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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