By CNET Asia Staff, 24 November 2003 08:50
NEWS Qualcomm CEO and chairman Irwin Jacobs has weighed in on a long-running political argument in South Korea over the wiretapping of CDMA mobile phone calls to say that though the feat is possible, it is unlikely to happen.
The wiretapping of CDMA calls is a technological possibility the South Korean government officially denies.
Jacobs' Qualcomm is a US wireless technology firm that developed much of the CDMA technology, and he told the Korean news agency Yonhap that it was technologically possible to wiretap CDMA but that the act is extremely difficult and requires intense effort with specialised equipment.
All mobile phone transmissions can technically be intercepted and listened to during the unencrypted fixed-line sections of the call as it transmits between base stations, while tapping the call over-the-air appears more difficult.
In October, a Korean minister officially denied that it is possible to wiretap CDMA mobile phone calls in South Korea during a parliamentary audit.
But an opposition political party claimed that the Korean presidential security service had secretly given wiretap-proof cellphones to some government officials and that they would sue the Korean minister for perjury.
Korean officials and business leaders often use multiple handsets to prevent eavesdropping, the Korean Daily said.
A Korean mobile phone manufacturer, Pantech & Curitel, released what it claimed was an eavesdrop-proof CDMA phone in February. The 600S model has voice encryption that also blocks illegal duplication of the phone's ESN (electronic serial number), so that an illegally cloned phone cannot intercept calls.
However, calls are only secure when both the caller and receiver use the same anti-wiretap security and encryption cell phones.
A German eavesdrop-proof mobile phone was launched on Tuesday. Berlin-based Cryptophone added encryption software to a Taiwanese handheld computer phone, the XDA handheld from High Tech Computer. The calls can be decoded only by a similar handset or a computer running the software.
The phone is intended for sensitive business information but some security analysts said the encrypted-phone could prevent criminal investigations, while privacy lobbyists welcomed the phone as an answer to increasing government surveillance, Reuters reported.
While other wiretap-proof mobile phones are available, Cryptophone said its is developed entirely without government agency ties and that they are the only encryption mobile phone company to use openly published source code.
In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.
Log in or create your silicon.com account below