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FCC Affirms VoIP Must Allow Snooping
MarsGov writes "The FCC released an order yesterday that requires all broadband providers and all "interconnected" VoIP providers to implement CALEA — in other words, law enforcement can snoop on your online conversations, both voice and text. While this is no surprise, it makes encryption for VoIP even more urgent."
No surprise here at all.
The goverment isn't even willing to get proper warrants to tap regular phone and internet service. VOIP won't be any different.
Look for encryption to be made illeagal for all phone and IP services in the very near future.
This is just another step in the war on the constitution.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWIf they are this forceful in there attempts to spy on citizens, than how long do you think we can use encryption before they ban it (or at least mandate a government backdoor)?
it makes encryption for VoIP even more urgent
Big players like Skype or Google Talk will have to implement weak (gov breakable) cypher. And if you opt to use it you will automatically be in focus.
And of COURSE Skype had to be bought out just months ago by an American company (eBay).
Encryption for VOIP won't help in many scenarios that LEAs are interested in. If you're calling a land line from your VOIP connection, the end point on the land line won't be able to decrypt the conversation, so even if all of the VOIP traffic is encrypted you'll have to go to the PSTN in the clear. AIUI, that's what they mean by "interconnected".
.sig: file not found
VOIP works via packets with data describing the voice traffic, right? Suppose someone made a program to say "watchlist-words" constantly, and send them everywhere. How hard would it be for a terrorist to DDOS the FBI/NSA? I mean, if you randomize it, you can change pitch, volume, etc, as well as words. I have no idea how to do that exactly, but it doesn't seem infeasible.
and there's encryption. When you do find encryption make sure it isn't DES, NSA actually owns the patent on that one.
If Skype bows to FCC pressure (which they will) then they will not provide encryption in their service which means that the people using Skype won't be able to encrypt their calls.
Most people don't really care about encryption or wire tapping, but for those that do you can be sure some offshore service will pop up to fill the void.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
One can learn a lot by knowing:
a. who you call, when you call them, and for how long
b. who calls you, when they call you, and for how long
c. who these other people communicate with
d. what all these phone numbers are associated with (bank accounts, etc.)
My answer? A call to the /. community to organize in each Congressional district. Anybody who wants to assist in putting together these groups, please e-mail me. techroots@storyinmemo.com. If 15 of us in Southern Maine get together, we'll get a meeting. If we, as an organization, speak, we'll be much louder. Anybody, and particularly anybody in Southern Maine, I really want to hear from you. In a world that organizes online, if we can speak in real life too, we as geeks may be the most efficient people to form together.
Let's see if we can't stand a chance in hell of not being oppressed by the government we as a country vote for.
SIG: HUP
Are slashdot readers all using encryption on their existing telephone lines? If not, why does it matter now that it's VOIP?
Sorry, sugar coat it all you want, but that is jsut another variant of the fallacy that "If You're Doing Nothing Wrong There's No Need to Worry". For one you as the average citizen have no idea what kidns of clasified things the FBI does behind your back, or for that matter how that would work in with this issue, two even if there are promises from govt. officials about keeping provacy secure, histroy will tell you that this will either isn't true at all, will not be true for long, or is an honest ida gon awry.
What if you are doing what is "not wrong" tpo the average person and law abiding citizen then? Didn't think of that huh? Look back in history: Sacco and Vanzetti, the Red Scare, people of Japanese DECENT for christ's sake being sent to camps - even internationally things like the Jewish concentration camps in Germany tell you that this is not true all the time, and can not be treated that way safely.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
So this is what that Microsoft patent is really for.2 38213
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/04/2
In all seriousness though, how many people will actually use VOIP to discuss illegal activity. If they know they're being monitored wouldn't they be more likely to use some more secure form of communication? Although, this brings up the question what do people sue to discuss illegal activity NOW if they know that they phones are probably monitored?
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
...is "connected". For the people whom I talk to the most -- family and some cyber-aware friends -- strong encryption on top of VoIP is the way I will go. Don't leave the Internet for the traditional POTS world and the CALEA doesn't apply.
http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/zfone/index.html
Thank you (again), Phil.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
This no doubt a troll but I'll bite for all the confused kiddies out there who might take this argument seriously. If you lived in the Soviet Union the spies were OK right because if you weren't doing anything illegal you had nothing to hide right? Same for Nazi Germany, and the "legitimate" government of Britain in the American colonies in 1775.
But it's different now you'll protest those were tyrannies and we are in a democracy. Well listen up my friend it's ISN'T that different, the president is in DIRECT violation of the constitution by declaring war on his own whim only Congress can declare war according to the constitution (and no Congresses rubber stamp allowing the president to declare war was not legit), further that war was declared by the president based on lies (see the Downing Street memos), further we are torturing people, and used Napalm or a Napalm like substance on civilians in Fallujah which is war crime, further NSA wiretaps without a court order are a violation of the bill of rights, further we have by FAR the largest prison population in the industrialized world at over 2 million, 100,000s of which are in there for victimless drug crimes, or pissing off their neighbor and being turned in for "sex crimes." Do you start to see why some of us want to be able to communicate without the government butting into our damn business?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
As the convenience for the government to wiretap increases, the ease for a third party (inside or outside the government) to abuse such a mechanism also increases.
... that's another thing entirely.
There was a debate back in the Clinton era as to whether or not encryption on the Internet needed a "back door" for the FBI. I had thought that the argument regarding the potential problems safeguarding these "master keys" had won out. Having the FBI spying on you with a warrant is one thing, but having organized crime, a private investigator, or some rogue arm of government (quite a few of those these days it seems),
If you trust the government not to abuse this, then consider whether you trust the government to be able to effectively safeguard access to this. Ignoring social engineering (e.g. $), how likely is the government to have every bit of this infrastructure protected against stealthful 3rd party break-ins?
Suddenly blackmail is going to get a lot easier.
It took many decades for the Internet to flower and change the world with its freedoms. It is taking far less for the governments of the world to deflower the Internet and sow the seeds of thought control.
Properly implemented, SIP (common VoIP protocol) works like this:
A='A Party' - the person making the call
B='B Party' - the person receiving the call
P='Proxy' - the VoIP provider
A and B register with P.
A makes a call to B:
. A requests P that it be put through to B
. P contacts B, B's phone rings
. B answers
. P lets A know B's details
. P lets B know A's details
. A and B exchange voice traffic directly, without involving P
This allows latency to remain low when, say, A and B are in Australia and P is on the other side of the world.
To perform a successful wire tap in this scenario, the FCC would need to intercept the data at multiple points, possibly in separate countries.
Alternatively, P can tell A and B that there is too much firewalling in place and that all voice traffic must go via P, but by doing this they are giving the game away... it would be easily detectable by A and or B if they were smart enough to know what was going on.
The only road-block is that the other person you're talking to has to have the same setup. For 99% of people, it isn't worth the cost. For businesses & gov't agencies, it certainly is.
(Ring-ring...)
(Ring-ring...)
(Recorded voice) "This is an encrypted telephone call. It appears you do not have a compatible decryption device. Please have a pencil and paper ready, and follow along as I read you some simple instructions. First, write a list of 256 random numbers from 1 to 16. When you have completed this step, press pound."
(scribble-scribble-scribble... bleep.)
(Recorded voice) Now, divide the first number by... six, noting the remainder.
Divide the second number by... twelve, noting the remainder.
Divide the third number by... eight, noting the...
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
I regularly use VOIP via Free World Dialup (FWD). This system uses the SIP protocol. FWD servers seem to have frequent outages. To get around this problem, I've found that I can use direct IP to IP dialing and bypass FWD's servers completely. IP dialing is cumbersome, but you can put the dialed addresses in a speed call list and use 2-digit dialing. This works very well. There's a side benefit of no call logging since the provider's server is being bypassed. In theory I can call any SIP phone that's connected to the internet whether they're on Vonage, Packet Eight, or any other network, if I know their IP address.
Right now there are about a half dozen members of our private network. We're all registered with dyndns.org to solve the problem of dynamic addressing. We're all using Sipura Network adapters to connect a regular telephone to the Internet. The Sipura adapters accommodate dialing by hostname or IP address. The latency is lower with direct IP dialing because the voice packets are not routed through FWD's STUN or NAT servers.
This method is more secure since you're not dependent on any VOIP provider. The back doors that they provide for government spying can be bypassed. Encryption would be difficult but not impossible because it would have to be implemented in the Sipura firmware. SIP software phones will also work with direct IP dialing.