Posted on 11/13/2005 12:29:12 PM PST by MamaDearest
Terror lurks in VoIP
Mayank Tewari
New Delhi, November 12, 2005
Why terrorists find refuge in cyberspace »
Want to know who else is using Skype, your favourite VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) software? Terrorists are.
Security agencies trying to figure out terror communications post 29/10 have zeroed in on VoIP. Sources say terrorists may have used the application from PCs installed by sleeper agents in Delhi and UP. And the terrorists have good reasons. “It gives you anonymity and secrecy. At least in India,” said a source in an intelligence agency.
With VoIP communication now legal, security agencies hope their Internet surveillance will get better. “The number of users will now rise and it will automatically figure in the ‘to track’ list,” a senior official in the IT Ministry said.
IT officials say it is technically possible to monitor VoIP traffic, but India lags by many years. “The US uses sophisticated technology to monitor the Internet but even they cannot track VoIP in real time. In India, we are not even looking at VoIP tracking,” said an official.
Currently, intelligence agencies monitor the international Internet gateways on a very miniscule level.
VoIP works quite like email — everything is broken into bits and transferred through the least busy route over the Internet.
But like all safe applications, this one also comes with a catch. “If you find a computer with a VoIP software then the local ISP can tell you which IP addresses received the calls and in future communication to and from those addresses can be monitored. That is the only hope,” a source said.
It would be quite simple to wrap it in SSL. Then no one could know what you are saying. You could download the code you need from openssl.org.
Skype already has built-in strong encryption.
But, presumably, if an LEA agent went to Skype, something could be done.
This would not be the case if the terrorists installed their own VOIP app and used easily available software to encrypt it.
Personally, I think wireless internet routers are the biggest risk. People buy them, plug them in, and don't bother to secure them. Anybody can drive around and find an insecure wireless connection, and surf or communicate virtually anonymously to anyone else over the web. I think it's horribly irresponsible for the router companies to sell them so they work out of the box like this. They should somehow have a set-up that forces users to secure their network before the router works.
After a Skype-to-Skype audio session, the connection is point-to-point, so it can't be intercepted that way. A Skype-to-PSTN connection probably could be intercepted.
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