Court Battle Over Internet Calls

koweja writes "The federal appeals court has is hearing a petition to overturn an FCC rule that extends current wire-tapping laws to cover VoIP calls. The petition comes from various privacy advocacy groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology. Aside from the obvious privacy issues, the rule requires that providers use equipment that allows wiretaps, which would require many companies to "upgrade" in order to comply."

Comments

But why...

[confusion]

...should those using VOIP be exempt from the abuses of governmental powers that the rest of us must endure?

Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/

Re:What good / a sample conversation

[radiotyler]

habib_freedom_hater01> aziz, are you ready lol
sxy_bch_1955> hi ;) @}-'-`---
habib_freedom_hater01> AZIZ!!! stop goofin we must destroy teh invidels
sxy_bch_1955> ROFLMAO! OMG habib, d00d, this is so l33ts
habib_freedom_hater01> tahts it aziz im goin to call u
sxy_bch_1955> LOL u cant tehy tapped r phone! we only use chat now
habib_freedom_hater01> roxors!
sxy_bch_1955> u set us up teh bomb
habib_freedom_hater01> move zig!
sxy_bch_1955> LOL

Re:I doubt encryption is the answer

[pclminion]

Considering the amount of overhead that would be required to encrypt and decrypt a constant data stream such as VoIP, it seems to me that you'd have pretty bad performance problems.

Then you are ignorant. Assuming a bit rate of 32 kbps (which is generous for voice), that's 4 kilobytes of data per second that need to be encrypted.

Oh woe is me, where oh where am I going to find an encryption algorithm that can encrypt a mighty 4 kilobytes per second? I mean sheesh, it only has a quarter of a millisecond per byte! Hell, at today's CPU speeds we'll have to encrypt a byte using fewer than half a million instructions! God, it just seems impossible!