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-
- Speak Freely for Unix
- Voice Communication Over Data Networks
-
- by John Walker
- Release 7.1 -- September MIM
-
- The phone company never gives you a break! You pay a fortune for a
- leased line connection to the Internet, and you *still* have to pay
- every time you want to chat with somebody, even though you're both
- sitting in front of workstations with digital audio capability, linked
- by a fast network. Speak Freely for Unix can intercommunicate with
- Speak Freely for Windows, available from my Web site listed at the
- end.
-
- Speak Freely for Unix can currently be built for the following systems
- (assuming they are equipped with suitable sound hardware):
-
- System Ported By
- =========================== =============================
- SunOS 4.1.x John Walker
- Silicon Graphics IRIX 5.3 John Walker
- Solaris 2.4 (SPARC and x86) Hans Werner Strube
- FreeBSD Andrey A. Chernov
- Linux A host of volunteers
- Hewlett-Packard Marc Kilian
-
- Speak Freely for Unix uses the workstation audio hardware and network
- to allow bidirectional conversations right over the network.
- Workstations on local area networks can generally communicate with
- excellent audio quality and response. A software implementation
- (developed by Jutta Degener and Carsten Bormann, Technische
- Universitaet Berlin) of the compression algorithm used in GSM digital
- cellular telephones allows operation over Internet links of modest
- bandwidth. By using GSM compression in conjunction with sample
- interpolation, the data rate can be reduced to about 9600 baud. Users
- with CPUs too slow or two heavily loaded to perform GSM compression
- and decompression in real time may select less compact but quicker to
- execute ADPCM coding, using an implementation developed by Jack Jansen
- of the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science, Amsterdam, The
- Netherlands.
-
- Sound can be encrypted either with a key supplied in a file, DES
- Blowfish, and/or IDEA with given key(s). The DES implementation was
- developed by Phil Karn, KA9Q. The Blowfish encryption module and the
- DES encryption library used for encrypting and decrypting VAT and RTP
- protocol packets were developed by Eric Young. The Blowfish algorithm
- was invented by Bruce Schneier and is in the public domain. The IDEA
- algorithm was developed by Xuejia Lai and James L. Massey, of ETH
- Zurich. The implementation used in Speak Freely for Unix was modified
- and derived from original C code developed by Xuejia Lai and optimized
- for speed by Colin Plumb. The IDEA[tm] block cipher is patented by
- Ascom-Tech AG. The Swiss patent number is PCT/CH91/00117, the European
- patent number is EP 0 482 154 B1, and the U.S. patent number is
- US005214703. IDEA[tm] is a trademark of Ascom-Tech AG. There is no
- license fee required for noncommercial use. Commercial users may
- obtain licensing details from Dr. Dieter Profos, Ascom-Tech AG,
- Solothurn Lab, Postfach 151, CH-4502 Solothurn, Switzerland, Tel +41
- 65 242 885, Fax +41 65 235 761.
-
- The Silicon Graphics audio drivers are based on the stand-alone SGI
- Netfone developed by Paul Schurman of Espoo, Finland.
-
- Key generation for IDEA and DES encryption uses an implementation of
- MD5 message-digest algorithm based on a public domain version written
- by Colin Plumb in 1993. The algorithm is due to Ron Rivest.
-
- Complete instructions for Speak Freely for Unix are given in the
- manual pages. You can view the manual pages on your screen with the
- command:
-
- make manpage
-
- To build the program, edit the Makefile and set the #defines as
- appropriate for your system and preferences, then make. If the build
- is successful, the executables for all the Speak Freely programs will
- be in the build directory.
-
- All files in the speakfree root directory are in the public domain:
- "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". I'd appreciate
- receiving any bug fixes and/or enhancements, which I'll incorporate in
- future versions of the program. Please leave the original attribution
- information intact so that credit and blame may be properly
- apportioned.
-
- Please see the readme and/or copyright files in the adpcm, des, gsm,
- and idea subdirectories for information regarding the distribution and
- conditions of use of those components.
-
- AUTHOR
- John Walker
- http://www.fourmilab.ch/
-