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Snooping on VOIP
EvilAlien writes "SecurityFocus is running an article on a joint Justice Department and FBI filing to the FCC which asks for broader communications interception powers:
FBI seeks Internet telephony surveillance. The move is very similar to the Lawful Access Consultation launched by the Canadian Government in August 2002. Both initatives discuss technological challenges and fears of communication "safe havens" for criminals on broadband services such as Internet, VoIP, and wireless services. Holes in existing legislation, such as Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), can provide unintended exclusions for services such as Free World Dialup."
In other news, criminals are now able to use "cars", new transportation means that allow them to quickly escape after perpetrating crimes. FBI is looking for a way to monitor all cars in order to ensure security.
This is getting boring. Really.
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
people used ssh to tunnel their calls (assuming it's possible), or made calls over VPNs?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Well there is PGPFone
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
In other news, orwell rolled over in his grave today, as a confused nation scrambled to hand over their individual freedoms for the sake of percieved security.
Do not surrender your freedoms, granting increased voip snooping is just one more step to a totalitarian nation, where we justify acts like pre-emptive wars, racial profiling, internetwide snoop network with evil McCarthy databases,...
Oh shit it already happened...
What's the encryption like on VOIP? Would something like PGP be possible?
:)
In theory, the following applies... in practice I have no idea
Since VOIP is transferred in IP packets and packets can be encrypted encryption should be possible.
Since PGP is public key encryption and this is fairly standard there shouldn't be any problems there either.
The real issue is that whatever the solution it has to be part of the standard... otherwise it's pretty meaningless, unless your dodgy friend also has a custom encryption solution, and then I guess one could tunnel VOIP through an SSH tunnel just as well.
I suspect that VOIP technologies have incorporated encryption, but I'm not educated on the subject. Would someone care to fill in?
.: Max Romantschuk
There is a company I use called Vonage. They provide you with a free Cisco ATA when you signup. You aren't renting it, you own it. You pay $10 for shipping (I got mine two days later) and your first month and your good to go. Has caller-id, three way calling, voicemail and some really powerful forwarding features that can make your phone bounce all over the place and then back to your voicemail with them. One draw back is they have a cancellation fee (about $39 I think). All in all, they have been great for us... it is our only phone now. Upstream requirement is 90kbs. And no, I don't work for them... just a satisfied customer.
Seriously. I know most people send postcards (e-mail) and not letters (encrypted e-mail) but wouldn't you at least do a simple public key exchange for VoIP? I feel I have much more privacy in a phone call than I do on an unencrypted Internet chat that is being relayed through a bunch of unknown servers.
;)
Even the simplest of key exchanges would stop any eavesdroppers, and making a man-in-the-middle attack requires so much more work, not to mention being detectable if verified through a secure channel.
That being said, I can understand the law enforcement agencies. It's not like it's the difference between a postcard and an envelope - it's the difference between a postcard and an indestructable envelope. Giving the police special permissions (e.g. to open your letters with a court order) doesn't work well in a world where encryption is in black and white - secure and insecure. Escrow keys and stuff like that to make it work like in the "real world" doesn't work well either.
Personally, I think I'd just write a AES wrapper if I'm busy planning to Take Over The World(tm Pinky & the Brain). Either that or I'll just send some PGP'd blueprints over freenet through a proxy from a webcafe wearing gloves or something
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
We can give up all our remaining freedoms but the only "tech" a "terrorist" really needs is the commitment to die for their cause. How do you 100% guard against that? I fear for our children's children.
He was completely off by about 19 years.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
The law enforcement community has been begging for the unrestricted right to spy on the american people for some time now. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm much more fearful of government agents with gestapo-like powers than I am of deluded wackos from the 3rd world. The intelligence community already spies on the rest of the world, which is where the threat is coming from. That should be enough. If not, then that is what our military is for, to defend the country against our enemies...which are OUT THERE, not HERE. I'd rather have terrorists over to my house for dinner three nights a week than see law enforcement aquire unnecessary powers that are a greater danger to the public than the terrorism they are purported to prevent.
The abundance of those who would trade freedom for the temporary illusion of security are proof positive that 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.