vail@tegra.UUCP (Johnathan Vail) (06/06/89)
Is there a better group to take this to? I think this is getting interesting and needs more constructive arguing. Any ideas? (Don't say alt.flame please....) In article <21465@news.Think.COM> barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin) writes: In article <729@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: Re: Electronic Communication Privacy Act >So why aren't cordless phones included? eh? It's the same situation on a >different frequency and a shorter range. I think the shorter range has a lot to do with it. Someone can't just set up a single receiver and start tapping into the cordless phone conversations of everyone in town. Where I live there are virtually no neighbors. I was surpised when my reciever stopped on a 46MHZ frequency. Some simple beam swinging DFing pointed into the hills. A check on the topo map confimed the heading to be a gap in the hills, with the next road about 4-5 miles away. That's not bad range for a cordless phone and can cover a lot of area in a city. Cellular phones get their range advantage by having the cell sites located on towers and hills. The coverage of a cell is, I believe, not more than about 10 miles, probably less near cities. This means that there is no significant difference in range. Were cordless phones even discussed when drafting the law? If not, then it seems to me that the reason they aren't included is that no one thought to bring the issue up, rather than that the lawmakers specifically wanted to allow cordless phone eavesdropping. There are a couple of legal differences here. Cordless phones operate unlicensed on public frequencies. Other things like walky talkies and radio headsets operate here as well. Cellular frequencies are licensed commercially to companies on a regional basis. One of the phrases used with the ECPA is something the expectation of privacy. People expect phones to be private. Cordless phones operating in a public band shouldn't be expected to be private. The above are some possible explanations. I feel the real reason is the law was pushed by the Cellular Phone Industry who wanted to provide the illusion of privacy so they can sell more phones. >Personally I think if they don't want people listening in on phones they should >scramble the signal so you can't listen in. The burden should be on the phone >manufacturers and the phone company, not the public. If the radio waves come >into my house uninvited and unscrambled then I should have the right to listen >to them. Laws shouldn't be passed to make listening illegal. That's working >from the wrong end. It takes away from our freedom. I couldn't have said it better! Just because you CAN listen, doesn't mean that you have the right to listen. If I leave my door unlocked that doesn't give you the right to walk in uninvited. I'm not required to put a lock on my mailbox, yet it is still illegal for someone to look at my mail. And the phone Trespassing can be illegal. Fine, you shouldn't have to (legally) lock your door jto keep people out but you better close your drapes if you don't like people in the street to look in... company isn't required to scramble their signals (some of which go through microwave links, i.e. through the "public" air), yet it is illegal to put on a wire tap. The encoding and modulation used in the microwave links it is effectively scrambled for anyone but the spooks. The business of laws is to tell people that certain things that they are capable of doing are not considered right. Intentionally listening in on phone conversations is considered wrong, so why should it be the burden of the users to scramble their data. *All* laws restrict freedom. Most ethics and moralities can agree that certain laws are useful to a society, for example, laws against murder and stealing protect basic formal rights of individuals. Depending on how you view people's rights and what your values are other laws are enacted. I value the individual's formal rights very highly, as did, I believe, those that wrote the US constitution. That means that any laws that restrict the individual's freedom to do things that don't harm others is wrong. *Who* determines what is considered right? Even a majority of people for a law should not be able to force it on others. That is what the constitution is for. That is why the Nazis and the KKK are allowed their say. Unfortunatley majority rule can cause attrocities even in this country, like the imprisonment of Americans of Japanese descent during WWII. Also, even if the data is scrambled, it's possible for eavesdroppers to get descramblers. I hope you don't think it should be legal for them to listen and descramble. >It just lulls them into thinking that just >because it's illegal to listen in that no one will do it. Come on, give people the benefit of some intelligence. Everyone knows it's illegal to steal, but we all know that theft occurs. But we also know that if we catch someone doing it, we can send them to jail. >But what they really end up doing is >limiting our freedoms. I agree that it is a good idea for cellular phone companies to scramble their signals. But I don't think anyone has a RIGHT to I don't agree people should be *given* the RIGHT to expect others not to listen in on the radio signals they broadcast. listen to my phone conversation, scrambled or otherwise. Therefore, I don't think phone companies should be REQUIRED to scramble their signals. I don't think they should be REQUIRED to either. If they want to provide more privacy to their customers then they *should* scramble.