[IP] more on Senate Tangles Over VOIP Rules

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brad Templeton <btm@templetons.com>
Date: June 18, 2004 1:47:45 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Cc: dewayne@warpspeed.com
Subject: Re: [IP] Senate Tangles Over VOIP Rules

I was surprised to see Skype noted in this story, and then
see all the quotes that seem unaware of what it is and what
it does.

Skype works largely Peer to Peer, and it encrypts the voice
traffic end to end.  It does not all the time, not just when
you ask for it.  As it should be, most users are not even aware
of the encryption.  (I have long maintained that zero user interface
is the right user interface for encryption.)

What this means, however, is that they are trying to close the
barn door after the genie has gotten out of the bag.  Anybody
actively afraid of snooping will quickly learn to use Skype or a
tool like it.  There is no party on which a warrant or other tap
order can be served.

(Skype's directory lookup protocol is not publicly revealed, they
claim it also has P2P functions.  However, it is possible that a
tap order might be able to get the who-called-who records though
not the audio portion of the call without tapping the end user's
PC.)

On a Skype to PSTN call (which Skype says they will shortly offer),
the PSTN portion can be tapped, however if this is done as I expect
it will be done, that will only provide a tap if there is one on
the PSTN recipient of the call, not the Skype user.   Skype, not a
U.S. company, could possibly modify their system to allow taps of
outgoing calls, but I doubt it.

So all the fancy wiretapping they are ordering will only catch
the stupid cooks, the ones who don't get the word to use Skype or
similar.

There may be a few of those, but there will be fewer.  The race
is lost.  We should not cripple our phone technologies attempting
to catch those last few stupid crooks.  Accept that this avenue is
closing, and start hunting elsewhere.

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