Forwarded From: bluesky@rcia.com
http://www.rcrnews.com/CGI-BIN/SM40i.exe?docid=100:5999&%70aramArticleID=8095
September 8, 1998
Another telecom headache for law enforcement: Portability
By Heather Weaver
WASHINGTON —Imagine for a moment law enforcement is able to convince the
Federal Communications Commission to approve all the items it is asking
for to implement the digital wiretap act. And, then imagine you are a law
enforcement officer wishing to set up a wiretap on a suspected criminal.
It should be e asy, right? Get the court order, serve it and set up the
wiretap.
Wrong.
In the emerging days of competition and with the deployment of number
portability, it increasingly is becoming difficult for law enforcement to
know which telecom carrier should be served the wiretap subpoena.
In the old days, law enforcement could get one court order and serve it on
Ma Bell. Today and increasingly in the future, multiple orders may be
necessary. Law enforcement says it can live with that, but sometimes
officers are unable to find out which or how many, court orders they will
need.
The telephone number is the necessary element in all of this. Once law
enforcement has determined the telephone number for the person they want
to tap (or whose records they want retrieved), then law enforcement
sometimes can identify which carrier—wireline or wireless—to contact by
referring to the Local Exchange Routing Guide. The LERG lists all of the
exchanges, known as NXXs to the telecommunications industry, and which
company uses them.
The problem of number portability is more acute in the wireline world
because wireless carriers are not yet porting customers. Portability
refers to telephone subscribers keeping their telephone number when
switching service providers. The Federal Communications Commission’s
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau last week delayed the implementation of
wireless number portability until March 31, 2000.
With the advent of number portability and number pooling, law enforcement
may have a more difficult time figuring out which carrier services their
target because the user may have ported his phone number to a different
provider.
Law enforcement’s problem with wireless is the amount of competition in
the industry. ‘‘Some houses have two or maybe even three wireless phones.
All from different carriers,’’ said one law enforcement officer.
This has been an emerging problem since the days of divestiture but has
become more noticeable with the advent of local competition and the
proliferation of wireless technologies. Long-distance carrier information
is necessary to obtain calling records.
Interim solutions
An interim solution recently has been deployed in the Midwest and
Southwest ,known as the integrated voice response unit, which is being
implemented by Lockheed Martin IMS. This allows law enforcement to call a
special database, and with a personal identification number, find out
which carrier serves which number.
The security of using a PIN caused some concern to Jerry O’Brien, senior
director of legal and regulatory affairs for Omnipoint Communications
Inc., at a recent meeting of the North American Numbering Council.
At the meeting, O’Brien was concerned that using a PIN number would not
provide enough security. ‘‘The security of that [IVR] database is
paramount. You can’t have someone hack into the database,’’ he said.
Who should pay?
Cost also must be addressed before integrated voice response units can be
deployed nationwide.
The database, in its current rudimentary form, is being funded by the
limited liability corporations, including Ameritech Corp., GTE Corp. and
SBC Communications Inc., but other telephone companies are not as
enthusiastic about funding a program they see as a by-product of a
government-mandate. ‘‘This is a law enforcement issue that the government
should pay for. I am against carriers paying for something that is decreed
by the government,’’ O’Brien said.
With the IVR database, law enforcement would like certain upgrades and
some think the carriers should pay for them and continue to pay to
maintain the database. One of the upgrades would allow access to the IVR
through a terminal rather than a telephone, which would cut down on the
time it takes to get the carrier information. Carriers, such as Omnipoint
Communications, don’t want to pay for the database or any upgrades until
mandated to do so.
Such a mandate does not appear to be forthcoming. A recent meeting on IVR
between Lockheed Martin IMS officials and law enforcement originally was
intended to include FCC officials, but for unknown reasons, no one at the
FCC attended the meeting. Additionally, it does not appear the FCC
officially is aware of the problems caused by portability or the possible
IVR solution.
O’Brien thinks that is the first step. ‘‘The Department of Justice, the
FBI and the [FCC] need to get together and decide what is legal ... There
is protection of privacy. Carriers are responsible for protecting the
privacy [of their customers],’’ he said.
How to track prepaid users
Another potential problem for law enforcement are prepaid wireless
customers, O’Brien said, who buy coupons for $50 to $200 for a certain
number of minutes but don’t always provide their correct name or address.
‘‘They have a phone number but we don’t know where they are. We know where
the phone is. This doesn’t mean that anything illegal is happening,’’ he
said.
-o-
Subscribe: mail majordomo@sekurity.org with "subscribe isn".
Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
Received on Fri Sep 11 17:28:01 1998