U.S. MOVING TO SCRAMBLER PHELETONES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303570030-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: October 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

V
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303570030-2
AiT+CtE AP?EARED
ON PAGE.
WASHINGTON TIMES
21 October 1985
. moving to scrambler
.
US
pheletones
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Some experts believe a shortage.
of secure scrambler telephones and
carelessness by officials who some-
times are too impatient to use them
are giving away national secrets to
foreign powers.
"We're getting eaten alive by the
bad guys," said one official, who
spoke on the condition he not be
identified. Expanding the network
of secure phones "has always been a
low priority because of the cost;" he
said.
But with government officials
more aware of the potential damage
of losing vital national security
information, a new network of
secure phones - capable of
scrambling transmissions before
they pass through the atmosphere
where they can be intercepted - is
being developed under a $44 million
National Security Agency contract.
With delivery scheduled to begin
in 1987, at least 500,000 of the new
phones will be installed at govern-
ment desks and in the offices of
defense contractors, who often deal
with classified information. As
many as 2 million of the phones are
expected to be bought by other firms
in the private sector, including
major corporations, high-tech com-
panies and financial institutions, the
NSA says.
NSA, part of the nation's intelli-
gence network, is in charge of pro-
tecting government
communications and listening in on
the communications of foreign pow-
ers.
"We want to get [sensitive infor-
mation] scrambled and get people
used to that. People are just so used
to using [unsecure] phones:' said
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont
Democrat, vice chairman of the Sen-
ate Intelligence Committee.
"People get careless because
there are a limited number" of
secure phones, he said. "It's like
someone who says, 'I can leave the
safe open for a few minutes while I
run down the hall: Once they're
more available, that will stop"
The government won't say how
many secure phones it has. J.C.
Sharp, deputy chief of information
policy at the NSA, said the informa-
tion is classified because it would
"indicate to adversaries what the
size of the effort is:'
But the source said the govern-
ment's network of secure phones is
not much larger than it was in the
late 1950s.
Officials declined to cite any
examples where an unscrambled
phone transmission harmed
national security. But they men-
tioned a conversation last week in
which President Reagan discussed
plans to intercept an Egyptian air-
plane carrying the Palestinian
hijackers of a cruise ship.
Mr. Reagan and Defense Secre-
tary Caspar W. Weinberger were in
separate planes when their conver-
sation occurred. It was overheard by
an amateur radio operator.
Presidential spokesman Larry
Speakes said the president, aboard
Air Force One, did not use the air-
craft's secure communications sys-
tem because he was trying to save
time.
Last March, the NSA selected
RCA, Motorola and American Tele-
phone & Telegraph Co. to develop the
new phones. The companies are
required under the contract to
deliver prototypes by the middle of
next year and to begin delivering the
new phones the following year, Mr.
Sharp said.
Unlike the secure phones now
used by government officials that
cost $9,000 or more per phone, the
price of the new ones is expected to
be closer to $2,000, he said.
The device takes a person's voice
and rearranges it into a group of ran-
dom sounds that sound like mean-
ingless noise until they get to the
other end and are put back in proper
order.
The new generation of secure
STAT
phones is expected to be the size of
a standard multi-line office phone. It
will translate voice into digital sig-
nals. Computer chips will rearrange
their order in a seemingly senseless
pattern and sort it out at the receiv-
ing end. The process works so fast
that neither party to the conversa-
tion is aware of any delay.
The new phones will be much
smaller than the current ones, which
consist of a desk-type phone accom-
panied by a scrambling and decod-
ing unit about the size of an electric
typewriter weighing nearly 70
pounds.
The new generation will look like
a conventional desk-top phone. Its
scrambling mechanism will be a
unit about the size of a pack of chew-
ing gum, which is inserted into the
phone when linked to another secure
phone. They also will provide better
sound quality than some of the older
models now in use, which make peo-
ple sound like Donald Duck, Mr.
Sharp said.
Mr. Leahy, who sometimes uses
the secure telephone in the Intelli-
gence Committee room in the Hart
Senate Office Building on Capitol
Hill, said a big problem now is that
officials forget about the importance
of security or don't anticipate that
sensitive information will come up
during a conversation.
"It's not that we're afraid some-11
one will say, "We'll attack tomorrow'
What they might do is send data [on
a facsimile machine over telephone
circuits], but that can just as easily
be picked up;' he said.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303570030-2