Vodafone says VoIP is 'expensive' and 'unsafe'

Of course Vodafone...

Of course, my VoIP that travels over an IPSEC VPN is a lot less secure than my calls vid mobile/landline which aren't encrypted, whatever you say Voda.

A movie moment springs to mind

In enemy of the state on character turns to another and says, something like "we've got teenagers downloading encryption systems that we can't break"...

Cut to Zimmerman smiling broadly, with an almost blofeld-esq pitch to his adjoined fingers in a pose not unlike praying however more Machiavellian than that ;)

In all seriousness this kind of publicity needs to be stopped, but by who? Everyone who makes it is essentially playing to what the government wants. Fear Uncertainty and Doubt about the security of our country, so we can up military spending and brutalize our citizens... Or at least thats the impression I'm getting.

There should be a new law/amendment on broadcasting, that any statement which is intended to generate fear, or is capable of generating fear within the population without credible evidence to back up the statement made within the same broadcast medium at the same time, the statement is classified as a terrorist act.

Terrorism is by definition utilising any method to instill fear and terror within a population.

If we amended broadcasting laws, it would shut Tony Blair right up, and maybe we (not me personally) wouldn't all be afraid of Muslims any more.

Expensive & unsafe

Expensive - Vodafone's fault because of their extortionate data rates, but I can see how it's also a costly threat in general to overpriced mobile calls in general.

It's not expensive to anyone using WiFi bypassing Vodafone obviously.

Unsafe - err, how?

The terrorism stuff is just a load of hot air an irrelevant here.

You'll never commoditisation

VoIP makes no sense for mobile networks - it is an incredible waste of bandwidth but it is being used because the networks overcharge for voice calls. Standard VoIP using SIP is extremely unsafe (and also unreliable). But you can encrypt VoIP and using something like Skype must be incredbily difficult to listen in on because it uses no central server, although I would have thought that since ebay bought skype the chances of a backdoor being added to suit the needs of the FBI will have increased significantly.

Precognition

With these "terrorists might be using the internet to communicate" stories we can see how the "War on Terror" will eventualy lead to legislation that cripples the internet as we know it.

ben... No Duh!

Terrorism and MMGW are the latest flavours of hte politics of fear, used to scare and guilt the public into accepting ever increasingly fascist legislation.