Very well I give up. Try to purchase one of those units (that is a picture of a butchered Toshiba Satellite Pro). No one can actually sell you one. They appeared first on Chinese sites about 6 years ago and no company would actually supply the units.
The Police and security agencies do not use passive units, they use active units and are able to do so with jurisdiction given to them by law. The phone providers co-operate because they have to. the units in use are not made by some dodgy company without any money or backing. They are made by communications providers who actually have the capability to design and build micro controllers and dsps which are fast enough for the job. The switching circuits which control the modulation schemes are too fast for the equipment described in the specification of those units. The claim the system has a monitoring radius of +/- 500m; and yet the antenna in use will pick up all devices within the local cell. They claim that you need to be within a couple of hundred metres of your target due to the low power of the handsets; well how does the signal reach the tower if it's so weak. I could laugh back at you if I wan't getting so upset. No point in continuing really. Like I have said before, try the technologies you judge before you judge them. Don't trust unbranded sites claiming to sell units that don't really exist. Go speak to an electronic engineer with some experience of RF networks. Please notice that there has never been a price applied to these units. Furthermore the claim is the ability to monitor 124 cells simultaneously. They must have a different definition of a cell to the rest of us. The designers/sellers of the unit seem to have another clear misunderstanding of RF, that you would need to be close to any unit at all. RF gain is synchronous. If you increase the size of an antenna at one end of a loop you will get better reception at both ends. As we are talking passive monitoring here you would be able (if this was real) to increase the distance from the phone by simply adding a bigger antenna. You will not get interference problems THAT IS WHAT MODULATION IS ABOUT. I don't understand why you aren't listening... I still stand by my point on SSH that you are bashing a technology just because its users are stupid. The ONLY way to prevent man in the middle attacks is to have some pre-shared authentication system or a separate communications loop. Period. This is not a failing of SSH thus by suggesting it is, you are misguiding your readers. Such a thing is called sensationalism in my book. I am an experienced tech and I cannot read that paragraph without thinking you are suggesting that SSH is insecure. People with less knowledge or experience will only suffer worse. Why can't you just explain in general terms the principles of man in the middle attacks and THEN maybe if you want use SSH as AN EXAMPLE. For someone who freely admits not having strong knowledge in the subject area you are very resistant to actually taking some advice and learning something new. I am at a loss of how to explain to you what is going on short of giving you about 5% of an electronic engineering degree. Forget it. Keep writing, keep claiming, you will get your comeuppance, even if the people you are talking about in this case are bad admins. As I tried to explain in my previous e-mail I don't wish to talk to you if you aren't willing to listen, especially when I am taking time out of my holiday. End of Discussion. P.S. If you cant drop and must send a message, don't bother with the list. I am sure there are many who will become frustrated with this as it is becoming more of an argument than a security discussion. This will be my last post to the list on this topic unless some useful information is brought to the front. _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
