Pager "security"
Peter Morgan
Heard on BBC R4's "PM" programme on Wednesday:-
BBC journalists were made aware (via the Internet)
of "apparently" easy interception of messages being
sent to pagers, with phone numbers and various other
details (including the movements of Tony Blair while
at the party conference) were forwarded to them.
A spokesman for "Page One Communications" expressed
concern, and indicated that new technologoies will
be introduced, and digital models will be brought in.
Presumably there will be some impact on sales/shares
until new models are available, so you can start
ditching your existing pagers now, chaps !!
Peter (no pager myself, nor any plans for one!)
gARetH baBB
In article <199610030...@zetnet.co.uk>,
peter....@zetnet.co.uk (Peter Morgan) wrote:
> A spokesman for "Page One Communications" expressed
> concern, and indicated that new technologoies will
> be introduced, and digital models will be brought in.
Erm, how do you get pagers more digital than they already are !?
The only thing they could do is add some form of encryption.
Darren Meldrum
hi...@pobox.co.uk (gARetH baBB) wrote:
>Erm, how do you get pagers more digital than they already are !?
>
>The only thing they could do is add some form of encryption.
How do pagers work at present?
Do they all work to the same standards?
--
Darren Meldrum (mel...@dial.pipex.com)
"All's well that ends well - that's what I say"
George
In article <19961003....@pobox.co.uk>
hi...@pobox.co.uk "gARetH baBB" writes:
> Erm, how do you get pagers more digital than they already are !?
That was just whoeveritwas on radio 4 being a bit dense, wasn't a
bad plug for What Cellpho^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hreport all things
considered.
> The only thing they could do is add some form of encryption.
POCSAG is a *bit* on the old side now, there are much fancier
protcols around - there's some info (at least on the Motorola
ones!) at www.mot.com.
--
George
http://www.dustbin.demon.co.uk/
gARetH baBB
In article <32613776...@newnews.dial.pipex.com>,
mel...@dial.pipex.com (Darren Meldrum) wrote:
> How do pagers work at present?
1200 (or 2400) baud FSK on various FM channels.
Barry Perfect
Jonathan Hunter <mchu...@fs2.ee.umist.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Do they all work to the same standards?
>
>No, just like all modems don't work to the same standards. (Although in
>the modem world, they are at least backwards-compatible (mostly!))
>
>Different pagers work on different radio frequencies, and use different
>(if any) encoding mechanisms.
>
At this moment in time there are only two standards working on UK
national paging networks, that is POCSAG and GOLAY (although there are
only a few GOLAY pagers around still).
There are likely to be two new standards being introduced in the next
year or two, ERMES (European Messaging System) and FLEX (which is a
Motorola protocol).
A lot less standards than Modems I think?
Yes they all use different frequencies at the moment, but ERMES will
have a single set of frequencies used throughout Europe as per GSM/PCN
Mobile Phones.
Hope this helps.
Just thought I would mention that I don't believe any Paging Company
has ever said that paging was secure and what was so called "revealed"
on that News Article has been possible for the last 15-20 years, if
you wanted to buy a POCSAG decoder from a commercial company that
sells them (this is not illegal I believe, and paging companies all
use them to test their systems).
Just because someone has put the software that goes with the decoder
on a Web Page, it becomes hot news, because "Internet" news is a best
seller at the moment?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Barry Perfect (UK)
E-Mail: bar...@dial.pipex.com
Paging Software Page : http://ds.dial.pipex.com/barryp/pagesoft.htm
jpl
hi...@pobox.co.uk (gARetH baBB) wrote:
Is it really as crude as that???,,wow,no wonder they get hacked..
Richard Lambley
In article <32590044...@news.dial.pipex.com>, Barry Perfect
<URL:mailto:bar...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>
> There are likely to be two new standards being introduced in the next
> year or two, ERMES (European Messaging System) and FLEX (which is a
> Motorola protocol).
In May, the DTI offered Ermes licences to seven companies -- BT Mobile,
Mercury Paging (since transmuted into Page One Communications), Hutchison,
Vodapage, London Pager, Paging Network (UK) and Message Communications. But
I haven't heard further on the subject from any of them.
Philips has effectively dropped APOC, having recently settled a
cross-licensing deal with Motorola which gives it access to Flex. However,
it seems unlikely that we shall see Flex in Europe on public paging networks
unless ETSI suddenly decides to approve it.
BTW, re the observations earlier on encryption, I gather that the Newspager
technology licensed to Hutchison Paging (for its financial and, er, news
pagers) has a form of encryption by virtue of the data compression which is
part of the format. This is claimed to achieve a compression ratio of up to
40:1 on some types of data.
Richard
--
__ _ __
L A N D / / (_) / = Richard Lambley Land Mobile magazine =
__ _ ___ / / __/ /__ 200MHz StrongARM powered * Redhill, Surrey
/ ' \/ _ \/ _ \/ / / -_) Tel. +44 1737 771877; fax +44 1737 773347
/_/_/_/\___/_.__/_/_/\__/ ** Wireless communications for business **
gARetH baBB
In article <539fnd$s...@news.enterprise.net>,
joe...@enterprise.net (jpl) wrote:
> >1200 (or 2400) baud FSK on various FM channels.
> Is it really as crude as that???,,wow,no wonder they get hacked..
What do you expect, it's not meant for sending state secrets.
jpl
hi...@pobox.co.uk (gARetH baBB) wrote:
Yes indeed,,but,,i suspect that the general public would expect that
their mobile phone calls and pager messages would be as safe as
landline calls since they probably don't even consider or understand
the technology involved. I remember a few years back ,Granada TV news
in Manchester went for a lunchtime stroll in the city and button holed
anyone they saw using a mobile phone. Then then asked them whether
they new that their phone conversations were'nt private,,predictably
perhaps,most were horrified,as were the mobile phone companies as they
stood by for a surge of complaints and cancelled contracts. Of course
i was aware that a pager wa a radio device but i would have thought
that as only data was being transmitted as opposed to voice,some kind
of encyption would have been utilised..
Kevin Holley
joe...@enterprise.net (jpl) wrote:
>i was aware that a pager wa a radio device but i would have thought
>that as only data was being transmitted as opposed to voice,some kind
>of encyption would have been utilised..
But pagers are easy and cheap to make. And the design to make them is
freely available. Therefore it is not easy to invent any encryption
which is not easily hacked.
--
Kevin Holley <ke...@parsley.demon.co.uk>
http://www.parsley.demon.co.uk (SMS information/software)
A.D.B.Monro
In article <53k47b$r...@news.enterprise.net> joe...@enterprise.net (jpl) writes:
hi...@pobox.co.uk (gARetH baBB) wrote:
>In article <539fnd$s...@news.enterprise.net>,
> joe...@enterprise.net (jpl) wrote:
>> >1200 (or 2400) baud FSK on various FM channels.
>> Is it really as crude as that???,,wow,no wonder they get hacked..
>What do you expect, it's not meant for sending state secrets.
Yes indeed,,but,,i suspect that the general public would expect that
their mobile phone calls and pager messages would be as safe as
landline calls since they probably don't even consider or understand
the technology involved.
Mobile phone calls and pager messages are more secure than landline calls.
Intercepting radio channels requires some kind of radio receiver, not
just some wire and an earphone. And with a radio channel, it's a lot
harder to tell WHOSE communications are being eavesdropped.
Alex
--
Alex Monro Tel: +44 (0)1392-264100 Who is General
Physics Dept. Electronics Workshop Fax: +44 (0)1392-264111 Protection and
University of Exeter email: al...@pobox.com what's wrong
Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QL Note New email address with him anyway?
J Martin
adbm...@cen.ex.ac.uk (A.D.B.Monro) wrote:
>Mobile phone calls and pager messages are more secure than landline calls.
>Intercepting radio channels requires some kind of radio receiver, not
>just some wire and an earphone. And with a radio channel, it's a lot
>harder to tell WHOSE communications are being eavesdropped.
voice? Is the whole connection between the handset and the base
station encrypted (after call setup) or just the voice stream?
--
John
jwrm...@iee.org
SMS: +44468996100
A.D.B.Monro
IIRC, all data between the MS and BTS over the Um (radio channel) is
encrypted in GSM, as long as the network implements encryption. This
includes call setup data, SMS, location updates, and calls. Even
if it doesn't, it's really messy trying to unscramble the convolution
coding, even if there was a scanner that could separate out the channels
from the TDM timeslots.
BTW, I don't think the GSM encryption algorithms (A5 & A8) are public
key, I think they use secret key pairs, one stored in the SIM and the
other in the network's Authentication Centre.
But others probably know more about this than I do. Kevin? PaulW?