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

They created it, now they have to deal with it

[CastrTroy]

The feds created the internet, and now they have to deal with the implications. They aren't happy about it. Sure, they could use wiretapping on known VOIP services, but what's to stop someone from programming their own, using strong encryption. Sending sound packets over a network isn't that hard, encrypting them is also easy. Maybe you wouldn't have a super robust network, but so long as the person on the other end is getting the message, then that should be OK. Why aren't more criminals using PGP encrypted email? It seems like at this point it would be pretty obvious to them that they get caught when stuff isn't encrypted.

Re:They created it, now they have to deal with it

[bluelip]

You're very correct. (If it possible to more correct than just normally correct)

VOIP can be tunnled to that it loooks like any other encrypted traffic. Are the feds going to start block :443 traffic because I may be tunneling my weekly call to my mom in the traffic?

I work for a state agencey. I've spent the betterm part of days explainging to the higher ups what a certain technology can do and what it can't.

Has anyone been pondering a way to provide politicians w/ this infornmation?

I'm not trying to flame the gov't, just trying to find a way to get them unbiased technoligically corrext info.

I realize that headlines sell and flinging mud wins campaigns. I'm probably too disillusioned to think can't be corrected.

Any ideas out there?

Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Im the senior architect for a major VoIP provider. Supporting Lawful intercept is just like e911, its trivial to do. Its how well you do it that makes it hard. Good networks (in terms of business logic, closely comparable with pstn networks etc) will accept calls at an edge device, and then proxy them through their network. This however has a cost as transporting sip+rtp == bandwidth. In this scenario, wiretapping is really really easy, but it has a cost associated with it. Skype on the other hand basically steals, by comparison, its bandwidth and does end-to-end connections. In essence its a fancy directory service with interconnects to the pstn. This has a lot of other implications from 911 to privacy. Some are good. Eg on skype no one working at skype can tap your calls (unless they include it in their soft client, and havnt done so yet to my knowledge). However, every isp inbetween can, with varying degrees of difficulty (encryption et all). The question comes down to, who do you trust to do fair and balanced intercept, because its going to happen somewhere. Is it your isp under supeona, or is it the voip carrier who does it all day long. /. 'rs often complain about cease and decist letters, next thing it'll be wiretap letters and they'll comply just as fast. So be careful what you wish for. This society will not give up the ability to combat crime through selective, targeted, electronic monitoring. In fact in the last few years with commander kuku bananas in charge theyve made it even more prevailent. The fact of the matter is skype got kicked outta china, because their tech doesnt support lawful intercept, while others are getting licensed. Something for nothing just isnt gonna happen for the masses in telecom, theres too many special interest groups. You'll see gun control first; mark my words. If the VoIP community fights lawful intercept, E-911, privacy laws et all, and the internet community supports them. The special interests will do in the us as they have done in china, and just firewall the whole freakin country. Dont think it can't/wont happen here.

Re:Skype

[chill]

IIRC, the wiretap provisions only apply to VoIP POTS interconnects. Straight VoIP VoIP isn't covered by this, only where they interact with the regular phone system. Thus Skype Skype isn't covered, but SkypeOut *IS*.

None-the-less, odd are the courts will rule the FCC doesn't have the authority to enforce this. Even the FCC members who voted for this stated that it was on some convoluted, shakey logic.

  -Charles

No Problem, I'll Just Encrypt It!

[mr_stinky_britches]

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68306, 00.html
wired has a good article on an open source project for an encrypted voip application.
let's see them wiretap that ;)

Re:A quick read between the lines

[mcrbids]

Here's the major problem I see here. For the FBI to wiretap, they must have probable cause and a warrant.

Uh, remember the (so-called) PATRIOT act? All that law enforcement needs to do is claim that you might be a terrorist and wiretap laws go out the window. Along with them, your privacy. They don't need to substantiate their "might be a terrorist" in any way, nor do they have to make that claim before doing the wiretap.

It's just fucking hideous. Terrorists attack, and the US Govt immediately turns around and hands our defeat to the terrorists. If the terrorists want to attack our freedoms, then they have already had some pretty major successes!

(and this is one of those few times where a little swearing is very appropriate)