Call intercept back door turns Skype into... Spy-ke?

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Sunday, 27 July 2008

Page 1 of 3 ! An Austrian government official has noted is it “no problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations” according to a news report. Does this mean Skype’s telephony services can be bugged by government officials, despite Skype’s apparent denials this is possible or is occurring? The controversy over whether Skype calls can be bugged by third parties, or not, has been brewing for years – and has just sparked up all over again. As Skype is “closed source” software, users have to take Skype’s word on the nature of its security and encryption, although Skype itself has tried to re-assure the public of its safety in different ways, something we’ll look at in a moment. But first, the latest claim that Skype has a “back door” built into it comes from an article at well known IT Security News site Heise Online which says that on the “25th June, high-ranking officials at the Austrian interior ministry revealed that it is not a problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations” – during a meeting with “ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception of IP based services”. Heise Online says “this has been confirmed to heise online by a number of the parties present at the meeting”, and that “Skype declined to give a detailed response to specific enquiries from heise online as to whether Skype contains a back door and whether specific clients allowing access to a system or a specific key for decrypting data streams exist”. Skype then quoted as saying: "Skype does not comment on media speculation. Skype has no further comment at this time”. Heise Online then goes on to note that “there have been rumours of the existence of a special listening device which Skype is reported to offer for sale to interested states.” The rest of the article goes on to look at other attempts by Austrian authorities to snoop on users via ISPs, while also questioning what else Skype “is capable of and what risks are involved in deploying it in an enterprise environment remain open.” These truly are serious questions that Skype should answer, rather than brush off with a “no comment”, despite actions it has taken in the past to soothe user concerns. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time such a claim has been made by government officials as to their ability to easily listen to supposedly encrypted Skype conversations. In an article published in both the New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune on Sunday May 21, 2006, writer John Markoff had an article about Phil Zimmerman of PGP fame and his Zfone program to encrypt VoIP Phone calls. Although the article notes the Zfone program does not work with Skype, the article states: “But at a conference last week in Cyprus, German officials said they had technology for intercepting and decrypting Skype phone calls, according to Tony Rutkowski, vice president for regulatory affairs and standards at VeriSign, a company that offers security services for Internet and telephone operations.” Yet only one year later, an article appears with German officials saying they can’t break into Skype’s encryption, which we look at one page 2 – as well as seeing what Skype has done to claim its security against bugged calls and encryption is strong. Please read on. << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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