Re: VOIP over Wi-Fi subject to eavesdropping?

roberson@ibd.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca (Walter Roberson) wrote:
>The USA denies it, but there is fairly solid evidence in Europe
>(UK especially) and Australia, that there is widespread -automatic-
>sorting through domestic and international telephone conversations --
>automatically checking *all* calls through major exchanges
>(not just calls from "suspects".) To the kind of people that set up
>such massive checking, encrypted calls *by definition* are
>"suspicious" and, if practical such calls should be broken and
>analyzed.

I can't speak to what is done outside the US, but it is
virtually a guaranteed thing that International calls are
screened for key word recognition here. If you say the right
thing, a human *will* listen to it.

However, doing that for *all* calls is simply too large a
project to even imagine. Hence I really doubt it is very common
on domestic calls anywhere. (Which is not to say that it
doesn't happen on some selectively small portion.)

(Which brings to mind an interesting conversation I had with a
pilot that used to work here in Barrow between gigs flying 747's
in the Middle East for various outfits including the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia. He asked me one day if his phone might be tapped!
I laughed at him, and said considering the places he goes and
the company he keeps, it probably was. Then I asked him why he
thought it might be, and was he making any international calls.
He said something like, "Well, my son calls his wife who is
currently in Indonesia. She's from China." I just about rolled
off my chair onto the floor! And I told him to be *damned*
careful how they phrase what they say.... He then told me a few
stories about doing things like flying charters with Yasir
Arafat on board. It causes quite a stir when a request for
landing instructions includes an announcement that security
will be needed...)

-- 
Floyd L. Davidson            <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd@apaflo.com