Skype Hands Teenager's Information To Private Firm 214
New submitter andrew3 writes "Skype has allegedly handed the information of a 16-year-old boy to a security firm. The information was later handed over to Dutch law enforcement. No court order was served for the disclosure. The teenager was suspected of being part of a DDoS packet flood as a part of the Anonymous 'Operation Payback'."
According to the article, Skype voluntarily disclosed the information to the third party firm without any kind of police order, possibly violating a few privacy laws and their own policies.
Skype hand's? (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot editors, have you no shame?
Re:Greengrocers apostrophe? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The new paradigm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another win (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right, this is actually a win to centralized protocols. We need a standard encrypted p2p communication (im / voip / file sharing / etc) to be widely adopted asap. And then protest / revolt when they try to outlaw it.
Re:Greengrocers apostrophe? (Score:3, Insightful)
And why are so many of these non-native English speakers paid to be editors on Slashdot's English language site?
Re:And why does it bother you so much? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's you who has the problem, sir, although you both seem to be suffering from an inappropriately low level of social restraint. Whoops, so do I, I guess it's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Principle at work...
The poster who is annoyed by incorrect apostrophe usage is displaying traits that probably make him a good programmer or other engineer - attention to detail, and caring about correctness. He might have a few things to learn about social interaction, but in general I find that most people of this type can learn some simple rules to keep out of social trouble.
(I'm not saying the rules aren't complex, just that people of this type, myself included, are not disposed to learning all the complex heuristics and bodies of communal "knowledge" like which actor cheated on which actress, etc., that pass as "etiquette" these days).
Whereas you are just being an asshole, but alas, you don't seem to know it. I'm prepared to bet that the number of people who dislike you is *much* higher than you imagine it to be, and at least 2 higher today.
Re:Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Skype is an independent subsidiary of Microsoft, it is unlikely they had anything to do with this unless the order came from Ballmer himself.
From reading the fine article, Paypal employed a security firm to investigate this, that security firm also does work for Skype, while working for Paypal this security firm linked an attacker to his Skype username, then the security firm used its existing relationship with Skype to get the data on this Skype user.
From that information it sounds to me like Skype trusted this security firm when they requested the data because the firm worked for them, so I would say the security firm possibly broke the law by abusing its pre-existing relationship with Skype to get this data while working for someone else. Of course without further information on it is hard to say for sure, but it looks like it was the security firm that is to blame and not Skype (as they should be able to trust the security firm, but apparently the firm is untrustworthy).
Re:The new paradigm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another win (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, if you design it to be impossible, impossible it will be. Or you could try to understand how p2p networks work. Hints: look for 'gnutella', 'gnunet', and 'secushare'.