Is secure telephony possible or even desirable?

Telephony as implemented today is not secure. We know that wiretaps (both legal and illegal) are widely used all over the world with ease and impunity. This is due to the fact that the vast majority of voice communications are in the clear. Yet the general public, along with both government and public organizations run their affairs over the telephone system assuming it is secure. For example, providing personal information over the telephone while talking to one´s bank for the purpose of identification, is something that both customers and banks assume is secure, yet doing the same over an unencrypted Internet connection would be considered foolhardy. Using various pretexts, such as national security, government agencies insist that they should retain the ability to monitor telephone conversions with relative ease. In this talk we argue that the current state of affairs is dangerous and we will use the case of the Athens Wiretaps as an example to demonstrate that centralized call intercept facilities are a threat to the security and stability of a state. Finally we look at the problem of securing voice communications and discuss whether there is hope of ever breaking the status quo and attaining secure voice communications.