[UFO Chicago] [declan@well.com: FC: FBI releases advisory about 802.11-spotting "wardriving"]

[Lukas Eklund]

Quoting Vitaly McLain:
> I am not sure it is possible with an FM radio, although people have done
> this with TVs. If you have an antenna and live near a cell tower, tunning to
> certain channels (I believe around channel 83) and tunning the antenna can
> cause the TV to pick up cell phone conversations.
> 
> It's actually not that hard to pick up a lot of conversations. Due to FCC
> regulations, frequency scanners sold at stores block the 800Mhz (I believe)
> range to prevent people from snooping on cell phones. Scanners most also
> made "difficult to modify" to pick up that range. "Pre-block" and
> European/Japanese unblocked scanners pop up on eBay and similiar places
> every so often.

There is an artist who goes by the moniker Scanner who uses a
unblocked frequency scanner to insert unsuspecting in the midst of
phone conversations into his performances. He's used sampled vocals
received by the scanner in his albums as well. I saw him perform at
Metro with DJ Spooky and I didn't particularly care for his ambient
brand of electronica at the time but the use of the scanner to include
random one-sided conversations was fascinating.

More info on Scanner:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/x.dll?p=amg&sql=B14176

-- 
Lukas Eklund
leklund@tastytronic.net