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VOIP

Meanwhile, the current issue being hashed out now, today, is the privacy of voice communication over systems other than Plain Old Telephone Systems (POTS). The government would like to extend its control of such communication over any medium for purposes of taxation and wiretapping. Currently the government is classifying businesses that provide means of doing voice communication over the Internet as ``telephone companies'' and requiring them to uphold the same standard of wiretapping as is provided by conventional phone companies. To meet these demands, Internet telephone companies need to either provide no encryption, encryption using their keys, or key escrow. This is an issue because voice communications over the Internet are normally established between sender and caller with only the Internet rather than the phone company acting as the intermediary. Thus, key escrow and no encryption would appear to be the only ways to meet these demands, and both means are disagreeable to many people including the Internet phone companies.


next up previous contents
Next: The Rights of Liberty Up: Merchants on an Army Previous: Sklyarov   Contents
Paul Ingemi 2004-10-25