Skype encryption stumps German Federal Police
Bravo for Skype!
“The encryption with Skype telephone software … creates grave difficulties for us,” Joerg Ziercke, president of Germany’s Federal Police Office. “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.”…
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.”
Ask someone named AT&T.
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.”
And, uh, how many computers and phone lines do you think our government spies on?
Posted: Fri - November 23, 2007 at 06:39 AM