GERMAN COPPERS can't decrypt the telephone calls made over the Internet by Skype, Reuters reports.

At a police convention press briefing, Joerg Ziercke, president of the German Federal Police Office, told reporters, "The encryption with Skype telephone software ... creates grave difficulties for us."

Therefore, German police have to look into other tactics to intercept communications. He said, "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."

In addition, the task of intercepting Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) conversations is also complicated by the fact that they are transmitted on packet-switched Internet circuits rather than over the circuit switched links established for ordinary analog telephone calls.

However, Ziercke didn't foresee asking Skype or other VoIP services to divulge encryption keys or open "back doors" for law enforcement. He said, " There are no discussions with Skype. I don't think that would help. I don't think that any provider would go for that."

He also said that German police really need to be able to employ "Trojan horse" spyware.

Intercepting telephone conversations at the source or destination means using listening devices, that is, bugs. Sometimes the old methods are still really the best ones, after all. µ

L'INQ
The New Zealand Herald