Skype encryption stumps German police
R. A. Hettinga
rah at shipwright.com
Thu Nov 22 18:59:21 PST 2007
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071122/wr_nm/
security_internet_germany_dc&printer=1;_ylt=And6XlnpqyRgOlJJJWB9V2sh2.cA
>
Yahoo
Skype encryption stumps German police
By Louis Charbonneau
Thu Nov 22, 12:29 PM ET
German police are unable to decipher the encryption used in the
Internet telephone software Skype to monitor calls by suspected
criminals and terrorists, Germany's top police officer said on Thursday.
Skype allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet from
their computer to other Skype users free of charge.
Law enforcement agencies and intelligence services have used wiretaps
since the telephone was invented, but implementing them is much more
complex in the modern telecommunications market where the providers
are often foreign companies.
"The encryption with Skype telephone software ... creates grave
difficulties for us," Joerg Ziercke, president of Germany's Federal
Police Office (BKA) told reporters at an annual gathering of security
and law enforcement officials.
"We can't decipher it. That's why we're talking about source
telecommunication surveillance -- that is, getting to the source
before encryption or after it's been decrypted."
Experts say Skype and other Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
calling software are difficult to intercept because they work by
breaking up voice data into small packets and switching them along
thousands of router paths instead of a constant circuit between two
parties, as with a traditional call.
Ziercke said they were not asking Skype to divulge its encryption
keys or leave "back doors open" for German and other country's law
enforcement authorities.
"There are no discussions with Skype. I don't think that would help,"
he said, adding that he did not want to harm the competitiveness of
any company. "I don't think that any provider would go for that."
Ziercke said there was a vital need for German law enforcement
agencies to have the ability to conduct on-line searches of computer
hard drives of suspected terrorists using "Trojan horse" spyware.
These searches are especially important in cases where the suspects
are aware that their Internet traffic and phone calls may be
monitored and choose to store sensitive information directly on their
hard drives without emailing it.
Spyware computer searches are illegal in Germany, where people are
sensitive about police surveillance due to the history of the Nazis'
Gestapo secret police and the former East German Stasi.
Ziercke said worries were overblown and that on-line searches would
need to be conducted only on rare occasions.
"We currently have 230 proceedings related to suspected Islamists,"
Ziercke said. "I can imagine that in two or three of those we would
like to do this."
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