That's outrageous - if the explanation is correct, then either the judge didn't have a clue about modern communication technology, or the judge did have a clue and was deciding that it's ok for the Feds to wiretap all IP traffic, including email and Voice Over IP, all compressed voice, including Voice over ATM and Voice Over Frame, and any uncompressed digital communications equipment that includes a FIFO, (at least if you can shove the wiretap in next to the FIFO.)
The VOIP standards have needed to address encryption for a long time; VOIP over IPSEC is a partial solution, but most people in the industry aren't really comfortable with the scalability or quality of service issues, because there's too much layering, performance measurement is hard, routers that do both tend to run out of CPU, and the field's moving too fast. (And the Oulu folks just found a bunch of vulnerability in SIP http://theregister.com/content/55/29507.html .)
At 12:53 PM 02/27/2003 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
At 9:01 AM -0500 on 2/27/03, BNA Highlights wrote:
> WIRETAP ACT DOES NOT COVER MESSAGE 'IN STORAGE' FOR SHORT > PERIOD > BNA's Electronic Commerce & Law Report reports that a > federal court in Massachusetts has ruled that the federal > Wiretap Act does not prohibit the improper acquisition of > electronic communications that were "in storage" no matter > how ephemeral that storage may be. The court relied on Konop > v. Hawaiian Airlines Inc., which held that no Wiretap Act > violation occurs when an electronic communication is > accessed while in storage, "even if the interception takes > place during a nanosecond 'juncture' of storage along the > path of transmission." Case name is U.S. v. Councilman. > Article at > <http://pubs.bna.com/ip/BNA/eip.nsf/is/a0a6m6y1k8> > For a free trial to source of this story, visit > http://web.bna.com/products/ip/eplr.htm
-- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
