[patrickaljord]

Why is "unencrypted" considered a good thing? I find it kind of scary especially for a video conference app.

[ynniv]

It's much easier to add encryption to an unencrypted channel than it is to interoperate with a fully encrypted one. As a user you might be more interested in encryption as soon as possible, but to the average HN reader an unencrypted standards-based stack is good news!

[jallmann]

Your phone calls aren't point-to-point encrypted, either.

[eli]

No, not end-to-end, but they are encrypted between your phone and the cell tower.

It's considerably more secure than an open wifi network.

[sp332]

GSM supports optional encryption, but there's no notification to the user whether a given call is encrypted.

[eli]

Yes, but I'm pretty sure all US carriers use it all the time

(Though it's true that this opens you up to a potential MITM attack by a well equipped adversary, it's still a far cry from an open wifi network)

[drewcrawford]

Remember all those scandals where politicians sent sexy texts to people they weren't supposed to? Video looks a lot better on the evening news.

Cue first FaceTime scandal in 3, 2...

[eli]

I'm pretty sure those are usually leaked, not intercepted.

[mattparcher]

I may be missing something, but isn’t he saying that the FaceTime call, once initiated by a traditional phone call, is encrypted?

“Only the call part is Vanilla SIP. The procedure for registering a Facetime user into their servers etc. is all non-SIP, encrypted/ciphered.”