Robust Audio Tool (RAT) The Robust Audio Tool (RAT) is a an open-source audio conferencing and streaming application that allows users to particpate in audio conferences over the internet. These can be between two participants directly, or between a group of participants on a common multicast group RAT is capable of encrypting voice traffic using TripleDES. Users at each end of a conversation are prompted to enter a passphrase to begin an encrypted conversation. The RAT Homepage is located at: http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/software/rat/index.html