Voice privacy?

On the vx-7000 what is the difference between enhanced and standard
settings? The manual does not say squat.

Gary wrote:
> On the vx-7000 what is the difference between enhanced and standard
> settings? The manual does not say squat.

Voice privacy is an encryption setting. Verizon doesn't support this
feature, so it doesn't really do anything.

FWIW, it's not exactly easy to eavesdrop on a CDMA digital call anyway,
so at least for now, encryption is useless. And if someone DOES have
the resources and assets in place to eavesdrop on your calls (and isn't
law enforcement), then it's very likely that having your calls listened
in on is the *least* of your worries.


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Isaiah Beard wrote:
> FWIW, it's not exactly easy to eavesdrop on a CDMA digital call anyway,
> so at least for now, encryption is useless.
More like practically impossible to eavesdrop. The signal from the phone
is scattered all over a 1.25MHz band, and the spreading pattern uses the
ESN of the phone as part of the algorithm, so it is essentially
impossible to *find* the signal, let alone decode it, from a given phone
among all the other traffic on the same frequency. The ESN itself is
never sent over the air. So "encryption" is sort of inherent in the
protocol. Law enforcement doesn't bother with intercepting the
on-the-air signal; they just get a court order for a tap on that phone
number in the wireless provider's network.

Isaiah Beard wrote:
> Gary wrote:
>
>> On the vx-7000 what is the difference between enhanced and standard
>> settings? The manual does not say squat.
>
>
> Voice privacy is an encryption setting. Verizon doesn't support this
> feature, so it doesn't really do anything.
>
> FWIW, it's not exactly easy to eavesdrop on a CDMA digital call anyway,
> so at least for now, encryption is useless. And if someone DOES have
> the resources and assets in place to eavesdrop on your calls (and isn't
> law enforcement), then it's very likely that having your calls listened
> in on is the *least* of your worries.

Verizon claims that they do indeed have enhanced encryption hence the
default setting?

Just out of curiosity, is GSM easier to eavesdrop?

"CharlesH" <hoch@exemplary.invalid> wrote in message
news:VYgZe.3744$Ba2.1418@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net...
> Isaiah Beard wrote:
>> FWIW, it's not exactly easy to eavesdrop on a CDMA digital call anyway,
>> so at least for now, encryption is useless.
> More like practically impossible to eavesdrop. The signal from the phone
> is scattered all over a 1.25MHz band, and the spreading pattern uses the
> ESN of the phone as part of the algorithm, so it is essentially impossible
> to *find* the signal, let alone decode it, from a given phone among all
> the other traffic on the same frequency. The ESN itself is never sent over
> the air. So "encryption" is sort of inherent in the protocol. Law
> enforcement doesn't bother with intercepting the on-the-air signal; they
> just get a court order for a tap on that phone number in the wireless
> provider's network.

J wrote:
> Just out of curiosity, is GSM easier to eavesdrop?

While plain GSM can be eavesdropped fairly easily with the appropriate
equipment, pretty much all of the GSM providers explicitly encrypt the
data these days. I don't know how "good" the encryption is.

CharlesH wrote:
> Isaiah Beard wrote:
>
>> FWIW, it's not exactly easy to eavesdrop on a CDMA digital call
>> anyway, so at least for now, encryption is useless.
>
> More like practically impossible to eavesdrop.

I wouldnt' go that far. The equipment exists, however it's incredibly
specialized, incredibly rare and incredibly expensive.

Even so, you're reasonably well protected against the casual
eavesdropper, and even someone who makes it their living to do this sort
of thing would be hard pressed to locate and "invest" in such a device.
And Law enforcement wouldn't even bother; all they need to do is
contact the compliance office of the carrier in question, and they have
a tap at the MTSO.



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J wrote:
> Just out of curiosity, is GSM easier to eavesdrop?

So far, it's been demonstrated that dialed digits can be decrypted in
real time, but mainly because dialed digits have a known pattern. Voice
conversations can in theory be deciphered, but it takes more time.

Even so, it's not something the average Joe could easily do. So for
practicaly purposes, this is "good enough."

The true goal of encryption isn't to keep something hidden forever; give
someone enough time and resources, and an algoriithm can be cracked.
However, an cipher has pretty much done its job if it has made the task
difficult enough that by the time the code IS cracked, the information
it was protecting is no longer relevant or timely enough to make the
effort worth it.


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