Date: Sat, 30 Jan 93 13:19:38 +0000 From: "G.R.L. Walker" Subject: File 7--Cell-phone encryption and tapping Transcript of an article in New Scientist, 30 Jan 1993 Spymasters fear bug-proof cellphones (Barry Fox, Bahrain) One of the jewels of Europe's electronics industry, the new all-digital cellular phone system GSM, may be blocked from export to other countries around the world by Britain's Department of Trade and Industry. The DTI objects to the exports because it believes the encryption system that GSM uses to code its messages is too good. Sources say this is because the security services and military establishment in Britain and the US fear they will no longer be able [to] eavesdrop on telephone conversations. Few people believe GSM needs such powerful encryption, but the makers of GSM complain that the DTI has woken to the problem five years too late. At MECOM 93, a conference on developing Arab communications held in Bahrain last week, many Gulf and Middle Eastern countries sought tenders for GSM systems, but the companies selling them could not agree terms without the go-ahead of the DTI. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates want to be first with GSM in the Gulf, with Bahrain next. GSM manufacturers are worried that the business will be lost to rival digital systems already on offer from the US and Japan. The Finnish electronics company Nokia, which is tendering for Bahrain's GSM contract, says "There is no logic. We don't know what is happening or why." A DTI spokeswoman would only say that exports outside Europe would need a licence and each case would be treated on its own merits. The GSM system was developed in the mid-1980s by the Groupe Special Mobile, a consortium of European manufacturers and telecommunications authorities. The technology was supported by European Commission and the GSM standard has now been agreed officially by 27 operators in 18 European countries. GSM was designed to allow business travellers to use the same portable phone anywhere in Europe and be billed back home. This is impossible with the existing cellphone services because different countries use different analogue technology. The plan was for GSM to be in use across Europe by 1991, but the existing analogue services have been too successful. No cellphone operator wants to invest in a second network when the first is still making profits. So GSM manufacturers have been offering the technology for export. Whereas all existing cellular phone systems transmit speech as analogue waves, GSM converts speech into digital code. Foreseeing that users would want secure communications, the GSM designers built an encryption system called A5 into the standard; it is similar to the US government's Data Encryption Standard. British Telecom was involved in developing A5, so the British government has special rights to control its use. To crack the DES and A5 codes needs huge amounts of computer power. This is what alarmed the FBI in the US, which wants to be able to listen in to criminals who are using mobile phones. It also alarmed GCHQ, the British government's listening post at Cheltenham which monitors radio traffic round the world using satellites and sensitive ground-based receivers. The DTI has now asked for the GSM standard to be changed, either by watering down the encryption system, or by removing encryption altogether. This means that GSM manufacturers must redesign their microchips. But they cannot start until a new standard is set and the earliest hope of that is May. Any change will inevitably lead to two different GSM standards, so robbing GSM of its major selling point -- freedom to roam between countries with the same phone. Manufacturing costs will also rise as new chips are put into production. Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253