Skype: We can't comply with police wiretap requests | The Iconoclast - politics, law, and technology - CNET News.com
CNET reports: "The upshot is that if Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, or so on received a wiretap order for text or voice flowing through their IM networks, they could (and would) be able to comply because the services are centralized. Even if the users' conversations are encrypted through the Off-the-Record Messaging protocol, an eavesdropper still knows who's talking to whom--this is called a pen register or trap and trace device in wiretapping parlance, and it can still be privacy-invasive. Skype says it doesn't permit even that. Which means that it's the most privacy-protective mainstream method of communicating through voice or instant messaging."