The FCC has given voice over IP (VoIP) providers until about Spring of 1997 to ensure that their networks are wiretap-ready. We’re not going to get into the whole civil liberties aspect of this fight. The government already has the ability to wiretap phones, it only seems a natural progression to be able to tap into conversations even as the underlying technology changes.

No, what we’re interested in is who, precisely, this affects. All the articles we’ve read talk about “VoIP providers”. What makes someone a VoIP provider? It isn’t that hard to set up VoIP. Does it include player-to-player communication in games? While the technical details differ, it isn’t all that different. How about IM to IM voice communication?

A technical hurdle is the issue of encryption. An encrypted conversation could be “tapped”, but unreadable. What if someone just comes up with a new voice codec?

Basically, in order for this to work, the Federal government will have to put itself into the business of deciding all manner of technical standards. Making this another case of “doomed to fail.”