Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: PGPfone Beta 7 Now Available for Download

On 12 Jul 96 at 21:31, Arun Mehta wrote:

> At 23:38 10/07/96 -0700, Will Price wrote:
> >ANNOUNCEMENT: PGPfone Beta 7 Now Available for Download
> 
> Sorry if this has been discussed before (please point me in the
> right direction if that is the case), but VSNL, my government-owned
> ISP (which also has a monopoly on all international traffic) made me
> sign that I will not use my Internet connection for voice traffic.
> Is there any way they could find out if I were using PGPfone, or
> rather, could I prevent them from finding out? 


Arun:

I can't give you a definitive answer here, but I'll take a shot.  
Most Internet telephony systems use UDP packets to transfer speech, 
since the lower overhead of UDP (as opposed to TCP) allows for better 
throughput.      I assume (but I'm not certain) that PGPfone works 
the same way.

Unfortunately, most of your other TCP/IP communication will be based 
on TCP packets.  Therefore, it's theoretically possible for your ISP 
to monitor your traffic, watching for large numbers of UDP packets.  



---------------
Harry Hochheiser           harry@tigger.jvnc.net
08 3A B5 F6 47 7F C7 C4 28 B4 8D D2 2E DF F6 1E

On Sat, 13 Jul 1996, Harry Hochheiser wrote:

> On 12 Jul 96 at 21:31, Arun Mehta wrote:
> 
> >VSNL, my government-owned
> > ISP (which also has a monopoly on all international traffic) made me
> > sign that I will not use my Internet connection for voice traffic.
> > Is there any way they could find out if I were using PGPfone, or
> > rather, could I prevent them from finding out? 

> Most Internet telephony systems use UDP packets to transfer speech, 
> since the lower overhead of UDP (as opposed to TCP) allows for better 
> throughput.      I assume (but I'm not certain) that PGPfone works 
> the same way.
> 
> Unfortunately, most of your other TCP/IP communication will be based 
> on TCP packets.  Therefore, it's theoretically possible for your ISP 
> to monitor your traffic, watching for large numbers of UDP packets.  

Thanks for the input.

Is UDP used for other purposes not related to voice that I might pretend 
to be doing? Or is there still some way of fooling them?

Arun

> 
> 
> 
> ---------------
> Harry Hochheiser           harry@tigger.jvnc.net
> 08 3A B5 F6 47 7F C7 C4 28 B4 8D D2 2E DF F6 1E
> 
>

Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 14-Jul-96 Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: PGPfone
B.. by Arun Mehta@giasdl01.vsnl 
> Thanks for the input.
>  
> Is UDP used for other purposes not related to voice that I might pretend 
> to be doing? Or is there still some way of fooling them?

One thing that comes to mind are network games.  I not sure if Doom or
Quake can use UDP, but I'm fairly certain that Netrek uses UDP packets
(up to 16 players run client programs which communicate with a game
server using TCP or UDP).




_____________________________________________________________________________
 
 Tim Nali            \  "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of
 tn0s@andrew.cmu.edu  \   the dreams" -Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

>>>>> In article <oluAERy00iWTQ0u2Zy@andrew.cmu.edu>, Timothy Lawrence Nali <tn0s+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

    > Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 14-Jul-96 Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: PGPfone
    > B.. by Arun Mehta@giasdl01.vsnl 
    >> Thanks for the input.
    >> 
    >> Is UDP used for other purposes not related to voice that I might pretend 
    >> to be doing? Or is there still some way of fooling them?

    > One thing that comes to mind are network games.  I not sure if Doom or
    > Quake can use UDP, but I'm fairly certain that Netrek uses UDP packets
    > (up to 16 players run client programs which communicate with a game
    > server using TCP or UDP).

Hmm... This looks like a _really_ good place for stego.  Granted, you
might get a significant slow down, but it might be worth it depending
on your needs.

-Robin