Skype Won't Say Whether It Can Eavesdrop on Your Conversations

Skype Won't Say Whether It Can Eavesdrop on Your Conversations

www.slate.com

Historically, Skype has been a major barrier to law enforcement agencies, ...Recently, however, hackers alleged that Skype made a change to its architecture this spring that could possibly make it easier to enable “lawful interception” of calls.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
gizmodo.com

Since the 2011 take over of Skype by Microsoft, Skype has slowly lost is anonymity and security.

So what about individual country laws? If a UK Skype user contacts a German can both countries agencies tap and record?

Not surprised to be honest, i just hope, they don't continue to leave redundancies and holes, for law enforcement to use for tapping the the programme, as others WILL find and misuse those exploits ...

Well, just another service the Alphabet agencies are monitoring 24/7...

www.slate.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Found this old article from 2008

Citizen Lab, a Canadian research group, says it found a database containing thousands of politically sensitive words which had been blocked by China. The publicly available database also displayed personal data on subscribers. Citizen Lab researchers, based at the University of Toronto, said they discovered a huge surveillance system which had picked up and stored messages sent through the online telephone and text messaging service. The database held more than 150,000 messages which included..

ATS Thread

Source


How long until that is us ???

Well considering Skype source code was hacked and released on line im sure it wont be long until a new version is coded without these annoying features.

All you need to know is Microsoft bought it..

See I skype my parents from New Zealand and there would be no reason for them to tap my calls but knowing they can annoys me those nosey puppets. Course they can do it if they want, somebody please tell me why they CANT do it now thats worth talking about..

Porbably best to assume that all forms of comunication can be monitored. Not really a problem unless you're up to something. All the best criminals and terrorists use people to carry messages, usually memorised, can't trace that over the internet.

here's an article that stuck out to me

Microsoft Patents ‘Legal Intercept’ Technology, Will Skype Have A Backdoor?

June 29, 2011

Microsoft and Skype may represent a match made in mobile heaven but they’ve been in the news for all the wrong reasons of late. Skype outages have become a norm rather than an exception. Skype protocol has been cracked through reverse engineering and published as an open source project.

And now a newly patented Microsoft technology called ‘Legal Intercept‘ that would allow the company to secretly intercept, monitor and record Skype calls is stoking privacy concerns.

The technology would allow Microsoft to silently record communications on VoIP networks such as Skype. While some believe it’s no reason to panic, others believe it gives Microsoft or government officials a license to secretly intercept, monitor and record Skype calls while they are doing the unmentionable.

Though the patent was filed well before Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype, it mentions Skype explicitly as an example application for this technology. Microsoft defends itself by claiming that such technology has existed since a long time for traditional calls, but it does not work with VoIP. The patent describes recording agents that can be placed in several hardware devices as well as software modules that logically and/or physically sits between the call server and the network. The patent was granted last week.

Clearly, the implications of the technology would be severe, especially in the enterprise world. So far, Skype has resisted CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) compliance which would make it suitable to be used for surveillance purposes by federal law enforcement agencies. The ‘protocol’ has been Skype’s best kept secret till date and I personally believe it’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ of the modern web. Given a choice, I believe the Skype management would oppose the idea of eavesdropping on calls. However, now that the Redmond-giant is calling the shots, expect the unexpected.

Microsoft says that ‘Legal Intercept’ can be used by the US government or “one of its agencies”. If further mentions that this technology would require obtaining “appropriate legal permission”, which might not be that difficult for a government to acquire. The technology can record any kind of voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) communications. “VoIP may include audio messages transmitted via gaming systems, instant messaging protocols that transmit audio, Skype and Skype-like applications, meeting software, video conferencing software, and the like,” Microsoft said in the filing.

From a broader perspective, it implies that Microsoft may emerge as the sole provider of surveillance for VoIP phones. As BusinessInsider right points out, the concern isn’t limited to government spying. The Redmond giant can build a whole new business model by monitoring conversations and using data-mining techniques, determine which users are most likely to buy certain products. This info could then be sold to telemarketers or used in-house by Microsoft to serve targeted advertisements. Or else, Microsoft can bundle ‘Legal Intercept’ with Lync and Skype in tow to create a new offering for government and corporate clients.

The possibilities are endless and with Microsoft, you never know what’s coming next. Microsoft declined to comment about whether it was building any commercial products based on the patent.

reply to post by Hopeforeveryone


Its the fact that they can Tap and record in secret that troubles me.

I do spend alot of time, speaking to people all over the world, about different theories and so forth, If someone decided to take some of those conversations, and use them out of context together with my supposed extreme browser history.

(If they decided to use out of context skype conversations and out of context browser history, i could easily have enough proof of motive, to frame me for pretty much any type of event, and i suspect alot of people on here are in the same boat, as they research a sporadically wide range of subject, theories and facts)

Namaste.

I guarantee you that they can monitor your calls or video messages if they wanted to - but there is no way of finding out without a confession whether or not they do do that. It's easily possible to do it.