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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (534)	9/20/2001 6:34:36 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawkmoon, as I understand it, Globalstar is a hybrid system. When the user initiates a call, the phone first looks for a land based antenna for cellular. If that is not available, then it transmits to a satellite. The satellite in turn looks first for a land based receiver to transmit the signal via wired connections to the extent possible. If that isn't available, the satellite transmits to another satellite until a path is found to the receiver. At any point where the transmission goes to a wired facility, rather than to a CDMA based wireless system, there would be a chance that the call could be monitored successfully, provided of course that one can track where the call is going. So I agree with you that the Globalstar system in practical applications is not totally secure from unauthorized monitoring, but it's pretty close to being secure. In any event, I don't think it's a very good idea for this worldwide communication system to fall into the hands of the wrong users. If the terrorists are in the habit of communicating by wireless, I hope there ARE ways of monitoring them and generating evidence sufficient to demand they be turned over for trial on charges of murder or genocide. Art