Zimmermann’s zFone
08 Aug, 2005

I was really gratified to see the enthusiastic response PGP inventor and advisor, Phil Zimmermann, received when he announced his latest project at BlackHat last week. Phil"s been working on something called zFone that will do for Voice over IP (VOIP) what the original PGP software did for email. Many VoIP telephony users apparently do not realize such calls can be vulnerable to attack or eavesdropping. Phil is a legend in the crypto-community and it"s worth paying attention when he decides to devote himself to an endeavor like this one.

There is little doubt, at this point, that VOIP will replace most of the switched telephone network within ten years. There can be even less doubt that as an industry we"re going to need to find a way to secure all of these Internet borne voice conversations for that to happen. At PGP we"ve been working with Phil on his project and are very excited to see him reach this key milestone. It is the kind of application for which PGP Universal was designed to be the underlying security infrastructure. How you ask? A system such as the one Phil is designing must meet three key design criteria:

1. It must be secure
2. It must be truly usable by its target audience
3. It must be manageable

With Phil designing it, we can be certain that zFone will be secure. We"ll be working with Phil on the usability piece based on our experiences with PGP Desktop. PGP Universal has the potential to ensure the product is manageable and provides IT management with all of the tools they need to ensure the availability and security of VOIP services. We"ll also be working with Phil to ensure that PGP Universal and zFone interoperate to allow Universal customers to integrate zFone into their infrastructure when it"s appropriate.

In addition to our work with Phil, Jon Callas, PGP"s Chief Technology Officer also serves on the VoIP Security Alliance’s (VOIPSA’s) Technical Board of Advisors. The VOIPSA objective is to help organizations understand and avoid VoIP security risks. Jon works with other VoIP and information security researchers, engineers, and thought leaders to provide guidance on strategic direction and vision.

I"ll be writing more about securing VOIP sessions and the role of government is setting standards in this space later, but for now join me in congratulating Phil on his most recent achievement.

- Phil