The following article appears in the Electronic Telegraph today (Oct 3) TWO sensitive messages detailing Tony Blair's movements are among a list of electronic pager notes about the Labour leader and members of the shadow cabinet intercepted by hackers. The list of messages, which was shown to The Daily Telegraph, had been read by equipment freely available on the Internet for as little as £200. Further investigations by the Telegraph show that the vulnerability of pagers could expose nearly a million users to blackmail over sexual liaisons, for example, as well as robbery, commercial espionage and terrorist attack. The Blair messages were almost certainly sent to Alastair Campbell, his press secretary, and Tim Allan, Campbell's deputy. Many of them give a fascinating insight into how Mr Blair and the spin doctors who surround him make determined efforts to present Labour favourably in the media. The intercepts for Sept 14 show how the Labour leader's office was bombarded with anxious messages about a front page report in the Sunday Times newspaper headlined: "Blair aide tells Labour to forget about socialism". The transcripts also show how Peter Mandelson, one of Mr Blair's closest aides, closely monitors BBC news reports. On Sept 16 he sent a message to the leader's office saying that a report by one of the BBC's political correspondents, Jon Sopel, referred strongly to the strained links between the Labour leadership and the unions which had dominated the previous week's TUC conference. After Mr Blair made a speech to the City of London, a message from Hilary Coffman, one of his press aides, anticipated the reaction of the newspapers, saying that most papers, except the Telegraph and Independent had reported favourably. In fact, the Telegraph's headline on the story was: "Blair's good times pledge" above a story saying that he was committed to rising living standards and prosperity. One of the most intriguing messages Campbell received from Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair's chief of staff, said: "Pls call when you and TB are free. I have a message from Mrs T. - Jonathan." Jonathan Powell is the younger brother of Sir Charles Powell, who was Lady Thatcher's private secretary at 10 Downing Street. <blockquote><h4>Scotland Yard said this was the first time it had heard that pager messages could be intercepted</h4></blockquote> Around the time of the call Mr Blair's office was making a determined effort to scotch reports, allegedly attributed to Tory spin doctors, that Lady Thatcher found the Labour leader "creepy". Labour spin doctors were later involved in passing on a message from Lady Thatcher countering the reports and making clear that she still "rather admired" Mr Blair's determination to modernise his party. The police, the Home Office and the Department of Trade and Industry expressed surprise at the latest telecommunications tapping and said that they would investigate if pager-hacking becomes widespread. "It is an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy and Interception of Communications Acts for anyone to receive messages not intended for them," a DTI spokesman said. "However, it is not an offence to own the equipment, so we need to catch perpetrators in the act." Scotland Yard said this was the first time it had heard that pager messages could be intercepted. The Federation of Communications Services has called for the legislation to be changed, making illegal the selling or ownership of radio scanners - a market worth an estimated £200 million a year to the telecommunications industry. An investigation published today in What Cellphone explains how hackers have used a radio scanner coupled to a cheap electronic decoder and a computer running freely available software to receive other people's pager messages from anywhere in the country. It is not an offence to own either a scanner - they are used by yachtsmen to monitor weather forecasts - or the electronic decoder, which is advertised on the Internet as a home automation device. It is the marrying of radio and computer technology that makes pager hacking more of a threat to businesses and individuals than eavesdropping on cellphones. If the scanner is left connected to a computer, a log of every pager message sent by anyone in the country can easily be recorded. This log can then be used in a common word processor program and searched for key words, such as the names of politicians, celebrities or companies. Details of how hackers can send false messages has appeared on the Internet in the past few days. <blockquote><h4> Other messages seen include arrangements for sexual liaisons and details of fruit machines that are malfunctioning</h4></blockquote> "Hacking into pagers is very easily done by anyone with some DIY experience and potentially much more damaging than listening in on cellphone calls," said Bob Tomalski, editor of What Cellphone. "With cellphones, hackers have to listen to the messages as they happen. With pagers they can record a day's messages and search through them later." Once a message has been linked to a particular caller, the software can be set up to search specifically for that pager's identification code, which appears at the beginning of each pager message. Retail chains use the pager system to send details of each store's takings to head office. Messages seen by the Telegraph range from "Yesterday takings £659, see you in pub in 10 minutes" to the precise breakdown of the sales of a big supermarket chain. Other messages seen include arrangements for sexual liaisons and details of fruit machines that are malfunctioning and paying out big amounts in pubs. Of particular concern is the revelation that hackers have intercepted passwords used to switch off alarm systems sent to security guards via the pager network. For years, analogue cellphones have been known to be vulnerable, culminating in the publication of conversations between members of the Royal Family. But despite concerns about the vulnerability of mobile phones, little attention has been paid to pagers, which are much easier to tap. Mobile telephones use several thousand radio frequencies and have a limited range, so the eavesdropper must be near the cellphone receiving the call and have technical knowledge to track the call. Pagers by contrast, receive easily decoded analogue signals based on 25-year-old technology and transmitted on only 10 - published - frequencies. Because the networks do not know where each pager is located, each message is beamed across the country, so that a hacker can receive messages destined for any of the 900,000 pager users from Penzance to Aberdeen. -- Nicolas Hammond NJH Security Consulting, Inc. njhm@njh.com 211 East Wesley Road 404 262 1633 Atlanta 404 812 1984 (Fax) GA 30305-3774