Skype Switched to the MSN Messenger Protocol (2014)
kirsle.net
kirsle.net
-- "In 2008, when the company was owned by eBay instead of Microsoft , a Skype spokeswoman told CNET : "We have not received any subpoenas or court orders asking us to perform a live interception or wiretap of Skype-to-Skype communications. In any event, because of Skype's peer-to-peer architecture and encryption techniques, Skype would not be able to comply with such a request."
-- "After buying Skype, Microsoft dramatically overhauled its architecture, replacing peer-to-peer "super nodes" with thousands of servers run by Microsoft -- a more centralized approach that may have made it easier for government eavesdroppers. Around the same time, Microsoft would no longer stand by Skype's earlier claim to be wiretap-unfriendly."
I have no idea if the new server-based system is wiretap friendly, but the old system was definitely 100% business unfriendly. Companies pay for GotoMeeting, Webex, Lync, voip video calls, etc for a reason. Skype had to be modernized to compete with other services. I don't see some grand conspiracy here. Why would MS spend all this money to just help the government? Its just asinine.
Those who need encrypted and secure communications were foolish to trust Skype in the first place. If you aren't rolling your own FOSS-based applications on your own hardware, you can expect zero privacy here. I imagine the "old" Skype was just as easily gamed. Sorry if I don't think some spokesperson's PR statement is proof that it was truly secure. Especially considering Skype was originally a Russian company. There's precedence for this, for example Blackberry's "unbreakable" peer-to-peer encryption scheme is regularly downgraded, invisible to the end user, to more breakable bitrates per national law. I believe India and Saudi Arabia do this.
This is incorrect. It was originally Estonian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype#History
I was reminded of an old 2009 article [0] that speculated that the NSA was willing to pay big bucks to any company that could make Skype easier for them to intercept.
Maybe Microsoft took them up on that offer, and made a profit with their restructuring of Skype's architecture.
[0]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_...
Most European police forces would disagree. For years, they simply would not shut up about how Skype was such a pain in the neck to deal with. There were constant streams of interviews and talks about the need for, basically, either a Skype ban or some other form of pressure over the company. Skype alone was painted as the clear cause of pedophilia, drug and human trafficking, illegal arm trading, the works. This from people with little scruples in terms of enforcement -- French and Italian police are fond of seizing whole server farms when they need to check a few emails from "subversives", so they would have happily nuked Skype from orbit if given half the chance.
As soon as Microsoft "rearchitected" the protocol, poof! All lamentations stopped.
Skype used to be peer-to-peer and had a very secure protocol. With all its advantages and just a few disadvantages.
It's been god-awful since then. I think I've had one acceptable call. As for my point, eBay and Microsoft truly slaughtered Skype.
https://github.com/EionRobb/skype4pidgin/tree/master/skypewe...
I'm using it from arch, via the AUR package purple-skypeweb-git
"Since i could not find any reference for it, I added it to the wikipedia page but was not fully certain i was right and that someone would remove it if i were wrong since i know really very little about how it works on the inside."
Now I was going to say encryption is pointless anyway as Microsoft (as did Skype previously) happily log everything and give it to more and less democratic governments all over the world. But at least use some encryption to keep the middle man out.
On the other hand, authentication was always secured via HTTPS, so passwords were never sent in plaintext.
I wonder if anyone's trying to advance this at all -- the 3rd party plugin doesn't seem to receive updates anymore.
From the FAQ: https://github.com/EionRobb/skype4pidgin#faq
Zennström really made a number of good deals, selling the same thing several times.
Quote:
• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;
• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;
• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;
• Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to "understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;
• In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;
• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport".