Counter Intelligence Measures:

RE: Your PLDT phone

Phone taps, especially for people who use phones a lot, are a good way to pick up information. As well as taping your voice conversations, with the appropriate equipment, private investigators as well as the 'official' government departments can monitor fax and computer/modem transmissions too. There is no way to prevent, or detect, any official (Government) telephone tap. Today, with digital telephone switching technology, government agencies do not even have to physically visit your exchange to set a tap on your phone - they just instruct their computer to redirect a copy of your phone conversations to their computer systems. Unofficial taps are another matter. Generally unofficial taps are physically connected to your phone line, either taking power from the line (in which case, the line will be cut and the device connected into the circuit) or picking up the phone signals by inductance (in which case the device will have a coil of wire around the phone line - with no physical connection - and it will have to have its own power supply). Those with direct connection will reduce the voltage on the telephone line, but voltages can vary so much anyway they are still difficult to detect unless you have very expensive equipment. The traditional image of official phone taps is a large tape machine which records when you pick your phone up. These machines produced hours of tape, which all had to be listened to costing lots of staff time and money. This meant tapping was only used where the results were guaranteed, or it was an absolute necessity to have continuous monitoring. Today, with computer technology, this is no longer the case. The phone tap plays into a computer. The computer is programmed with snippets of your voice speaking 'keywords' - for example "hit", "nuclear", "explosive", "bomb", etc. - gathered from previous phone recordings. When the conversation has been recorded, the computer digitally examines the playback looking for these words. If it finds a match then it keeps the recording for later use. This has made tapping easier, and thus more widespread. There is absolutely no way to defend yourself against phone tapping - you just have to work around the problem. Rather than organising things on the phone you have to do it in person, or invent a variable and confusing set of codewords to fool the listeners. If you have a computer things get easier - it is possible to send encrypted (scrambled) messages via a modem, or just on a floppy disk through the post. Even so, the growing power of computers means that unless you have a very good encryption program the code may be broken eventually. Mobile phones are another option - but make sure it is the 'digital' type which encrypts the call. Even then, this does not stop the Government eavesdropping on you because, via the phone company, they will have access to your code. Another practice used by various tappers, and widely used by the police and security services, is number logging. The authorities only have to have a warrant to actually 'listen' to the call - they can make a note of the numbers dialled from the premises without any control whatsoever. Also, now that exchanges are fully digital, they can also find out the number of people calling you. From this information it is possible to draw up a 'web' of your contacts and associates.