The Zfone Project: VoIP Encryption Matters

Warning: Technical discussions, no… just kidding.

If we talk about encryption, what comes into our mind is something so technical like algorithms, cryptography, cipher, etc. Indeed, it’s true but let us not put it that way here. I will try to explain things in layman’s term.

Encryption is basically a process used in transforming a plain readable text into unreadable to anyone. Only the person who holds the key will be able to unlock and read the text again in plain readable text. In other words, encrypt and decrypt. Encryption does not only apply to text but to any type of digital content, which includes audio and video files.

When talking about VoIP, we talk about voice transmission because we do phone calls with VoIP technology. With that, the Zfone Project handles the issue of VoIP encryption by developing a secured VoIP software phone called Zfone. With its principal designer, Phil Zimmermann, the one who created PGP, the Zphone uses a new protocol called ZRTP architecture that allows us to make a secured phone calls over the TCP/IP network.

• Doesn’t depend on signaling protocols, PKI, or any servers at all. Key negotiations are purely peer-to-peer through the media stream
• Interoperates with any SIP/RTP phone, auto-detects if encryption is supported by other endpoint
• Available as a “plugin” for existing soft VoIP clients, effectively converting them into secure phones
• Available as an SDK for developers to integrate into their VoIP applications
• Submitted to IETF as a proposal for a public standard, and source code is publishedZfone is not itself a VoIP client, but lets you make secure calls with your existing VoIP client, by filtering, encrypting and decrypting all your VoIP media packets as they pass in and out of your computer.

Zfone beta was release just this month, you can download and try it here. It is available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows XP.