Expenditure Report Reveals Germany Monitors Skype, Google Mail, Facebook Chat

hypnosec writes "The German Government has gone a bit too far trying to be transparent, inadvertently revealing that German police monitor Skype, Google Mail, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Facebook chat when necessary. The revelations, spotted by the annalist blog, come from a report of expenses incurred by the Federal Ministry of the Interior following a parliamentary inquiry. The report contains lots of tables and as many would find those boring, some highlights: On page 34 and page 37 of the report line item 486 and 265 respectively, represent decoding software for Google Mail, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo Mail for prevention and investigation."

Searching for details reveals wikileaks

[joeflies]

which seems to have had the details back in 2008. I wasn't aware of something that intercepts skype, but based on the wikileaks article [wikileaks.org] it appears that it works by installing malware on the target's computer.