The games up. The FBI (or Federal Bureau of Investigations to give them their full title) have finally heard the word about the world of Voip and they are onto it in a BIG way, believing it to be a major surveillance target.
This news may not sound particularly new - or surprising - as the FBI have been trying to find a way to legally listen in on online conversations for some time, but this is the first occasion when they have put forward new legislation to help them in their fight against potential crime.
If accepted, the new law would force all service providers to change the nature of their coding in order to allow the FBI to wiretap any and all of their services at anytime. This would result in a substantial cost and significant disruption to most companies, especially those of a smaller nature.
The proposed changes in legislation would directly affect (and cause significant headache's for) almost all US based Voip service providers, although companies would, obviously, have no choice but to co-operate fully with the law.
The use of data packets in online communications are the reason that it has proven so difficult thus far for government agencies to effectively monitor onlne communications. The decoding of these packets is near impossible with the current coding system, hence the need for the underlying technology to be changed.
Dennis Chang is the president of Voip-PAL, and he has become the first person to be awarded a full patent to enable the recording of any and all Voip communications by means of utilising an underlying technology, which, in effect, allows authorities to monitor suspects via their subscriber details.
But it seems more than likely that there will be a significant public outcry against the proposed use of such technology and the potential violations of personal privacies, which will, hopefully, result in a lengthy battle to pass the new law - and hopefully result in the law never coming to fruition).
So it seems certain that at some point the legislation will be changed and our world of online communications will become a little less private. But, if there is a real threat of Voip enabling criminal factions to operate more freely, then some form of control must be introduced. Its a tough call to decide where online boundaries begin and end and there is much middle ground, but Voip is not going away and the FBI arent going to change their minds, so at some point a compromise will need to be made.
This news may not sound particularly new - or surprising - as the FBI have been trying to find a way to legally listen in on online conversations for some time, but this is the first occasion when they have put forward new legislation to help them in their fight against potential crime.
If accepted, the new law would force all service providers to change the nature of their coding in order to allow the FBI to wiretap any and all of their services at anytime. This would result in a substantial cost and significant disruption to most companies, especially those of a smaller nature.
The proposed changes in legislation would directly affect (and cause significant headache's for) almost all US based Voip service providers, although companies would, obviously, have no choice but to co-operate fully with the law.
The use of data packets in online communications are the reason that it has proven so difficult thus far for government agencies to effectively monitor onlne communications. The decoding of these packets is near impossible with the current coding system, hence the need for the underlying technology to be changed.
Dennis Chang is the president of Voip-PAL, and he has become the first person to be awarded a full patent to enable the recording of any and all Voip communications by means of utilising an underlying technology, which, in effect, allows authorities to monitor suspects via their subscriber details.
But it seems more than likely that there will be a significant public outcry against the proposed use of such technology and the potential violations of personal privacies, which will, hopefully, result in a lengthy battle to pass the new law - and hopefully result in the law never coming to fruition).
So it seems certain that at some point the legislation will be changed and our world of online communications will become a little less private. But, if there is a real threat of Voip enabling criminal factions to operate more freely, then some form of control must be introduced. Its a tough call to decide where online boundaries begin and end and there is much middle ground, but Voip is not going away and the FBI arent going to change their minds, so at some point a compromise will need to be made.
About the Author:
Saul Saresi writes regularly about Voip systems and technology for his website which can be found here business phone previous examples of his research and writing can be found here business voip system
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