Does Wiretapping Require Cell Company Cooperation? 174
decora writes "Recently the dictator of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, accidentally admitted to wiretapping journalist Irina Khalip. Khalip is the wife of Andrei Sannikov, one of the many opposition presidential candidates who was imprisoned after the election in 2010. I am wondering how Lukashenko did this? Can a government tap a modern cellphone system without the company knowing? Or would it require cooperation, like when AT&T and others helped the NSA perform warrantless wiretapping on Americans?"
Dictator (Score:3, Informative)
why end this summary with a question mark? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/intercepting-cell-phone-calls/ [wired.com]
does that answer your summary?
Anti-terrorism Laws legal tapping. (Score:2, Informative)
Ever since the world ended up going hell bent on terrorism laws (New World Order), all wire-tapping is legal with or without a warrant and you do not require any special permissions anymore if you work in law enforcement and a telecoms company need not know either.
It is better known as black boxing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box [wikipedia.org] these systems have been in place since 1998 legally. The FBI changed it's code name from Carnivore to Magic Lantern after a bunch of hackers exposed the source code "cult of the dead cow" If I remember correctly.
Now you also have the likes of GCHQ and deep packet inspection http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/05/gchq_mti_statement [theregister.co.uk] and they have been doing this since 1996.
The simple fact is you can be recorded for any half plausible excuse. Getting your location through a cell network takes about 5 seconds...... sadly each persons privacy is eroded and you do not have any choice.
Don't use Credit Cards, Cell Phones, Loyality Cards or the internet. Get out more and a pen and paper works better than spoken words!
Re:Kinda (Score:5, Informative)
Why is this even a question for slashdot. A quick google will inform you that Belrus has a state owned telco.
Nuff said. They own the telco, they'd have access to all traffic across it.
It's called "Lawful Intercept" technology (Score:2, Informative)
Not only is cooperation from the phone company not required, but the phone company doesn't get to know when it's being used, and has no technical means to stop it or prevent it.
It's a legal requirement that the government is given the means to tap at will, and a legal requirement that their tapping cannot be discovered.
That's what is happening when telecom/network equipment vendors are touting the "lawful intercept" feature compliance of their latest product models.