private line magazine and e-zine back issue text archive. Caution when using any material here which is now very much dated.

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Volume 1, Number 2 -- private line -- a journal of inquiry into the telephone system

Common channel signaling

27. A system that utilizes links, data circuits and trunks together is called common channel signaling. CCS is poorly named. Signaling and conversations are not placed on a common channel. Putting the call on one path and the signals that control the call on another is a part of C6 and C7, the signaling system currently handles most calls.

28. C5 controls trunks with tones. These tones are different than MF but the principle is the same: controlling equipment from a distance with the right signal. C5 carries control codes and conversations together. This was standard practice until the digital age. C5 requires a tone decoder for each trunk. An analog office with 100 trunks needs 100 decoders. They are not cheap. C6 and C7 doesn't need tones to control trunks. Most common channel signaling uses something like a Signal Transfer Point or STPs instead. These are routing computers distributed about the network. STPs direct each call to a toll office. Hundreds and hundreds of multiplexed calls are individually managed through these computers.

29. Routing and other features are enabled by the digitally encoded markers that are put on each call. Among other things, these headers identify the origin of a call and its destination. Data bases can be queried automatically while a call is placed. An operator knows that you are calling from a Telco payphone as soon as you are connected to them. They may even know that you are using an airport pay phone. Automated coin toll service or ACTS, the automated operator you get with a 1+call, is also made possible by accessing these line information data bases or LIBDs. (10)

30. MF controlled trunks still exist for a great deal of operator traffic and perhaps to as many as twenty five per cent of America's central offices. (11) Many still use single frequency tones like 2600. Such a tone might gain control of the trunk or seize it. Remember, though, you are seizing a particular channel in a cable, not the entire cable. A sweep generator at one end may be one way to test for a MF trunk from a pay phone.(12) These system 5 trunks have to interface with system 6 and 7 at some point for long distance calling. Don't think that remote signaling is impossible because your area has gone digital in the form of 6 and 7. Yes, your call to Ryde, California may be split up when sent from your area but both voice and control signals must reunited on one path when getting to the analog office. As long as you have a voice path to an old crossbar or step by step you may be in luck. Here is an example of how convoluted this can be.

31. Most common channel signaling methods give you a local busy signal if a distant phone is busy. Let's say that you dial Gabbs, Nevada. CCS races ahead to see if the line is busy before a voice connection is set up. If it is busy then the data link is brought down and your CO is told to generate a busy signal for you to hear. No need to provide a 600 mile path for you to hear a busy signal. The old Bell System method was called CCIS or common channel interoffice signaling. It used 2400 baud modems to pass information back and forth. Specialized modems still send the routing information back and forth. Let's say, though, that the central office in Gabbs isn't equipped to handle system 6 or 7. Like much of the rural west. What then?

32. It's my understanding that the nearest properly equipped toll office would stand as the interface point. A pay phone call from Gabbs to Sacramento might go something like this: the pay phone would communicate with the central office using DC signals, the CO might communicate with the toll office by tones and the toll office would communicate with the network by digital signals. The STP might send the voice path from the toll office to Reno and then Sacramento. Or maybe to Bakersfield and then back to Sacramento. Depends on the traffic on the net. The STP might be in Fresno. Still, a home brewed tone should be faithfully reproduced over the network to the tone sensitive area you are investigating. To do whatever it may.

References

1. Might it be possible for the skillful hacker to use such a circuit? An older central office that still uses tone signaling for trunks might provide a stepping stone for the telephone enthusiast. A call placed here might attract less attention than an 800 number. I invite comments and speculation.

2. Schillo, Robert F. "A Circuit That Stretches Coin Telephone Service' "Bell Laboratories Record." 51:4 (April 1973) 123

3. Billsf mentions black boxes in "True Colors" 2600, The Hacker Quarterly. 10:3 (Autumn 1993) 11. Black boxing seems impossible today but I am open to hearing about how it could done. Still, what would be gained if you were successful? A local call? Physical control of a Telco pay phone is either complicated or impossible. They are usually in public view and subject to surveillance by the Telco. It seems that an ordinary subscriber line would be a better choice for reinventing. I have read, though, of people using pay phone lines to carry their local calls by wiring in part of a cordless phone. You would need to be fairly close and willing to be dropped out whenever someone made a call. . .

4. Touch Tones and DTMF stand for the same thing. They are both dual tone multi-frequency signals. The phrase TOUCH TONES was a trademark of the Bell System. They did pioneering work on tone signaling through Bell Laboratories. Do not confuse them with MF tones. Multi-frequency tones are also dual tones but they are mostly used for internal Telco use.

5. Fike, John L. and George E Friend. "Understanding Telephone Electronics." 2d ed. Carmel, SAMS 1990

6. Most tables describe tones in a confusing way. The dial tone, for example, is a combination of 350 Hz and 440 Hz. Charts state it like this: 350 + 440. You might think that the resultant tone is 790 Hz. Not so. Common sense tells us that two low tones put together will not produce a higher tone. Yet every table I've seen makes it look like an addition problem. I use the ampersand symbol instead. 350 "&" 440. Two tones combined. This is not a minor, pedantic point. It goes to the definition of what a tone is. A single tone is represented by a single sine wave. Two sine waves put together produce a complex sine wave. What then is the frequency? The baffling answer is that it isn't any particular frequency. That's why tables use two tones to describe MF or DTMF signals. I find electroacoustics difficult. What if you combine two radio frequencies together? Couldn't you get a frequency counter to tell you the result? Why can't that be done with audio tones?

7. Billsf "hitchhikers guide to the phone system" 2600 The Hacker Quarterly 9:2 (Summer 1992) 10. Everything written by Billsf is fascinating. This article is about international signaling. It emphasizes MF tones. see also Billsf "True Colors" 2600 The Hacker Quarterly 10:3 (Autumn 1993) 9. More information on the actual working of MF signals. NB: All 2600 back issues are for sale. See any copy of 2600 for details. Or, call their office at (516) 751-2600. Fax line (516) 474-2677.

8. In "A Guide to The 5ESS" 2600, The Hacker Quarterly, Crisp G.RA.S.P details the inner workings of a digital switch and describes ways to program it. It is a very impressive and advanced article. I understand little of it. Those with a good command of UNIX will fare better.

9. This procedure is called a busy line verification or BLV in the trade. A skillful hacker may drop into conversations as well by using the right tones. Read more about BLVs in Agent Steal's classic article "Central Office Operations" in the Winter, 1990 issue of 2600. It's also available through the Legion of Doom's Technical Journal gopher.

10. The trend is to store more and more information in these data bases. This can enable a company maintaining the data base to provide additional services but it can also lead to more fights among the different Telcos and private carriers over who should get that information and who should pay for it. A completely digital network might be operating in our lifetime but you can bet that it won't be flawlessly implemented because of turf wars. 500 companies provide long distance service according to the FCC report referenced below; competition is a zoo. Local competition when implemented will be like letting open the gates of the zoo. Even with call trace a hacker should be able to get some breathing room by going through as many companies as possible when placing a call.

11. "Semiannual Report on Telephone Trends in Telephone Service," May, 1994. Industry Analysis Division, Federal Communications Commission. Available on the Pac Bell gopher and I think Bell South's. The gophers take out the 34 interesting tables. For them you have to modem to the FCC itself, which maintains the world's worst bulletin board at (202) 632-1361. Good luck . . .

12. Such as, perhaps, the one available through the Edlie Electronics ('Always Something New') catalog for around seventy dollars? The "pocket size" sweep generator perhaps? Model 125B? Write for a catalog: 2700 Hempstead Turnpike, Levitown, L.I. NY 11756-1143. I'm sure your Telco will love you for it.

IV THE DIAL TONE FIRST COIN LINE

33. I've made many references to the dial tone first coin line in this two part series. I think I have explained it enough by comparison and contrast. Dial tone first is the operating method for at least 90% of the coin telephones in the United States. One thing I haven't done yet is to explain some of the terms on the dial tone first table.

34. TSPS stands for Traffic Service Position System. It is a grotesque phrase the Bell System coined to describe their operator service. Before 1965 most operators worked at manual switchboards. A long distance board might be called a toll board. The Bell System a push button console in 1965 that eliminated the cords and jacks and automated some parts of coin telephone service. It was quite an accomplishment. They called the new console a traffic service position. That made a little sense because you could argue that an operator did indeed work at a position. Years later the Bell System improved the console but not the name. It was now a system or TSPS. I understand that Northern Telecom or Northern Electric makes a similar product called TOPS for our Canadian friends. These operators must then work at a traffic operator position system? I understand that US West has their own kind of automated console for their operators. In any case, all of these consoles have dozens and of buttons and lights to control calls. A display tells them how much money you should deposit for a certain call and then they can watch it ring up or totalize on another display.

35. Wink or multi wink is an important part of computer signaling as well as a method used in the telephone industry. Carefully timed pauses turn a signal in a channel off and on. You can tell by the table that coin phones may be first signaled with this method. It works great for optic fiber trunks since no tones or voltage are required to operate it. It is sort of like flashing the switch hook except that each wink must be the same. And I doubt you can access this since it is triggered at the TSPS position. That may be hundreds of miles from the central office.  

V. THE COIN FIRST COIN LINE

An introduction

36. I wrote in the first issue that coin first pay phones was the standard operating method from the 1920's. Do any remain? I consider coin first a defunct operating system, as dead as panel switching. Deploying 911 throughout the country would be hindered by coin first. There are some interesting details to coin first but I won't describe many because I think it's obsolete.

37. Coin first phones required a deposit before they would operate, although not necessarily a dime. I remember flashing the switch hook after putting in a nickel. That got you a few Pacific Bell numbers. The grace period was also nice. If you dialed a wrong number you could quickly hang up and the pay phone returned your dime. This disappeared in the 916 after dial tone first was introduced. That may have been related, however, to the installation of newer switches and not to a special feature of coin first.

38. There were some problems. The worst was that you needed a coin to call an operator in an emergency. There was no 911 in the early to mid 1970's. Call boxes existed but there was no centralized emergency service. The operator called the right agency when you dialed 0 for help. I remember worrying as a kid about always having change with me. Otherwise, you might find yourself in real trouble and really alone. Another problem was that you couldn't tell if a pay phone was out of order until it took your money. No soothing dial tone to confirm operation. They were dead as a rock without a dime.

39. Some contend that coin first was more susceptible to fraud than dial tone first. I'm not so sure. Blue boxing occurred during the era of coin first. But coin first did not give rise to blue boxing. Instead, single frequency coin deposit tones, non armored handset cable and less sophisticated totalizers all contributed to make coin first pay phones more susceptible than the current models. Coin first operation is not inherently suspect, even if the implementing hardware at the time was. Single frequency trunks were not a part of coin first but instead were accessed by them.

Ground Start

40. Memories aside, however, coin first did contribute something that's used to this day by every dial tone first Telco pay phone. It's called ground start. Ground start did two things with coin first. It signaled that 1) the pay phone was off hook and 2) that a coin had been deposited. Dial tone first, by comparison, only uses ground start to signal an off hook. Coin first assumes a coin has been deposited since the phone won't operate without one. Dial tone first provides a dial tone to begin with. It needs a related signal called the initial rate test to indicate that a coin has been put in. Let's look at the mysterious sounding ground start.

41. We usually think of grounding as a way to keep people and equipment safe from electrical shock. The issue of grounding for safety, however, is a different matter than using grounding to get a telephone connection going. Consider what happens when a normal or a post pay coin phone goes off hook. Removing the handset causes the switch hook buttons to rise. This closes the tip and ring contacts in the phone set. They are normally open. Current flows into the loop from the central office. The phone starts consuming power like any other electrical appliance. Voltage drops from 48 volts DC to, say, 10 volts DC. This current flow is detected by a line relay at the CO. It signals other equipment to return a dial tone when a strong enough voltage drop is detected. This is loop start. It's named after the twisted pair that forms a loop connection with the CO.

42. Ground start works differently. With coin first, a relay in the phone grounded the ring wire when a coin was deposited. Current then flowed to the pay phone over the tip wire and into the ground. A dial tone followed shortly thereafter. A little later the ground was removed. This might not make sense at first. We think of electricity as flowing in a loop. We associate circuits with circles. Yet here we have a connection in the local loop in a straight line. No return wire to the CO. But this is the way that telegraphs worked for decades. A conversation can certainly work over one wire. The ground provides the complete path that defines an electrical circuit. Electricity flows to a good ground as easily as water flows downhill. The local loop uses two wires to provides a better sounding call. Not necessarily to provide a complete electrical circuit. A loop is more efficient as far as conducting electricity but you can talk on one wire if you can tolerate some noise. Certainly it is enough to get a connection. But why use this technique for pay phones?

43. Fike and Friend say that "ground start lines are used on loops connecting PBX's to the central office, and in other situations (pay phones) where it is desirable to detect a line that has been selected for use (seizure of the line) instantaneously from either side of the line."(1) Unfortunately, they do not say why it is desirable to so seize a line.

44. I think that coin first used ground start for speed. (NOTE: I'M INCORRECT ON THIS POINT -- SEE THE THIRD ISSUE) It's about getting a dial tone as quickly as possible. That's why it is still used. Ground start ties up equipment less than loop start. I wrote in the first issue that the Bell System chose pre pay operation instead of post pay because of the time it saved its operators. This decision can be traced back to 1906.(2) The simpler post pay was discarded in favor of coin first because an operator had to wait for a customer to coins. With coin first an initial deposit was already placed by the time an operator handled the call. Switching equipment can also be held up. The Bell System still worried about this 60 years later when they decided to go to dial tone first nationwide. Dial tone first would return them to the kind of delays that they feared at the turn of the century. Here's a cry of woe from the Record in 1969:

"Making modifications to existing equipment is not the only problem. Some additional equipment must also be provided in the central office to convert to dial tone first operation. For example, holding time of crossbar registers and subscriber senders can increase up to 60 percent for each completed coin call with the new service. This is due to the time taken by customers to deposit coins after the register or sender is attached and furnishing dial tone. Moreover, some calls -- those without the correct initial deposit -- will not be completed and will have to be redialed. Registers and senders must therefore be added to compensate for the increased holding time as the office is converted. Similarly, coin calls handled by ESS offices are subject to a 5 to 15 percent increase in processing time. This increase plus longer equipment holding time will result in a decrease in call handling capacity and require more coin control circuits." (3)

45. Boo hoo. It's obvious that holding time was the most important thing to the Bell System. Ground start would continue to be used with DTF since it is the fastest way to set up a connection. Why is it faster? It uses fewer steps. The central office does not have to power the entire loop immediately to provide a dial tone. Let's say the CO is five miles from a pay phone. Five miles of tip wire and five miles of ring wire. Same 48 volts DC under a pressure of perhaps a hundred milliamps. Pay phone goes off hook. CO supplies power on one wire. Current runs to ground. Dial tone right behind it. No waiting for the rest of the loop to power up. But it can't be that much quicker. It does helps with part of the problem. Not much can be done, though, about someone fumbling for a coin. Or a telephone company drumming its fingers.

46. Switches like the 5ESS return a dial tone before we can put the handset to our ear. Ground start, though, was developed in the era of crossbar, panel and step by step. It might have made a difference then. COCOTS certainly aren't bothered with a wait for a dial tone. But these milliseconds and microseconds are of concern to the Telco since they are the local provider of phone service. Several thousand pay phones in a large city could add up to the that the Bell article described. A Telco pay phone now requires a good ground to properly function. Many signals have been developed which utilize grounding. I explain these on page 39.

References

1. Fike, John L. and George E. Friend. "Understanding Telephone Electronics." 2d ed. Carmel, SAMS. 1990 191

2. Fagen, M.D., ed. "A History of Engineering and Science in The Bell System: The Early Years, 1875 -- 1925." New York: Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1975. 156

3. Ruppel, A.E. and G. Spiro 'No Dime Needed' "Bell Laboratories Record" October, 1969 293

VI. TIP, GROUND AND RING EXPLAINED

47. The central office controls Telco pay phones by direct current signals. I discussed why in the basic signaling article. We now look at how DC signals are produced, some terminology about them and a short description of each one.

48. Changing the electrical status of the telephone line produces DC signals. This is done by manipulating the ends, or leads, of the tip and ring wires. That, in turn, is done by relays. These simple, remotely controlled switches are located in the central office and in the pay phone. A coin phone relay can fit on a circuit board. Central office relays are much larger. They may be mounted in racks.

49. Relays work by opening, closing or grounding the tip or ring wire to produce a signal. Opening a circuit breaks the connection. Closing a wire completes it. Grounding a wire shorts it out. Grounding one wire, however, doesn't necessarily short out the entire circuit with the central office. Current and conversations can still flow over the remaining wire.

50. Depending on the signal needed, tip or ring may be opened, closed or grounded at either the central office or at the pay phone. There are nine ways to manipulate tip, ground and ring. Just a few are used for signaling. But we'll look at all of them for comparison. Here's the list:

1. Tip open and ring open. 2. Tip open and ring closed. 3. Tip open and ring grounded. 4. Tip closed and ring open. 5. Tip closed and ring closed. 6. Tip closed and ring grounded. 7. Tip grounded and ring open. 8. Tip grounded and ring closed. 9. Tip grounded and ring grounded.

1.) Tip open and ring open. On hook. The circuit is open because the handset is on the switch hook. This tells the central office that a particular phone isn't being used.

2.) Tip open and ring closed. -48V DC. Coin first idle. The normal polarity of the now defunct coin first line.

3.) Tip open and ring ground. A dead line or an open circuit. No current flows. Not used for coin line signaling. Automatic testing equipment may remove the coin line from service. (1)

4.) Tip closed and ring open. This common DC signal has many variations:

(a) The initial rate test signal. -48V DC. An important part of dial tone first operation. Tells the CO that a coin has been put in. Depositing a valid coin trips two pay phone relays. One adds a thousand ohms of resistance to the circuit with the central office. The other grounds the circuit itself.(2) Thus, a coin deposit is represented by a grounded circuit with, supposedly, a certain amount of resistance.(3) The CO, possibly tone, opens the ring lead on its own end. Detecting the coin ground over the tip wire causes a central office relay to close the ring side again. The initial rate signal, therefore, is the action of opening the ring wire to detect the ground. I do not know why it is necessary to disconnect the ring side and not the tip.

(b) The stuck coin test signal. +48V DC. Positive current is applied if a coin relay ground persists. That was described above. If successful, the coin will fall into the coin box, resetting the relay and thus removing the ground. The line returns to normal. Automatic equipment may take the line out of service if the ground persists.

(c) The coin return signal. -130V DC. The coin relay directs coins to the coin return hopper. Why 130 volts? Later crossbar switches used this voltage. Bell Labs may have used it for coin line signaling since many central offices could produce it.

(d) The coin collect signal. +130V DC. The coin relay senses the change from negative to positive current. This directs coins to the coin box. Why doesn't the stuck coin test signal use the same higher voltage? They both use positive current. I don't know. This is difficult to reconcile since the same relay, I think, is being used in both cases.

5.) Tip closed and ring closed. Off hook. Normal operation and dial tone.

6.) Tip closed and ring grounded. Reverse battery. -48V DC. Prompted by the called party going off hook. The first issue discussed reverse battery in detail. This signal may trip a pay phone relay which shorts out the DTMF key pad.

7.) Tip ground and ring open. A dead line. No path for electricity to flow.

8.) Tip ground and ring closed. Current flows on the ring side but the tip side is shorted out. There are a number of variations:

(a) Post pay idle? -48V DC. Normal polarity of the post pay line, according to Reeve, before a call is connected. I'm not sure anymore. Few post pay phones should utilize a grounded circuit.

(b) Dial tone first idle. -48V DC. Normal condition of the line until a valid coin is deposited or a free call is placed.

(c) The operator attached signal. +48 V DC. ACTS or the operator applies positive voltage to the line. This puts the pay phone into the toll mode. Coin deposits are then totaled automatically by ACTS or they show up on the operator's console.

(d) The operator released signal in dial tone first. -48 V DC. ACTS or the operator removes positive voltage from the line; restores normal negative voltage after a call. Pay phone goes back to local mode and the totalizer resets itself to zero.

(e) +48V DC. The key pad inhibit signal. A coin first signal, similar to the operator attached signal. Disables key pad, perhaps, and resets the pay phone totalizer.

9.) Tip grounded and ring grounded. Dead line.

References . . . .

(1) Martin, John T. "Chilton's Guide to Telephone Installation and Repair." Radnor. Chilton Book Company. 1985 140

(2) Detailed in Reeve, Whitman D. "Subscriber Loop Signaling and Transmission Handbook: Analog." New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. IEEE Press. 1992 221

(3) Why such a complicated process? Preventing fraud, perhaps? Adding resistance to the initial rate signal may prevent someone from merely grounding the circuit to get a dial tone. Yet, there are many stories of punching pay phones with a pin or nail to simulate the initial rate test.* NYNEX, in fact, claims millions in damage from punching.** That's why so many transmitters are now sealed. We may conclude then that 1) grounding alone works, despite the resistance that's theoretically required or 2) that the human body itself provides the needed resistance, when the punch is held.

* Micro Surgeon/West Coast Phreaks. "Punching Payphones". 2600, The Hacker Quarterly. 6:3 (Autumn, 1989) 37

** Zorpette, Glenn. "New pay phones hit the street". IEEE Spectrum May, 1990. 30

NB: This issue contains three informative tone tables. Send me a #10 S.A.S.E if you would a like a copy of them.

-------------------- VI. CALIFORNIA CELL FRAUD LAW: PENAL CODE SECTION 502.8

We looked at California Penal Code Section 502.7 in the June issue. It covers conventional toll fraud and theft of phone service by credit card fraud. Cell fraud occupies its own code section. This law imposes much higher fines than Section 502.7. Here is the complete text of the bill along with my comments.

"Section 502.8 Use, possession or manufacture of telecommunication devices with intent to avoid payment; punishment

(a) Any person who uses a telecommunications device is guilty of a misdemeanor."

The penalty for avoiding a charge by using a telecommunication device. That device is broadly defined by subsection (f) below. Cell phones are included. It might also include a wireless radio system (SMR or equivalent) or possibly a personal communicator. A misdemeanor means that you serve less than a year in county jail. This subsection is for the first offense.

"(b) Any person found guilty of violating subdivision (a), who has previously been convicted of the same offense, shall be guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment in state prison, a fine of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000), or both."

For those twice convicted of violating Section 502.8. State prison. And fifty thousand dollars! You'll be broke already from legal fees. But talk to a lawyer. Your wages might be attached after serving a term, forcing you to flee to someplace remote and primitive. Like Arkansas?

"(c) Any person who possesses a telecommunications device with intent to sell or offer to sell to another, intending to avoid the payment of any lawful charge for service to the device, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by one year in a county jail or imprisonment in state prison or a fine of up to ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or both."

The fine for selling said communication device. Targets the individual. Oddly, there is no specific ban on selling plans for such a beast. Talk to a lawyer, though, before going into the publishing business in California.

"(d) Any person who possesses 10 or more telecommunications devices with intent to sell or offer to sell to another, intending to avoid payment of any lawful charge for service to the device, is guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment in state prison or a fine of up to fifty thousand dollars ($50,000), or both."

Targets the dealer. Having 10 sets off the dogs.

"(e) Any person who manufactures 10 or more telecommunications devices and intends to sell or offer to sell to another, intending to avoid payment of any lawful charge for service to the device, is guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment in state prison or a fine of up to fifty thousand dollars ($50,000), or both."

Targets the manufacturer. For comparison, let's consider some other crimes. Your attack dog, Dial Tone, savages a mailman. You get a jail term, perhaps, just like the hacker. But your fine is only a thousand dollars. (C.P.C. Section 399.5) Or, you molest a child. Another thousand dollar fine. (C.P.C. Section 647.6) Abandon your kids? Sure, it's just a couple thousand. (C.P.C. 270). So, Joe Hacker rides the bus for years after his prison term while Lester the Molester drives his Cadillac to the school yard.

"(f) For purposes of this section a telecommunications device is any type of instrument, device, machine or equipment that is designed for or capable of transmitting or receiving wireless communications within the radio spectrum allocated to cellular radio telephony."

Defines a telecommunications device. Bans transmitters and receivers. Ridiculous on its face, except to Mr. DA Man. Makes scanners and even frequency counters illegal. And although the police won't be conducting raids to round up scanners, they could seize them as contraband if so inclined. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy over the air, anyway. Or on a land line. Cordless phone calls are fair game. Cell calls aren't.

This whole section was muscled in by the cellular industry. Instead of making it more difficult to listen, the industry chose to make receivers illegal. But it is legal to listen to Air Force 1, embassy traffic or the Secret Service if you can find the right frequencies. Motorola and others produce many kinds of secure systems for the military and the police. Such technology, however, would raise the price of a cell phone above consumer acceptance. Or so they thought. I see that they are now pitching the more expensive digital cell phones, in part, for greater privacy.

The larger issue is about profits and the control of technology. A possible fine of fifty thousand dollars is a terrible threat. An imposed fine of that amount is a merciless punishment. Monetary penalties for violent crimes are ridiculously low and penalties for hacking are extraordinarily high. I can be fined $10,000 for selling a pirated phone. But if I molest a kid then my fine cannot exceed a thousand dollars. Punishment should fit the crime. It doesn't.

Tom Farley --- privateline@delphi.com                            

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