A website on TInet, one of Telecom Eireann's ISPs, has been pulled. It carried a list of radio scanner frequencies that happened to include the Irish police frequencies (Both Gardai and RUC). The TInet site had been alluded to by a somewhat clueless journalist who had previously considered that HackWatch was a "cracking" related site.
In reality, the information posted on that site was public domain. The fact that the Gardai use analogue VHF and UHF communications systems is well known and it is possible for anyone to listen in with a radio scanner. The Fine Gael (Irish opposition party) justice spokesman, Mr Jim Higgins, told the Irish Times "the existence of the web site was a flagrant security breach and the Minister for Justice should insist it be withdrawn." This only proved that he was ignorant of the reality that it is impossible to have a security breach when the information is in the public domain and has been so for years. Mr Jim Upton, the justice spokesman for the Labour party (yet another Irish opposition party) said in the same article that the availability of the information was "very serious and worrying".
The ignorance of politicians is an accepted fact of life. The fact that the Gardai use unencrypted analogue communications links means that anyone with a radio scanner could intercept these transmissions. An encrypted digital radio system is currently being implemented and is apparently in operation in the Cork area. However it was supposed to be introduced in the Dublin area. Much of the furore over the availability of these frequencies springs from an indication that those involved in a recent paramilitary type bank robbery were monitoring the police frequencies. It is not known if they were monitoring the analogue net or the encrypted digital net. The implications of the latter are certainly dire.
Over the last few years, with the widespread availability of affordable GSM mobile phones, a lot of police communications are being switched to GSM. However there are problems with this as well as according to some sources these conversations can be intercepted by gaining access to the apparently unencrypted microwave link from the base stations to the exchanges. The GSM phone to base station links are, for the moment at least, secure.
