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Panama Decrees Block To Kill VoIP Service
An anonymous reader writes "In an apparent attempt to stem telephone company revenue losses due to Internet telephony, the government of Panama has decreed that 46 UDP ports be blocked by all Internet service providers. The ports include ones that are commonly used for voice over IP as well as some that are used for other purposes, apparently with the idea that these, too, could be used to circumvent the POTS (plain old telephone system, a term of art) in making telephone calls."
How difficult could it be to write some software to use VoIP on port 80 or some other commonly used port?
There are 65534 other ports wich can be used for VoIP, they must block them too!
People have tried to fight progressive technological evolution for ages and it has yet to ever work once. Any country making laws forcing its citizens to live behind the times is only hurting itself. What if panama had outlawed the original telephone because it hurt the post office? Granted, Voice IP isn't quite as drastic a step, but it is progress and it will succeed on its own merit, laws or no laws.
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Example: I buy a new tool. It is a clawhammer. For some reason, this deprives the company making nail removers of money, especially considering their old nail removers were overpriced.
So, the government affiliated nail remover maker goes and makes buying clawhammers illegal.
This is immoral. You can't just rent-a-law because your overpriced technology is being smashed by a preferrable alternative.
I mean, just because you can buy laws (ie: riaa), doesn't mean it should be allowed to happen..
The bottom line though is that the government will not be able to control the VoIP "problem" entirely without just pulling the plug on all Internet activity.
Too true.
I'm actually more worried about collateral damage here - if the news report is correct then any traffic passing _through_ Panama would be subject to the filters - stopping any application that just happens to use one of the ports mentioned.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
You've kind of missed the key point, though: once it starts becoming harder and requiring more knowledge to do it, the phone company will be safe again. The danger comes from pervasive, easy to use VoIP services which anyone can use. If the decree can drive it back to the point where only a few geeks are doing VoIP it's all a success for the telco.
Adapt or die. There is no rule that states established businesses get to do business "the old" forever. If a better cheaper way of doing things comes along, oh well, tough cookies. There were once a lot of blacksmiths as well. So to the phone companies I say, Adapt or Die, better yet just die.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
The US did something worse: they subsidized inefficient transportation in the form of the personal automobile and the required infrastructure to support it. Politicians that must be considered corrupt dismantled public transportation around the country. The result have been urban sprawl and the breakdown of social networks, some of the longest commute times in the world, poor air quality, an unnecessary dependence on foreign oil, and enormous expenses for oil and cars.
Although realistically this is unlikely to be a problem for any significant percentage of Net traffic. Topologically, Panama is most probably a spur on the Internet, rather than a hub. Most of the western hemisphere's traffic passes through the US west coast on its way to anywhere. By the time a given packet hits Panama, I'd lay good odds its actually bound for an endpoint in Panama.
--Ford Prefect