July 07, 2006
Rumpelstiltskin and the Level of VoIP Security
Unless you've been sleeping under a mushroom, you probably know that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, stirred from his dormancy and fired off not one but seven missiles, even after several countries cautioned strongly against it. Warnings of this may or may not have been this reason why South Korea suddenly backed off, a few days previous, against blocking VoIP calls by U.S. Forces Korea members.
South Korea had originally planned to block out U.S. calls due to non-compliance to their Telecommunications Business Act. However, at the request of US Forces Korea, they agreed to suspend the deadline.
It all begs the question, however, of how secure VoIP really is that the US Military would allow its individual members to use it. Or why they wouldn't set up Internet access, say, via satellite.
VoIP may generally be considered insecure, but it doesn't have to be. Calls could be encrypted and decrypted on the fly, by caller and receiver, respectively. However, to reduce the lag time on such encryption, the process would have to be done on small packets of sound, possible a few seconds at a time, else non-computer VoIP phones would have an extra processing burden.
Now, without delving into the inner workings of existing VoIP services, I'll hazard a guess that there already is some level of encryption conducted on VoIP calls. However, with encryption laws in the US and Canada being fairly strict (against exportation of algorithms), the level of encryption might actually be quite low.
Of course, the real issue in South Korea is over the ISPs that regular officers use to access the Internet and make VoIP calls. The service provider(s) they use allow unlimited VoIP calling, which the three South Korean ISPs who requested the US military block are upset about.
I seriously doubt, however, that the US Military's necessarily secure communications are being conducted via the same ISPs that individual members of the military are using.
On a related issue, Skype was recently told by South Korea to stop signing up new SkypeOut customers, until Skype adheres to telecom laws - in particular, two e-business codes. In fact, Skype's Korean Market Manager recently issued a statement that Skype was not currently doing business in South Korea.
It's interesting to note that South Korea has been a center of a considerably number of technology trials in both VoIP and RFID technology. Part of the aforementioned restrictions have to do with protecting the interests of South Korean companies.
Sources: Stars & Stripes, ZD Net Korea [via Skype Journal].
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