Nov 23, 2007 05:32 AM
1,980
Enter your username and password.
Skype's encryption codes are proving a problem for German police, who say that their officers are unable to monitor suspect conversations. One of the country's top cops admitted yesterday that the combination of VoIP technology and Germany's strict anti-surveillance laws — a reaction to the Stasi's exploits during the Cold War — is making it harder to keep tabs on criminal and terrorist activity in the country.
"We can't decipher it," says Joerg Ziercke, President of the BKA, Germany's Federal Police Office. "That's why we're talking about source telecommunication surveillance — that is, getting to the source before encryption or after it's been decrypted." He does not, however, advocate that the Talinn-based internet company gave law enforcers its encryption keys.
"There are no discussions with Skype," he continued, stating that he had no interest in harming a company's competitiveness. "I don't think that any provider would go for that." He did, however, express the need for his country's law enforcement agencies to be able to conduct online searches of suspects' hard drives using Trojan Horse spyware, but he stressed that these cases were rare.
"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." [i4u and VoIP News]
Contact information for this author is not available.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Start a new discussion