Nexus - 0504 - New Times Magazine-pages

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LY DD © oF VEN? NO ESCAPE FOR MOBILE PHONE USERS combat "serious crime" and protect -” "national security", but to do this they are creating a system which can monitor everyone and every- thing. It seems extraordinary, given the concern over the Police Bill in the UK and the "Clipper chip" in the USA, that there has been no debate over the creation of a global telephone-tapping system initiated by the EU and the US and support- ed by Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Norway. The Council of the EU and the FBI in Washington, DC, have been cooperating for the past five years on a plan to introduce a global telecommunications tapping sys- tem. The system takes advantage of the liberalisation of telecommunica- tions (where private companies are taking over from national telephone sys- tems) as well as the trend towards replace- ment of land/sea-based telephone lines and microwave tower links with new-genera- tion satellite communications technology. (Source: Statewatch, London, UK; e-mail, statewatch-off@ geo2.poptel.org.uk) n 28 December 1997, the \. Sonntags Zeitung in Ziirich revealed that Swiss police have been tracking vast numbers of mobile-telephone users with the help of the state telephone com- pany, Swisscom, which con- firmed its computers were record- ing billions of movements over more than the last six months. With 3,000 base stations across the country, it can track the loca- tion of cellphones to within a few hundred metres whenever they are switched on and not just when users are having conversations. In the USA, as of January 1998, the Federal Communica- tions Commission (FCC) holds cellular network operators responsible for providing the location of cellular base sta- tions used for emergency calls by cell- phone users. In 2001, US cellphone opera- tors will have to provide the location with- in 125 metres. (Source: Intelligence, no. 74, 26 January 1998) The first article states: "Providers of public telecommunications networks and public telecommunications services shall not make their telecommunications net- works and telecommunications services available to users unless they can be wire- tapped." A further paragraph adds that the operator of the network or the service must supply the necessary equipment and bear its full cost. (Source: The New York Times, /4 April 1998; news.com story) REMOTE SMART-CARD READER ALERT O; Track Innovations Ltd (OTD), a lead- ing Israeli company developing con- tactless smart-card technology and applica- tions, has announced the addition of the SCI5000 Eyecon multi-reader to its family of smart-card readers. According to an OTI press release, it is part of a new SCI5000 family of OEM boards for chip-card readers. These boards are miniature card-readers, about the size of a credit card and only 15 mm thick. The antenna used for contactless commu- nication can be either a local unit in the reader or a remote passive antenna, con- nected to the SCI5000 via coaxial cable up to 33 metres (110 feet) in length. The Eyecon features bi-directional data transmission to/from the IC card at 106 Kbps and higher, and a patented passive ‘electronics-free' antenna for added securi- ty and easy physical integration. The pas- sive antenna can be mounted in a remote location up to 33 metres from the SCI reader/writer. It allows simultaneous transmission of both power and bi-direc- tional read/write messages to contactless IC cards. (Source: OTI press release, 25 June 1997) DUTCH NET PROVIDERS MUST MAKE NETWORKS TAPPABLE oO: 2 April 1998, the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament approved a new Telecommunications Act that includes a chapter intended to force cable operators and Internet service providers to make their networks tappable by the police and intelligence services. EU AND FBI PLAN GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM Ihe European Union, in cooperation with the FBI, is launching a system of global surveillance of communications to i ia “ay YY 6 = NEXUS JUNE - JULY 1998