Advisory Notice 10 -- Information Security Resource Center

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
INFORMATION SECURITY RESOURCE CENTER
PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY

ADVISORY NOTICE No. 10
December 20, 1996

FACSIMILE SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM

DETAILS

This Advisory contains details regarding commercially available equipment being marketed by Electronic Countermeasures, Inc. of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. This equipment is specifically designed for surveillance monitoring of facsimile machines. This advisory does NOT constitute an endorsement of this company or this equipment. The Advisory is provided for informational purposes only to help facilitate a greater understanding regarding a capability for potential surreptitious technical surveillance. The URL where you may access this information directly is http://www.t800.com/eci/fax.htm.

FACSIMILE SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM 8000t

The following has been quoted from the manufacturer's literature.

* The Fax Surveillance monitoring System 8000 (FSS-8000) connects to the telephone line of any fax machine or fax modem. It monitors, captures and stores a copy of all documents sent or received over the telephone line it is connected to. Stored images can be recalled, displayed and printed. Data rates up to 14,400 are supported.

* The FSS-8000 supports non-standard protocols used when two machines from the same manufacturer communicate.Multiple FSS-8000 cards can be operated by one PC if an eight or sixteen bit card slot is available for each card.

* The half-length PC card plugs into any eight-bit 486 IBM compatible PC/AT computer bus slot. A minimum of 4 megabytes of PC RAM system memory are required, and approximately 20 megabytes of hard disk space per card. The FSS-8000 will not interfere with the host computer or the fax it is connected to.

* The telephone line can be bridge-tapped anywhere, and the FSS-8000 connects to the line appearance through a standard modular telephone socket on the back of its card.

* No modification is required to the monitored fax machine/fax modem, and the FSS-8000 will not interfere with the fax communication in any way. Ideal for intelligence operations. It has additional application as an automatic in-house archiving system for large businesses or institutions that require a corporate record of business transactions for litigation or other due diligence purposes.

* Stored document images are indexed by date sent or date received, and destination and origination phone numbers. The on board database can be searched for specific documents by selecting any combination of index terms or scrolling through the pages. Documents may be viewed, positioned and magnified on-screen, or printed.

* The FSS-8000 is available in a complete system built to your specifications, or as a card and software only combination.

MANUFACTURER INFORMATION

Additional information is available from the manufacturer:

Electronic Countermeasures Inc.

65 - 31 Avenue South West

Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2S 2Y7

(403) 233-0644, Fax (403) 233-8849

Email: bill.fischer@t8000.com

POTENTIAL IMPACT

Commercially available equipment which provides a capability for the potential to conduct surreptitious technical surveillances to collect sensitive and Operations Security related information.

RECOMMENDATION

This information should be disseminated to security organizations to promote Information Assurance awareness of the potential for collecting information in this manner.

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Last Updated October 2001