Phone Taps / Telephone Wiretapping
Telephone tapping or wire tapping/ wiretapping (in US) is the monitoring of telephone conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The telephone tap or wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was applied to the wires of the telephone line of the person who was being monitored and drew off or tapped a small amount of the electrical signal carrying the conversation.
Wiretapping Legal status
Telephone wiretapping is officially strictly controlled in many countries to safeguard an individuals Privacy; this is the case in all developed democracies. In theory, telephone wiretapping often needs to be authorized by a court, and is, again in theory, normally only approved when evidence shows it is not possible to detect criminal or subversive activity in less intrusive ways; often the law and regulations require that the crime investigated must be at least of a certain severity. In many jurisdictions however, permission for telephone wiretapping is easily obtained on a routine basis without further investigation by the court or other entity granting such permission. Illegal or unauthorized telephone wiretapping is often a criminal offence. However, in certain jurisdictions such as Germany, courts will accept illegally recorded phone calls without the other party's consent as evidence.
In the United States, federal agencies may be authorized to engage in wiretaps by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a court with secret proceedings, in certain circumstances.
Under United States federal law and most state laws there is nothing illegal about one of the parties to a telephone call recording the conversation, or giving permission for calls to be recorded or permitting their telephone line to be tapped. However, several states (i.e., California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington) require that all parties consent when one party wants to record a telephone conversation.
Many businesses and other organization record their telephone calls so that they can prove what was said, train their staff, or monitor performance. This activity may not be considered telephone tapping in some, but not all, jurisdictions because it is done with the knowledge of at least one of the parties to the telephone conversation. It is considered better practice to announce at the beginning of a call that the conversation is being recorded.
Wiretapping methods
The official tapping of telephone lines
The contracts or licenses by which the state controls telephone companies often require that the companies must provide access for wiretapping lines to the security services and the police. In the U.S., telecommunications carriers are required by law to cooperate in the interception of communications for law enforcement purposes under the terms of CALEA. Taps must be secret and undetectable.
When telephone exchanges were mechanical, a wire tap had to be installed by technicians, linking circuits together to route the audio signal from the call. Now that many exchanges have been converted to digital technology tapping is far simpler and can be ordered remotely by computer. Telephone services provided by cable TV companies also uses digital switching technology. If the wire tap is implemented at a digital switch, the switching computer simply copies the digitized bits that represent the phone conversation to a second line and it is impossible to tell if your line is being wiretapped or not. Even a well designed wire tap installed on a phone wire can be difficult to detect. The noises that some people believe to be telephone wire taps are simply crosstalk created by the coupling of signals from other phone lines.
Data on the calling and called number, time of call and duration, will generally be collected automatically on all calls and stored for later use by the billing department of your phone company. This data can be accessed by security services, often with fewer legal restrictions than for a wire tap. This information used to be collected using special equipment known as pen registers and trap and trace devices and U.S. law still refers to it under those names. Today, a list of all calls to a specific number can be obtained by sorting billing records. A telephone wire tap during which only the call information is recorded but not the contents of the phone calls themselves, is called a Pen Register tap.
For telephone services via digital exchanges, the information collected may additionally include a log of the type of communications media being used (some services treat data and voice communications differently to conserve bandwidth).
The unofficial tapping of telephone lines
It's also possible to wire tap conversations unofficially. There are a number of ways to monitor telephone conversations:
Recording the conversation - the person making/receiving the call records the conversation using a coil tap ('telephone pickup coil') attached to the ear-piece, or they fit an in-line tap with a recording output. Both of these are easily available through electrical shops. Most who record telephone conversations, such as journalists, will use the recording for their own private work. But be aware that anything you say to someone you don't know may be recorded and used for other purposes.
Direct line wire tap - this is what the state used to do via the telephone exchange. But unofficial wiretapping, where the user's line is physically wiretapped near the house, is also possible. The wire tap can either involve a direct electrical connection to the line, or an induction coil. An induction coil is usually placed underneath the base of a telephone or on the back of a telephone handset to pick up the signal inductively. With a direct connection, there will be some drop in signal levels because of the loss of power from the line, and it may also generate noise on the line. An induction tap doesn't drain voltage or current from the line because it isn't physically connected to the phone line.
Direct wire taps sometimes require regular maintenance, either to change tapes or replace batteries, which may give away their presence.
Radio wiretap - this is like a bug that fits on the telephone line. The state does not normally do this because they have access via the telephone exchange, though certain organizations exempt from the common framework of law that applies to citizens may use devices like this. It can be fitted to one phone inside the house, or outside on the phone line. It may produce noise (you might even get signal feedback down the line on amateur made equipment) to alert you, but probably not as modern state of the art equipment operates in the 30-300 GHz range. The unit is powered from the line so once installed it's maintenance free, and only transmits when there is a call in progress. These wiretapdevices tend to be low powered because the drain on the line would become too great, however a state of the art receiver could be located as far away as ten kilometers under ideal conditions, but is usually located within a radius of 1 to 3 km. Research however has also shown that a satellite can be used to pickup emissions in the range of a few milliwatts.
To guard against unofficial amateur line wiretaps you should regularly inspect your phone itself, and your telephone line for new joints, or small wires connected to the line; a time-domain reflectometer is a worthy tool here. If you have reason to suspect your phone has been tapped consult a technical surveillance countermeasures (TSCM) specialist. Never contact a TSCM specialist from a phone you suspect is wiretapped or on any other phone on the premises or any other phone that is linked to you or your organization (home phone, company cellular etc.)
Learn More Phone Taps and Telephone Wiretapping
There are probably hundreds of books on phone taps, wiretapping and eavesdropping, but few are written by industry professionals who understand the creative but complex nature of wiretapping. It is certainly understandable why a reputably successful eavesdroppers and wiretappers who has spent years breaking the laws would not want to write about it. It is also understandable why law enforcement would not write a book explaining how they performed wiretapping operations.
The Red Balloon is produced by one of the worlds leading experts in telephone wiretapping and he is the author on the recognized authoritative text book on the subject. The video’s host is also the only industry expert to teach and coordinate Electronic Eavesdropping programs at a major university and has trained hundreds of corporate security, law enforcement and members of the intelligence community.
The Red Balloon is a two-hour DVD that presents the truly accurate and insightful world of wiretapping and eavesdropping techniques and is a critically acclaimed and award winning video. ASIS - American Society for Industrial Security's Security Management gives The Red Balloon a 5 Star Rating. To learn more about phone taps, wiretaps and what industry professionals have said about The Red Balloon please click here.