[ NNSquad ] Re: AT&T Asks FCC to, Kill Conventional (POTS) Phone Service]

[Joe Baptista <baptista@publicroot.org>]

I get your point Ben. IF YOU HAD ACCESS you could have a lot of fun. But you don't have access. In an IP situation if you don't have access you just hack yourself some access. There are ways of getting access.

I would even say that POTS can't be trusted when it comes to caller ID these days. You can use VoIP to spoof caller ID. If you had access of course. And with VoiP its much easier to get access then with POTS.

And yes having a linemans test set can be fun. But in a national emergency situation anyone who illegally tapped the phone would probably be shot. The best case senario for this offense in peace time is jail. I never did say POTS was a secure system. I said it is more secure then IP. Part of that "security" is composed of laws which make such acts illegal.

You can apply those same laws to IP - but with IP it is very easy for the criminals or government hired hackers to hide their trail and avoid detection. Much easier to trace with POTS.

POTS is also about control. Government control of the telephone system in a national emergency is essential. POTS can be controlled by government - IP networks can't.

And I don't think we need be recovering copper lines to incorporate into infrastructure. If you want to play with copper line recovery why not aim at utilizing the existing electric wires. I think we need a heavy investment in fiber to every home. In my opinion our love affair with copper should be over. Maintain the existing copper in case of emergencies as a backup system and install fiber to every home.

It's time to upgrade our infrastructure - not cannibalize one old but well tested technology and replace it with an unreliable IP universe. Put the IP universe on the fiber. And make 1 gb the standard transfer rate - or more. The kids would luv it - gaming in real time.

good for business - good for employment - build infrastructure

regards
joe baptista

On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Ben Kamen <bkamen@benjammin.net> wrote:

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:27:25 -0500
From: Joe Baptista
=================================================
POTS is more secure then IP. Getting rid of POTS puts the government of the
United States in a very vulnerable position with respect to national
security. POTS is the only reliable service for national emergencies.

Er, I don't know if I would say "secure".

I have some T1/T3 equipment on my shelf here that if I could get access would easily let me listen to phone calls.

Now, you can say VoIP is just as tappable.. and it is.. provided you have access. So those things are kinda
equal.

Both you can scramble/encrypt. I would guess computers can do an easier job on VoIP than
one might do with *analog* voice..

 -Ben

p.s. I also have a linemans set on my shelf. Just give me some wires
and I can pierce right in and use.  I love POTS. :D

 [ Well, there's a reason that linemen's test sets are colloquially known
   as "Butt Sets" or "Butt-Ins" ... I have several myself of interesting
   vintages and origins ...
   BUT (no pun intended) there are lots of issues.  I think it's
   fair to suggest that un-or-poorly encrypted VoIP/SIP connections
   can be much easier technically to wiretap "en masse" than circuit
   switched analog or digital POTS calls.  An even more interesting
   question though, relates to the legal status of various types of
   VoIP calls.  Given projects like Phorm, and Virgin's new Internet
   "looking at the packets' contents to see what P2P music you're
   collecting" project, and the general laxness and conflicting
   rulings regarding Internet privacy, the concept of all phone
   calls (potentially) finding themselves under the Internet
   umbrella has enormous legal and privacy implications.

   And of course data is easy and cheap to archive these days.  Some
   back of the napkin calculations I did a few years ago suggested
   that (assuming access to the data streams) it would not
   necessarily be impractical for a well-connected entity to archive
   the complete audio of a very significant percentage of all
   telephone calls made in the U.S.  If you made a deal with ISPs and
   backbones handling significant amounts of VoIP traffic, this would
   be even easier.  Just copy the bits and file them away in the server
   farms.  Given the traditional NSA attitude that (in simple terms) you
   haven't really intercepted calls until you actually listen to them
   (as opposed to just collecting and storing for future retrospective
   listening as necessary later), the implications are interesting.

   Of course, you don't need VoIP to do this.  Modern phone systems
   connect most calls digitally, even with analog access lines.  But
   I believe that unencrypted (or weakly encrypted) VoIP could make
   such massive call collection activities significantly easier in    many situations.
     Naturally, this is just end of year "could it be done?"
   speculation, not a suggestion that such mass wiretapping is
   actually occurring now, related to the folks out on Savage
   Road or their other agency counterparts either in the U.S.
   or foreign countries ...

      Kropotkin (Russian Agent): Are you trying to tell me every
       phone in the country is tapped?
       ---
      Don Masters (CEA [sic] Agent): That's what's in my head.
       ---
      Kropotkin: Don, this is America, not Russia!
            >>> The President's Analyst (1967) <<<


     -- Lauren Weinstein
        NNSquad Moderator ]


--
Ben Kamen - O.D.T., S.P.
=============================================================================
Email: bkamen AT benjammin DOT net              Web: http://www.benjammin.net