Encrypt VoIP Calls with Zfone

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or Internet telephony has been growing in popularity and usage, and the trend does not show any signs of slowing down. It has been estimated that at some point in the very near future, calls made over the Internet will exceed calls made over traditional phone networks. Part of that would be due to the fact that VoIP calls are significantly cheaper than calls made over regular phone lines.

But like most Internet traffic, VoIP calls are not secure by default. That means that it is very easy for skilled computer hackers to eavesdrop on your calls. And that can happen at any point between both ends of a VoIP call. And that is where an application like Zfone could come in very handy. Zfone is the creation of Phil Zimmermann (who also wrote the PGP email encryption software), and it makes it possible to make secure and encrypted VoIP calls.

Zfone is a peer-to-peer application and, therefore, does not need the intervention of a VoIP service provider to work. It is still a beta software, available as a free download for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows XP/Vista. Once installed on a PC, Zfone auto-detects the start of a VoIP call and then encrypts and decrypts the packets. At the present state in its development, Zfone is of use only for securing VoIP calls between two softphone clients: VoIP calls initiated from a regular phone connected to a VoIP adapter cannot currently be secured and encrypted with Zfone.

There may be plans to have Zfone technology embedded in VoIP adapters, and I think as VoIP calls between mobile devices becomes common place, it may become necessary to also have Zfone installed by mobile device manufacturers. It is still too early to make any predictions about Zfone, but once a stable version is released as a truly Open Source software (it is currently available as a free download with source, but under a restricted license), you can expect to see a lot of activity focused around the project.