Wiretapping (Phone Surveillance)

     Last week i watched a video published by VICE in youtube called " A state of surveillance" where it features a controversial figure Edward Snowden who leaks many classified U.S. government information about public surveillance. In the video he did talk about how our phones can actually hacked and being turned against us. This post will be about just this case. Phone surveillance.

     Phone surveillance is the spying on phone conversations, tracking possible locations and monitoring the data of a phone. Before this, the surveillance of phones is called wiretapping which is the act of monitoring telephones and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. 

     Wiretapping is commonly seen in espionage and crime movies. Agents like Jason Bourne could tell when the enemy is listening, so they speak in code over the phone and become watchful. In the real world, we assume our phone lines are secure. And in most cases, they are, but only because nobody cares enough to listen in. People who knew about wiretapping can easily eavesdrop your telephone conversation easily if they want to

     Some government agency legalized wiretapping (lawful interception). Wiretapping can be categorized as passive wiretapping which monitors or records the traffic, and active wiretapping which alters or otherwise affects it

     Telephone and telegraph communications took place over copper wires (the wire part) and the intercept was referred to as “tapping”. During that time around the 80s, all telephone interception were conducted by connecting directly into the copper wire over which the instrument was connected to the network. One of the easiest way is to connect a handset to the target line and listen. However it is easy to be detected because it generates noise on the target line and causes a voltage drop. Specialized devices were then invented intercept a line while still allowing the call content and data to pass.

   Simply put, tapping a wire is as simple as plugging an appliance into the electrical circuit running through your house. The appliance works by drawing power from electrical power from the electrical current flowing in this circuit. The power also carries information (a pattern of current fluctuations that represents the air-pressure fluctuations of sound waves). A devices that are made for wiretapping can interpret these patterns as sound. One closest example, in our house, if we have two house telephone which line are connected together, If however we talk by using one the telephone, we can hear the exact same thing from the other telephone.


Reference: 
1) http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/wiretapping
2) http://people.howstuffworks.com/wiretapping3.htm
3) http://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/computers-and-electrical-engineering/computers-and-computing/wiretapping