Path: utzoo!utgpu!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CUVMA!SWL-L Date: Thu, 11 Jan 90 13:04:06 EST Reply-To: Joel B Levin Sender: Short Wave Listener's List Comments: Warning -- original Sender: tag was From: Joel B Levin Subject: Re: Cordless Telephones & Court Ruling X-To: swl-l@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: UofToronto LAN redistribution Message-ID: <90Jan11.131641est.58575@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> Newsgroups: bitnet.swl-l Distribution: ut Approved: devnull@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu In article <37761@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: |mn@atari.UUCP (Mike Nowicki) writes: |> I know cordless phone are probably defined by the court to mean those |>phones with an antenna that work with a base unit. Cordless, wireless... |> But aren't cellular phones cordless as well? |Yes and no. 'Cordless phones' and 'Cellular phones' are two services of |phones that are really defined by the frequencies they use. 'Cellular' |phones are cordless, but don't use the frequencies allocated to cordless |systems. They're defined by a lot more than that. The normal cordless phone is an extension (via a public medium) of your personal private interface to the phone system. A cellular or old-style mobile telephone is your access by radio, the same public medium, to a public base station shared by other subscribers. And your cellular phone has a lot of smarts and fancier two way control protocols. The important thing about cordless (and cellular) is that they are essentially two way radios using a public resource designated by law as a public resource or whatever the phrase is. They are not extension phones with extra convenience. The user of this device should be made aware of this fact so he or she can exercise responsibility for the security his or her communications require. I got frosted enough listening to an All Things Considered interview with Alan Dershowitz (with whom I frequently agree) that I wrote them a letter about it. Of course, the court case dealt specifically with the question of the acceptability of evidence derived from cordless phone transmission, but the "expectation of privacy" a user of a telephone may have does not in my opinion apply to the user of a two way radio. /JBL Nets: levin@bbn.com | "There were sweetheart roses on Yancey Wilmerding's or {...}!bbn!levin | bureau that morning. Wide-eyed and distraught, she POTS: (617)873-3463 | stood with all her faculties rooted to the floor."