Yet Another Chinese Telco To Block VoIP

from the no-more-cheap-calls dept

Wed, Apr 5th 2006 3:03am — Mike Masnick

Over the past few months, there have been a few stories about Chinese efforts to block various VoIP systems. Usually, the focus is on Skype, but phone-replacement VoIP systems like Vonage are clearly an issue as well, as anything that routes around the traditional phone system is a problem. Luckily for the Chinese, some US firms are more than willing to supply filtering technology. We already noted that one such firm, Verso, was supplying its Skype-filter to an unnamed Chinese telco. Now, another firm, Narus, claims to have sold VoIP blocking technology to Shanghai Telecom Co. In this case, the company claims its only for phone-replacement VoIP. Even though the company does offer a Skype-filter, the telco has not purchased it in this case (yet). So how much longer until the various VoIP providers start figuring out ways to encrypt and hide their traffic so that it's indistinguishable from other forms of traffic?

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23 Comments

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Patrick Mullen, 5 Apr 2006 @ 6:20am

Do you really want to play hide and seek with someone willing to park a tank on your chest?
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- sandro, 13 Oct 2006 @ 8:33pm
  
  Re: voip china
  hola espero me puedan decir como puedo obtener elsistema completo voip para peru quiero decir crear mis propios minutos voip como en los estados unidos o skype un saludo espero sus respuestas bye
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- sandro, 13 Oct 2006 @ 8:36pm
  
  Re: voip china
  hola espero me indiquen como acceder a mi propia linea voip para poder ser operadorde este sistema en peru y crear mis propios minutos voip cuanto seria elcosto de este sistema pues necesito tener una amplia informacion al respecto quiero acceder a una empresa como skypepocket8 y otros un saludo espero sus respuestas bye noblejas2005@yahoo.com
  http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr
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Gary, 5 Apr 2006 @ 7:14am

VOIP/China
China is still afraid to allow its poeple to freely converse with the rest of the world. VOIP would allow a lot of contact with outside influences that they fear will lead to a lot of unrest. As long as they control the lines of outside communication like VOIP, the internet, radio, TV, churches and such they can continue the status quo as it is.
I do not see this changing anytime soon.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Apr 2006 @ 7:23am

Let's invade China. They obviously need some good ol' US democracy.
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- Moogle, 5 Apr 2006 @ 7:44am
  
  Obligatory
  "Let's invade China. They obviously need some good ol' US democracy."
  
  You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Zyoose, 5 Apr 2006 @ 8:29am

Invade china
I don't think we can invade China unless they have oil.
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- Anonymous Coward, 5 Apr 2006 @ 8:58am
  
  Re: Invade china
  they do ironically....
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Gomorrah, 5 Apr 2006 @ 10:37am

Invade China?
How about instead we just nuke em. I mean seriously, we pay billions upon bilions of dollars for the nukes, lets finally put em to use. Whats the worst that can happen right.

(Yes, this entire comment is sarcasm, do not take seriously)
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- tickled, 5 Apr 2006 @ 10:41am
  
  Re: Invade China?
  I love this thread! Am glad sarcasm and sense of humor is alive and well.
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tuna, 5 Apr 2006 @ 11:53am

So, can they also block access to chat rooms, and live chat? With probably tens of thousands of PHPBB installations out there, the effort to suppress free speech on the Web is totally in vain. Unless they limit their traffic to websites managed by Chinese government that is.
Let them spend the money on useless technology. At least they keep some US IT guys employed.
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aReader, 5 Apr 2006 @ 1:17pm

Dual Profit
A perfect opportunity for these companies to supply technolgoy to VOIP providers in US and possibly worldwide that would bypass their own filters! Dual profit - you know what I mean!
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Its not so different here, 5 Apr 2006 @ 1:56pm

What'll it be, here?
In China the government is more powerful than business. In America the reverse is true. So in America, it is the businesses (telcos) that want to regulate (they call it "tiered pricing") the internet.
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old_devil, 5 Apr 2006 @ 4:39pm

Chinese Olympics
"Let's invade China. They obviously need some good ol' US democracy." I've got a much better idea: do not even think of attending or even watching TV coverage of the Beijing Olympics. I certainly won't unless they get out of Tibet.
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- Pete, 7 Apr 2006 @ 5:39pm
  
  Re: Chinese Olympics
  More misguided "Free Tibet" bullshit. Tibet has always been a part of China, the Dalai Lama owned slaves under his "Royal rights over the serfs" and since China has taken over control of Tibet from the feudal oligarchy, life has drastically improved for the people of Tibet. Hows THAT for a run on sentence.
  
  Try getting your facts from some other place besides Brad Pitt movies and misguided youth.
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  - chuck steaksbfalo, 8 Apr 2006 @ 6:14pm
    
    Re: Re: Chinese Olympics
    you will need to do alot more reading. the chinese do not go any where and improve the social disorder. they in fact murdered/killed thousand of people expecially the monks/religious sect. that is how a country gets conquered. sound formiliar, stop religion in the schools and destroy the social order starting with the children. stupid demo-krap-for -brains!!!!
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- chuck steaksbfalo, 8 Apr 2006 @ 6:09pm
  
  Re: Chinese Olympics
  the dali-lama went skiing with the demokrap for brains in march...! e-mail carrie from mass and ask his queen??
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star, 7 Jun 2006 @ 7:27am

What you guys know about China? Just from some newspaper and web? Don't just take sth for granted, and pay attention to what you said when you don't really know the truth.
I'm Chinese, I live very well, I even have chance to come to France to study. Our people have great life and are very happy. If you really want to make some comments, make it after you come to china to have a look!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jun 2006 @ 12:02pm

1.2.2.
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gdzayrs@mail.com, 13 Oct 2006 @ 4:13pm

gstpw cgzmtdqy
cykqait sfol ahtgskr hruco pcukqvofl szolajyfc ogiuvfra
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saira, 3 Sep 2007 @ 7:23am

chinese
dear all china only know the language of money . once it comes to their benifit there r no rules and principals to me it seems a constipated nation unwilling to accept foreigner but for money(unless they go bank corrupt ) . they have different rules for themselves and for the locals . behind the curtain of innocence lies ocean of cheating and defiance of norms .even they take advantage of their language barrier to their favour . a nation possessing assetes of i.3 trillion dollars and blocking voip to retain its monoply in communication . their is no one like chinese i salute them . Deal with them at ur own risk
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Andy Wong, 4 Dec 2007 @ 6:50pm

Solve your VoIP Blocking solutions
VoiceGuard Solution for VoIP Anti-Blockade

1. Overview

Yahoo messenger, Skype, Microsoft Messenger and Vonage offer a subscriber the ability to "call" someone using Softphone/Gateway ATA/IPPhone/IAD. However, several ISPs are blocking or degrading this service in order to force a consumer to use a ISP sponsored service. States such as the UAE block this technology outright while US corporations, such as Clearwire, claim that they might degrade the quality of competing services by adding choppy and delayed services.
SpeedVoIP is a leader in circumventing VoIP blocking imposed by ISP or Telco. For vision of Net Neutrality, VoiceGuard is created to address a growing number of ISPs who either degrade or block voice services over their networks. VoiceGuard gives choice back to the subscribers or customers of ITSP.

2. Technology

VGCP(Voice Guard Control Protocol)
VGCP is a proprietary layer 2 link protocol working at between IP stack and nic driver for VoIP anti-blocking. The core patent-pending VGCP is industry’s most state-of-the-art voice service provider class security protocol whose scalability and flexibility results in not to compromise voice quality and overhead. VGCP controls and monitors full voice signaling and media flow intelligently, meanwhile disguises sip and rtp packets into normal allowed data packets such as DNS and TFTP, and makes two-way encryption and decryption driven by user-customized policy. VGCP is fully transparent to upper SIP proxy or UA which means VoiceGuard can work with any 3rd-party Softphone/ATA/Gateway/IPPhone/IADs and SIP proxy or server not like some competitors which take effect on their own device and softswitch.

SidePass
Due to unique architecture, when deploying VoiceGuard Border Controller(VGBC) at customer CPE side, VGBC can work in the way similar to that of soho router, but it only encrypts and decrypts SIP and RTP packets on link layer, not to handup these packets to IP stack for forwarding while bypassing other data packets originating from SIP terminals. In this scenario, peak throughput and minimal CPU overhead can be easily achieved.

TrafficDisturb
Current leading carrier-class VoIP blocking platform such as NarusInsight can detect VoIP traffic with a special algorithm“traffic classification in the dark” which filters VoIP traffic based on behavioral-signature model. Compared with previous one of payload-signature model, NarusInsight is more sophisticated and robust. After deep study into traffic behavior of SIP UA, Proxy and Registrar, VoiceGuard can real-time incorporate light-weight traffic for puzzling and bypassing VoIP blocking system without consuming more bandwidth and compromising voice quality. Even in some circumstance, VoiceGuard can simulate traffic behavior of universal data networking protocol such as OICQ, MSN
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plastic molding, 16 May 2009 @ 3:13am

am I right?
How's China printing industry developed this years, who can tell us? China based plastic injection molding services with low costs and supeior quality Steel and aluminum scaffolding for construction is a very useful tool.
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