Is Intercepting Emails Through Phone Line Bugging Illegal? - Birmingham, UK

[Rothiemurchus]

Is it illegal for someone to intercept emails by bugging a telephone line?
I have been getting anonymous emails in which the sender has made it
clear that they know what is in the emails I have been sending out
and receiving.Also,the anonymous sender has been making it clear that they can hear conversations in my house,for example,I was speaking to a neighbour in my house about Hadrian's wall and then a couple of minutes later I got an anonymous email with just Hadrian's wall written in the title.
This has happened many times in the last few weeks.Someone is
literally bugging me.How are they doing it and is it illegal?
Would it be illegal for a telephone company employee to do this
because a telephone company employee went up the
telegraph pole at around the time this started happening.I turned down a job
a national tv company offered me.Would they go this far for some reason?
Would they know the telephone company well enough to get them
to listen into my emails and conversations?
THIS IS NOT A JOKE and I would really be grateful for
any help regarding this matter.I live near Birmingham in the UK.
Help me expose these people!

 

[brewnog]

Could it be someone in your house?

 

[dduardo]

Any type of communication interception without a warrant is illegal. Are you using a wireless router by any chance?

 

[DrKareem]

Even if he is running wirless router without firewall protection, it wouldn't explain how his conversations are heard. And as far as I know, e-mails can't be intercepted by bugging a telephone line. However, wireless is easy to track as dduardo implied.

If you are using MS. Outlook or similar programme to collect your emails, i think it would be better if you use a web based email, and change all the passwords of your accounts. Make them a bit complicated (letters and digits).

Good luck exposing those people mate :)
Tea time?

 

[Rothiemurchus]

It can't be anyone in my house and I don't use a wireless router.
I remember seeing once on the web that there is a device that can be
attached to a telephone line and that if you dial the house number you can activate this device which picks up sound.
A receiver aerial can pick up the signal a 100 yards away.Could the telephone guy have put in something that takes the sound signal and instead of transmitting
radio signals sends a signal down the phone line to an online computer,perhaps miles away? This is serious stuff - my mum had a stroke shortly after this started happening.
She was spooked something rotten by this.I've noticed too,
that when I email the tv company who offered me a job, they don't reply.
Also I got more than 1000 emails blocking up 2 email accounts in just a few days.
Could a tv company be this vindictive if you turn down their job?
Please tell as many people as you can about this and we might force
someone into admitting something.Emailing your local MP would help.

 

[The_Professional]

Is it illegal for someone to intercept emails by bugging a telephone line?

Depends on what country you're in. Some countries such as mine don't have updated laws but since you're in the UK that would most likely be illegal. Read up on UK cyberspace law.

They could intercept and hear your phone calls if they're using a wireless device that phone workers use. I don't know about the e-mails unless you're using an unsecure wireless network then they could possibly read your e-mail.

I doubt anyone would still be using those old handsets with the cords that you plug in the station to listen to phone calls but anything's possible

I have been getting anonymous emails in which the sender has made it
clear that they know what is in the emails I have been sending out
and receiving.Also,the anonymous sender has been making it clear that they can hear conversations in my house,for example,I was speaking to a neighbour in my house about Hadrian's wall and then a couple of minutes later I got an anonymous email with just Hadrian's wall written in the title.
This has happened many times in the last few weeks.Someone is
literally bugging me.How are they doing it and is it illegal?

Save the e-mails. You can use them as evidence. Take a screenshot of it as well. Have you contacted the police? a lawyer? He sounds like a prankster or you could be the prankster

Would it be illegal for a telephone company employee to do this
because a telephone company employee went up the
telegraph pole at around the time this started happening.

That sounds hard to prove if he was really doing it or doing his regular job

 

[Rothiemurchus]

I've taken screenshots.Police say it's hard to prove.

 

[The_Professional]

Uhuh...

 

[graphic7]

Post one of the email headers you have received from this "anonymous mailer." In most cases, you can view the headers by going to the properties for that particular email message. Regardless, quite a few pieces of information can be pulled out of this: what email client he/she is using (which might give us a hint to how knowledgeable he/she is), the relays it went through (that'd give us an approximate location of where he/she is), perhaps, an IP address (which would be excellent).

If it's a free email service, such as Hotmail, they are required to comply with the law and since these threats appear serious, logs containing the senders email address should be able to be seen by you or the police.

 

[Astronuc]

Somebody with experience in the phone system could illegally have tapped your phone line. Could they have done it in your home? If not, it could be anywhere between your phone service to the telephone switching office.

Have you tried contacting British Telecome. I would think they would want to stop someone from tapping into their service.

Also, do you use a cordless (wireless) phone. I don't know the British/Euro types, but in the US, cordless phones use 900 MHz or 2.4GHz frequencies, and they are not necessarily encoded, and therefore can be intercepted by someone nearby - as in one of your neighbors.

If you are using, dial-up connection to internet, and your phone is tapped, then perhaps someone is intercepting your emails, in addition to your calls.

 

[Rothiemurchus]

=?utf-8?q?JosephineVunrk?= EMAIL HEADER

I have been doing a treasure hunt competition in which
Napoleon is a clue - Josephine Being his wife.
I got the Napoleon clue last night and then Josephine
was mailed to me shortly after.Get the idea!This person or people know
everything that is going on in my life.

 

[dduardo]

Perhaps you have a trojan horse installed on your computer and this person is monitoring your keystrokes and taking screenshots. You can try this scanner:

http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/

 

[Rothiemurchus]

I found spyware and deleted it three weeks ago.Thanks for the Trojan Horse
link I used it - no virus found.
This is not the only problem.What makes me suspicious about the tv company (whose job I turned down) being involved in this is that when I email them they don't reply.Also I have telephone lines in every room in
the house and these would conduct sound to outside the house.And since
that telphone worker was working on the telegraph pole about the timethis started and the sound would not have to travel too far to a transducer of some sort - or else the signal would weaken too much - I suspect
that the telephone lines are being listened into by a device on the telegraph
pole in the box at the top of it.This must be highly illegal!
The tv company wanted me to train as a producer on the radio broadcasting side of their business.They contacted one of my friends to find
out more about me after I turned down their job.So they definitely have been
going out of their way to get information about me.

 

[VietDao29]

Hi,
So... just stop using the Intenet at your home, and go to the net-cafe (much cheaper!), also change your account,..., and use mobilephone instead... until everything is settled by the police.
I think this way, there will be no tv company hacking your e-mail account... :)
Viet Dao,

 

[dduardo]

This might be out of the jurisdiction of your local police and you'll probable want to contact someone at the FBI equivalent in the UK. All I can tell you now is to reformat your hard drive and create new accounts for your email, etc. You can also call the your telphone company and tell them that you've spotted someone tampering with the telephone lines. They can check the line for you.

 

[Hurkyl]

It probably goes without saying, but you might want to make these calls from another line someplace outside your house, to reduce the chances of tipping the guy off.

 

[Rothiemurchus]

And what if the guy or whoever it is reads this page!

 

[Rothiemurchus]

Is there any way I can listen into my phone line and
detect some signal from a listening in device to prove it is there?

 

[Averagesupernova]

Stage a murder at your house and see if the cops show up.

On the subject of cordless phones: Not all of them operate at 900 Mhz or higher. Older ones and quite possibly some of the newer ones operate below 50 Mhz. Easily picked up by a scanner.

I SERIOUSLY doubt hooking onto the phone line outside your house could allow people to hear what is going on inside your house if all the phones are on the hook.

You mentioned a conversation with your neighbor. Ever cross your mind it could be your neighbor? Real close vicinity to pick up cordless phone stuff with a scanner don't you think? Depending on where you pick up your mail he might even be going through it. Keeping it for a day and putting in your mailbox the next day. My mom was mailing letters earlier and earlier in the day because she thought the mail carrier was getting to the box before she did. She would then pick up the days mail, but not want letters sitting in the box waiting for tomorrows mail over night. So the next day, she'd go down earlier and AGAIN find the mail had already been delivered. After the 3rd time she figured out that it was the PREVIOUS days mail in the box and then later during the day the mail was delivered when it was supposed to be and sat there over night until she found it the next day. She was fooled like this for about 3 days before she figured it out. It was all accidental with no one else involved. Someone could be messing with your mail and covering their tracks for weeks.

Also, if your neighbor is really serious he could be using a directional microphone or something to spy on your house.

If he is even handier than that he could be bouncing an IR laser beam off of your windows. Vibration on the windows causes variation in the beam alignment on the receiver which in turn can be decoded into audio.

Alot of times it is someone you already know.

 

[Rothiemurchus]

How big would the receiver be for an IR laser beam and how far way?
On second thoughts I am sure I have been overheard in different rooms
in the house.Do household radiators pick up enough sound,or perhaps
gas pipes,to give a detectable signal outside the house somewhere?
And there is a site on the web which sells spying devices and says that
a device attached to a phone line can allow someone to listen into your household conversations by turning sound into a radio signal.

 

[Averagesupernova]

And there is a site on the web which sells spying devices and says that
a device attached to a phone line can allow someone to listen into your household conversations by turning sound into a radio signal.

Send me that link because I guarantee I have a phone that is old enough for that to be impossible. And if you are cordless it IS impossible. I can't say it would be possible with any newer corded phones either. It seems you are trying to justify your idea that someone is using the most complicated and James Bond type spying equipment. What gives?

 

[russ_watters]

It seems like it should be extremely difficult to capture data sent over a modem - with all the data being sent, I don't see how you could interpret all of it without some sophisticated equipment. I'm still leaning toward a trojan.

One way to check for a trojan or hack is to open a command prompt (start->run->cmd) and type "netstat". That'll give a list of every connection to your computer: you should be able to identify all of them (there should only be a handful).

Also, you have checked windowsupdate for the latest security updates, right...?

 

[Rothiemurchus]

Have a look at:
http://www.ghu.ca/Docs/eaves.htm

I have installed Windows security updates but Windows security updates do not stop someone from hearing conversations in my house.That is definitely happening too!

 

[Rothiemurchus]

The fact that conversations can be overheard by somebody on both sides
of my house suggests to me that the neighbours can't both have
devices listening into my walls!There are telephone lines in every room in my
house though.I suspect these more than anything because they can carry sound outdoors.

 

[Averagesupernova]

I had a look at the link Roth. Apparently you haven't read it very well. Everything I see in there indicates that in order for a listener to be able to eavesdrop room conversations while the phone is on the hook involve the listener actually modifying the phone itself. That is what I expected. There is an exception to this by relying on the ringer in a phone as a transducer. Not likely in your case, I would hope that most of your ringers are solid state if you have a phone in each room. Otherwise you are most likely WAY over the standard 6 ringer equivalence load on the phone line. A standard bell type ringer has a ringer equivalence of 1. Electronic ringers are MUCH less than this. They also desribe bouncing a laser off of windows and objects that vibrate as I described.

 

[Averagesupernova]

Wondering if you're still being 'bugged'?

 

[gerben]

Perhaps you have a trojan horse installed on your computer and this person is monitoring your keystrokes and taking screenshots. You can try this scanner:

http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/

dduardo, you do know that this scanner only works with Internet Explorer?

Rothiemurchus, it seems strange that the television company would be behind this. What is in it for them? What would be their motive? Revenge seems unlikely for a television company. It is probably someone else, someone you know, perhaps even someone who occasionally enters your house. Are you sure there are no microphones hidden somewhere?

 

[Rothiemurchus]

Two years on and I have now got proof that our next door neighbour was listening into the house through a wall.I'm calling in the police - my mother had a stroke because of the worry of all this "spying" and she died a few days ago! Can't say more for legal reasons - will let you know outcome in a few weeks - I'm sad and very upset by all this.

 

[renigade666]

How did you finally figure that out? 2 years later and you just find out? That woulda drove me insane to know that someone was spying on me

Are you living in a semi home? Appartment?
-Wondering how they would listen through the walls if otherwise