Microsoft Makes Skype Easier To Monitor 150
In a follow-up to a story earlier this week, derekmead writes "Skype has gone under a number of updates and upgrades since it was bought by Microsoft last year, mostly in a bid to improve reliability. But according to a report by the Washington Post, Skype has also changed its system to make chat transcripts, as well as users' addresses and credit card numbers, more easily shared with authorities. As we've already seen with Facebook and Twitter, big Internet firms aren't digging their heels in against government requests, which shouldn't come as a shock; angering the authorities is bad business. The lesson then is that, while the Internet will always retain a vestige of its Wild West days, as companies get bigger and bigger, they're either going to play ball with governments or go the way of Kim Dotcom."
Open Source (Score:5, Interesting)
Time to switch to something [jitsi.org] where we actually know what the software is doing.
Re:Open Source (Score:5, Interesting)
Will Jitsi let me call home to my old wired phone?
Corporations working closely with government, and government working closely with corporations, including exchanges of money through campaign donations & legislative acts. Plus favorable regulations to help the megacorps and block new startups. There's a word for that...... hmmmm, right on the tip of my tongue. Starts with an F. Or a C.
Re:Open Source (Score:4, Interesting)
We're almost at the point that we can drop POTS in favour of something less 'controlled'. I'm sure other measures will be taken to ensure it's not that easy though.
Want to know the truth about Skype? Read on. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm posting anonymously because I don't need attention. Here's the chronology and you can find the sources of these claims on your own.
- NSA issues a billion dollar RFP asking for a solution to wiretapping Skype
- as years pass, NSA's concerns about Skype keep on growing, they keep on lobbying lawmakers and industry officials
- out of the blue, MS buys Skype and pays an astronomical price
- buying Skype at that price makes no sense for MS since it poisons their relationships with carriers and pundits are confused
- first thing MS does is it kills supernodes and installs THOUSANDS of Linux servers running grsecurity http://grsecurity.net/news.php#Skype
- that means that ALL Skype traffic now passes through MS servers and can be easily wiretapped since MS holds all the keys and can easily perform a MITM attack
- NSA starts jumping from joy because their biggest black hole has been plugged.
- MS is happy because they are now getting regular large checks from NSA
tl;dr: Skype's a botnet and NSA paid MS to buy Skype
Re:Almost Yes. (Score:3, Interesting)
The great thing about VOIP is it doesn't matter. You can install and run both clients at the same time and then just make sure you are visible in Jitsi as much as possible whilst being visible very rarely in Skype, and then only when you want something (sit there invisible, but turn on notifications so you see when friends without Jitsi come on line). From time to time suggest to people that it would be easier to get you if they had Jitsi. When you meet people show them how to set up Jitsi (or whichever other client you prefer) to work better than Skype.
No need to get political. The simple phrase "I want to have something I can rely on; I don't trust Microsoft not to mess me about later; remember how they killed off KIN / Windows Mobile 6 / Windows Mobile 7 / the desktop PC [extremetech.com] / efficient working in Office [pcreview.co.uk] / flight simulator / plays for sure / etc. etc.". Preferably choose a Microsoft betrayal that cost you personally There are so many simple technical betrayals by Microsoft that you can start with those before going into the political. Even there, you should start with things like "because Microsoft chooses to support Chinese censorship" [spacedaily.com] which are simple and clear to understand.
From "stealing" mp3s to citizen surveillance (Score:4, Interesting)