Voice Encryption May Draw U.S. Scrutiny
<<<... The system does not work with Skype, the VoIP system acquired by eBay, which uses its own encryption scheme. But at a conference last week in Cyprus, German officials said they had technology for intercepting and decrypting Skype phone calls, according to Anthony M. Rutkowski, vice president for regulatory affairs and standards for VeriSign, a company that offers security for Internet and phone operations. Mr. Zimmermann said he had not yet tested Zfone's compatibility with Vonage, another popular VoIP service.
Mr. Zimmermann contends that the nation is better off with strong cryptography. Indeed, Zfone can be considered an asset, he said, because it allows people to have secret conversations without hiding their Internet protocol addresses, which could be traceable geographically. Those observed having a secured conversation could come under suspicion, of course. But for that reason, he argued, sophisticated criminals or terrorists are unlikely to use the technology.
"I'm sympathetic to the needs of the intelligence community to catch the bad guys," he said. "I specifically protect the content the criminals want, while simultaneously not interfering with the traffic analysis that the N.S.A. is trying to do. You could make the case that I'm being socially responsible."