMC is located right on the base, McGraw Kaserne (due to close eventually). I recall several years ago, working my usual summer job on the Maryland switchboard, when the fourth and fifth floors of the building were taken over for an exercise. I think it was called "Carriage Trader," or something like that, and involved setting up a Corps-level HQ and operations center. This was serious stuff -- armed MPs barring access past the third floor, a cluster of radio trucks parked outside surrounded by rolls of razor-wire, the works. The telecom angle on all of this is that the MPs weren't there for the first phases of set-up, and I could wander around a bit on my lunch hour. The commo technicians were stringing wire and setting up phones all over the place. The phones looked like the old, rotary dial, standard black military phones (as far as I could tell), but had little blue labels on them saying "SECURE". I presume they either tapped into T.S. common gear in the trucks, or ran next door to the Military Intelligence headquarters. I guess they could spare a line or two. :-) (I did also wonder just how "secure" a phone could be if I could get at it unsupervised, but that's another matter...) It's doubtful the building itself contained much in the way of secure wiring. For one thing, you had us damn civilians running around all over the place. Also, some of the switch boxes still had "REICHSPOST" stamped on them. :-) The Maryland switchboard was only marginally better, all electromechanical stuff from DTN (Deutsche Telefon und Normalzeit). By counting clicks, I could tell what numbers people were dialing on outgoing calls -- sounded like a gigantic popcorn popper. Ah, those were the days. Brian McMahon Grinnell College Computer Services Grinnell, Iowa 50112 USA Voice: +1 515 269 4901 Fax: +1 515 269 4936