Slashdot Mirror
VOIP Progress To Be Hobbled By Wiretap Costs?
vaporland writes "This article @ nytimes.com talks about the reasons that development of commercial VOIP may be stifled by the costs required to allow the federal government to listen in on conversations. It is the intention of the FBI, et al, to provide a truly unfunded mandate to force VOIP service providers to develop and provide this wiretap access to them at no cost to the U.S. government, which is to say, the consumer of VOIP will foot the bill for allowing the government to listen in on our phone calls. Perhaps they should just hire some script kiddies to show them how to do it on the cheap?"
Not necessarily. If it worked like PGP, the encryption could be done right on the phone. And just like it works today, you could use any phone, not just the phne companys.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
nytimes.com talks about the reasons that development of commercial VOIP *in the US* may be stifled by the costs required to allow the federal government to listen in on conversations.
839*929
Skype already does this, and is of course growing at an amazing rate (see skype.com) - because the signalling and voice data may go through another computer or two before reaching the final computer, all calls are encrypted end to end. Will be interesting to see how the lawmakers deal with Skype (which is Luxembourg based and hence not governed by US regulations, unless it sets up a US subsidiary).
in the case of SIP, (Vonage, etc), the media travels as a seperate stream and you need to have access to the SIP packets to figure out what media packets to capture... However, the media packets could be anything, like voice data, and/or video data, and/or text messages, like Messenger for example, which also uses SIP. So not only does the gubment get to snoop on voice conversations, they get to snoop on video, and they get to snoop on your text messages. And as far as encryption goes, the encryption keys get sent in the SIP so a MITM can just as easily decrypt your media. Unless you do your own point to point with encryption, then you lose.
Okay, the current system is called CALEA. I believe it consists of a Sun board in a generic box racked out at every landline, wireless and many large hotel (Vegas) switches. If you google for it there were some Phrack articles and other hack scene publications on them. I believe each one has a t1 interface, so that is 24 voice channels it can listen to. Maybe it can only redirect 12, as 12 other channels are required for redirection.
So now Vonage and Packet8 would have to drop these on their switches, assuming they properly support the standards that the CALEA boxes use. They should have the advantage of easily providing this ability from a single point, I'd imagine their servers are all in a few locations.
The funny thing is, you could just get a VOIP endpoint from a provider in a different country and wala, no CALEA. No fuss. Alot of long distance fees, though.
The last job I worked at, supposidly our employer or a related agency listened in on the home telephone conversations of an employee. The rumor I heard was that an employee was under the scope for downloading hacker utilities (a utility that determines if a host is up by pinging it?). Supervisor heard, called employee at home from his cell phone, both got nabbed, the supervisor for tipping off the employee. This was at the Navy's NMCI project. This was the rumor going around, and I don't know who the people were.
When we were younger we found what we guess were illegal phone tapes while xxx-99xx scanning. Too funny.
There are also rumors that CALEA boxes are insecure, have been owned, are connected to the internet and are using public IPs. Another conspiracy theory says they were implemented by companies that are foreign owned and were being unknowingly used to listen in on the president and led to premature release of the Monica Lewinsky audio to reporters. That is all conspiracy theory, search around. You never know, the gov't does some pretty dumb things sometime.
There is a good article in Business 2.0 about drug cartels using the data from phone switches to track federal agents and their people, by cross referencing phone numbers. They used an AS/400.
And in case you didn't know, you can listen to a Popeye's chicken drive thru in Southeastern Virginia live... open http://audio12.hrconnect.com:8000/popeyes.m3u in any mp3 player that supports internet streams/m3u playlists. Enjoy! Don't forget, EST time.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Surely your last point is prevented by the right to silence and the right not to incriminate yourself?
The US Supreme Court has already revoked your right to remain silent when a police officer asks you your name. Google: Hiibel
And in 2001 the US signed the Cybercrime Treaty, but fortunately the US Senate has not (yet) ratified it. There are a ton of problems with the treaty, from extensive wiretap/data_retention provisions, to requiring the US to issue such warrants and gather evidence and hand it over to foreign police - for activities which are LEGAL in the US (for example France could demand investigations and data for Nazi item auctions), it appears to turn copyright infringment into an extraditable criminal offence, criminalization of vital and fundamental software ("hacking tools").
Oh yeah, and it also says you shall be compelled to divulge your passwords, keys, and other information. And obviously the only way they can do that is by throwing you in prison if you attempt to remain silent.
While the treaty has been signed by 26 european nations, the US, Canada, South Africa, and Japan, it has only been ratified by Lithuania, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary and Albania. Of course Bush and the DOJ support it.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
You may have the "right to remain silent", but sadly this doesn't mean you won't be imprisonned for using it. It is even explicitly mentioned when you are arrested:
"You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you fail to mention something that you later rely on in court"
To give an example, you are painting your house. You step outside for a moment, where a vandal had just grafitied a wall. The police turn up and arrest you for criminal damage.
You can use your "right to silence" to refuse to explain the paint on your clothes when the police question you. However, if you later rely on this explanation when defending yourself in court, the jury can make "inferences" from the fact that you initially refused to answer the question. In other words, your explanation could be discounted because you used your right to silence.
Before the changes made by the Criminal Justice Act 1994, this would not have been possible. The jury would not have been alowed to consider the fact that you initially refused to answer.
Obviously the above example is overly simplistic, in that there would be other ways to verify whether you had been painting your house, but it demonstrates the principle.
The right to silence isn't gone but it has been reduced.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
It's worth noting that the quoted statement is not protected by the first amendment, though the wording is such that it could probably be argued both ways. Findlaw has this to say about "clear and present danger. " In fact, I remember reading somewhere that the FBI is actually required to investigate any citizen who advocates violence against the president. Another useful link on the history and limitations of the first amendment is here.