SIP in higher education

[Candace Holman <>]

EDUCAUSE has been representing university interest in this for some time 
now [1].  It just so happens that oral arguments are starting tomorrow.  
I attended a seminar on CALEA earlier this year and understood that 
EDUCAUSE is trying to clarify that university networks should be 
regarded as "private networks", and thereby exempt from compliance.  The 
ruling might be of interest to the SIP.edu community because the order 
does not specify technical details about identifying a subject under 
observation - especially in the context of device mobility, caller id, 
wifi voip, encryption, and nats.

At the same seminar, I was reassured that one of the speakers was 
confident that the providers in question, "facilities-based broadband 
access providers" do not include schools, libraries, or other private 
networks.  The service providers that provide the facilites are those 
who would need to change to provide CALEA.  There is even a loophole 
that the data must be "reasonably available", which is fairly open to 
interpretation.  He was confident that nothing would hold up in court 
the way it is written now.

Ben Teitelbaum posted notes from this seminar to his blog [2].

The technical upside you note below is only a fantasy, as the 
requirements are such that the persons being observed cannot know that 
you are observing them.  Thus, you'd pretty much have to constantly 
observe everyone and tap it when asked.  Plus, the interface for CALEA 
is more monolithic and requires quite a bit more than just a sniffer 
capture.  For example, you have to have a way to verify that the data is 
pure and hadn't been tampered with between the time you captured it and 
the time you delivered it.  In reality, I think if this is going to be a 
legal requirement for universities, or any university takes it on as an 
ethical requirement to provide law enforcement assistance, it will 
likely be outsourced to an outside agency.

[1] http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?page_id=645&PARENT_ID=698&bhcp=1
[2] http://people.internet2.edu/~ben/blog/archives/2006_01.html

Candace

Duane wrote:
> http://www.networkingpipeline.com/blog/archives/2006/05/feds_colleges_m.html 
>
>
> As bad as this is the only upside is if people are switching across to 
> VoIP since you only need 1 set of equipment (and ethereal) verses 
> expensive telco gear + ethereal...
>
> Although if the Feds want this capability it should come out of their 
> budgets, otherwise they should keep going with the existing 
> arrangements with upstream carriers...