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Joerg Ziercke, president of Germany's Federal Police Office, told reporters that Skype "creates grave difficulties for us" because of its strong encryption. A traditional land-line phone can be tapped very easily, as can a cell phone — but voice-over-IP calls are routed over countless paths across the Internet, making them difficult to intercept. Ziercke said they were not asking eBay to leave "back doors open" to Skype for law-enforcement authorities. Of course, it's likely the National Security Agency has already done that and passes along any significant intercepted calls to U.S. allies. The other theory? That this is merely a headfake to criminals. If the Polizei does have Skype wiretapping abilities, they'll want to encourage evildoers to speak freely. That's it: I'm switching my secret communications back to smoke signals.