Back door in Skype

According to reports, there may be a back door built into Skype, which allows connections to be bugged. The company has declined to expressly deny the allegations. At a meeting with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception of IP based services held on 25th June, high-ranking officials at the Austrian interior ministry revealed that it is not a problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations.

Source
www.heise-online.co.uk...

I cannot say I am suprised, mobiles are regulary used to track people and monitor their conversations, now it seems Skype has a backdoor allowing certian security services to listen to your conversations. I cannot see how this is legal, I don't see the option to "allow external parties to listen in" in the skype menu.
I suggest people stop using this software.

Beefy

reply to post by beefeater


I don't have it installed and have never used it but I couldn't find in any "legal" jargon that would allow them to snoop.


Skype legal terms and conditions

Originally posted by Tuebor


I couldn't find in any "legal" jargon that would allow them to snoop.


Skype legal terms and conditions

IMO that would be the wrong section to look in for that information.

Try looking at their privacy policy instead.

www.skype.com...

Skype Software S.à r.l and /or Skype Communications S.à r.l., both incorporated under the laws of Luxembourg, having their registered office at 15, rue Notre Dame, L-2240 Luxembourg, are collecting and processing your personal information under this Privacy Statement.

www.skype.com...

Skype shall not sell, rent, trade or otherwise transfer any personal and/or traffic data or communications content to any third party without your explicit permission, unless it is obliged to do so under applicable laws or by order of the competent authorities.

Please be informed that, notwithstanding the abovementioned, in the event of a designated authority lawfully requesting Skype or Skype's local partner to retain and provide personal data, communications content and/or traffic data, Skype and/or its local partner will provide all reasonable assistance and information to fulfil this request.

I don't know about a backdoor, but it is perhaps noteable that a report went out that the NSA was having difficulty tracking bulk conversations on skype.

A year later, Skype went down globally for a couple days (a very unusual event). It came back up with a new version a couple days later. The outage was reported to be a "bug" in the software.

No proof of a backdoor being incorporated in the new version of course, but I've always wondered about that.

thats interesting makeitso, I didnt know it went down for a few days, a good time to "fix it"

I think this statement says it all

officials at the Austrian interior ministry revealed that it is not a problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations

I like the pidgin plugin for AIM as it has the highest open source security of any chat program I have found.