[VoiceOps] SS7

[Joseph Jackson]

I don’t know many places that encrypt their voice traffic.



From: VoiceOps [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Dan York
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2016 2:45 PM
To: Kidd Filby
Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org
Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] SS7

This is generally true if the calls are *unencrypted* on VoIP...

On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 2:20 PM, Kidd Filby <kiddfilby at gmail.com<mailto:kiddfilby at gmail.com>> wrote:

Also folks, don't forget, the same outcome of recording someone's call is MUCH easier to accomplish once it is VoIP.  IMHO, of course.  ;-)

... BUT... what's fascinating is the recent rise in end-to-end (e2e) encryption among IP-based communications platforms that include voice.

WhatsApp, for instance, just completed the rollout of e2e encryption on April 5, and not just for messaging, but also for voice and video calls as well as file transfers ( https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000618/end-to-end-encryption ).  Just yesterday the team behind Viber announced that they will soon have e2e encryption for all clients.  The app Wire ( http://wire.com ) also does e2e encryption for voice, video and group chats.

In a US Congress hearing this week, a Congressman asked a Dept of Homeland Security representative if e2e encryption available in apps would have prevented this interception that happened via SS7. The DHS answer was that it would mitigate the interception of the content, although the location meta-data would still be available.  (You can view the exchange via the link in this tweet: https://twitter.com/csoghoian/status/722854012567969794 )

The end result is that we're definitely moving to a space where the communication over IP-based solutions will wind up being far more secure than what we had before.

Interesting times,
Dan

--

Dan York
dyork at lodestar2.com<mailto:dyork at lodestar2.com>  +1-802-735-1624   Skype:danyork
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