VoIP Wiretapping

pisqon writes "VoIP News has an article discussing a U.S. government decision that will extend wiretapping regulations to the Internet. From the article: 'The Federal Communications Commission voted 5-0 last week to prohibit businesses from offering broadband or Internet phone service unless they provide police with backdoors for wiretapping access. Formal regulations are expected by early next year.'" Update: 03/28 04:52 GMT by Z : As several readers have pointed out, this story is a mite out of date. Good conversation in the comments, though.

Comments

Only makes sense

[SithGod]

As long as wireteps for VOIP phones fall under the regulations for wiretaps on normal phones, I don't see any reason that it shouldn't be allowed. Otherwise VIOP will be seen as a haven for criminals trying to circumvent weiretaps instead of a legitimate technology

Re:Only makes sense

[EvanED]

There are theives who leave their wallets at the scene of the robbery. Or who buy something with their credit card immediately before holding someone up. Or who call the police to tell them that their marijuana cache has been stolen. It's asking a lot to have them be careful with encryption.

Sure, you're not gonna catch Danny Ocean that way (sorry, just saw Ocean's 12 last night), but you will get 95% of people you're after.

Re:Only makes sense

[CSMastermind]

The FBI plays mean tricks on people. My Aunt and her husband wanted for murder, embezzlement, and some more minor crimes. They both ran away in the early eighties. Agents called my grandmother's house pretending to be doctors and told her the her daughter was in a New York hostipal in critical condition. They had her phone tapped and were hoping that if she knew where Connie was that she would call her back and they'd be able to trace the call. The point of tapping phones is that they're one of the most widely used means of communication.

Re:Only makes sense

[ScrewMaster]

That only makes sense if you believe that unrestricted monitoring of private communications between U.S. citizens is legitimate. Personally, I don't. Allowing one bad regulation to justify another bad regulation is unreasonable in and of itself.

Re:Only makes sense

[TedCheshireAcad]

Law enforcement needs the approval of a judge to tap a phone. This constitutes a restriction.

Uhh, VoIP is digital

[Eric(b0mb)Dennis]

Being that VoIP originates from the callers machine digitally, it would be easy to add encryption to the transmission. Please comment, do any current VoIP services clients or other free/open-source clients already offer this feature?

Re:Uhh, VoIP is digital

[Op911]

Isn't skype supposed to be encrypted? Thought that was one of the big deals about it (Besides the sound quality) http://www.skype.com/

Re:Uhh, VoIP is digital

[Stonehand]

Hm. Even if the content is encrypted, one could still conduct traffic analysis since each forwarding system has to know where to forward the packet.

Granted, there may be a way to use client-level multihop source routing with encryption so that each stage only knows the next link the client wants the packet forwarded to, but that's a step that may be less obvious to take than merely encryption of content. Running a server that permitted this might also be rare enough to raise red flags.

Is Skype [dev'd outside of USA] exempt?

[ivi]

Remember the "can't export crypto technology" era?

Those who did their crypto development outside USA
were exempt from the restriction (mostly), ie,
since they wouldn't have to export code in an
electronic form.

Perhaps software-only VoIP systems like Skype
will be exempt from the FCC's "must provide a
backdoor" ruling.

Has Skype made any statement on its position?

Re:Is Skype [dev'd outside of USA] exempt?

[Mike deVice]

From TFA:

Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom told me last fall that "we do not have any legal obligation to provide any means for interception" in his company's VoIP software. How will you force a company based in Luxembourg to insert backdoors in its software when it has no obligation to do so?

This doesn't qualify as an official statement from Skype, but it pretty much says it all, I think.

Encryption

[slifox]

The difference between VOIP and regular telephones is that with VOIP its not too difficult to add a layer of encryption transparantly, which would easily foil any wiretapping.

Just encrypt the audio in whatever software you use...

So encrypt it

[Albanach]

While it's connecting to POTS there's not a lot anyone can do, indeed I'm surprised this isn't already the case. However for computer to computer calls via SIP or one of the many other protocols encryption of the actual voice data should be possible.

That way, just like PGP or S/MIME encrypted email, they'll be able to see who you called and at what time, but not what you said.

Perhaps now is the time to make sure VoIP offerings can be easily encrypted - before they are taken up by the masses. If high grade opportunistic encryption was available it might jsut be used, whereas to trya nd introduce it retrospectively... well we all know how successful that has been with email.

Crypto?

[shutdown -p now]

Does this mean that protocols supporting (or requiring) strong encryption are basically forbidden by that, since there's no way they could be wiretapped?

identification

[fred133]

So,When is FBI going to send out those letters stating that I must appear at XXX address to get my personal ID number TATTOOED on my forearm?
(It won't hurt,just a little pinch...)

Re:identification

[t_allardyce]

What? allowing you to actually see your personal ID? thats so last decade, nowdays they just take your finger and iris scan and keep it all locked up in a database (McDonalds can see it, not you).

Is this really a big deal

[jonwil]

As long as the requirements for getting a tap warrent or whatever are just as strict as they are for PSTN, this isnt a problem.

For the techincal side (given that the providers being targeted under this law all have central servers somewhere one would assume), all they need is to plug a big storage device into their network and set things up to dump the audio stream for the phonecalls they are allowed to tap as it passes through the network (either still compressed with whatever compression the phones use or totally uncompressed). Then, provide whatever piece of software is needed to uncompress and listen to the phone calls and thats all the FBI needs.

Re:Internet too?

[Degrees]

They can't open personal letters, can they?

Of course they can. They are not supposed to, but they can, and do.

I vividly remember my dad going into a rage when his mail was being read by the local post office. He went to the mailbox, and I followed him (I was a little kid, it was natural for me to follow.) Had the letter in his hand, shaking it, saying "Look at this! Look at this! These bastards are reading my mail!" The whole top of the letter had been ripped open, and then taped shut.

At the time, he was a semi-high mucky-muck in the Republican Party in California. If the letter came from from party headquarters, some democrat (presumably) opened the letter and read it. After opening and reading it, they'd tape it shut, rubber stamp it with "sorry, damaged in handling", and send it on. Complaints to the local Post Master were ignored (federal government workers, at least at that time, were almost all Democrat, for some strange reason....) For a little more information, see the paragraph under Hobbies list here.

Privacy invasion is more subtle now, but there is zero reason to think things have changed for the better since then.

OK. So what are free/OSS encrypted VOIP options?

[sulli]

Since obviously we can't use Vonage or equivalent privately.