GSM - A5 Strength

Peter Sommer hcorn at cix.co.uk
Thu, 9 Apr 1998 8:02 +0100 (BST)


Alec Muffet asks:

but
as an final aside, can anyone clarify for me the piece of legislation
that exempted "tuning into cordless phone base stations" from the UK
phone-tapping regulations, thus permitting police to do so without
requiring full phone-tap permission from home office, or whomever?

I agree this is fast going off-topic.  At a guess,  the answer to your
question is that the Interception of Communications Act applies only to
public telephone networks - your CT1 base station represents the end of
the public network and the path between it and the handset is (it could be
argued) "private" for the purposes of ICA.  The "tuning in" to the RF
would be subject to the Wireless Telegraphy Act.


I think that's right - unless someone here wishes to prolong this
off-topic matter with a definitive explanation.


P

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