The govt filing was pushed by the attempts of telecom businessman Jeffrey Pulver to win a governing that his growing P2P Net telephony service Free World Dialup isn’t subject to the laws that rule phone corporations. Free World Dialup has been called “Napster for Phones.” it is a free service targeted at developing Web telephony as a main line alternative to the general public switched phone network. After a preliminary investment of approximately $250 for a Cisco SIP phone — a device that functions very similar to a conventional analog telephone, but plugs immediately into an IP network — users can “dial” one another over the Net anywhere on the planet at no charge. Free World Dialup gives a directory service that allots each user a virtual phone number, and sets up each telephone call.
Since it was launched in Nov , the service has gathered over twelve thousand users. If it catches on, FWD may be a nightmare for old skool phone corporations.
Those corporations were likely perturbed further when Pulver asked [pdf] the FCC in Feb for a “declaratory ruling” that his service is outside the commission’s jurisdiction. It seems that one of the laws from which FWD would be actually exempt is the Communications help for Law Enforcement Act ( CALEA ), the Fed. law that needed telecomms carriers to change their networks to be wiretap-friendly for the FBI. Made in 1994, before the Net was a household word, it is not wholly clear that CALEA even is applicable to Voice Over IP, but the governing body has had some success convincing corporations that it does, or shortly will, according to Stu Baker, a partner in the Washington legal company of Steptoe and Johnson. “But at last VoIP will be a conventional substitute for the switched network. So a ton of firms are complying now to keep away from a hassle later.”.
The governing body concerns that Free World Dialup’s petition could buck that trend : if the FCC uncovers that FWD is free from the plug-and-play wiretap needs, other Net companies handling VoIP traffic might start thinking they are exempt too. “The DOJ and FBI are anxious that if certain broadband telecomms carriers fail to comply with CALEA thanks to a misunderstanding of their regulatory standing, perpetrators may exploit the chance to dodge lawful electronic surveillance,” reads the govt. Filing. Pulver explains it’s the governing body that misunderstands the situation.
“My hope is the DoJ / FBI failed to take some time to completely understand what Free World Dialup is and isn’t, and after some proactive education it is going to be clear that we do not fall under the definitions,” claims Pulver. “It is far easier to build the wiretap function into the access methodology, which is infrastructure based, instead of on every Web application that comes along.”.
Indeed, extending CALEA to cover Free World Dialup and services like it would probably be futile, asserts Ofir Arkin, founding father of Sys-Security Group and an expert on IP telephony security. Arkin claims users anxious to skirt surveillance could set up their own ad hoc directory services on the fly. “It’s like a chum list on instant messaging,” claims Arkin. “They just have to build up such a server, and give everyone access to it.”.
Arkin asserts the FBI’s best shot for spying on VoIP users is to eavesdrop without delay on a target’s broadband connection, maybe using the Bureau’s “Carnivore” DCS-1000 network surveillance tool. With access to the raw traffic, VoIP telephones become extremely straightforward to listen in on. “Those telephones do not have a large amount of CPU power, so that the communication between the 2 ends isn’t encrypted,” Arkin claims.
“Whoever was to smell the info on the uplink or downlink or between those 2 can hear whatever is said.”. That point isn’t lost on Justice and the FBI. In those events, Justice is asking the FCC to reinterpret CALEA as extending to DSL and wire modem service — not just phone calls. Broadband suppliers are required to cooperate with court-ordered surveillance requests ; the govt’s FCC suggestions would go past that and need firms to reengineer their networks to make Net eavesdropping simpler technically, and dust inexpensive on a case-by-case basis. “It would be a major enlargement of the CALEA requirements,” claims David Sobel, a solicitor with the Electronic Privacy Info Center.
Opponents of the CALEA enlargement include ATT and the nation’s Cable and Telecomms organisation.
But the govt. ‘s discussion for the extra capacities is identical one that swayed Congress to pass CALEA in the 1st place 8 years back, and it only carries more weight today. “Although we can’t describe in this forum the particular circumstances, the FBI has sought interceptions of transmissions carried by broadband technology, including wire modem technology, in terrorism-related inquiries concerning potentially potentially fatal situations,” the Justice Dep. wrote [pdf] in one of its filings last year. “Unless carriers are required to guarantee such access, law enforcement surveillance capacities will suffer a heavy and dangerous gap.” If the FCC adopts the govt’s position, then broadband’s last mile will be the FBI’s listening post, and Free World Dialup will be off the hook.
