India would not allow any access to VoIP calls as the Intelligence Bureau (IB) wants to block all Internet Telephony Services.

IB asserted that the country is lacking the capability of tracking the telephony calls — both domestic & international — and had asked the Department of Telecom (DoT) to find an “early solution to this issue in the interest of national security”.

According to TRAI, over 130 million minutes of internet telephony conversation happened in the Q1 of 2009 and there are 34 ISPs who provide net telephony service in India (legally).

Cyber security expert Vijay Mukhi said that IB should have issued such directions immediately after the 26/11 terror attacks. “The terrorists used net telephony as they were aware that India did not have the technological capabilities to do a live trace of such calls.

In the US and Europe, all players who offer VoIP services have provisions that allow governments to track these calls. Many of them have also installed equipment at their premises to monitor VoIP calls upon orders from governments,” he added.

And this isn’t the first time, govt. has mulled over such ‘technically-challenged’ decision. Few months back, the government wanted Google/Yahoo/Microsoft to Host Indian Email accounts ending with .in, servers in India.

Blocking VoIP calls or creating Indian email accounts is no way to resolve the security threats in fact the need of the hour is to upgrade their own infrastructure to combat such threats. What do you say?481272