Caught by the mobile

Caught by the mobile

The last known leaks of messages between politicians come to light by the use of SMS instead of instant messaging applications where the texts are encrypted

   From the famous "Luis, be strong" from Rajoy to Bárcenas that came to light four years ago, until the last known case with the 'Operation Lezo': «Thanks Nacho. A hug. Hopefully the messes will close soon »of the Minister of Justice, Rafael Catalá, to the ex-president of the Community of Madrid recently arrested, Ignacio González. The leaks of certain SMS from the highest Spanish political sphere suggest that telephone conversations are still a source of police investigations.


    Just as years ago telephone calls intervened (the so-called 'phone jacks') were the order of the day, today with new technologies you can go a step further and are text messages (SMS) or instant messaging applications (Whatsapp or Telegram mainly) where the focus is placed.

Of course, intercepting an SMS is not the same as a WhatsApp message. Traditional text messages travel on the same line as a telephone call, so the police can intercept them with a virtual repeater "in a more or less simple", explain sources of the National Police consulted by this newspaper. However, calls made by WhatsApp or messages sent from the application can not be intercepted in real time by the end-to-end encryption system implemented by the company owned by Facebook a year ago.

The safest apps

Mobile phones 'hacked'
Only 29% of the world's smartphones are encrypted. However, these devices are the new gateway to personal data, "says Alberto Ruiz, Sophos presales engineer, but that a mobile phone is not encrypted does not mean that it is completely unprotected, currently, most of the apps already implement the encryption of the messages and for a time it is difficult to be able to violate them.

For his part, Pedro Martínez, pre-sales manager of HPE Aruba, explains that nowadays every employee of a public or private company carries a lot of information about work on the mobile, especially through the company's email. If those devices are attacked by a hacker, you can access all the information and extort it with publishing, says the expert. As a solution, it proposes that the companies have control over the monitoring and protection of the devices that fall within their area of ​​activity.

WhatsApp messages are encrypted in origin and term, so knowing its content is more complicated than that of SMS although it is still a very primary process, say the same sources. There are much more prepared tools against interceptions such as Telegram, not because of its security system itself, but because it is a Russian company, its owners rely on the laws of their country to not collaborate with the investigations of the Spanish Police.

In terms of technically more protected applications, the safest today is Threema, a paid app (2.99 euros in the market of iOS and Android) owned by a Swiss company that provides the user with an identifier number, not based on the phone number like the rest of apps. Thus, you can not find another person if you do not have this personal number because it is communications via IP.

Returning to the messages intercepted by politicians, they are texts that come to light through leaks or anonymous revelations that are obtained, mostly, by the "carelessness" of these people, because although all the members of the Government have an official mobile with a encryption system of high security level, the messages are captured because they are sent from a personal telephone or because the recipient does not have an encrypted mobile.

How does the police monitor a mobile phone?

The Sitel system (Integral System of Interception of Communications) is the computer network used by the security forces and bodies of the State since the attacks of 11-M in 2004, although it was bought by the Government chaired by Jose María Aznar in 2001. The Supreme Court considers it legal as long as there is a judicial authorization in between. From that judicial authorization, Interior only has to call the operating company of said telephone to divert the information to the central servers of the system.

Developed by Ericsson, it allows the unlimited interception of all telecommunications that occur in Spain. Its most common application is to record conversations in real time and reveal the content of the SMS and photos sent among the investigated. To date, the Sitel system does not act on WhatsApp.