Not quite the kind of back-up we had in mind

Diversifying a bit on this one, this is an article from Forbes.

Net Makes Recording Calls A Snap
David M. Ewalt, 04.12.05, 6:00 AM ET Forbes

NEW YORK - Recording phone calls is generally an activity associated with criminal and embarrassing behavior. From Richard Nixon to Linda Tripp, the people doing the recording are usually going out of their way to protect themselves or implicate somebody else.

But now the increasingly widespread adoption of voice-over-IP technology (or Internet phone calling) could make the recording and archiving of phone calls much easier and more common. Since Internet-based phone calls already consist of packets of data, they're potentially much easier to copy and archive than traditional calls. Convenient recording of phone conversations could prove a boon for businesses that need to keep track of every bit of information. But it also poses significant moral questions and threatens to undermine personal privacy.

So far, technical and social roadblocks have kept the recording of VoIP calls rare. But as IP phones find their way into more homes and offices, the practice is likely to become more common.

Voice-over-IP services are already surging in popularity. Internet phone service is now sold by phone companies like Verizon Communications (nyse: VZ - news - people ), cable companies like Comcast (nyse: CMCSA - news - people ), Internet companies like Time Warner's (nyse: TWX - news - people ) America Online, not to mention startups like Packet8 (nasdaq: EGHT - news - people ) and Vonage. According to market research firm IDC, the number of U.S. subscribers to residential VoIP services will grow from 3 million in 2005 to 27 million by the end of 2009.

Adoption has been even stronger in businesses, where corporations can replace their expensive phone networks and save money routing calls over their computer network.

Archives of phone conversations could be very useful in the corporate world, particularly in businesses that already have to keep track of all their communications for regulatory reasons, like the financial services industry. "The reason is to create this audit trail," says Burton Group analyst David Passmore. "If companies are making copies of their written communications, why wouldn't they feel compelled to extend that to phone calls?"

Other industries that depend on phones for a living might also want to record their conversations. Businesses that run call centers could record calls in order to provide better customer service and keep tabs on agents. We're all familiar with the recorded message: "This call may be monitored for quality assurance."

Sales people could easily keep track of requests from customers. And media organizations could keep perfect records of conversations with sources, provided that the second party is aware of and has agreed to be recorded.

Despite the potential benefits, so far not many people are recording and archiving their Internet calls, says Passmore. Even though complete archival of phone conversations is easier than ever, "people have just been sort of ignoring it."

One reason is that even though comprehensive archiving is now much easier, it's still not exactly a piece of cake. Internet calls generally pass from phone to phone over the network, not through a central point where they could be easily recorded. While it would certainly be possible to reroute that data stream through a device that captures and archives it, such an effort would increase the complexity of a VoIP deployment and make it harder to manage.

Of course, once you start recording calls, you have to figure out where to store them. Most of the VoIP technologies in use don't automatically compress the audio stream, so a preserved phone conversation takes up a fair amount of space on your hard drive, perhaps as much as a megabyte for a two-minute call.

"That starts to add up," says Burton. "And as cheap as storage is, it ain't free." Stored phone calls also lack any sort of indexing elements--like the keywords and headers in e-mail--that make them easily searchable and retrievable, making them less useful for corporate applications. (Some advanced search technologies in the works today could eventually solve this problem).

Products are already appearing on the market to make recording VoIP calls easier. Last month, New York-based United Virtualities released software called HotRecorder that can archive calls over PC-based VoIP services like Skype, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Net2Phone (nasdaq: NTOP - news - people ). And specialized products from Witness Systems (nasdaq: WITS - news - people ) sit inside a corporate network and archive all the calls employees make.

But even though the technological barriers are dropping, the biggest barriers to widespread VoIP recording may remain the moral and ethical ones. The laws on recording phone calls vary state to state. In some places, it's illegal to record without everyone's consent; in others you can record a call if just one party on the call knows about it. But even where it's legal, archiving calls could alienate customers, employees or friends, discouraging most of us from attempting it.

Says Burton, "There are a lot of people who feel storing calls like that is wiretapping."

"There are a lot of people who feel storing calls like that is wiretapping." Well yes.