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E-Mail DigestYou may have read reports that China has been snooping on Skype (Etilities Forum) text messages to monitor the use of dangerous words like ‘democracy’. Now, since there there is no sizable difference between snooping on text messages and accessing phone conversations in the Voice Over IP (VOIP) world given that it’s all TCP/IP data, perhaps you are wondering: should this affect my decision to go with VOIP providers like Skype or Vonage
(Etilities Forum) or to stick to more traditional phone providers like Verizon
(Etilities Forum), Comcast
(Etilities Forum) and others?
Well, even if we put aside the fact that Verizon, Comcast etc. are all graduallly transitioning to VOIP as well (even if it’s indistinguishable to you and to the bills you pay), what you need to take away from this is that this is making news for a reason: it almost never happens to VOIP. You see all governments snoop in on your communications. The US government has been doing it for years, and more so since the controversial Patriot Act was signed into law. It happens so much and so often that it’s just not news worthy anymore. It has become a de facto parameter of our modern world.
So really the fact that you are hearing about this should make you feel more secure about using VOIP, not less so. Now does that mean that you should favor VOIP over traditional phone services? Well that depends on your ethical views. The thing about wire tapping is that it allows the government to monitor and catch criminal and terrorist activity. But it also means that your privacy is constantly invaded. So promoting safer means of communications means that your conversations are more secure, but then again so are those of our enemies.
So next time you are re-evaluating your home IT setup, in addition to price and call quality you can also take this into account. Based on our research, VOIP is no less secure than traditional phone lines. In fact, it may protect your privacy better as it can more easily implement mechanisms like encryption and tunneling since it rides on the broadband pipe.
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You say that “it also means that your privacy is constantly invaded”. There’s a difference between having the ability to do something and having the authority to do it. Agencies don’t have the authority to monitor your phone for no apparent reasons. Furthermore, if they do monitor it based on suspicion and find nothing of terrorist activity, they have to discard the conversation.
Frankly, I don’t think that law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the time to listen to my conversations at home, they’d be bored to death.