VOIP Cautions

1010news radio reported that consumers need to be careful before signing up for VOIP service. Some people think the service is as reliable as landline when it is still experimental and bugs are being worked out.

service still shaky

Risks Issues "A hacker might trick a phone into obtaining a software update from a rogue server, or toss a fake "hang up" command into the data flow - perhaps as a caller is trying to land an important job interview.

Some services let you take phones on vacation, and hackers might decided to trick the system and redirect your calls to them instead.

All kinds of mischief is possible: A rival might try to capture your business sales lead. Or a snoop might listen in on a neighbor's secret calls to a lover.

Though these attacks would be difficult to perform today, security experts believe that as such phones get more popular, hackers will have greater incentive to develop tools for automating such attacks - just as they have with viruses and other computer threats today.

As for reliability, phone providers are still trying to make their systems fully compatible with 911.

In some cases, phones might ring a non-emergency number or fail to provide caller ID details like location - crucial when a caller can't speak.

And during blackouts, traditional phones can draw upon electricity in the phone lines, but an Internet modem will fail without backup power."