telecommunications - the next revolution

Emerson Development

Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved of 25

Emerson Development LLC 3 Gold Mine Road, Suite 104

Flanders, NJ 07836 973-691-7420

www.EmersonDevelopmentLLC.com

Announcing: IronPipe™ MultiMedia Telecommunications – The Next Generation of Telecommunications and the

Second Generation of VoIP Radical Improvement to Telecommunications Merges the Internet with the PSTN

Patented system overcomes risks of Internet Telephony (VoIP) from espionage, hacking, intrusion, interruption, and identity theft. Integrating Internet Calling with PSTN Call Control Results in Vastly Improved VoIP, a wealth of new MultiMedia features; and Tremendous New Revenue Opportunities

Harry E. Emerson Abstract Existing VoIP offerings are simply discounted POTS service – there are no value-added features, only lower cost, with fierce price pressure from cable TV and other low-overhead vendors. The result is a continued downward spiral on price that has plagued the telecommunications industry for 40 years, and it’s not surprising because the industry only offers consumers the same audio-only service that’s been around for over 100 years. Equally important is the fact that VoIP and the associated technologies of DNS, ENUM and SIP are susceptible to the inherent flaws of the Internet, including confidentiality, quality, and general Internet reliability. They are susceptible to hacking from malicious individuals and groups, including terrorist organizations and governments, and have suffered attacks that would be unthinkable and intolerable in the world of traditional telecommunications – yet this is the direction that we are depending upon for our future. The Russian cyber attack on Georgia highlights this risk. Despite its drawbacks, the Internet offers a richness of audio and visual and video that by contrast should be an enlightenment to vendors of analog voice technology. Even though VoIP (through DNS, ENUM, and SIP) holds promise in this direction, VoIP vendors have not implemented new and exciting audio/video features. This article offers a re-thinking of architecture and the enablement of features that will enrich telecommunications and enable vendors to charge significant premiums for the new services that result. It will merge the best of the Internet with the safety, security, and reliability of the telephone network. The underlying technology is based on a portfolio of patents issued to the author.

Emerson Development


Introduction – IronPipe™ MultiMedia Internet Telecommunications Emerson Development LLC has been awarded a fifth telecommunications patent that introduces breakthrough technology combining the multimedia capability of the Internet with the safety, security, and reliability of the phone network. This exciting new technology enables a world in which audio/visual phone calls will become the standard for routine, daily communications. The Emerson Development MultiMedia Telecommunications technologies will create the next generation of telecommunications -- visual, multimedia, and videophone communications on screen-based phones that require no knowledge or training for users. Just dial a phone number. This remarkable MultiMedia Telephony technology is a true quantum leap that will fully merge the telecommunications and Internet networks. The benefit will be MultiMedia telephone communications having graphical and videophone capabilities on screen phones, yet dialed on the public telephone network like any other call, and fully compatible with the world’s billion POTS lines (POTS = Plain Old Telephone Service). The “convergence” of voice and data has been the elusive goal of the telecommunications industry since the mid-80’s, hallmarked by the introduction of digital PBXs, digital telco central office switching systems, and digital transmission networks. But conversion hasn’t happened, and can’t happen without a rethinking of these “digital” designs. On the opposite side of the fence, the Internet is slowly bringing about a limited type of convergence in the form of Internet Telephony, also called Voice over IP (VoIP). VoIP is, in general, devoted to providing cheaper long distance service by using the Internet as a transport medium. VoIP uses conventional Internet services, such as DNS, and thus is exposed to the same risks of the Internet, including espionage, hacking, intrusion, interruption, and identity theft. There are standards efforts that have been underway for a few years with the objective of providing greater VoIP functionality. And, even though they seem to hold out the promise of graphical and video communications, they miss the mark by wide margins for a number of serious technical reasons. By comparison, the Emerson Development MultiMedia Telecommunications provides the carrier class infrastructure, operations, management, and billing capabilities that will be absolutely necessary for the major telecommunications companies throughout the world to venture into this field. These mandatory capabilities include requirements for security, privacy, secrecy of communications, and unlisted numbers, including the guaranteed ability to keep the identities of callers secret under every circumstance imaginable. And just as importantly, MultiMedia Telecommunications provides for these privacy and security requirements while still enabling government mandated provisions for law enforcement wiretapping and call tracing.

The Feature Void, and Pricing Wars for POTS and VoIP There is a significant void between available technology and the services offered by the telecommunications industry. On the Internet, rich media – audio and visual and video – are the norm. But telephony is still locked into the same audio-only technology we’ve had for 130 years. Since the bar is so low, VoIP vendors like Skype, Vonage, and cable TV companies are able to enter the field with low capital outlays, and offer the same 130-year-old service for less money with the primary pitch to the consumer of shaving pennies off the cost of long distance

Emerson Development


calls. Because of the downward spiral on price, traditional carriers have thin margins, low stock prices, and poor prospects for the future. Carriers are experiencing a steady erosion of their customer base to wireless phones, cable-TV internet access, alternative local service providers, and discount long distance services, including VoIP vendors. There is little incentive for carriers to introduce similar VoIP services that will even further under price their existing services. The major carriers are, therefore, anxiously seeking new revenue opportunities that will leverage their investment and skills, however, they have not demonstrated a vision of how to accomplish this. But there is a bright upside waiting in the wings. In an optimized environment, combining the multimedia capability of the Internet with the safety, security, and reliability of the telephone network would be ideal. This would enable a world in which audio/visual telephone calls will soon be the standard for routine, daily communications. Even though VoIP holds promise in this direction, VoIP vendors have not implemented new and

exciting audio/video features. Since existing VoIP offerings are simply discounted POTS service, companies participating in VoIP have limited promise for the future - current VoIP services offer no value-added, only lower cost, with fierce price pressure from cable TV and other low-overhead vendors. In addition, VoIP is susceptible to the inherent flaws of the Internet, including confidentiality, quality, and general Internet reliability. Further, switching to VoIP will cause carriers world-

wide to walk away from their investments in existing infrastructure, operations and support systems (OSS), billing systems and employee knowledge and training. The technology embodied by the author’s patent portfolio avoids the problems and limitations associated with “traditional” VoIP by utilizing the existing PSTN private data signaling network to set up and manage Internet telephone calls. The resulting technology combines the security and reliability of existing telephone network infrastructure with the efficiency of the Internet. This next-generation, carrier-class Internet Telephony will clearly differentiate these providers from traditional VoIP vendors. The patented technology would likewise allow carriers to expand their traditional and cellular services by offering, for example, the transmission of MultiMedia data using wireline and cellular telephones (such as the iPhone). The MultiMedia features enabled by this technology include videophone service, but are much more than that, effectively blending the world of the computer with that of the telephone. For example, as if using a browser, users could interact visually with remote systems such as voice mail systems and answering machines, and activate and respond to central office features such as call forwarding, call block, repeat dialing, and automatic callback.

VoIP is susceptible to the inherent flaws of the Internet, including confidentiality, and quality, and exposes users to espionage, hacking, intrusion, interruption, and identity theft

This technology will enable carriers to preserve their investments while introducing suites of new landline and cellular services to dramatically increase revenue.

Emerson Development


Screen phones (wired or wireless, such as the iPhone) will allow users full functionality including audio-visual communications experiences. By combining the technological capabilities of the new generation of screen phones with this patented technology, carriers will be at the forefront of (or likely control) the next generation of landline and mobile personal communications. The technology will enable these carriers to preserve their investments while introducing suites of new landline and cellular services to dramatically increase revenue.

Here are some key aspects of the Next Generation telephony: Technology that seamlessly merges the best of the Internet with the best of the telephone

network Internet-style graphics & visual communications, including videophone, on screen-based

phones Require no knowledge or training for users Audio/visual calls will become standard for routine, daily communications Traditional “phone company” quality & reliability

A user only needs to dial phone number to a land-based or cellular telephone, as they’ve always done, to enable Internet MultiMedia communication – anyone’s grandmother (or grandfather) can do it. Internet connectivity is automatic if it is available, and so are all the available features.

Multimedia – The next generation of telecommunications Twenty years ago, when Microsoft was introducing the early versions of Windows, the computer industry as a whole was skeptical – why do we need a graphical user interface? In the absence of applications and systems that we could experience for ourselves, it was difficult to imagine how a Windows interface would add value. Now, of course, we are all accustomed to the rich, multimedia presentation of the Internet, and couldn’t imagine going back to a text-based interface. The world of telephony is where the computer industry was twenty years ago. The routine experience consists of audio-only phone calls, and it’s hard to imagine the value and benefits of screen-based phones and services. Emerson Development has prepared presentation material that describes some of the potentials that multimedia telephony will offer – but to be sure, once it becomes commonplace, and a million developers have tinkered with it, we won’t be able to imagine doing without it. Emerson Development is not the only one in the industry talking about multimedia telephony, but our view is more expansive than most. We believe that, over time, audio-only phones will be as archaic as DOS-based computers. Furthermore, our unique patented technology will enable anyone to take advantage of multimedia phone service since the user only needs to know how to dial a phone call. That fact will enable and drive universal deployment of multimedia services. It will become the Internet for the rest of us – just dial a number.

Emerson Development


Defining the Problem… How can we achieve multimedia telecommunications and still accommodate national security needs and maintain the traditional integrity and reliability that we all expect? The Issues of VoIP, SIP, and ENUM: The standard industry concept of implementing multimedia telephony is to deploy VoIP (Internet telephony) using SIP and ENUM. There is some practical experience with SIP, but ENUM, in general, is an unknown.

• Background: SIP is a protocol for storing and communicating call setup signaling information across the Internet. ENUM is a DNS scheme for cross-referencing phone numbers to IP addresses. It is important to understand that, in order to achieve universality and the simplicity of just dialing a phone number to make a multimedia call, ENUM must be universally deployed. (And that would mean that every phone number in the world must be stored in DNS systems. And that would be crazy.) Otherwise, the caller must use a computer-style interface and type an “address” in the form of “sip:[email protected]”. This requirement is certainly beyond the realm of the non-computer literate. Furthermore, taking one moment to realize the implications of this in some non-English languages that require hieroglyph keyboards (Chinese, for example), one can readily anticipate that this scheme will never see universal deployment. Anyone can dial a number; many won’t be able to “type” an “address”. Therefore, in the VoIP scheme, universality demands ENUM.

There are many advocates of Internet telephony, but we believe that VoIP, SIP, and ENUM are fundamentally flawed. These technology solutions expose the industry and the nation to serious and unnecessary risks, while compromising the quality of our nation’s phone service. These risks fall into two categories: communications security risks, and business risks for telephone carriers.

Problems: VoIP technology presents security risks at several levels:

• In general, VoIP suffers from the general Internet weaknesses of security, privacy, and secrecy.

• In the VoIP model, all call setup signaling data, as well as the conversation data, traverses the Internet and thus is susceptible to all the known threats of snooping, eavesdropping, and intercepting or replacing one communication with another. This endangers the privacy and secrecy of personal and corporate communications, which, by extension, represents a national security risk.

• Being server-based, Internet telephony is susceptible to hacking, Denial-of-Service attacks, and other forms of malicious interference. This, also, endangers personal, corporate, and national security, and this exposure could be exploited in cyberwar. “VoIP is making it easier to wage cyberwar, an analyst reported last week, just as flaws that make some VoIP products vulnerable were revealed.” Network World 1/19/2004.

Emerson Development


• SIP and ENUM are dependent on DNS which is notoriously trouble-prone, slow, and susceptible to errors. DNS is completely decentralized, with millions of DNS servers operated by businesses, organizations, ISP’s, and anyone else who wishes to do so. Anyone can be a VoIP telephone vendor and put up a DNS server to run SIP and ENUM. No training, tests, certification, license, or bonds are required – just set up your servers. From a practical perspective, we depend on the good faith, integrity, and reliability of the DNS operators for successful operation of the Internet. However, allowing the national and worldwide telephone system to depend on DNS exposes the United States to a similar dependency, which is hardly prudent.

• There is no inherent security built into DNS. There are Internet standards proposing security procedures, but implementation is optional and not widely implemented.

• General issues of secrecy – In addition to conversations themselves being secret and secure, Internet telephony must be able to protect unlisted phone numbers, IP addresses (which are equivalent to a phone number in IP telephony), and geographic locations (can’t reveal the calling locale of a battered spouse or someone in a witness protection program). These requirements are not contemplated in VoIP.

• Any Internet telephony scheme must accommodate the requirements for legal wiretapping and call trace. Although occasionally discussed, these requirements are also not contemplated in VoIP implementations.

• Internet telephony is unregulated by the FCC, and the government cannot figure out how to deal with this problem. Anyone can become an Internet telephone company, and do things any way they like, regardless of all the above issues.

• VoIP security concerns include reports that German authorities have tapped conversations, while the Chinese authorities openly monitor and record messages and personal information.

• And, if DNS is brought down, VoIP users can't even make emergency calls.

VoIP Shares All the Risks of the Internet Malicious software activity has tripled in 2008. We had a very notable event. When Russia began their attack against the country of Georgia, they began with a cyber attack, not with jet planes knocking out Georgian radar installations. In this cyber attack, the Russian hackers literally brought Georgia to a standstill -- their banking, their ATMs, their transportation systems and their power generation systems. And this wasn't the first time - Russia launched a similarly successful cyber attack against Estonia in 2007. Separately, Russian and Chinese hackers have broken into the Obama and McCain networks. Cyber hackers have broken into the International Monetary Fund computer system. Computer hackers suspected of working from Russia successfully penetrated Pentagon computer systems, in one of the most severe cyber attacks against the US military.

You are at risk if the other party uses VoIP, even if you don’t!

Emerson Development


DNS - a History of Exposures and Attacks The entire worldwide DNS system was brought to its knees by hackers multiple times in recent years. “Massive DDoS Attack Hit DNS Root Servers -- During the course of the ping-flood pounding, only four of 13 root servers remained up and running while seven were completely crippled….. Tuesday evening's distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the 13 copies of the U.S. root server should serve as a warning to every company employing DNS, said the inventor of the technology Wednesday.” InternetNews.Com Oct. 23, 2002. A similar attack June 15, 2004 brought down Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Fedex, Apple, Akamai, and many others. And more recently: “ICAAN says that starting at 4 a.m. PST (12:00 UTC) on February 6, 2007, a massive distributed denial-of-service attack hit six of the root servers like a brick wall, with a wave of bogus queries hitting the root servers at the rate of 1GB per second. Two of the root servers were immediately and severely compromised; four fared well under the strain. According to ICAAN, the amount of data sent to the DNS root servers during the attack was roughly equivalent to receiving 13,000 e-mails every second, or 1.5 million every two minutes.” CNet.com March 23, 2007

Problems: VoIP technology presents business risks to telephone carriers

• Telephone companies around the world have built a system with a shining reputation for reliability and integrity. The phone network, and its reliability, is based on the utilization of the worldwide private SS7 signaling network for setting up and managing calls. SS7 is abandoned in VoIP (and deliberately so, VoIP was designed by Internet researchers who wanted to bypass the phone company). Instead, call signaling is carried in the open on the Internet, drawing routing information from DNS.

• With ENUM, SIP, & VoIP, all call processing intelligence and all transmission moves to the Internet. When carriers participate in VoIP, the PSTN evaporates.

• Since Internet telephone service is subject to all the vagaries of the Internet, carriers can’t control quality, reliability, or security.

• Audio quality on the Internet is uncertain. Overall, Internet telephony is not “carrier class”.

• Anyone can set up a phone company and offer comparable service levels to traditional carriers. Consequently, carriers who venture into Internet telephony will gradually lose their reputation for quality, along with their advantage in this newly competitive arena.

• Carriers who move into VoIP will undermine the very principles that made them great.

Emerson Development


The Architecture of the Internet Itself Is the Flaw It should be obvious now, after all our years of fighting hackers and spammers, that things have not gotten better - they have gotten worse. That's because the Internet architecture itself is the flaw. It is the ultimate democracy where everyone is considered trustworthy, and that goes back to its origin where it was just colleagues of research scientists, and they were trustworthy. But now everyone has direct access to your computer, your email, your systems -- in case of VoIP, to your VoIP systems. Because of this architecture, battalions of people fight off attacks every day. It simply cannot be made to work safely and securely. Furthermore, the Internet risks CAN'T be solved, especially in the context of VoIP services, because anybody can be an Internet phone company. You don't have to take a test, you don't have to be certified -- you just set up an Internet phone company. And then you set up your own DNS servers, because VoIP requires DNS, and you didn't need any training or certification for that either. Even worse, you don't know anything about and have no control over the VoIP services of the other party -- you are at risk because THEY use VoIP. The exposure to malicious activity is enormous.

Benefits to IronPipe™ Telephone carriers stand to benefit from this new technology because it preserves their business position by providing high value in the PSTN and in the underlying private SS7 network that connects the PSTN together.

Traditional telephone carriers, as well as VoIP vendors that participate in this new technology, will benefit by offering new high value consumer services instead of competing by cutting prices.

Consumers will benefit from a flourish of new MultiMedia features. The experience will be similar to accessing a web page with a browser, but would be done by dialing a phone number.

Industry and governments will benefit from a rich communications environment that is secure from espionage, hacking, intrusion, and interruption.

Emerson Development


Key technical features, user features are described below: Call signaling for Internet calls carried on PSTN SS7 Internet calls established automatically if end devices are capable – users just dial a call PSTN controls call, even Internet calls – can transfer between analog & multimedia

devices Avoids weaknesses of VoIP, SIP, ENUM, and the Internet Exploits carrier strengths – reliability, security, integrity

Conceptual View – Screen Phone Connectivity:

In simple terms, a telephone (a screen phone) will have a data interface to the CO/PSTN, connecting to the SS7 network. You can think of this interface to the phone as being an ISDN-style interface, but only using the I-frame call control data channel. But, since ISDN has never grabbed hold in the U.S., in more modern terms you could think of a DSL or cable VoIP modem that has an Ethernet connection to the phone, rather than a two-wire analog connection. The Ethernet connection carries signaling data as well as digitized audio, and conveys MultiMedia data from intervening or end systems. For the first scenario, let’s assume that the called device is not compatible with the Next Generation MultiMedia, and must be treated as an analog phone call.

Merge the best of the Internet with the best of the telephone network

Emerson Development


In the above illustration, the destination CO receives the call setup request, determines that the called device is not capable of an Internet communication, and accepts the call as an analog call. In the following illustration, the called device is a Next Generation device capable of an Internet MultiMedia connection.

Emerson Development


The underlying operation can be fairly simple, although more sophisticated arrangements offering additional benefits are possible. In the above illustration, a screen phone goes off-hook and dials a number. The local CO (or appropriate SS7 node) forwards the call setup message to the remote CO serving the called number. The destination CO responds as to whether or not the called system is capable of an Internet connection. If so, the destination CO forwards the call setup message to the end device (which might be a phone, a voice mail system, etc.). The call setup message includes the IP address of the calling phone. Upon receipt of the call setup message, the called phone learns both the telephone number and the IP address of caller. The called phone can then respond to the caller with high-speed MultiMedia information across the Internet, as shown below.

One of the virtues of this system is that the PSTN maintains call control. Among other things, this means that calls can be transferred transparently from analog to MultiMedia and back without the users having to know anything about the types of phone service or types of phones – the intelligence is built into the network, and users only need to know what they want to do. MultiMedia phones will offer users screen buttons to activate these operations, analog phone users will flash the switchhook, as they have always done – it’s just automatic.

Emerson Development


Optionally, as shown above, the audio portion of a telephone call can be transmitted over the PSTN, providing guaranteed high quality audio, and all the other features in a “carrier class” environment, while transmitting the visual and Multimedia aspects over the Internet. MultiMedia telephone service will also allow carriers to offer the same intrinsic value and appeal as a computer with a graphical browser for accessing the Internet. This technology is available for use between land-based and cellular telephones interchangeably. Some Points of This Architecture:

All signaling conducted on PSTN Signaling data is secure No dependency on DNS (recall that, recently, hackers crashed the entire worldwide DNS

system) PSTN controls call User just dials a call -- calls automatically complete best way Voice portion can ride across PSTN, high quality audio, no jitter or dropouts Can use standard billing systems & call rating schemes

These are the underlying mechanics. What you will really want to know is, “What value does this all bring?”

Emerson Development


User Features -- The Dazzle of Las Vegas Lights

Here are examples of the kind of user features that are possible (watch our presentation to see more features)

Present a Web Page to Callers: Use your screen phone to dial OfficeMax. Call setup data transits the SS7 network to OfficeMax. If the OfficeMax telephone system is conventional (analog), SS7 coordinates both ends, and the phone rings. But, if the OfficeMax telephone system is Next Generation capable, it responds with MultiMedia information. OfficeMax knows that most calls to its stores are for a few specific purposes – What are your hours? Where are you located? Do you have 28 lb. high gloss photo paper in stock? So, the OfficeMax phone system responds with a WebPhone® page, offering, as in the illustration, five menu items, each of which will popup subsequent WebPhone® pages as necessary. The caller’s phone has a touch screen, so all the caller has to do is touch the menu item they want – couldn’t be more simple. If you want to talk to someone, drill down through the Departments menu, or just push the Connect button.

EVERY PHONE BECOMES A WEBSITE,

EVERY PHONE NUMBER BECOMES A

DOMAIN NAME

Emerson Development


Send a Web Page Whenever You Place a Call: You can arrange your phone or phone system to send callers a web page with whatever information you desire. In this example, you are sending your Electronic Business Card with your photo. But, it could be any information you like – your company logo, or even your MySpace page.

Your E-Card Web Page Goes Before You

And Transfers With The Call To Wherever It Goes

Incoming Call From973-255-9951

Wayne AbernathyConsultant

584 Howard Ave.Anytown, USA1-908-908-9080

Emerson Development


Entirely New Generation of Social Networking Technology All you did was dial Kaitlin Baker’s phone number and you got her MySpace page. This will have profound implications for today’s Social Networking Generation.

OMG, It’s Her MySpace Page!

Emerson Development


Let Your Customers Manage Your Network Features: The phone company used to send out these stickers with a listing of central office features and the dial codes to activate them, because nobody could remember the features or what the codes were, so you were supposed to glue it to your phone. But few people did that, so few people know any of features except perhaps for call forwarding. But let's turn this around, and give you a display screen into the telephone company's service center so that you can see the features that are available to you and enable you to active them and understand them. For example, do you know that there is a feature of Anonymous Call Rejection? Do you know the dial codes for that? What about Call Forwarding: Are your calls forwarded now? Do you need to forward your calls? Do you know the dial codes to forward your calls? With a visual representation, all of these features go from mysterious and difficult to straight-forward and simple.

Manage Network Features

Anonymous CallRejection (ACR)

Call Block

Call Forwarding

Call Trace

Repeat Call

Return Call

Prriority Call

Select Forward

Tone Block

TO T

URN

ON

TO T

URN

OFF

✽77 ✽87

✽60 ✽80

✽72 ✽73

✽52 auto-matic

✽66 ✽86

✽69 ✽89

✽61 ✽81

✽63 ✽83

✽70 hangup

For a dial/pulse-only phone, dial 11 instead of ✽For details call 1-800-870-0000.

IT'SEASY!

VERIZON Service Manager

Anonymous Call Rejection

Call Back

Call Forwarding

Repeat Call

Return Call

Emerson Development


Solve the Nightmare of Automated Attendant Voice Prompts: Similarly, callers can interact with any type of telephone device at the remote end – Voicemail systems, Automated Attendant Systems, PBX’s, etc. The iPhone integration with Voicemail systems is the closest anyone has ever come toward exploiting Internet-style capabilities in telephony.

A solution to a real-world problem: • “Please listen closely, as our menus may have changed sometime in the last few

years” • “Press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish” • “Press 1 for Sales, 2 for Tech Support, 3 for Customer Service, 4 for Billing, 5 for

Shipping” • “Thank you for contacting Technical Support. Please press 1 for hardware on CD-

ROMs and DVD’s, Press 2 for sound cards, press 3 for motherboards, press 4 for ….”

• “I’m sorry, we very much value your call, but all our agents are busy. Please hang up and call again later.”

We all know what this is like, and all of these prompts could be put on a touch-entry menu system for the caller so they can snap through them quickly to get to the one they want.

Replace Tedious Audible Call Promptswith Visual Menus

Welcome to the Visa Assistance Center

English

Seleccione su idioma

Choisissez votre langue

Español

Français

Italiano

Select your language

Seleziona la tua lingua

Welcome to the Visa Assistance CenterPlease have your card number ready, if available

Replacement, repair, or reimbursement…..

Extended warranty on Visa purchases…….

Auto RentalAccount InfoPurchases

Auto rental collision damage waiver……..

Other Visa programs and Services………..

Report lost/stolen card, request cash……..

Account InfoBalances, Pin #, Payments, Credit Limits..

Emergency

WarrantiesOther

Welcome to the Visa Assistance Center

Emerson Development


Since the Internet carries MultiMedia data at high speed, finally video phone service is practical:

Profound Implications Universal and simple – Create an Internet communication simply by dialing a phone

number Like dialing into a web site And, every phone and every phone number can be a web site Videophone service becomes standard No knowledge or training required Just dial a phone number like you always have

Emerson Development


Privacy, Secrecy, and Security Aside from features that will be appealing to users, there are fundamental requirements of Privacy, Secrecy, and Security that are seldom discussed openly with regard to VoIP. But they are serious issues, and need to be fully considered by users, corporations, telecommunications carriers, VoIP carriers, law enforcement agencies, and federal and state governments. As we all know, the Internet is a lawless frontier, where nothing is safe and secure, and reliability is always one step away from calamity.

Security and Vulnerability VoIP does little to protect the interests of these individuals and organizations, not to mention protecting the security of the United States. We suffer untold numbers of hacker attacks DAILY, systems broken into, identities stolen. The entire worldwide DNS system was brought to its knees by hackers. In August, 2008, Russia launched a cyber attack against Georgia two days before its ground attack. In previous wars, aircraft were sent in first to destroy radar installations and command centers to “blind” the enemy. This time, aircraft were not necessary. The Russians paralyzed the Georgian government and civilian infrastructures alike with massive Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and other tactics. Cyber warfare is real, and any technology that is susceptible to it is at risk. Fundamentally, no one can guarantee that Internet communications cannot be intercepted and monitored. We all need to ask: Is this what we want for our telecommunications system?

Privacy, Secrecy, and Legal Requirements While not commonly addressed (at least, until the lawsuits start), in addition to the obvious (protection from snooping) there are at least three requirements that need to be met: unlisted numbers, legal call trace, and legal wiretapping. There are two aspects to unlisted numbers: the obvious is that the number is not published, and so the number is effectively secret; but with equal importance, you can call someone from an unlisted number and not only is it practically impossible for the called party to discover the phone number of the caller (since the number is not displayed on Caller-ID), but also the called party can’t tell the location from where the call was placed. In support of this requirement, any Internet telephony technology must prevent IP tracing software from revealing the geographic

locale of calling parties for legal and security matters such as protecting battered spouses and people in witness protection programs. Consider the scenario of a battered spouse, in hiding at her sister’s house in St. Louis. If her husband learns she is in St. Louis, he knows where to find her. If she calls to check on the kids using a VoIP phone, and he does a packet trace, bingo – he knows where she is at. This is trivial to accomplish on the Internet.

Privacy, Secrecy, and Security of VoIP

Is this what we want for our telecommunications system?

World War II Poster

Emerson Development


By contrast, here’s how Privacy, Secrecy, and Security are achieved in the Next Generation of Telecommunications. Figure 1 illustrates that Internet data does not transit directly between calling and called devices. Instead, those connections are sent through proxy servers which are controlled by SS7 messages, and do not respond to ping and traceroute queries. They might be randomly selected, so a proxy server in New York City will be selected on one call, but a proxy server in Washington D.C. might be selected on the next call from the same phone.

The proxy servers set up pairs of IP addresses, with one pair carrying data from the calling to called party, and the other pair carrying data in the reverse direction. It would be virtually impossible for someone of ill intent to be able to associate those two pairs together.

Emerson Development


Encryption is the solution to prevent others from monitoring data being transmitted between two locations. There are two basic methods: Public Key and Secret Key (a key is simply a very big number). Public Key assumes that the key is transmitted in the open and is therefore susceptible to attack; the encryption methodology is very rigorous. Public key encryption is very effective, and has not been known to be broken. However, it is computationally intensive, and is not practical for real-time requirements such as communications. For secret key, think of a courier carrying an attaché cases handcuffed to his wrist. The secret key assumes that the key cannot be discovered, and with that assumption, secret key encryption offers essentially the same level of protection as public key. It has the significant advantage that it is computationally modest, and can encrypt and decrypt in real-time. Secret key is not acceptable for general Internet usage, because there is no way to prevent snooping. However, in the Next Generation environment, the keys are transmitted across a secure network – offering a very high degree of security for the keys. Furthermore, there can be separate keys for each half (direction) of the conversation.

Privacy, Secrecy, and Security in Next Generation Telecommunications

Supports unlisted numbers and IP addresses Privacy, secrecy, and security of MultiMedia Communications are:

Absolute! Impenetrable!

But still permits legal call trace and wiretapping

Emerson Development


Comparison of VoIP Architecture Here is a comparison of the data and signaling transferred under VoIP. As is evident from the illustration, both the signaling data (call setup, dialed numbers, etc.) and the actual call transit the Internet, and are susceptible to all the risks associated with the Internet.

Emerson Development


But What About VoIP, ENUM, SIP? Isn’t the embedded base too large to walk away from? While VoIP/ENUM/SIP has many undesirable qualities, as suggested in this article, there no doubt will be economic realities that will cause vendors to want at least a transition period from VoIP to the Next Generation MultiMedia. Here’s how.

As suggested by the above illustration, SIP depends upon the DNS system to find the DNS service agent (in this case, ISP.com) for the called system.

Emerson Development


Now having the IP address of the ISP.com SIP proxy server, the caller may send an INVITE to that proxy server for the called party.

The illustration above shows the concept of a “private DNS” operated by carriers wishing to operate legacy VoIP alongside Next Generation MultiMedia. The “private DNS” relates SIP domains that are participating in Next Generation with an SS7 address of the SIP server for that domain. If there is an entry for a domain in the “private DNS” then call establishment can proceed as described previously. If there is no entry, then the SIP call is handled normally. Although this arrangement may take a bit of work to perfect, it is fairly straightforward in concept.

CONCLUSION Through the use of the patented technology, carriers can leverage established customer relationships, brand name, and tradition of quality, and utilize existing systems such as OSS, billing systems, SONET, and SS7. By implement the Next Generation MultiMedia Telecommunications the telecom world can assure itself of many more years of value-added pricing based on desirable features, and luxurious profits.

Emerson Development


ABOUT THE PATENTS Patent Number Description 6,704,305 “Integrated Device For Integrating The Internet With The Public Switched

Telephone Network” This patent describes telephone devices such as screen phones that support audible and visual communications across the Internet simply by dialing a telephone number. These “Integrated” phones have both a telephone connection and an Internet connection. By using digital call control messages that are sent to and from the local telephone central office, an “Integrated” telephone can set up an Internet MultiMedia call to a compatible phone. If the called phone is not Internet capable, a standard phone call is established.

6,700,884 “Integrating the Internet With The Public Switched Telephone Network” This patent describes a system for a telephone device as described in 6,704,305 to be able to create an Internet call. The system includes a mechanism for correlating the telephone number of a calling or called device with its associated IP address. That information could be stored in the telephone itself, in a record system of the local central office, or in one or more central registries.

6,697,357 “Call Management Managing System For Integrating The Internet With The Public Switched Telephone Network” This patent describes a digital call management messaging system, that could be thought of as an extension of ISDN and SS7, that enables an “Integrated” telephone device to communicate across the Internet. When one of these telephones places a call, it sends a digital message to its serving central office switching system. That message includes its telephone number and IP address, as well as the telephone number of the called party. By sending a compatible message to the central office serving the called party, the originating central office can determine if the called party is capable of an Internet call. If so, once the called device receives the call setup message, it has the Internet IP address of the calling device, and can then establish a connection across the Internet.

6,928,070 “Integrating The Internet With The Public Switched Telephone Network” This patent describes a sophisticated system which greatly enhances the privacy, secrecy, and security of Internet calls. This system enables the telephone switching network to dynamically assign an IP address to both the calling and called device, and route the resulting Internet call through an intermediate proxy server. Internet phones require more than just “unlisted number” capability since a called party can easily determine the geographic location of a caller, and thus putting the life of some individuals at risk (such as a battered spouse). With this invention, the proxy servers can be in other geographic regions to cloak a device’s actual geographic location. Furthermore, the Internet call can be split into two unidirectional streams, and each of those streams can be routed through a separate pair of proxy servers. Since the proxy servers can be dynamically selected for each call, the true location of an “Integrated” phone can be protected.

7,327,720 “Integrated Telephone Central Office Systems For Integrating The Internet With the Public Switched Telephone Network” This patent describes a telephone central office switching system having a digital messaging capability to send and receive call setup and management messages to and from compatible phones. These call management messages can initiate and control a communications session transpiring across the Internet. The central office switching system can communicate similar digital messages to other central offices and central office systems to create and manage end-to-end Internet communications.

telecommunications - the next revolution

Documents