So are my calls to my mother safe on Vonage?

[Ioo]

My mother some times bakes cookies and calls me, she tells me how her day is, how dumb Bush is...

Vonage? Data minded?

[Roland99]

1. For now. They're still hashing out how to monitor VoIP

Judges challenge new U.S. Internet wiretap rules
http://www.picayuneitem.com/articles/2006/05/07/news/23wiretaps.txt

[Dave Reynolds]

2. I can only make the assumption

that nearly all communications are compromised.

[Ioo]

4. Do you think Bush has tapped the Carrier Pigeons?

[Dave Reynolds]

5. Nah, it might be best to go old school.

I have to watch my smoke signals, though.

[Canuckistanian]

3. If it's a data stream anywhere

Most likely it's being tapped. I'll bet there are still volumes we don't know about.

Yet.

[Freedom_Aflaim]

6. Not at all

Vonage buys circuits in most major markets. And they buy them from the other telcos.

Fact is *NO* telco is safe from the data mining. Take any Telco and look at their 5 biggest customers...It'll always be other telcos.

Even if you are calling vonage to vonage, that traffic is carried over lines leased from telcos...such as AT&T, MCI etc.

If you use the Internet, or make phone calls, your traffic passes over the major carriers. No exceptions.

[mike_c]

7. that depends....

It largely depends on what the NSA wants to do. People need to understand that the NSA exists to monitor electronic communication. There is not a single electronic signal in this country, or certainly no commercial signal, that the NSA cannot monitor. VOIP travels via internet backbone-- the old DARPANET is buried in there-- and the NSA can access every bit of it if they choose to. Communications companies can make it easier for them by actually shunting copies of comms traffic to NSA inputs, but that's just a convenience. The NSA can monitor anything it chooses to monitor, IMO.