Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Skype Equivalent Without "Big Brother"?

Posted by Cliff on from the conversations-without-prying-ears dept.

Slimy Devil asks: "News.com has recently reported on the FBI seeking veto power over PC software. This makes me wonder: is there a safe, provably secure VOIP-like technology out there? The recent buyout of Skype probably means that the supposed encryption will be of little value, if you are of the opinion that the FBI or other law enforcement agencies shouldn't be able to tap in on demand. So, for my question to the Slashdot community: is there a viable alternative that is free of such concerns?"

4 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. There used to be... by FrankBlues · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There used to be PGPhone, but development on it stalled.

  2. Shtoom! by gothzilla · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This site follows Skype's work with encryption.

    http://www.pgpvoip.com/

    Zimmerman's work with encrypting VOIP is with this client:
    http://divmod.org/projects/shtoom

    Forget about Skype ever being secure. It already has an encryption layer but since they've made "arrangements" with law enforcement, it cannot be assumed to give you total privacy.

    If you want truly secure VOIP, follow Shtoom's progress. It's as close as it gets right now.

  3. Calling all Americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    This Big Brother shit has to stop.

    Will you spineless, willfully ignorant morons take your excellent constitution and stuff it collectively up your politician's and bureaucrat's asses. You all have no right to celebrate Thanksgiving in the current political climate - when everything you purportedly hold sacred is being murdered from within. "We the People" have become "we the impotent".

    You may say - "sort out your own country before criticising", You see the thing is - we have adopted major sections of US law all so we can have a "Fucked Trade Agreement". The difference is we have no recourse to affect the situation.

  4. Re:PGP Phone won't traverse NAT routers. by Bob_Robertson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    OpenVPN requires one end of the tunnel to be directly addressable, so its use remains limited by that fact.

    The Skype model, which seems substantially like the Gnutella network, might be one way of building such a system. Heck, why couldn't it be piggy-backed on the existing Gnutella network?

    The voice client could connect to the Gnutella network with a hash of the users userID (or some such). Want to find Bob_Robertson? A request for the SHA1 hash of "Bob_Robertson" goes out, my system sees the request and responds, etc.

    The only real problem is lag. I don't know how long it might be between someone trying to find me and my system finally receiving the request.

    Oh well. The simple fact is that Security Is Inconvenient.

    Bob-

    --
    The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics