German police cannot break the encryption used by VoIP service Skype. According to German president of police, Joerg Ziercke, the combination of strong encryption and the methods inherent to VoIP – routing calls in packets along many different paths – means that wiretapping is impossible. Ziercke told Reuters:
That's right. The German cops are working on ways to to access hard drives remotely, to get at terrorists' info before it disappears off into the cloud. Of course, Ziercke says that "on-line searches would need to be conducted only on rare occasions". But he then goes on to say that he would love to take a peek into the computers of a few "suspected Islamists". Since when was being Moslem illegal?
And while it's reassuring to know that your Skype chats can't be snooped, the fact that the code is proprietary instead of open means that, yes, there could be a back door in there. We don't say that there is, but if you're paranoid enough to need absolute secrecy, you're paranoid enough to suspect the worst.
Skype encryption stumps German police [Reuters]
