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Saturday, October 23, 2010

Tapping a VoIP phone

Found on Vonage Forum:

"Hi all, Is it possible for any one to tap my VONAGE phone linend listen to conversation. I am in India currently, and my neighbour recently made some comments refering my personal info.

Please clarify.

thanks and regards,
Kumarr"

In the old days, tapping a phone was as easy as one-two-three. All calls ran over Ma Bell's copper wires. To listen in, law-enforcement agents simply requested that the phone company isolate the suspect's wire and record any calls made or received. One phone company. One network. One flip of a switch.
Today, dozens of new technologies need to be monitored, such as packet voice and cellular text messaging.
But There is the danger. The FBI can use the rise of the packet technology and the expanding number of players as an excuse to expand its all-seeing, all-knowing surveillance power.
VOIP travels across the Internet the same way that e-mail does.
Address information (the number dialed or the e-mail address) is contained in the same packet as the content (what is said or written).
They say they filter traffic and deliver to investigators only packets that they're lawfully authorized to obtain.
The very nature of packet technology means that whether it's an e-mail or a voice call, [the FBI] can get more and more information that allows them to be more and more privacy-invasive.
Since we are in Vonage forum, I assume you are using their service.
I also assume that your worries are about being tapped by your neighbor.
I also assume that you both living in India and without technology as sophisticated as FBI's, your neighbor "achieved" those personal informations about you from other sources...

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I apologize in advance for stepping on anyones toes. Your comment "VOIP travels across the Internet the same way that e-mail does" is correct. The source headers, body, trailing encapsulated packets are exactly like normal TCP traffic. There are ways known to CISSP's all around the globe that know exaclty how to "tap" a network without being seen and monitor all traffic passing by. Being in the study of Network Security I have, as well, learned to do this. It's usage depends on what color hat your wearing. Which leads me to believe your statement "your neighbor "achieved" those personal informations about you from other sources" could be very, VERY wrong. Since VOIP works exactly the same way as normal network traffic does. It can be "sniffed" the same way as well. Although it requires having physical access to your network if you are hard wired. It can be done through wireless as well, although this method is much more difficult and takes practice and patience. It can be done.
Since reading this article, I have started up my server and I am currently running a VM session of a sniffing program. I will watch my VOIP traffic. It will make for an interesting paper in class. Could even get published.

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Emile Marston said...

Good points! So far, this hasn't happen to me yet.
I consider myself fortunate that my hosted PBX provider installed a secure VoIP phone service for my business so I have no worries of being tapped. I've been using the hosted PBX solution for many years and I still haven't encountered any problems. Lucky me!

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