How do you tell if your phone is tapped?

[FreedomDeb]

Hi! Came across this site doing a search on phone tapping. I am trying to find out how to tell if my phone is tapped without having to use special equipment to do so. I have good reason to believe this is a possibility, thus the question here.

Whenever my phone rings, before it actually rings, it does a very slight, momentary partial ring. The phone I used to have did a momentary "whirring" type sound prior to ringing. Whenever I go to dial my phone, as soon as I turn it on (a tone cordless), it sounds as if it is doing a one second pulse connection prior to dial tone. Does anyone know what this is? And if it is a wiretap, how do i get rid of it?

Any help you can give would be appreciated. Thanks!

[LouD]

In all likelihood, you have bad wiring, not a tapped phone.

I would start by buying a cheap wired phone, then go out to the connection box outside your house where the phone service is connected. If you open up the box, you will find a standard phone plug. Plug in your phone and see if it displays the symptoms you have described. If not, try your cordless, also plugging it into the junction box. This will tell you if the problem is your phone.

If the problem does not occur outside, then it is your home wiring. Replace everything between the box and your phone(s) insidet the house. Wires and plugs etc are all modular, so this is pretty easy to do.

I'm guessing this will solve your problem.

Good luck!

[ODDITHER]

DO you have caller ID? If you have caller ID and have your phone set to block incoming calls that have their outgoing caller ID blocked, then many times it will ring once and the quit. They have to unblock their phones and call back. If you have your outgoing caller ID blocked so it doesn;t display your number, that may cause the click you here when you pick up the phone.

[Clara Lou]

This thread is a great antidote for all of yesterday's going on. =)

[Ben Bolt]

Thats true , but I suppose its possible that maybe she's just not up on "fixing things around the house" type of people . I dont know this poster , but all of us here know that the FedGov types dont always have the correct target . It will be interesting to see how this thread pans out Sarah .

[tpaine]

Yep, that's virtually all you do here at FR, -- laugh at the guidelines while violating them. --- Weird hobbie.

[timestax]

You didn't call anybody overseas and accidently say something like Hi Jack, or that's a dynamite hat you have, or a thousand other code words, then the NSA could be recording you for their boys to listen to later on. But if you are as boring as me they will quicky accertain that you are harmless and leave you alone

[FreedomDeb]

Thanks Lou. Sounds easy enough to try without all that other technical stuff. Will check it out just to be sure.

[Buckeroo]

"Yeah, it's definitely tapped. You'll have to shell out a small fortune in order to get it untapped. Go to www.militia-nuts.org and send away for their untap kit. What have you been doing to suspect and fear that anyone would care to listen to what you have to say, anyway? " -- Cultural Jihad

You enjoyed the passage of the Patriot Act. Yet you don't seem to understand the archaic ramifications of your own preferences. You are a true twit.

[Ben Bolt]

Thats the spirit ! develope some body armour and keep your chin up .

[Free Vulcan]

I'll remember that the next time we have a Clinton clone in office, who's goons take a hard look at your Freeper profile and say 'looks like we got a right wing fundamentalist constitutional terrorist here,' and starts doing all sorts of things that the USA PATRIOT Act has given them authority to do. But that's OK, cuz the LAW's the LAW, and if a judge says to round you up and put you in a camp, why you gotta do what you gotta do, cuz that's the LAW, and the LAW's the LAW. Either you are for us or against us. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You got to give up some freedom to be secure. To each according to his abilities, to each according to his need.

Let's roll.

[Cultural Jihad]

Not at all. I was laughing because it was you doing the admonition. Even so, Sen. Barbara Boxer can stand up in the Senate and decry bank-robbery, and the fact that it is check-kiter Barbara doing the admonition in no way negates the truth of her statement. Thanks for participating.

[go star go]

Anyone know how to get a tap added? I want to get caught by the wife talking to the girlfriend...

[RamsNo1]

Not all freepers are as personally mean-spirited as the ones on this thread.

[Vinnie]

I turn it on (a tone cordless

Is your cordless a digital or spread spectrum? If not upgrade. 800 mhz by itself does not make it scanner proof. That would make your phone neighbor proof.
There are lots of 800mhz analog cordless phones out there.
A standard scanner can listen in to an analog cordless phone even 800mhz.

I'm sure the Feds equipment would be undetectable.

NEVER say anything over the phone you wouldn't want repeated or discovered.

[WillaJohns]

Welcome to FR, Deb. You started a very interesting, lively and funny thread. Hope you give folks here a chance, it's a great place and some of the smartest people in the US post here (it's addicting so be careful).

I thought the suggestion above about attaching a new phone directly to the box outside was the best, as far as ease and keeping your costs down in endeavoring to figure out what's going on.

I had lots of strange things happening with my phone, used to have lots and lots of calls that when I answered no one was there--at least five a day and growing by the time we got the "Zapper." A couple weeks ago my husband purchased this "Zapper" for $49.99, which puts a tone on your phone line when it is answered that tells any computer that's calling that it's got a bad call. Amazingly, we have not had even one call since that time with no one there. I was wondering if people are running a bunch of computers trying out phone numbers looking for fax machines (so they can fax their advertisements). It's interesting that the problem stopped once we got the zapper.

[mercy]

Except I made them put a new connection box at the pole then I hard wired my second line only, directly to their wires. I mean I jumped their box and hard wired it. Silicon sealed all connections. In other word I have no jacks on this line. Still had the problem. It still happens once in a blue moon but ever since I started making fun of them it is very rare. lol

[Eustace]

Simple solution, don't say anything on the phone or internet that You don't want them to know.

Supposedly they can turn your phone into a microphone with which they can listen into your home with anyway. So, they don't need bugs anymore, the government gave them free reign to spy on us and mabell and bill gates gave them access into our homes.

[cva66snipe]

Whenever I go to dial my phone, as soon as I turn it on (a tone cordless), it sounds as if it is doing a one second pulse connection prior to dial tone. Does anyone know what this is? And if it is a wiretap, how do i get rid of it?

The whole world can hear you. Why? A cordless phone is a radio also. A word of advice. Any cordless communication device such as baby monitors, cordless phones, wireless mikes for Keroke {sp} plug in intercoms, and such are radios. Yes others can either purposely or accidently hear them. The safest communication but not foulable is a wired phone. Even with that a technical problem called cross talk can on occassion occur. The pulse tone you hear on the cordless is a signal from phone to base to connect. The safest Most secure cordless phone is a digital one. This is because it takes some high tech knowledge to decipher or decode it. Hope this helps.

Another thing is if you have too many phones let's say 5 without telling Ma Bell it can as well cause technical problems especially in the ringing as it lowers the aviable ring current for each phone added.

[nralife]

I am truly ashamed of the way the Freepers have acted towards you and your sincere question. My respect for them has just gone down immensely! You ask a sincere question and you get almost nothing but grief for it. The Freepers giving you a hard time will probably be the first ones thrown into the cattle cars. Perhaps you should have asked your question on a school day when a lot of these little kiddies would be away for there toy computers???

FreeRepublic.com is still a great place for news and other information. Just ignore the idiots who make us all look bad. :)