Personal privacy concern about fongo phone number

[torontovoipnewuserx]

Hi, I am planning to move from Bell Canada to Fongo home phone. But I recall reading some posts on the RedFlagDeals forum that claim that the fongo home phone number is not secure, privacy-wise.

Essentially it means that if I use my fongo home phone number as the main number, and give it to my bank, doctor, put it on my resume, etc, very likely the calls will be hijacked, and some middle-man hacker will intercept the calls, stealing my financial information, ruin my new job offer, etc., all without my knowledge. It is very scary scenario.

All these mean that I really cannot use fongo home phone number for any serious purpose. Is it true or is it just urban legend?

I can entrust my financial information / confidential personal data with Bell Canada/Rogers. They are big companies. They won't play with fire. They know the consequences. But with fongo, I am not quite sure, considering Fongo even put some dubious dating ads ( very likely containing spyware in such ads ) on this forum site. Any large legitimate company won't do such things.

[bridonca]

It does not matter about the carrier, or the technology, information that goes through your telephone is NOT secure. Cell phone and the old POTS technology can offer even worse security than VOIP. Unencrypted telephone banking is NOT secure, switching technologies does not make it any more secure. If you value you privacy, and do not want anyone to snoop on it, do NOT do telephone banking. Use the internet, where both ends of the transaction are encrypted, and if intercepted, only gibberish is displayed.

And no, you cannot trust Bell or Rogers. I have no clue of how you came to the idea that you can trust them!

[torontovoipnewuserx]

What I mean is that whether it is possible for a call to my Fongo phone number ( say, from my bank ) to be diverted to another destination, at the switch board level, either by a hacker, or by an insider. so it will never reach my Fongo ATA.

When my bank calls my Fongo phone number, it cannot magically create a direct link to my Fongo ATA over the Internet. Fongo company server/switch board must be involved to establish the link. If the security of such server/switch board is compromised, then any bad thing can happen.

I think this is not about the encryption stuff. This matter is occurring at even deeper level that is rarely discussed.

I accept the fact that POTS & cell calls are not encrypted. But I think at least the server/switch board at those large telcom is very secure. Physical access is highly restrictive.

[bridonca]

Again, what you think, and what is, appears to be 2 different things. You could argue that Fongo is so small, no one would hack into it except for blind chance. In any case it is still relatively insecure, but no more than most other voice technologies. I accept it is insecure, and move on. Never been knowingly hacked, and if it did happen, nothing of value would be taken. Then again, I do not use the service on high risk services like telephone banking.