Skype confirms spying on messages in China
VoIP outfit Skype has admitted that surveillance was carried out on instant messages sent using the service in China, blaming local partner TOM Online for the eavesdropping. The eBay subsidiary said that it only discovered this week that a text-filter used to block conversations containing sensitive keywords had been altered to store and log conversations, AFP reports. Skype publicly acknowledged the filter two years ago. Skype had assured customers that messages containing sensitive words were discarded at the client end, and that full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of people’s privacy. The VoIP provider said that the practice had been altered “without our knowledge or consent” and apologised.
The issue came to light after researchers from Citizen Lab, based at the University of Toronto, were able to establish that TOM-Skype was “censoring and logging” text chat messages containing certain keywords. These included democracy, earthquake and milk powder. Mentions of Falun Gong, political opposition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, or support for Taiwan as a separate political entity also got the tapes rolling, the New York Times reports. The logged messages were stored on eight insecure publicly-accessible servers, allowing Citizen Lab to read messages and expose the eavesdropping. The researchers discovered a million censored messages, and were able to work out a list of trigger words by sampling them.
Source: Register
Comments(15)
wow that’s bad !!!
and 1st
Off topic Pineapple Express anything better than a cam or telesync?
Now if we could crack the case of Big Foot and The Lochness Monster…..
Does this actually surprise anyone?
It was like the FBI have tracking on everyone in America’s library card check-outs. C’mon, if crap like that is already admitted, why would something from China surprise anybody?
someone knows bout pineapple express,tropic thunder n stepbrothers in better quality than cam
2008 hasn’t quite been China’s year, has it?
@6
Probably not anyone’s year really. Well, except Russian’s perhaps. Since they seem to want to rule the world once more.
lol ryo hopefully the next US president won’t think he owns the world like the last one does haha
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081002-skype-security-flub-leads-to-discovery-of-chinese-monitoring.html
Wavaveva!
Skype China: listening in on your conversations to improve quality of service.
stupid eBay!
Capitalist Commies or Commie Capitalists…you decide.
yeah big surprise…
FBI has been doing it for years, I don’t expect any “big” country NOT doing it.
@6
Minus natural disasters and some filty corrupted companies. It’s been a wonderful year for China.
Hosting the BEST Olympics and Paralympics ever and sending the first Chinese to walk in space. They’re catching up fast.
Wrong section Martin… Guess you meant Tech News.
Yeah great work again Martin ya tool, always puttin stuff in wrong sections.
Im pretty sure he does it on purpose poutas, no one could screw up that mant times without it being on purpose.
@number 1, Bug.
Your a tool too but ya probably about 12 so we let kids off.