What makes a good phone conversation?

How true is it that encryption on CDMA networks makes it virtually impossible to tap into a phone conversation, and does this also apply to data on CDMA networks?

• Answer:

  Not true at all. Mobile phone encryption built-in to the various standards (GSM/CDMA/3G) is designed only to prevent eavesdropping on the wireless part of the connection, between your phone and the base station. Law enforcement agencies etc. can easily get access to the base station itself, or the carriers' backbone network, or they simply put up a fake basestation and forward all traffic to the carrier network. For actual encryption you'd need both phones exchange encryption details between them - there are phones available that can do that, or smartphone apps that do the same, but this is not the same as the built-in 'encryption' in normal mobile handsets.