SPIT? Why would anyone want to SPIT on VoIP?
Most anybody that receives email is familiar with the term Spam. Who among us hasn’t received dozens of unsolicited emails, clogging up our mailboxes and causing us to waste valuable time? Laws have been made to reduce the clutter in our mailboxes, and major offenders can be fined and in some cases put in jail.

Spam is basically broadcasting of advertisements, announcements, or other unwanted messages, over a network or networks, ending up in the mail boxes of anyone that has an email address on that network. At worst, spam is frustrating and can also cause network problems utilizing good chunk of bandwidth meant for other things. As email applications are connectionless and not sensitive to time delay, eventually the recipient will receive their emails.

Spam over Internet telephony, otherwise known as SPIT, can have far greater consequences than email spam. Spitters target VoIP gateways and use up the available bandwidth, severely disrupting service and causing degradation in voice quality.

The ability to broadcast audio messages over a VoIP network is not necessarily a bad thing. Companies would be able to get out important messages quickly, and emergency services could easily communicate evacuations, or warn of impending disasters in the event of catastrophe.

While Spit is certainly possible, to date, we have not seen a lot of it. Back in 2004, Skype got hacked into, and users were swarmed with unsolicited audio messages. Skype quickly found and closed the loophole in their network.