Skype under investigation in Luxembourg over NSA link

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/11/skype-ten-microsoft-nsa

 

The first time that I started reading this paragraph ...

... my warped mind parsed it as ...

Wasn't that an old War Against Drugs tagline?

 

Skype is obviously backdoored now. It has been since Microsoft bought it and moved it's servers to the USA.

I bet MS got a nice tax break after buying it, I'm sure it was listed as one of the top technologies the NSA wanted to break into.

 

People don't seem to understand the word "backdoor". You seem to forget that the NSA isn't only about spying, they also help secure software and services. It isn't in anyones interest to add a backdoor that could potentially be exploited by any malicious party in the world - it actually goes AGAINST the NSA's goals.

I assume what you actually mean is "demanding user keys from Microsoft". A far easier, and "legal" approach that is simple and quick for them.

If you want privacy, use Jitsi.

 

I still remember the old days of icq

Issue with skype is everyones now on it... so perfect backdoor really, any alternatives that work with skype users ?

Still pointless guess it goes on the skype/ms logs !

 

As much as I like to blame plenty on M$ it's been said Skype compromised its users' privacy before M$ bought it.

 

I hope MS gets fined 1billion.

 

Come on, why do you think MS bought it in the first place and then moved it's servers to the USA. Now the NSA can just monitor the tubes to get all the skype info rather than hacking another sovereign nations infrastructure.

The NSA was offering billions to get into the skype network in the 2000's according to documents. Now they have got in, the service is useless.

 

That can be (and increasingly is) generalized to everything that the NSA has touched.

The overall impact on US interests may be immense.

This scenario -- compromise by a rogue sysadmin -- is all too common. As I've noted before, this is basically how the Silk Road went down: a sysadmin got busted, and cooperated in hope of leniency.

 

I use jitsi via google talk instead of skype as much as possible now, but lately it hasn't work as well (especially when I call someone in China). the chat usually works, but sometimes audio call fails to connect (ICE error) or the call connects but the person at one or both ends cannot hear anything. in these cases skype still works.

i've looked a bit into other SIP/VoIP options but not sure what's good. any suggestions, in particular, what's a good free SIP service?

 

Have you tried using the nightly version of Jitsi? (You may both need to use it)

Their releases take too long.

 

I wouldn't mind using Jitsi if there was a simple way to use it. My requirements are as follows:
1) Free 3 way conversations
2) No association with goolgle, apple, microsoft
3) Easy to set up.
Last time I tried Jitsi I couldn't get it to work... it was too hard.. I need a turtorial lol.

 

Guess only way to really communicate is to use an open source program like jitsi, always remain encrypted via VPN and use a email burner to register or email which scrambles ip address/logs ?

Gonna give Jitsi a try see it it can work with my fellow skype users, skype is just trash anyhow !

 

There are many, for example Ekiga, Iptel and Sipgate:

https://www.ekiga.net/

http://www.iptel.org/service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sipgate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIP_providers

 

Install Jitsi
Click File > Add New Account
Select XMPP
Select "Create a new XMPP account"
By default, the server should be jit.si so all you need to do is type a username and password (twice). Then add your contacts.

 

Thank you. Im gonna try this out with my family in Europe. Let's see how it works over slow internet.

 

That, plus you actually want tools you KNOW are backdoored!
That's the simplest thing. You behave accordingly, no.
The problem is with services you TRUST.
If you don't trust them, you don't send trusted info.

Before you knew about MS/Skype/Prism, you would send your Tijuana home made donkey videos without restraint to your friends, and now you will no longer do that, so you win in the privacy space.

Don't worry about your enemies, fear your friends.
TRUSTED apps are the ones that can betray you, not the other way around.

So the logical argument is that backdoors indeed work against companies that want privileged access to data.

Mrk

 

update:

i switched to the nightly version of Jitsi, which did not help, but then I also registered for their SIP/XMPP account (free), and encrypted calls to China (to another SIP/XMPP account) now work (at least so far). Jitsi also let's me keep both the google account/contacts and the XMPP account/contacts open at the same time.

the XMPP account is supposed to work on android too (alpha version only), but I haven't tried it because there's a problem if I keep the same account live on two separate devices (guess I need to register separate accounts for my phone and tablet, but I had the same issue with google talk via Jitsi/Gibberbot).

my advice for people who want to use Jitsi, but don't want to associate it with Google, use XMPP.

p.s. if your first XMPP call fails, try again. for me I had no audio on the very first try, but since then it's worked fine and I think the first one failed because of the initial authentication stuff.