* Expect another battle with regulators, VON founder says.
The scope of the Voice on the Network conference, which was staged for the first time 10 years ago to fight regulations stifling development of VoIP, was broadened in Boston last week to include video over IP, and the early fight might be about regulation all over again.
VON founder Jeff Pulver said he expects the FCC to push regulations that might be well-intentioned but nevertheless have the effect of hindering the growth of Internet video just as it is taking hold.
He pointed to comments at VON by FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate that the FCC probably will consider regulations to ban child pornography on the Internet. Those regulations could restrict the development of legitimate content, he said. “I consider it a warning shot,” Pulver said.
The experience VON founders gained by lobbying Congress and testifying before the FCC to protect VoIP from phone regulations will help with this new battle, he said. “The VON coalition will take people through the stages of what’s going to happen,” he said.
VON’s success and the proliferation of VoIP have gone hand in hand. This year the show drew nearly 10,000 people to the Boston Convention Center, a far cry from the 240 people who attended the first VON 10 years ago at a hotel in the Soho section of New York City. While this year Pulver looked ahead to the coming of video over the ‘Net, most of the products and services in show booths still focused on VoIP, with security a key theme.
During seminars on the topic, users were urged to build security into their VoIP plans rather than trying to tack it on later. For instance, speaker Vincent Kasabian, senior network engineer at Liberty Mutual, said VoIP security is a fundamental part of the network because the company’s wireless LANs (WLAN) were installed to support mobile voice.
Just as corporate security experts have worried that wireless data networks are vulnerable to attackers and eavesdroppers, so they should worry about VoIP over Wi-Fi calls being picked up, he said. “There are certainly security concerns.”
The company separates voice from data on its wired network via virtual LANs, he said. This helps protect VoIP from data infrastructure attacks that monopolize bandwidth, he said.
Liberty Mutual has two WLANs, one based on 802.11a and one on 802.11g. “The idea is that the 802.11a radios provide more data throughput, while the 802.11g radios are dedicated to voice only,” Kasabian said. “I can have separate security policies on the 802.11g radios vs. the 802.11a radios.”
The data wireless network already uses the 802.11i standard, which includes encryption and port authentication. “We’ll soon be migrating to 802.11i for voice as well,” he adds.
Vendors are starting to recognize the importance of encrypting VoIP traffic to protect confidentiality. For example, BorderWare announced at the show it is licensing phone-to-phone authentication encryption software from Zfone, a company founded by Phil Zimmerman, the inventor of Pretty Good Privacy data encryption software. The plan, BorderWare said, is to integrate the software with its SIPAssure firewall.
VPN hardware maker KoolSpan said it has a deal with ruggedized PDA vendor mobID to embed KoolSpan’s VPN encryption technology in mobID’s ruggedized handheld computers that support VoIP. All transmissions from mobID’s devices could be encrypted. The devices are used primarily by the military to scan fingerprints, faces and voices to determine whether a person is a terrorist. They also communicate back to central locations.
Such security concerns are warranted given the proliferation of tools that help hackers, said another VON speaker, Mark Williams, vice president of Tactical Security, a company that advises and trains businesses in IT security.
Tools meant to analyze traffic can zero in on real-time protocol packet streams for eavesdropping or be copied to files that can be listened to later, he said. Voice over Misconfigured IP Telephony is a tool designed specifically to do this, but the analyzer Cain can do the same and has recently been updated with a VoIP-specific tool. Similarly, Wireshark captures traffic and, via a more cumbersome route, produces the same results. “Every tool can be misused,” Williams said.
Although VoIP is likely to dominate at VON for some time, Pulver said video over IP will grow rapidly and drive innovation and spending. As video on demand replaces traditional TV, the technology will lend itself to more sophisticated technologies for selling products.
It is possible, for instance, to code a video so a viewer could run a cursor over the shirt an actor is wearing and right click on it to find out more about it and left click to buy it, Pulver said.
Advertisers could tap the demographics of all viewers and personalize advertisements that come along with video content. “It’s totally intrusive, but trust me, it could happen,” he said.
At the same time, sharing similarities with TV networks could attract the attention of government entities that tax and regulate network franchises.
The FCC, which regulates broadcast and cable television, might try to regulate these personal networks as well because they are “TV-like,” he said. “There are ways to fight this,” he added. “Don’t let regulation get in the way of your innovation.”
