p2pnet - rss feed: VoIP wire-tap rule attacked
p2pnet.net News:- Last week the US Federal Communications Commission voted to demand Voice over Internet Protocol and broadband service providers alter the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to allow police wire-taps.
But while digital privacy and civil liberties groups don’t want the Net to be a “safe haven for terrorists and criminals,” expanding wire-tap laws to cover VoIP, “will create additional points of attack and security holes that hackers can exploit,” says the Associated Press.
“Once you enable third-party access to Internet-based communication, you create a vulnerability that didn’t previously exist,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director at EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) is quoted as saying. “It will put at risk the stability and security of the Internet.”
The decision applies both to VoIP firms and cable and phone companies that provide broadband services.
The companies will have 18 months to comply, says AP.
On top of security and privacy problems, “Creativity and innovation will end up moving offshore where programmers outside the U.S. can develop technologies that are not required to address the onerous CALEA requirements,” the story has the EFF’s (Electronic Frontier Foundation) Kurt Opsahl saying. “The U.S. companies will face competition from foreign providers who will enjoy an advantage.”
It’s also argued the FCC can’t order the wire-tap changes because CALEA only pertains to telecommunications systems, not information systems like the Internet, says AP.
But, “I’m fascinated to know how this will work in relation to (mainly) p2p programs such as Skype which also have encryption,” says UK p2pnet reader Julian Bond in a post.
“I can understand a wiretap on POTS end points such as Skype-In and Skype-Out. But tapping a pc-to-pc call is going to be hard without a backdoor and it will involve mirroring the call to a 3rd party which is going to be hard to hide. And then, Skype has encryption with all the right buzzwords but without peer review of the code, we have no way of knowing if the implementation is any good.”
If backdoors are required, “this is another nail in the coffin of general purpose computing,” he continues. “It’s going to be very hard to enforce the back door without the support of MS, Apple, and Intel backed up with DMCA-style legislation in exactly the same way as with DRM.
“Then there’s the jurisdiction problem. You have an American calling a Brit using a bit of software written in Estonia and distributed by a company with a shell owner in Luxembourg. All this sort of legislation will ensure is that Skype’s VCs will have to give up on a NASDAQ or a US buyout exit route. Great, create legislation to reject foreign capital. Good plan!
“All in all it’s the usual crock of shit except it’s being justified by ‘the war on Terraaah’ as well as propping up dinosaur business models. The dinosaurs this time being the incumbent telcos.”
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See:-
Associated Press - Groups Slam FCC on Internet Phone Tap Rule, August 10, 2005
August 12th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
What if you write your own encrypted VOIP software which is not very difficult, how would anyone tap it?
August 12th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
Indeed. Eg. Phil Zimmerman’s PGP extension to shtoom.
Which brings us back to something very similar to DMCA and audio/video DRM. To have a hope of enforcing it, you have to try and lock down the analogue hole and make the whole audio and video channel inaccessible right through to the speakers and screen. Which like I say, is another nail in the coffin of general purpose computing.
I don’t want to sit here crying wolf thinking up the most absurd scenarios involving something that hasn’t happened yet. But the lunacy of these laws and proposed laws just keeps encouraging me.
August 12th, 2005 at 8:30 pm
More like War against civilians…
it seems like the government is constantly trying to tighten its grip on us, so that there’s no way we could over through them…
Unfortunetly, if things keep going the way they are going, people will eventually start to fight back, and something equiviant to a revolution may happen! XD
=P
August 12th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
Reminds me of Orrin Hatche’s scheme to destroy the computers of those who try to use protected content without authorization. Great aid for terrorists. All they have to do is send around protected content enough times and have it destroy every ones’ equipment.
Run Forrest, Run!