Groups Slam FCC on Internet Phone Tap Rule

kamikaze-Tech writes "An Associated Press report posted in the Vonage VoIP Forums discusses the new CALEA regulations that will make it easier for law enforcement to tap Internet phone calls. The article claims that the new law will also make computer systems more vulnerable to hackers, according to some digital privacy and civil liberties groups. While the groups don't want the Internet to be a safe haven for terrorists and criminals, they complain that expanding wiretapping laws to cover Internet calls -- or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) -- will create additional points of attack and security holes that hackers can exploit. VoIP service providers such as Vonage, Skype and Packet 8 have eighteen months to comply with the new law."

Comments

Cyberstalkers...

[Travoltus]

Isn't that the same CALEA law that also forces router/NIC makers to install FBI backdoors (which can also be compromised by hackers)?

I see a big market soon for do-it-yourself NICs and PC routers...

Sounds fine to me

[domipheus]

I don't mind phone tapping at all - as long is there is cause for it's need. However as stated in another posting it is kinda stupid, as if people want to communicate over the net for dodgy dealings, they are certainly not going to use one of the mainstream (or indeed, any) VOIP provider.

If only the UK was able to procecute criminals based on phone tapping, currently it's not allowed (hears gasps of shock).

Legal consequences?

[soma_0806]

I can't help but wonder what will happen when someone uses one of these "mandated" security weak points to impair service from one of the larger providers, like Vonage. If the government was warned that it would be a likely outcome of their new law, are they liable for the damages?

Even worse, sniffable (tapable, whatever) by the government means sniffable by a lot of far more clever black-hats. Who is liable for the damages incurred by identity theft? Or are we just never supposed to order anything over the phone again?

I guess 18 months from now it's back to the cell phone only existance for me....

It's obvious what will happen

[ajs318]

Some hacker will graft PGP-style encryption onto SIP. You will simply send your public key in the headers -- it's called Session Initiation Protocol for a reason don'tcha know -- and the far end will encrypt against it. If anybody is listening in, they won't be able to decrypt it. Even better, you wait for sometime after the information has lost its value and publish the private key. Now nobody can even prove you really were the intended recipient.

All the tools required to do this are already available as open source, so it will be an interesting exercise for somebody.

And it will have the beneficial side-effect of killing off SKYPE. Another closed protocol bites the dust, good riddance.

Re:It's so much worse..

[OverkillTASF]

Interesting... Once again, we have a parallel to gun control here. I would assume from the conversation that all parent posts to this would also agree that just as this tangential law won't stop a criminal from communicating, nor will a given gun-ban stop a criminal from obtaining and using an illegal firearm. If you outlaw encrypted VOIP, only criminals will have encrypted VOIP. And the rest of us are screwed.

Re:Feed the troll

[cbiltcliffe]

I've followed about 4 or 5 links to see exactly what verse they're referring to with comments, and every one they've twisted to make it say what they want it to say, then said "See?! The Bible can't be right, because it says to !!"

Genesis 24:2-3,9 : Grope sexual organs of one swearing oaths
Read the text. Putting a hand under a thigh is hardly "groping sexual organs". Putting it on top of the thigh would be closer to what they describe it as. Besides, I think this was a cultural thing. Nowadays we shake hands on a deal, they would do this. It's probably rooted in something like holding the person there until the deal is done, and they've sworn their promise to you.

Genesis 25:1-6 : Keeping mistresses is not adultery.
Again, read the text. Nowhere does it say that keeping mistresses is not adultery. It says Abraham had them. It doesn't say whether this was a good or bad thing. It does show that Abraham was human, and subject to the same character flaws as we are.

Genesis 39:7-14 : Woman tries to rape man.
So? What's the point? Have you never seen a demanding woman who happens to want sex? She wanted to have sex with him, and he didn't want to. As geeks, I know this is hard for us to understand, but there are aggressive women out there, who pursue men in this way.

Genesis 47:29 : Joseph ordered to "feel-up" his father.
Jacob didn't want to be buried in Egypt, which was a foreign land. He wanted to be buried at home. So he made his son swear that his body would be taken and buried with his ancestors, using the customary "handshake" of the time. Nowhere does it say "Jacob order Joseph to stroke his dick and promise to take him out of Egypt."

Exodus 12:29 : God kills all first-born babies in Egypt
Egypt at the time was an extremely sinful nation in God's eyes. Children were being brought up in slavery, sex orgies were common, and people were beheaded, stoned or worse, just for saying "No" to the emperor. (Kinda makes Bush Jr. look good, doesn't it?) Assuming that the whole heaven/hell thing is accurate, children brought up in this culture would have no chance of a life in heaven after death. By taking them young, God brought them out of their corrupt environment, and at least some of them wouldn't have been sent to hell. He also probably caught the attention of the people of Egypt, as nothing else had worked so far.

According to Christians, (real ones, not Bush) God wants nothing more than for every human to repent of sin and take forgiveness and, by extension, life after death in heaven. What happens to you on earth is pretty much immaterial in the infinite scheme of things. Nowhere does God say that people in the bible are "exemplary for modern conduct", as that page says. They're human. They're supposed to be human. They're supposed to have all the same stupid problems we do, because we're supposed to learn how they overcame them, rather than striving to be like a perfect, unreachable ideal.

I won't claim to be an expert on the bible. I'm not. There are undoubtedly some references on that page that would stump me, had I looked at all of them, rather than just the few that I did.
That's why I work on computers for a living, rather than preach. I don't want to be an expert on the bible. (It does contain some very good lessons to all of us, though.)

But the fact that I (a non-biblical expert) could pick a few random links, and couterargue every single one of them, shows that maybe the page author doesn't completely know what they're talking about, and isn't taking a few things like cultural difference into account.

Re:It's so much worse..

[HD Webdev]

Don't bet the farm on that.

Very true. It's not like most families that raise 'Political' children try to also teach them technology.

Those children are shown how to use human resources to use people and technology.

Being a politician mostly involves high skills in using other people to accomplish tasks and do the 'understanding' for the politician. That is pretty much the opposite of learning how to understand technology themselves.