How can I encrypt my Vonage phone conversations for free?

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 19, 2006 Posts: 16

Is there any way to hook up Vonage to my computer that is internet connected, connect Vonage to a special router, pay Vonage to encrypt my phone calls, or is there a free VPN service so I can send all Vonage calls to them. The reason why im asking is I believe im being tapped/intercepted by a hacker. This hacker also tried to mess up my websites also.

Posts: 433 · Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 12:38 am Post subject:

I sit to be corrected..

Voip is difficult to intercept (hack). This is the reason why some people who "are less than honest" use Voip for this activities.

The government is working to make Voip a telephone service instead of a data service. The reason is to allow for legislature for "tapping" into conversations.

Posts: 87 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Feb 15, 2005 Posts: 87

While no expert, I too think Voip is very difficult to hack. I don't think it would be easy to run a packet sniffer and try to filter and piece a Vonage transmission into something legible/audible.

If someone is piggybacking off your wireless network, I can't think of a way for them to tap a phone into your Vonage line using another Vonage adapter. Even if you made an attempt to clone the MAC (both internal and external), the second adapter would not be recognized on the network.

If your hacker is tapping into your cordless phone conversations, this would be possible with a regular landline too.

My three cents (inflation adjusted).

Posts: 497 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Apr 29, 2005 Posts: 497

I don't know about the encryption, but here are some threads on intercepting Voip traffic. You may have to scroll down to get to the software stuff.

http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic5347-0-asc-0.html
http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic594-0-asc-10.html

Posts: 36 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Feb 22, 2005 Posts: 36

Un-encrypted G.711 IP Audio is extremely easy to capture and convert to .wav assuming that someone has the means to intercept your internet traffic.

Ethereal (a freeware network sniffer that you can run on pretty much any computer) even has a built in RTP streams decoder that will identify all audio streams and break them down so that you can listen to them at your conveniance.

More professional packages from Agilent, etc, make this even easier and can do things like quickly identify what numbers are being called, station identifiers, etc, by looking at the H.323 or SIP signalling messages.

Personally I think that all IP telephony traffic should be encrypted, but part of the problem is that many Voip vendors don't make setting up encryption easy (Avaya is about the only one I know of that can encrypt the entire system with a single keystroke, Cisco is a real PITA to set up encryption with) and additionally encryption adds some overhead to the connection, which could affect audio quality.

Again, all of this assumes that somewhere along the line your internet traffic is being sniffed. It's also very time consuming and requires huge amounts of disk storage to simply snarf everything on a line and then go back through later and sort out the phone calls that took place.

I can think of basically two ways that this could happen.

On certain cable modem type connections it is possible that someone could spoof your MAC address and essentially receive a copy of everything that was supposed to go to your router. This would let them hear one side of the phone conversation but not the other one.

The other way (easier) this could be accomplished would be for someone to have a network sniffer plugged into a mirrored port on one of the network switches that passes all of the traffic back and forth between locations. This would basically be an "inside job" with someone at the cable/network company doing this, and again would require a lot of disk space and time to decode the RTP streams and listen to the telephone conversations.

Either one of these options are very difficult to implement and therefore I am somewhat suspicious that you are being "hacked" unless you are doing something silly like sharing Internet connections with people you don't know, or running an un-encrypted wireless connection (or a very poorly encrypted wireless connection that has been air-snorted and decrypted).

What makes you think that someone has hacked into your IP telephone calls?

Posts: 171 · Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 6:10 am Post subject:

If anyone wants to listen to my calls they can. But I warn you all you'll hear is carpool information, what's for dinner and of course endless hours of teen chit chat, that quite frankly even I don't want to hear. Rolling Eyes

If you want to tap into my business line...you pretty much hear the same...well maybe not the teen chit chat Lol

Posts: 497 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Apr 29, 2005 Posts: 497

hyipo wrote:

Is there any way to hook up Vonage to my computer that is internet connected, connect Vonage to a special router, pay Vonage to encrypt my phone calls, or is there a free VPN service so I can send all Vonage calls to them.

Back to the encyption/VPN question. Do you have a second location that you can use to create your own VPN?

Posts: 533

hyipo wrote:

Is there any way to hook up Vonage to my computer that is internet connected, connect Vonage to a special router, pay Vonage to encrypt my phone calls, or is there a free VPN service so I can send all Vonage calls to them. The reason why im asking is I believe im being tapped/intercepted by a hacker. This hacker also tried to mess up my websites also.

No.

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 9:28 am Post subject:

You can encrypt Voip conversations, but you will not be able to encrypt Vonage Voip conversations, for two basic reasons:

1. Vonage's servers do not support encryption. They are simpl;e RTP servers. To support encryption, they would have to significantly increase the required bandwidth for encrypted calls, plus they'd have to add a lot of horsepower to their adapters, and this would be a lot of expense. Given that it is possible to intercept a Vonage call on the Voip side ONLY if you can intercept the packets, and unless someone gets into your network directly this is a non-trivial exercise, this would be a lot of additional expense for little benefit.

2. Once the call is routed to a non-Vonage number, the telephone call goes over the standard POTS (Plain Old Telephone System). None of that is encrypted. So even if Vonage went to all that trouble, someone could simply listen in on the copper on the other side of the call. Or, if you wire into your home wiring, they could listen in on your side. Or if you or the other side use a cordless phone, then it's a matter of scanning for the channel you are using and listening in.

If you want encrypted Voip, get yourself two software clients or Voip telephones that support encryption and make your calls that way. Or go out and buy two "scrambling telephones" (assuming they are legal, which I don't know) and you can use them on any standard telephone connection.

Keep in mind that encryption ALWAYS has to be done (and interpreted) on BOTH sides of any encrypted connection. So if the person you are talking to doesn't have encryption of the same protocol you do, then they are going to hear gibberish when you call them.

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jun 20, 2006 Posts: 12

EzCo wrote:

hyipo wrote:

Is there any way to hook up Vonage to my computer that is internet connected, connect Vonage to a special router, pay Vonage to encrypt my phone calls, or is there a free VPN service so I can send all Vonage calls to them. The reason why im asking is I believe im being tapped/intercepted by a hacker. This hacker also tried to mess up my websites also.

No.

EzCo is completely right. I am a CCIE and I have never heard of someone successfully tapping into VIOP traffic. If someone is listening, they have compromised your computer, so I would use anti-virus. Its that simple.

When we set up VIOP that is encrypted we use site to site VPN's with a call manger (no Vonage at all).