FCC talking about backdoors for VoIP
In the FCC September 23, 2005 Notice of Proposed Rule Making the Introduction says it all:
In this Order, we conclude that the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) applies to facilities-based broadband Internet access providers and providers of interconnected voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. This Order is the first critical step to apply CALEA obligations to new technologies and services that are increasingly relied upon by the American public to meet their communications needs.
Read what the NewStandard has to say and get the links to the FCC documents.
It will be interesting to see how this affects Skype. Skype is a peer to peer system where I, the user, exchange encryption keys with the person I want to communicate with. No corporate body supplies the keys.
Comments
This will lead to the end of Skype as we know it.
It was very important that Skype was a NON US inspired corporation under very favorable EU privacy laws that respect the individual and know the dangers of facism. Now that Skype has fallen to the hands of Ebay it will be unable to defend itself against this incoming FCC nuke.
IMO, an open source VOIP application in the tradition of Linux, OpenSuite, Mozilla, etc is the solution. An ever evolving improving VOIP application that is created by an international community of programmers with no corporate or statist God to answer to.
It is NO coincedence this FCC ruling was released shortly after Skype was purchase by Ebay (aka the US).
Someone should call up Ebay and let them know international users are not going to like this one bit, and you can expect a next generation killer VOIP app to be around the corner soon. For sure the European masses will drop this like a dead log the moment the US can hear everything they are doing.
That Nicolas took advantage of Ebays offer on a purely capitalistic ideal is fine, but it was a big blow for the advancement of secure communication and global human development.
Any VOIP regime under a US company will have to comply or find itself in a heat of trouble...trouble no US corporation will be able to withstand.
Posted by: Robert | September 30, 2005 08:41 AM