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> A neighbor called recently to tell me that they inadvertently overheard my
> telephone conversation. Has anyone researched and found a cordless phone
> that can also "secure" a conversation?
Here are some notes from BestBuy.com's website. It should be pretty easy to
find DSS cordless phones. All the major manufacturers have them.
2. How secure is my conversation?
A radio signal is transmitted each time you pick up a cordless phone and
begin a conversation. This signal can be picked up by anyone with a common
radio or police scanner, which can have a range of more than a mile.
Eavesdropping is not limited by the range of your phone. This means that no
matter how isolated you may feel, someone may be able to hear your
conversation from some distance.
Most of these eavesdroppers are benign and merely curious (or just nosey).
But anyone who listens to the news knows that there are some nasty people
out there waiting to hear your credit card number. How do you protect
yourself?
Although a digital phone will give you a clearer signal and a longer range,
it is not secure. Some inexpensive cordless phones include "voice
scrambling" technology. But voice scrambling is a halfway solution.
Typically, these voice scrambling phones use a technology known as "voice
inversion," which turns a conversation into gibberish. However, many
scanners can defeat voice inversion with a simple add-on voice inversion
decoder, leaving you right where you started but with an added sense of
false security.
The only way to calm your paranoia and to be sure that no one but the
intended party is listening in on your conversation is to buy a phone
equipped with digital spread spectrum technology. And bear in mind that a
"digital" phone is not necessarily a digital spread spectrum phone. If the
box doesn't say "digital spread spectrum," then it isn't.
Digital spread spectrum technology was originally developed by the military.
It has been battle-tested in inventory control operations where data
wirelessly transmitted from the warehouse or retail floor to a backroom
computer had to be secure.
No radio scanner in the world can decipher a digital spread spectrum signal.
Your call would be heard as digital noise if someone happened across your
call's frequency. Odds are that someone using a scanner wouldn't be able to
zero in because digital spread spectrum employs frequency-hopping
technology. The signal is constantly changing frequency in an attempt to
find the cleanest path to the base. Only your base, keyed to your specific
digital spread spectrum handset, can pick up the signal.
Of course, digital spread spectrum phones are more expensive, albeit not
nearly as expensive as they were just six months ago. You may want to pay
the extra dollars for the piece of mind that comes from knowing your call is
totally secure.
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