The Hindu Business Line : ‘Cat and mouse’ game

After every terrorist action, intelligence agencies are lambasted for their failure to alert the police in the field of the possibility of an attack. We saw this in full measure after the Twin Towers were brought down by the Al Qaeda in 2001. The same outcry was heard in November last when terrorists from Pakistan held the whole of Mumbai hostage.

A few days ago, the Sri Lankan cricket team was ambushed in the heart of Lahore when it was on its way way to the Qaddafi Stadium to resume the Test match against Pakistan. This was despite the fact that the cricketers were being driven from their hotel each day on a different route! This incident alone showed how well-equipped the terrorists were and how ill-informed the police agencies.

Skype in spotlight

Among the many handicaps that counter-terrorism suffers is the hole in its capacity to break communication channels used by the terrorist. Skype, the technology that is employed by both the law-abiding citizen and the perpetrator of crime, has come in for a lot of attention in the recent past. Skype employs the Voice-over-Internet (VoIP) protocol to help customers converse across the world. It is not only a free service. It is an amazingly efficient and reliable means of communication as well.

Ironically, Skype has become the hot favourite of powerful criminal gangs, because the latter have found out that the police have little or no capacity to intercept conversations over Skype. Many spy and anti-crime agencies in different parts of the world are, therefore, exercised about this. But they have admitted openly their difficulties to break into Skype transmission, and this has been music to the ears of those out to indulge in violence against nations and individuals and who regularly use Internet telephony to hoodwink and bypass law enforcement.

It is widely known that VoIP services such as Skype are heavily encrypted. The service provider himself cannot access his customers’ conversation. Nor can he be forced legally to part with the code to decrypt the medium. I have no clue as to whether Indian authorities have been agitated about this or not. Or, is it possible that this also figured last year in their reckoning, simultaneously with the prolonged debate they had on Blackberry communication with its innovator RIM of Canada? The latter had initially taken a tough stand when Indian security agencies demanded that they should have access to all that flows through Blackberry channels before such material is encrypted. RIM subsequently softened its stand.

Enabling eavesdropping

At the recent Counter-Terrorism Expo held in London there was a clamour from police agencies that industry should evolve a technology that would make inroads into Skype and allied Internet services so that interception of underworld communication becomes a practical reality. Interestingly, one official from the National Security Agency (NSA), the formidable US government outfit that is said to possess the capacity to monitor electronic communications anywhere in the world, was known to have made an offer of a billion dollars to anyone who could come out with a solution for breaking Internet telephonic communication. The offer may have been exaggerated. The truth, however, is that such a breakthrough is essential if law has to get the better of those who wantonly break it for personal benefit.

The commercial potential of a software that could help eavesdropping into VoIP communications being enormous, it is not surprising that a number of firms have evinced great interest in developing one. What would be the construction of a “law enforcement Trojan” has become the preoccupation, if not an obsession, with firms such as Digitask of Germany. According to leaked information, the company is seriously engaged in the task of developing software to intercept Skype and similar VoIP channels. This should be considered along with rumours that the German government is actually looking at recruiting coders who would be tasked to develop “white hat” malware that would hack into PCs of crime suspects. German courts have, however, refused to consider evidence collected through surreptitious and unauthorised tapping of telephones, even if such action was in the interest of the State. This has generated a debate whether the German government should initiate steps for legislation that would permit clandestine eavesdropping of conversations over Internet telephony. This is something that should attract the attention of Indian authorities as well. Recent dastardly terrorist strikes in India and its neighbourhood urge us to presume that terrorist groups have been clever enough to use the VoIP facility (and not merely satellite phones as in the case of 26/11) to exchange crucial information.

Chink in the armour?

Glorifying the VoIP ability to facilitate uncensored communication will not be wholly correct. It is now known that Skype and similar systems do have chinks and are not absolutely invulnerable. One index of this was the report last year that the Chinese authorities were successfully monitoring Skype calls. The claim was based on the findings of Citizen Lab, a research group based in the University of Toronto in Canada. The group claimed it had detected a surveillance system which kept a tab on Skype communication and built up a comprehensive database of messages carrying, in the opinion of Chinese authorities, objectionable expressions, and references to Tibet. Incidentally, Skype operates in China as a joint venture company Tom-Skype, a collaboration between eBay of the US and Tom-Online of China. The belief is that the latter was indulging in unrestrained surveillance of Skype calls.

The point for consideration is whether countries such as the US, the UK and India, wedded to democracy and the citizen’s right to privacy, can snoop into Skype communication, except when national security is imperilled.

The traditional argument against giving unchecked power to monitor telephone calls to security agencies applies here also. At the same time, the worrying intensification of terrorism in our part of the world raises the question whether a facility meant for the average citizen to communicate free of cost with his kith and kin in other parts can be allowed to be grossly abused and become a convenient tool in the hands of the terrorist. There is a case here for a sense of moderation and close supervision of the exercise of any authority given to law enforcement to keep an eye on what is going through Internet telephony.

The writer is a former CBI Director who is currently Adviser (Security) to TCS Ltd.

Related Stories:
Skype, sans hype!
DoT unlikely to stop Blackberry services
DoT moves to bring Net telephony under scrutiny

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