Big Brother Wants Into VoIP At Any Cost

wallaby fly-half writes "An amendment to the CALEA law would make it easier for the government to monitor calls made over VoIP and even temporarily store some packet traffic. Ars Technica reports that the 'bill will put the technology in place to buffer packet streams, and places the job of filtering those streams under government control. We know from the NSA warrantless wiretapping program that the government is not limiting itself to access to under court orders, and the CALEA bill must be considered in light of the capacity it generates.'"

Comments

Avoid the Risk--Use Zfone

[eldavojohn]

It's a document like this that make you want to install an application like this.

From the FCC Mandate:

First, the Order affirms that the CALEA compliance deadline for facilities-based broadband Internet access and interconnected VoIP services will be May 14, 2007, as established by the First Report and Order in this proceeding. The Order concludes that this deadline gives providers of these services sufficient time to develop compliance solutions, and notes that standards developments for these services are already well underway.

From Phil's site:

Zfone uses a new protocol called ZRTP, which is better than the other approaches to secure VoIP, because it achieves security without reliance on a PKI, key certification, trust models, certificate authorities, or key management complexity that bedevils the email encryption world.

The stupid part of this is that we shouldn't have to do this ... but with the way the wind is blowing inside the beltway, you need to adapt and avoid the risk. The FCC & NSA can walk all over you until the climate changes, be patient and resist.

You are innocent. You have done nothing to give the government the right to investigate you or collect your phone records with the intent to prosecute you. If you're an American, take a few hours to protect what so many people have fought and died for: your rights to privacy and being innocent until proven guilty.

What next? Is the King of England going to be able to listen in on my VoIP calls?

Re:Avoid the Risk--Use Zfone

[HugePedlar]

"What next? Is the King of England going to be able to listen in on my VoIP calls?"

Yes, even if you encrypt, and if by King you mean Prime Minister. The RIP Act forces suspects to reveal encryption keys on pain of imprisonment, whether charged with a crime or not. Useful, huh?

Encrypt Everything?

[Danga]

So wouldn't the logical thing to do be encrypt everything? If they had to try and decrypt every packet in the "buffer" I think the point of even trying to unencrypt anything would be worthless. If I had a VoIP system I would want it setup in such a way that I control how the conversation is encrypted so I could use whatever algorithm and passcodes I damn well want. I am sure the government will try to make this type of setup illegal or demand a backdoor though.