Topic 'Re: Excellent!!' in forum '' - dslreports.com http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178085 en Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:05:13 EDT Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:05:13 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21186389 said by nitzan:

said by pandora:

Keep in mind however that the only ones who can "listen in" on your calls are your ISP, our ISP, and the phone companies on the way. None of which are going to bother filtering through millions of minutes of call time.
Have you heard of the Echelon project?

Peter

EDIT: I don't sleep at night with a tin foil hat on my head... I only wear it when I am near technology.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21186389 Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:48:28 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21184596 http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21184596 Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:38:33 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181998
Almost every time when we caught something, it ended up being a wet transport cable or a janitor leaning a broom against the 66 block. I would get my inital notification within 30-60 seconds, with the rest of the processes kicking off within minutes. That is almost as much time as it would take an attacker to sync up with the D-channel, to even be able to dump the ISDN frames.

Most banks cherish their T1's. Remember that most of their ATM's will run off ISDN-BRI/PRI, so even something as small as a slip could be financially impacting to an end user. Banks don't want to risk loosing customers based on a technology issue (they want to save up their grace for bad customer service ;P )]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181998 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:55:44 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181971
I tell my customers that it is to be assumed that the PSTN is secure from most sources, government aside. It is considered much more secure than any TCP/IP transport, and more secure than any mobile connection (Cell/portable). Inter-tamdem communications are considered very private, as many of the tap-points that are commonly used for wide-range snoops are at Class I and Class II offices. (T), our ILEC will always tap upon a government request, but for the most part, those do require a signed suponea.

CALEA pretty much dictiates that you be able to provide a tap at the point of PSTN interconnection. So, yes, you cannot facilitate end-to-end encryption over the PSTN without a HLS waiver. However, CALEA does not apply for interswitch communications, and switch-to-endpoint communications. It only applies if you act as a "gateway to other services". Our lawyers have interperated this as the communication from one of our customers to the outside only. Encrption between the customer and you should not be an issue in this case. If you act as an ISP, you are only to be concerned that you are able to tap the data from the customer to the next POP; you sholdn't care of the payload.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181971 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:42:50 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181261 http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181261 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:08:39 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181260 False. Look up BPI+.
I've seen it done. All it takes is a trip to RadioShack.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181260 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:08:38 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181242 I could be wrong, but AFAIK your neighbors CANNOT sniff your packets. Unless they have access to the switch - which they don't - they cannot listen in on you.
You ARE wrong.

Why don't you do some READING on the subject. That will save you from posting misinformation which some here will assume is correct.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21181242 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:59:11 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21180805 said by quetwo:

said by nitzan:

Keep in mind however that the only ones who can "listen in" on your calls are your ISP, our ISP, and the phone companies on the way. None of which are going to bother filtering through millions of minutes of call time.

If a third-party wanted to spy on you specifically, in 99% of cases they can't.
My point is that let alone your ISP, but if you are in a business enviroment (the largest deployment of VoIP is in the business world), most workers work on a common switching infastructure as their telecommunications equipment. If I have a SIP/H.323 link between my PBX and your service, it would not be encrypted. Chances are it will also travel over some of this common switching infastructure, where it could be snooped on.

This is how my PBX is setup, except we went the extra mile of forcing our vendor (Qwest) to allow us to interconnect with H.323e + TLS/G.711. That way, the signaling and the voice channels are encrypted the entire stretch (although the encryption is fairly weak, but it still exists).
I think in this scenario you'd want to isolate the PBX from the rest of the network, and perhaps implement security between the phones and the PBX. I think it's more likely for a phone to be tapped on the switch it's connected to than between the PBX and VSP. (easier to access the phone's switch)

Either way though- no matter what you do, at this point in time inherently VoIP is not secure. But neither is PSTN for that matter. :) There are very few real options for end-to-end secure conversations, and they cost thousands of dollars.

Security will come once there's enough demand in the market of course, but unfortunately we have to wait until that happens.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it is potentially illegal for VoIP providers to provide end-to-end security. i.e. they have a legal obligation to be able to tap your phone should law officials require it (CALEA). They could probably get around it by doing some sort of "translation" where they'd open one secure session with you, and one with the terminating carrier - but again this means technologies that aren't really mature yet. (not to mention extra horsepower for all the encrypted sessions)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21180805 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 03:33:00 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21180719 said by nitzan:

Interesting. Didn't know that.

So essentially, cable internet is inherently less secure than, say, DSL? or better yet - FTTH?
Since when has the internet ever been secure on any ISP? Just because some connections go through the CO first doesn't mean some one can't tap into it along the way. ;)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21180719 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:16:00 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21180704 --
[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21180704 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:03:38 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21180138 said by quetwo:

said by joako:

Most of these banks also send a good amount of their voice traffic over T1 (voice) lines which would be trivial to tap into, even down the road.
It is actually very difficult to tap into a T1 service. T1 lines uses a very sporratic form of CRC checking for SLIP errors. Any loss on the line would disrupt the communicaiton and cause major alarms on the equipment on either side. You usually can't get a tone/test on a pair NEAR a T1 before it causes it to slip. Mind you, if you use an official CSU (or similar device with a monitor bypass port), you can technially sniff the T1, but these should be in fairly secure areas (at the CO and the cust prem).
"major alarms" sorry no. Yes the T1 interface might go into red alarm for a second... the end on the CO is certainly not monitored. The "alarm" is more of a name than anything. If you call in a trouble ticket yes they will look at it but otherwise no.

Same at the other end... noones going to be monitoring the routers to see if there is a problem. Normally there are no IT persons at the banks. Even if the equipment were reporting the line status to a remote point, they aren't going to go on a witch hunt for the remote chance that someone somewhere might be tapping the line. If they are gathering that info they are trying to determine a long term pattern of problems so the telco can fix it.

OTOH I'm not saying it's as easy or trivial to tap into a T1 line as say an analog phone line with a buttset.
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09:F9:11:02:9D:74:E3:5B:D8:41:56:C5:63:56:88:C0]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21180138 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:46:43 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179985 said by nitzan:

Keep in mind however that the only ones who can "listen in" on your calls are your ISP, our ISP, and the phone companies on the way. None of which are going to bother filtering through millions of minutes of call time.

If a third-party wanted to spy on you specifically, in 99% of cases they can't.
My point is that let alone your ISP, but if you are in a business enviroment (the largest deployment of VoIP is in the business world), most workers work on a common switching infastructure as their telecommunications equipment. If I have a SIP/H.323 link between my PBX and your service, it would not be encrypted. Chances are it will also travel over some of this common switching infastructure, where it could be snooped on.

This is how my PBX is setup, except we went the extra mile of forcing our vendor (Qwest) to allow us to interconnect with H.323e + TLS/G.711. That way, the signaling and the voice channels are encrypted the entire stretch (although the encryption is fairly weak, but it still exists).]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179985 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:05:27 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179963 said by anony101 :

Keep in mind that encrypted VOIP calls lose the encryption once they reach the PSTN.
True, but again, the PSTN is regulated, and in the pre-Bush world, it was very hard to get access to the data going across it. Sadly this is not the case as much anymore.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179963 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:01:11 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179954 said by joako:

Most of these banks also send a good amount of their voice traffic over T1 (voice) lines which would be trivial to tap into, even down the road.
It is actually very difficult to tap into a T1 service. T1 lines uses a very sporratic form of CRC checking for SLIP errors. Any loss on the line would disrupt the communicaiton and cause major alarms on the equipment on either side. You usually can't get a tone/test on a pair NEAR a T1 before it causes it to slip. Mind you, if you use an official CSU (or similar device with a monitor bypass port), you can technially sniff the T1, but these should be in fairly secure areas (at the CO and the cust prem). ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179954 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:59:35 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179813
The main advantages of BPI+ in DOCSIS 1.1 is the capability to upgrade crypto mechanisms in already deployed Cable Modems and the use of digital certificates to authenticate Cable Modems.

Notice also that all setup and configuration of the BPI functions are made at the CMTS, so as a user you have very little control over when your data are encrypted and when they are not. In reality the purpose of BPI and BPI+ is this

* To protect against theft of service
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Ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179813 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:25:16 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179786 said by quetwo:

But what about the people that are not supposed to have access to this data/voice? What about the guy who is there fixing your printer, running Wireshark, and is taking dumps of all of your traffic? There are no longer just policy issues, but real security issues.

Would you go to a banking website that didn't offer SSL? Would you call them? Sure! But if you/your company didn't secure their VoIP, it is just as secure as plain HTTP.
And I'll tell you security on bank networks isn't perfect. All of this would be possible with physical access to the networking equipment. The ones I've been in don't restrict DHCP leases. You do need to use a proxy server most of the time and many times that's password protected (same as AD login) but there's no device control. I can walk in

The banking applications appear to be well secured (not my job...not going to test their security) but I sure hope all network traffic is encrypted.

Most of these banks also send a good amount of their voice traffic over T1 (voice) lines which would be trivial to tap into, even down the road.
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09:F9:11:02:9D:74:E3:5B:D8:41:56:C5:63:56:88:C0]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179786 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:16:56 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179728 said by ThrowDemsOut:

You couldn't do it on the PC side of the cable modem. But if you hook up a device directly to the cable and bypass the cable modem altogether with a sniffer device, you could see and capture the packets on your local node.
Look up BPI+.

Sometimes I really wish DSLR had a moderation system like Slashdot so all your posts would be "-1" :)
--
Xenophase - British Columbia's premier online gaming community.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179728 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:00:36 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179478 said by anony101 :

Keep in mind however that the only ones who can "listen in" on your calls are your ISP, our ISP, and the phone companies on the way. None of which are going to bother filtering through millions of minutes of call time.
That's not accurate. Cable customers can listen in to unencrypted VOIP calls within the same node they're in which means their neighborhood.
False. Look up BPI+.
--
Do you care about network neutrality, the right to privacy, or patent system abuse? Obama used to.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179478 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:58:29 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179320
So essentially, cable internet is inherently less secure than, say, DSL? or better yet - FTTH?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179320 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:22:51 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179304 said by nitzan:

said by anony101 :

Keep in mind however that the only ones who can "listen in" on your calls are your ISP, our ISP, and the phone companies on the way. None of which are going to bother filtering through millions of minutes of call time.
That's not accurate. Cable customers can listen in to unencrypted VOIP calls within the same node they're in which means their neighborhood.
I could be wrong, but AFAIK your neighbors CANNOT sniff your packets. Unless they have access to the switch - which they don't - they cannot listen in on you.
You couldn't do it on the PC side of the cable modem. But if you hook up a device directly to the cable and bypass the cable modem altogether with a sniffer device, you could see and capture the packets on your local node.
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Ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179304 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:17:43 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179294 said by anony101 :

Keep in mind however that the only ones who can "listen in" on your calls are your ISP, our ISP, and the phone companies on the way. None of which are going to bother filtering through millions of minutes of call time.
That's not accurate. Cable customers can listen in to unencrypted VOIP calls within the same node they're in which means their neighborhood.
I could be wrong, but AFAIK your neighbors CANNOT sniff your packets. Unless they have access to the switch - which they don't - they cannot listen in on you.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179294 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:13:09 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179205 said by anony101 :

Thanks for the information. I have another question about security. My thought was my cable Internet service is shared with about 60-100 of my neighbors. Wouldn't any of my neighbors on our shared Comcast cable node be able to listen into my VOIP calls?
It depends whether your VOIP provider uses SRTP to encrypt RTP packets from you to their proxy. Some do and some don't. You should call them and ask.

Keep in mind that encrypted VOIP calls lose the encryption once they reach the PSTN.
If you read this thread, you'll see my provider has posted and indicated there is no security for my VOIP content.

»Re: Excellent!!
--
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179205 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:42:48 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179163 said by anony101 :

Keep in mind however that the only ones who can "listen in" on your calls are your ISP, our ISP, and the phone companies on the way. None of which are going to bother filtering through millions of minutes of call time.
That's not accurate. Cable customers can listen in to unencrypted VOIP calls within the same node they're in which means their neighborhood.
Does that mean all Cable calls are unencrypted by default? How would a customer turn on encryption?
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Click Here to pollute their data]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179163 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:28:02 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179074 Thanks for the information. I have another question about security. My thought was my cable Internet service is shared with about 60-100 of my neighbors. Wouldn't any of my neighbors on our shared Comcast cable node be able to listen into my VOIP calls?It depends whether your VOIP provider uses SRTP to encrypt RTP packets from you to their proxy. Some do and some don't. You should call them and ask.

Keep in mind that encrypted VOIP calls lose the encryption once they reach the PSTN.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179074 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:02:05 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179043 Keep in mind however that the only ones who can "listen in" on your calls are your ISP, our ISP, and the phone companies on the way. None of which are going to bother filtering through millions of minutes of call time.That's not accurate. Cable customers can listen in to unencrypted VOIP calls within the same node they're in which means their neighborhood.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179043 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:51:23 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179021
that said if someone wants to get at your calls they will, there is no such thing as absolute communications security unless you have an empty sound proof room that is also a Faraday cage, and fires off an EMP in the room before you start talking(to fry any micro-recorders).
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21179021 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:45:21 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178496 --
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178496 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:19:18 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178492 said by quetwo:

Would you go to a banking website that didn't offer SSL? Would you call them? Sure! But if you/your company didn't secure their VoIP, it is just as secure as plain HTTP.Totally agreed. The problem however is that Secure RTP is not mature enough at this point, so it is simply not available as a widespread solution. It'll be some time (and probably a lot more demonstrations of vulnerability) before this area gets the attention it deserves.
--
Nitzan Kon, CEO
Future Nine Corporation]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178492 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:18:26 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178485 said by pandora:

Ok, try this. I'm a Future-Nine customer, using a PAP2T. How exactly do I get secure VOIP communication on my calls?You cannot at this point. Secure RTP is not developed enough to implement at this point in time unfortunately.

We do intend to implement it once readily available though.

Keep in mind however that the only ones who can "listen in" on your calls are your ISP, our ISP, and the phone companies on the way. None of which are going to bother filtering through millions of minutes of call time.

If a third-party wanted to spy on you specifically, in 99% of cases they can't.
--
Nitzan Kon, CEO
Future Nine Corporation]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178485 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:16:15 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178404 --
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178404 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:55:04 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178292
Would you go to a banking website that didn't offer SSL? Would you call them? Sure! But if you/your company didn't secure their VoIP, it is just as secure as plain HTTP.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178292 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:22:39 EDT Re: Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178183 said by bigunk:

Since this is what I do for a living, the more I can learn, the better for my clients.
And many businesses tell their employees that they can and will listen in to voice calls and internet traffic made using office devices. A tool like this would make that easier to do. Security departments in large companies often monitor both voice and data communications of their employees. And as long as they let their employees know this it has been ruled legal.
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Ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-Excellent-21178183 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:54:58 EDT Excellent!! http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Excellent-21178085 http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Excellent-21178085 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:30:08 EDT