[FedCom] Trrafic Analysis

[MONIX]

Very True

On any radio system, including trunked systems, you can tell if anyone is 
close to you,
by listening on the input frequency/ies.

This will work even if the RF signal is encrypted.

MONIX


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "gary" <lists at lazygranch.com>
To: "Discussion of Federal Government Communications" 
<fedcom at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2010 1:50 AM
Subject: Re: [FedCom] Troops Deploy to Border Areas


> With encrypted traffic, all you can do is "traffic analysis." Lucky for
> me somebody wrote a wiki:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis
>
> Not spelled out in the wiki, but with trunked radio system, you have the
> radio ID and group. For systems with multiple sites, you can watch
> individual radios travel from site to site.
>
> Good comsec requires messages to be sent even if nothing is happening.
> Otherwise if there is heavy encrypted traffic all of a sudden, you know
> something is up, but not exactly what is going down. For the scanner
> enthusiast, this generally isn't very useful. For a criminal, say drug
> dealer, if you hear a lot of encrypted traffic, you might decide to stay
> home that night.
>
> Occasionally, the encryption is dropped. It could be training, or
> perhaps one radio in the team can't decrypt so they go in the clear.