The Sound Of Silence - Otago Daily Times Speak With Mike Gillam of The Investigators
July 8, 2018 | Security
A recent Otago Daily Times phone interview with Prof Karen Willcox, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, went eerily silent in the middle of a conversation about advanced military technologies.
Those working in the field of communication security and intelligence operations certainly think it is a possibility. They are divided, however, over whether it is likely.
The curious incident occurred shortly after this newspaper reporter asked Prof Willcox about her work on new commercial aircraft designs with potential military applications.
Click here to listen to the call
Listen for when the sound of silence changes, at 2min 27sec. That is the moment at which communication is broken. Was someone listening in? Had they become increasingly nervous about what might be said? Did they hit the "mute'' button?
Did the "spooks'' just reveal themselves? Was someone listening in?
The designs were probably decades away from being operational, she said.
She was then asked if the military got to use the technologies before the public saw them.
In response, Prof Willcox gave the example of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. One of the major advances in that aircraft was the use of strong, lightweight, carbon fibre composite materials - materials that had first been used by the military.
"I think that is an example of where the technology was in the military long before it was in commercial aircraft,'' she says.
That is the moment at which the "air'' on the phone line changes. It goes from an alive background crackle to a deep, leaden silence.
But the interviewer does not pick it up. He asks a question about Prof Willcox's current research bringing maths and aeronautics together to solve aircraft design problems.
When he gets no response, he says "hello?'' a few times, hangs up and then re-dials.
Reconnected, Prof Willcox says she had the same experience.
"The call was still connected, but it went dead quiet,'' she says.
The journalist jokes about the perils of discussing military technology on the phone. It does make you wonder who might be listening,'' she responds, with a laugh.
Not laughing so much is Prof Holger Regenbrecht.
Prof Regenbrecht is head of the information science department at the University of Otago.
Among his activities, he teaches a paper on information assurance. It covers topics such as communications security, access-control techniques and intrusion monitoring.
The paper was established by recently retired cryptography specialist Dr Hank Wolfe, who worked for the CIA during the 1970s.
It is not unreasonable to suspect someone was listening in on the call, Prof Regenbrecht says.
"Since the revelations of Edward Snowden ... there is substantial evidence that phone lines are tapped, especially when they go outside the US,'' Prof Regenbrecht says.
"Internal spying on US citizens is illegal, but it is not illegal to spy on foreigners.
"MIT is a big institution doing lots of military and homeland security research, so it wouldn't be unlikely. I wouldn't be too surprised by that.''
Less certain is Mike Gillam, director of The Investigators, an organisation described as New Zealand's most experienced private investigators.
Gillam, who has a police background, says it is clear the US cyber and telecommunications intelligence organisation, the NSA, and the joint US-United Kingdom-Canada-Australia-New Zealand intelligence alliance, Five Eyes, does monitor communications using computers scanning for key words.
He says the notion of someone listening in and manually "muting'' the conversation with Prof Willcox is "a bit far fetched'' - until he realises she has worked for the US military.
"OK, well that makes it a little more interesting, doesn't it,'' he says. "I don't doubt the capability is there.''
His bottom line, however, is "unlikely''.
Peter Coleman is even more sceptical. Coleman is director of Aegis Interaktif, a Singapore-based forensic and investigations firm.
He believes it would be "very unlikely'' that any agency was listening to the call.
"Not impossible,'' Coleman says. But even if they were, he does not believe they would have the ability to mute a call.
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- Article originally on odt.co.nz.
