Skype Messages Monitored In China 223
Pickens writes "Human-rights activists have discovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives Internet text conversations sent by customers of Tom-Skype, a joint venture between a Chinese wireless operator and eBay. Researchers say the system monitors a list of politically charged words that includes words related to the religious group Falun Gong, Taiwan independence, the Chinese Communist Party and also words like democracy, earthquake and milk powder. The encrypted list of words inside the Tom-Skype software blocks the transmission of these words and records personal information about the customers who send the messages. Researchers say their discovery contradicts a public statement made by Skype executives in 2006 that 'full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of people's privacy.' The Chinese government is not alone in its Internet surveillance efforts. In 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency was monitoring large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of an eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. 'This is the worst nightmares of the conspiracy theorists around surveillance coming true,' says Ronald J. Deibert, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. 'It's "X-Files" without the aliens.'"
A new arms race? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are a couple of messaging softwares that use encryption. People tend to simply not care in the west about things like Tor, Freenet, I2P and encryption options in text messaging but if more scenarios that are NOT linked to child porn arise, maybe people will start to consider the more legitimate reasons to fight for our right to privacy?
I believe we need more crypto-anarchists in this world. Where are the cypherpunks when we need them?
Either open-source the Skype engine or abandon it (Score:4, Interesting)
Either open-source the Skype engine or abandon it.
Skype devices could still be manufactured only under license, so their profit stream wouldn't dry up. No doubt it's all trademarked and copyrighted and patented to hell and back by the company anyway, so open-sourcing wouldn't be giving free reign to the competition.
But if they want to retain a trusting customer base, the only option now is to open-source the Skype engine and protocol, otherwise it's end of game.
I'll certainly be letting all my friends know about this. While they may be discussing only granny's Xmas presents or their boyfriends' vital measurements, it's no business of the snoop agencies to hear it.
Meanwhile, it's not as if VoIP didn't have any open alternatives. There is no need to support a vendor that cannot be trusted.
Also in Bavaria (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not the same (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not the same (Score:3, Interesting)
The NSA program was designed to listen in on US citizens talking to people on a known terrorist list. One part of the conversation was always international and one part was domestic.
Care to show me all of the national security letters that document this? Oh, wait, that's right, they're classified and impose an immediate gag order on anybody who receives one.
As we all know, the government would never lie to us [wikipedia.org], especially to go to war, and especially not the NSA [wikipedia.org]. Of course, when caught red-handed in their own documents, they claim that "The opinions expressed within the documents in both releases are those of the authors and individuals interviewed. They do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Security Agency." [nsa.gov]
Please tell me why I should trust anything that the NSA says at face value.
Where is the insecurity? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I'm missing something, but is this necessarily evidence that the Skype client and transmission are not themselves secure? The third link [skype.com] indicates that TOM-Skype uses TOM-specific client software that does the filtering (which Skype knew about). Isn't it likely that that software is also what's squealing to the monitoring system (which Skype apparently didn't know about) despite the supposed end-to-end security of the actual transmission over the Skype protocol? Is there any evidence that the monitoring is going on during the transmission, rather than this being a case of the TOM software phoning home separately?
I'm not suggesting that the Skype client should be trusted even outside of China—if it's closed-source, it might as well not encrypt anything at all—and this story certainly seems to cast additional doubt on it. But nonetheless, couldn't the foul play here be limited to the "TOM" side of TOM-Skype?
Re:Shocked, I am (Score:1, Interesting)
I wonder how much monitoring/filtering of "charged words" is being done in the U.S.?
Protecting us from evil deeds is all fine and good, but I hope it doesn't get to where information online is effectively revisionist history.
We're quick to react to online filtering of the events at Tiananmen Square in China.
I wonder how much is filtered in the US?
Thinking on the subject of questionable choices in political selections I tried searching for links relating to that guy a while back that had publicly stated he could safely sprinkle some radioactive pellets on his breakfast cereal. Keywords like Watt (what I though his name was), Interior (department I thought he headed) and Plutonium got me nothing.
Am I just too far off in my vague recollection of events to come up with workable keywords, or is there some filtering going on here? Obviously plutonium is nasty stuff... so there certainly could be related things online where suppression of info is more justified than it would be for embarrassing statements from public figures.
Re:Not the same (Score:2, Interesting)
So you are saying that we DO know the details, but you are criticizing the OP because the details are hidden? Which is it?
The OP put forth reasons why the US program was different from the Chinese program, and you dismiss him because the "real" reason and purposes behind the program are hidden due to its "beyond-top-secret" nature. But when I point out the level of secrecy you claim isn't real, you criticize me for ignorance of the very facts that the OP was using in his initial argument!
So the NYT article blew the lid off the program, but totally and completely missed the super secret "real" objectives of the program? There's a vast government conspiracy intertwined with this OTHER vast government conspiracy, and one has been exposed but the other is secure?
Here's a thought: the domestic surveillance program is wrong. The chinese surveillance program is wrong. Can't they both be objectionable and still be different?
I mean, I don't like the way cheese tastes, and I don't like the way green beans taste, so their tastes must be identical?
I told you so!!! (Score:3, Interesting)