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Is your cable ISP's VOIP Telephone Service Secure?


Guest thecableguy

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Guest thecableguy

The answer to the question is in most cases yes!  Cable ISP VOIP Telephone calls do not traverse the internet but are instead handed off to a telco partner over secure and encrypted connections.  These calls are also protected on the HFC network with DOCSIS encryption.  Any person even attempting to intercept such traffic onnet would find themselves thwarted initially by technology and shortly thereafter by a knock on the door....

Now...Vonage, Skype, Packet 8 and similar products do not afford the same level of protection since their calls may actually travel over several networks (the internet) before actually reaching their destination and are vulnerable to hacking and interception.  In many cases there is no encryption at all leaving YOUR conversation wide open for the technosavy masses.  Currently there are no regulations in place governing this technology or the providers for that matter.

What does this mean to you?  Right now...probably nothing....in the very near future as the technology becomes even more widely used....well...time will tell.

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Thats funny you should post that.the family and I were eating dinner one night when all the sudden we hear a conversation over the computer speakers.We where like WTF!!! i ran over to the computer and shut it down..but the only thing i could think it could be. was voip...i had no other programs open.teamspeak wasnt running either..it was just wierd...

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Thats funny you should post that.the family and I were eating dinner one night when all the sudden we hear a conversation over the computer speakers.We where like WTF!!! i ran over to the computer and shut it down..but the only thing i could think it could be. was voip...i had no other programs open.teamspeak wasnt running either..it was just wierd...

True. I was visiting my sister not to far back and I also heard a conversation thru the PC speakers, a convo. between two gents which lasted about 3 sec..

TheHalf

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another interesting point is that while voip by cable providers may be routed to secure lines as fast as possible it is still easily interceptable by law enforcement. (since they have the providers cooperation). voip via vonage etc. (the ones that use your internet connection without any bells or whistles to send the stream) can be encrypted, but that should send up a red flag to law enforcement. (especially because said encryption would require a forced bypass rather than a cooperative one from the isp). also there is no structure in place where one could reliably intercept such calls from one place to the other. i would think that law enforcement prefers the isp's voip offerings to the 3rd party voip offerings.

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Guest thecableguy

Any way you can encrypt your calls if you have a internet voip provider?

A regular phone line is pretty easy to tap, so if vonage and others get encryption it could end up more secure than pots.

Sorry but at this time there is no way for you to self encrypt.  Remember, with encryption must come decryption and your provider won't be able to do that at the other end.  

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Guest thecableguy

another interesting point is that while voip by cable providers may be routed to secure lines as fast as possible it is still easily interceptable by law enforcement. (since they have the providers cooperation). voip via vonage etc. (the ones that use your internet connection without any bells or whistles to send the stream) can be encrypted, but that should send up a red flag to law enforcement. (especially because said encryption would require a forced bypass rather than a cooperative one from the isp). also there is no structure in place where one could reliably intercept such calls from one place to the other. i would think that law enforcement prefers the isp's voip offerings to the 3rd party voip offerings.

Actually at this time there is NO provision for law enforcement monitoring nor are they allowed to do so by law.  Federal wiretap laws do not include VOIP communication.  This has been much argued for by the current administration but as of yet no such monitoring exists.  There have been some recent changes to the law that may open the door to that but as of this moment those conversations are not legally monitorable.

Any law enforecment monitoring of these conversations at this time would be inadmissable in court (which I guess is a good thing).  The capability of mirroring conversations to law enforcement exists already, however, the technology is not being used nor could it be used legally for that purpose.

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