Internet telephone encryption stumps police

An old but interesting article from the Sydney Morning Herald -

German police are unable to decipher the encryption used in the internet telephone software Skype to monitor calls by suspected criminals and terrorists.

"The encryption with Skype telephone software ... creates grave difficulties for us," Joerg Ziercke, president of Germany's Federal Police Office (BKA) told reporters, "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 SVoIP 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.

Source Article here.

Is Skype More Centralized Than Claimed?

From Techdirt - Skype recently suffered a pretty massive outage that prevented, a lot of, if not all, Skype users from logging in. The outage raised certain questions since Skype has been promoted as a decentralized P2P network without a potential central point of failure.

But the truth is Skype was never a completely P2P system as its authentication has always been centralized. In fact, there has been accusations in the past that a previous service by the Skype's founders, Kazaa, wasn't really decentralized either. Moreover, rumors persists that the founders have simply reused Kazaa's underlying code in building Skype. So, just how decentralized is Skype?