Ooma Forums

It is my understanding that Ooma encrypts phone calls on Ooma's end, but that only Ooma to Ooma calls are fully encrypted. I am interested in whether calls made using Ooma to a non-Ooma phone are materially more private than calls made using other VOIP products. In other words, is the encryption beneficial in any way for Ooma to non-Ooma calls?

Priv wrote:I In other words, is the encryption beneficial in any way for Ooma to non-Ooma calls?

It would help to protect your privacy to and from Ooma's central servers, so yes, there would be a benefit. But, the party on the other end could be the weak link, if you will, depending on the security of their connection.

For example, if that person is on a 900 megahertz analog cordless phone, your conversation could be broadcast around their neighborhood without any protection. Most people have probably upgraded, but my Sennheiser cordless stereo headphones were able to pick up a local telephone conversation.

To answer your basic question, no, there is no end-to-end encryption. Using Ooma does mean that the network traffic between your Telo and Ooma's servers is encrypted, but the routing from Ooma to the recipient goes over the normal phone network. (An exception would be if the person you are calling is also an Ooma customer.)

So it is "more private", yes, as most VoIP services do not encrypt the data so that someone monitoring your network usage could "listen in". But it is not end-to-end private.

Thanks. This helps. It is nice to know that my calls are at least somewhat more difficult to intercept than they would be if I was using another VOIP provider.

Is Ooma call from my Ooma phone encrypted? I mean from my Ooma base unit to Ooma
voip server. The rest of the way I do not need to know.

"Ooma uses the same encryption technology governments use to protect classified data (which makes Ooma more secure than your old landline). ... However, a call made from an Ooma Telo to a normal telephone will only be securely encrypted within the Internet."

https://www.ooma.com/blog/privacy-matte ... one-calls/

And that encryption might be????

Because the reason I ask is because a cyber stalker has been listening in on ALL my Ooma calls.

Every one of them!

So what encryption? What level of encryption?

James

The connection between the Telo and the Ooma server goes through a vpn. From the Ooma server to the analog public telephone network is the same as any other phone companies analog phone calls.

Are you using a really old cordless phone system to connect to the Telo? They are not secure at all but the person would have to be very close to your house to intercept. All bets are off if you live in an apartment. Anyone in the building could intercept the call.

I would like to find out how this stalker got my ooma calls. I use a straight line, no cordless phones.
Only one phone on the line on a 2 foot cable from the ooma base.

Only 2 ways to hack.

1. they cracked the vpn encryption. Maybe ooma should take a look at their LEVEL of encryption. It could be very weak.
2. Social hacking. I have asked many a company how much training do your employees get on social hacking.
Almost everyone says NONE or maybe one HOUR. That is clearly not enough. So maybe it is time for ooma review it security measures?