But it appears they are, as demonstrated by Pena's alleged scheme, which involved no fewer than 15 VoIP companies, start-ups without the kinds of controls in place that an old telecomm company like AT&T might have, and the emergence of all the other data-like threats to voice that VoIP has enabled.

De los Reyes does eventually acknowledge that some companies will rush to market, but that's only to sate demand coming from those who aren't considering the risks up front. For, none of this would be an issue if companies and individuals thought about the full threat landscape and the costs and risks associated with that, instead of getting sucked in by the pure per-minute cost savings and neat applications VoIP offers. "If security says you can't do something, people just go around it," he says. "Users are going to do what they're going to do, so we have to secure what they do. It's gonna happen. You can't stop the flood of technology."

That might be true, but you could hope to contain it. After all, Sweden didn't just let people switch to Hogertrafik whenever and wherever it suited them. Imagine if it had. In fact, the one thing that has prevented the new voice services from really flying out of control is the PSTN. In many cases the old copper that remains in the first mile of phone connections has at least slowed the proliferation of VoIP, both its great potential and its great threat.

If you're focused on VoIP's potential, then POTS is the last obstacle before a voice communications revolution. If you're focused on the threat, then the century-old analogue technology has become, of all things, a security control.