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

Re:What good does it really do?

[mboverload]

Encrypted P2P VOIP you say?

It's called Skype. Welcome to The Future.

Same issues North and South of the border

[Funakoshi]

Canada has run into a similar issue with our government's demand for greater wiretaps for phone, email and Internet communications. (From a few weeks ago.)

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNew s/20051011/wiretapping_051011/20051011?hub=TopStor ies

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out in the public debate forum over "our nation's safety and security," or privacy.

Re:Skype

[Wesley Felter]

The rule is that if any part of the system (Skype) touches the PSTN, then every call (e.g. Skype-to-Skype) must be tappable. It sounds like this would totally sabotage Skype, FWD, Gizmo, SIPPhone, etc.

Re:What good does it really do?

[temojen]

Skype is closed source, requires a central server, and touches the PSTN. The combination of these make it easy and legal to include the wiretapping provisions.

(hint for a real solution: IPSec, H.323)

Re:But why...

[projectVORTEX]

Part of the problem, as I have been reading about it, isn't so much the wiretapping law but a particular part of the law. The part of the law in question would require ALL VOIP operators to completely rewire their systems in order to be in compliance with the law. There are easier ways to go about doing this, but those ways were not addressed in the law. Now, as a Vonage customer, I would hate for Vonage to have to send me the bill so they are in compliance with FCC wiretapping regulations. On the other end of the spectrum, there is another issue at hand. This quote is taken from a Yahoo News article on the same subject: "By adopting the VoIP wiretapping rule, the FCC backtracked on an earlier decision to treat computer-to-computer VoIP much like it treats other Internet-related communication, as an unregulated information service, the groups said. The FCC overstepped limits in the CALEA law exempting information services, and federal law enforcement agencies have not shown they need additional help to intercept online communications, said John Morris, staff counsel for the CDT." (Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20051025/tc_pcworl d/123204) There you have it. In fact, the Yahoo article puts things in a better light than the CNN article does, because the Yahoo article also mentions potential problems down the line with integration of wiretapping capabilities into what is essentially IP technology.

Are you aware?

[horacerumpole]

Are you aware that backdoors in form of boxes connected to all exchanges already exists in practically every country in the world?

I used to work for a subsidary of Comverse (Nasdaq:CMVT) which was wholly built around providing the wiretapping boxes to law enforcement agencies around the world (complete with automatic speaker recognition, automatic voice to text, data analysis (i.e. extracting that HTML page out of anything from radio modems to ATM VC's and beyond), voice enhancements, and lots of other neat stuff).

The point I'm trying to pass is that all approved telephone exchanges in the world already have provisions to allow law enforement agencies connect wiretapping devices to them already, and this ruling, as far as I follow (which I admit isn't much) just extend this state of affairs to a new technology.

I still don't see how Skype and its ilks can comply to this (I don't know if they will be requires, that's a parallel thread), given that the voice bits may travel directly between the two talking parties or through random intermediates.

Since 1895

[ducomputergeek]

Law enforcement have been wiretapping telephone and telegraph lines. They did so with the consent of the teleco companies and most people didn't even know the police did this. It wasn't until the 1930's that the The Federal Communications Act prohibitied wire-tapping, even for the government.

Even though the information could not be used in court, the FBI and other police agencies continued to wire tap suspects. Again, they couldn't use the evidence in court, but if the police just happen to know where the mob was going to preform a hit or bank robbery and the police just happened to be ready to catch them in the act....

FDR was the one that allowed the FBI & the Police to go before a judge get a warrent to tap a phone. Why? To stop Nazi Spies in WWII. How many Nazi spies and sabatures did the FBI actually nab during WWII? Actually I don't know the answer to that one.

There is an old book called Ease Droppers that gives some interesting insights into the early world wiretapping. Governments have been using ease dropping technology starting with the Romans. They will continue to demand and use it in to the future.