Distributed system for lawful interception in VoIP networks

Abstract

Voice over IP is one of the most propulsive technologies today. Significant advantages of VoIP over conventional telephone system provide a major incentive for enterprises and service providers to use the new technology. There is a variety of IP telephony standards, which provide basic models for implementation of VoIP. However, some significant problems still need to be adequately solved. Security, global administration and billing, emergency dialing plans and lawful interception are some of the areas that are being researched. This paper proposes a distributed system for the lawful interception in IP telephony networks. The proposed system has scalable architecture, supports various interception methods, and can be deployed on various network infrastructures. In addition, the system design addresses various issues present in IP networks, for instance; security protocols, network configuration, and standardized data formats. A prototype of the interception system, based on the proposed architecture, has been implemented and tested.