Why "carnivore" type systems can't be (entirely) open source

[Owen Lewis]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Johnson" <Ian.Johnson@uwe.ac.uk>
To: <ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Sent: 08 February 2001 10:09
Subject: Re: Why "carnivore" type systems can't be (entirely) open source


> Owen Lewis wrote:
>
> > In my view, not so. TACS/ETACS was convenient (and had better range than
> > GSM).
>
> Totally agreed, for someone who generally uses their phone off the
> beaten
> track in Wales a major plus.
>
> > Joe Soap got very teed off with the pandemic SIM card cloning and the
> > lack of all privacy. Even with more frequent drop-outs, GSM gave him
what he
> > felt he needed most and he migrated quickly and willingly to GSM.
>
> I disagree. Cloning didn't cost me much more than a little
> inconvenience,
> (happened 3 times)

The total theft was very large. Though the cost was spread over a large
customer base, it is always the customer, in the end, who pays.

> - GSM was virtually forced onto me.  Security was never
> an issue to me.  If you know every man & his dog can hear you it doesn't
> stop you speaking although it may alter what you say. Telling my wife
> I'm
> going to be late home is not the sort of conversation i worry about
> having eavesdropped

When did you migrate? I rarely see/hear TACS/ETACS these days but, with a
reduces frequency allocation,  some is still alive isn't it?

Launching a wireless telecom system is a very expensive and risky game. For
the supplier to succeed, most customers have to feel that it is worth the
cost of change. Not all systems succeed. he Take-up on UK CT2 has been so
poor that it is to have its frequency allocation removed in a few years
time. People bought DECT instead of stayed with CT1.

GSM could easily have been a financial disaster. The US originally said it
would  would not join with that European initiative, preferring to promote
as a rival its own CDMA system. Usually when US industry shouts "Frog!" the
rest of the word jumps - but not on this occasion Might have done though.
Also the financial viability could not have been assured until not only had
the US competition been seen off but that a substantial part of the existing
EU - wide TACS customer base migrated voluntarily and early. Without
sufficient migration, GSM would either have had to close down or have
remained (expensively) as an alternate offering, waiting for the US system
to have scooped the global nextgen pool.

GSM is a success story of which its backers may be proud. For myself, I am
pleased to recognise it as the sort of world beater that the European high
tech industries can create when they get their act together.
>
> > He got the
> > privacy he felt he needed.
>
> No, the phone operators got reduced fraud costs which is why I believe
> they pushed it.

The ultimate cost of fraud - always - is to the customers. So here too Joe
Soap has benefited in the long term through call costs lower than they would
otherwise have been. For me and for most that I know, they are also pleased
to have the element of privacy that is present in use of the GSM system and
was absent in TACS.

> UTMS is a different issue.  It appears to me yet another step towards
> creating an infrastructure for universal surveillance

I think you're right and that makes me no happier than it makes you.

Owen