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Saturday, May 12, 2001 |
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I am a volunteer Field Coordinator for the New Mexico State Police (District
11). The Albuquerque Metropolitan area (District 5 SP) has been plagued by
problems like this, but from cell phones and FRS (Family Radio Service)
radios, not on police frequencies. Even so, police frequencies are nothing
special.
The quote "The police department's emergency radio system uses two sets of
security identification codes and a computer to prevent unauthorized
access." sounds like media hype to make it sound like something special was
done. All police frequencies are well known, they are available from the
FCC web page. The "identification codes" are most likely the sub-audible
tones which tell the repeater how to process the signal. These are also
well known. If I were to take my radio to Denver, I could probably be
operating on their frequencies within a matter of minutes.
The "modification" of the radio is also media hype. Almost any radio,
except those purchased from Tandy, can be modified without any effort. You
open the back of the radio, and (in most major brands) you will see a single
copper wire amongst preprinted circuit boards. Anyone want to guess what
happens if you cut the wire? The FCC laws require commercial radios to be
fixed frequency. These laws were made for crystal radios, and shouldn't be
on the books anymore. Most manufacturers make one radio, and just pack and
wire it differently in different cases for different applications.
The computer is most likely just the data link between the cars and the
dispatcher that uploads and downloads information to the in car computers.
As for bogus radio calls, we have had a veritable plague of fake distress
calls from FRS radios and cell phones. Most cell phones will call 911
without a service provider or SIM card, which allows anonymous untraceable
crank calls. SAR teams and emergency personnel have responded to crashed
airplanes, automobile accidents, lost hikers, and lots more. They solved
this problem by asking for a phone number that they can call to verify the
callers identity. One real hiker was saved because he refered us to the car
company that he rented his car from. A woman "lost in the mountains" was
ignored because she wouldn't give her name, a name of a friend or relative,
or a phone number where anyone who knew her could be contacted. [Schlake (William Colburn) via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 41]
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In RISKS-21.39, of 11-May-2001, your correspondent, tls@panix.com, discussed
the problems with the way a local university had recently set up an open
802.11 (wireless) network.
He commented that while this was an arguably defensible decision for a
university, he was quite concerned about its potential use by spammers. To
quote him:
> The RISK? Their campus mail-handling machines will relay mail to
> any inside or outside destination if it's received from an address
> "inside" their campus network. The network architecture they've
> chosen for their wireless deployment dictates that anyone can walk
> onto their (large, urban) campus, or even just park his car outside,
> and spam away freely with hundreds of megabits per second of
> bandwidth to most points on the Internet.
Having tried exactly what tls@panix.com describes (except that I sat in an
air-conditioned van and only sent some test messages...). I can confirm
that this university's mail servers work as he fears.
Furthermore, any mail coming through them will have an envelope indicating
it came from a well known and trusted source. Meaning not only would people
be more likely to let it through their filters (whether computerized or the
Mark One Eyeball method of glancing at the "from" and "subject" line), but
they're also far more likely to open it.
Meaning this type of service can easily be used to spread all sorts of
nastiness. And not just limited to e-mail viruses and trojans.
Getting back to spamming: this system doesn't block outgoing "port 25"
access, meaning a spammer could set up their own mail server and
pseudo-anonymously engage in all sorts of socially deviant activities.
The RISK? If you leave your front door open on the Internet, you're
leaving everyone else's front door ajar. [danny burstein via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 41]
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Maximillian Dornseif, 2002.
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