Helping cops keep tabs on wireless data

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Helping cops keep tabs on wireless data 
http://news.com.com/2100-1039-992832.html
By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com
 March 17, 2003, 7:11 AM PT

NEW ORLEANS--Cops are finally getting to see firsthand whether
pager-favoring, tech-savvy criminals have upgraded to America's newest
wireless networks.

Until recently, police conducting wiretaps on services such as mMode from
AT&T Wireless and PCS Vision from Sprint PCS could intercept only phone
conversations. Millions of instant messages or photos were off limits to
crime fighters' wiretaps because the necessary eavesdropping technology
didn't exist.

...

"Sixty percent of wiretapping already occurs on wireless networks," said
Lawrence Moores, a VeriSign telecommunications director. "The path that we
see we're headed on is toward tapping into data streams."

NetDiscovery isn't something that's on a store shelf, so it's not expected
to cause much alarm among privacy advocates. It will be sold to police or
wireless carriers, which are under a federal mandate to wiretap cell
phones at the request of local, state and federal law enforcement
agencies, Moores said.

VeriSign would do nearly all the work for the carrier with technology it
developed to capture and decode the data traveling over cell phone
networks using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and 1XRTT (a variant of
CDMA) standards, Moores said.
___