Skype Messages Monitored In China

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.'"

Comments

Shocked, I am

[adpsimpson]

Writing through a scribe over Skype from mainland China, I can confidently say that messages about Falun Gong are not being

Re:Shocked, I am

[somersault]

the system monitors a list of politically charged words that includes words related to the religious group Falun Gong

I hope one of those words is 'lol'

Re:Shocked, I am

[electrictroy]

>>>China's system monitors a list of politically charged words

I'm confused. What's the problem? This doesn't sound any different from how the United States operate. After all, we gotta stop those terrorists! (Or anybody else who happens to disagree with the currently-sitting president.) /end sarcasm

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this "redundant"? I actually think it's kinda funny. A first post that isn't "frist psot! [insert link to spammy site here]"!

Re:Shocked, I am

[Cornwallis]

You mean 'ror'

Re:Shocked, I am

[Jugalator]

Why is that reply considered flamebait? Isn't that how it is, really? Recent debates in Sweden is at least about new signal analysis laws for all internationall computer traffic passing our borders. Much worse than just internet telephony alone, even.

Re:Shocked, I am

[amasiancrasian]

I honestly don't understand why people think the Falun Gong is great. They're honestly crazy, and while I don't think the Chinese government should stop them from practicing, I really think they should just let them be so people can see how crazy they really are. Most westerners are so enchanted with eastern cultures that have a cultish streak to it. Heck, most of the time they don't even know what it's it about. Ask an American to point out Tibet on a blank map.

What sucks about the Tibetan situation is that there's no true way to get the truth about the situation. Western media is enchanted with the idea of Tibet rather than the reality. Tibetans make up 40% of the population in Lhasa. We take the Dalai Lhama's word as gospel, even though he definitely has his own incentive to distort the truth. And we obviously can't get the straight talk from the Chinese government.

Sadly, it looks very hypocritical to the world when Americans condemn something like the Chinese control of Tibet, while our own country is occupying Iraq and committing our own human rights violations there. And we at least have the power to vote the bastards out of office!

My parents fled to Taiwan, Republic of China, at the end of the civil war. At first I believed the communists were evil, but it's become clear to me that for the first time in Chinese history that every person in China has a bowl of rice to eat. Whether you like them or not, you can't deny that they destroyed a two-thousand year class system.

Re:Shocked, I am

[abigor]

Tibetans make up 40% of the population in Lhasa.

It used to be 100%. That's sort of the problem.

The atrocities committed in Tibet by the Chinese are well-documented - the wilderness photographer Galen Rowell in particular took a large number of very damning photos, smuggled them out of the country, and when they were revealed to the world, the Chinese banned him for life from ever returning.

It doesn't really matter whether you think the Dalai Lama is a great guy or not, or whether the Iraq situation parallels it - two wrongs don't make a right, and many Americans who oppose what's happened to Tibet also oppose the invasion of Iraq.

Re:Shocked, I am

[evilviper]

This doesn't sound any different from how the United States operate.

The US taps phone calls in an attempt to uncover evidence of violent crimes, to prevent them from happening, and to prosecute and jail those responsible.

China taps phone calls so they can find out who is speaking out against the one-party government, or bringing up other embarrassing subjects, so that they can send police to drag them out of their house, and put them in front of a firing squad.

Clearly, the two are not at all different.

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

Then after you're dead the punishment doesn't stop there. Then your organs are harvested and sold to those who need a new something.

Re:Shocked, I am

[R2.0]

Don't bother.

The First rule of Slashdot (and US liberalism in general) is that it's ALWAYS the fault of the US.

The Second rule is that if it isn't the fault of the US, what he US does is equally bad or worse.

The Third rule is that, if a situation arises that doesn't fall neatly into the rules above, see the rules above.

Re:Shocked, I am

[electrictroy]

>>>China tapes phone calls so they can find out who is speaking out against the [] government...

In the U.S. the PATRIOT ACT allows the current president, and the future 2009-2013 president to do the exact-same thing. The only difference is rather than drag the citizen in front of a firing squad, the president takes the citizen to Gauntanamo Bay and holds them in prison without lawyer or trial. Different ends; but same denial of basic human rights.

Re:Shocked, I am

[giorgiofr]

Wow, a revisionist. I guess the Holocaust did not take place, either? Are you paid by the gov't or doing this just for fun?

Re:Shocked, I am

[blueskies]

Whether you like them or not, you can't deny that they destroyed a two-thousand year class system.

They've destroyed something alright...

Sadly, it looks very hypocritical to the world when Americans condemn something like the Chinese control of Tibet, while our own country is occupying Iraq and committing our own human rights violations there.

Oh right. We kill and torture Iraqis for TALKING bad about the US. You are so right. That is so hypocritical.

Truth about Tibet? What like maybe they were always part of China? How can we figure it out??? I know why don't we check Chinese records and see if they invaded Tibet or not.....

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is that reply considered flamebait? Isn't that how it is, really?

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

See, that's what's so nice about the chinese system : they use real flesh-and-blood drones to prattle propaganda online. Now, that's real elegance, for you. I bet they type with white gloves, too.

Not like those rather low-level cravenly foul-mouthed offence-bots the russkies (and usadists) have been deploying for nearly a decade, now.

The \/\. dis-bot is, of course, rather quaint itself - attemping to brand dissenters as prejudiced and, lately, ... adolescence. On word-count alone.

Re:Shocked, I am

[chromeshadow]

Whereas the first rule of US conservatism is, "My country* wrong or, occasionally, right". (* 'My country' being defined as the actions of a Republican president and his clique of buddies)

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

The First rule of Slashdot (and US liberalism in general) is that it's ALWAYS the fault of the US.

Shockingly, it often is. Certainly anything to do with really horribly skewed laws protecting corporate interests and forcing that onto trading partners via treaties. That or installing 'friendly' dictators and terrorists only to have to try to take them down later when you realize they've gone a little off the script. Certainly, not undermining stable democracies on the basis that since the government are socialists they must be evil.

The Second rule is that if it isn't the fault of the US, what he US does is equally bad or worse.

Because, Americas behavior towards their own citizens and the rest of the world is increasingly getting more appalling. A huge amount of modern geo-political problems are directly traceable to the US and the current/past foreign policy. Certainly, the fact that less than 5% of the global population accounts for 25% of the world consumption in oil and you feel entitled to it is a factor.

The Third rule is that, if a situation arises that doesn't fall neatly into the rules above, see the rules above.

No, in some cases, we can accept that the problem lay elsewhere.

Increasingly, it's becoming harder not to be just so pissed off and disgusted with the US as to have a strong negative reaction to anything you hear. One can start seeing some validity to the position that the US is trying to be the ones who define how the entire rest of the world does its thing, and always with an eye to ensuring that the dominant position America is preserved.

I used to respect America at one point. That's awful hard nowadays. Writing off legitimate criticism on the basis that it feels unfair is missing the point -- there are a lot of places where a lot of really annoying stuff is directly attributable to the US.

Re:Shocked, I am

[gstoddart]

I honestly don't understand why people think the Falun Gong is great. They're honestly crazy

Other than your assertion, got anything to back that up? Certainly, other than China saying it, I see no evidence whatsoever of them having any aspects of being a cult.

I've known several people who were practitioners, and they were some of the nicest, kindest, straight up people I've known. I've skimmed their literature, and I don't see anything in it that I would classify as crazy.

We take the Dalai Lhama's word as gospel, even though he definitely has his own incentive to distort the truth.

But, the vast majority of what he says about the situation in Tibet is documented, historical fact. And, we listen to what he says because if you read the huge volume of Buddhist writings he's done, he's a very smart guy with a very broad and inclusive world view.

It's awfully hard to come to the conclusion that he's any of the things that China paints him as in light of the rest of the way he has lived his life. Even though it might appear that he has an incentive to distort the truth, the whole package makes it a little implausible that he's secretly evil and sneaky.

Cheers

Re:Shocked, I am

[camperslo]

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:Shocked, I am

[amasiancrasian]

I'm sad you think that way about Dalai Lama. I posted this to an earlier message, but here's an interesting read from Yale professor Michael Parenti called The Tibet Myth:

Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land [...] were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. The Dalai Lama himself "lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace." [...]

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashi-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. [...] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. [...]

Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: "When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion." [...]

In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs.There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master's cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.

Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the "intolerable tyranny of monks" and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama's rule as "an engine of oppression." [...] As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism's western proselytes.

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that one party dies and another can (potentially) be restored to society.

Death and prison are *not* the

same denial of basic human rights.

.

Re:Shocked, I am

[amasiancrasian]

A revisionist? No, I'm merely telling you that Tibet isn't the Shangri-La you might think it be. At the very least, you should rethink that. Read my response to gstoddart and abigor on "The Tibet Myth," penned by Yale Professor Michael Parenti. The fact is, after reading it, it makes you wonder why the Tibetans would want the Lamas to return.

"In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, 'The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.' "

Re:Shocked, I am

[nmosfet]

[in reference to the Tibetan population in Lhasa]It used to be 100%. That's sort of the problem.

When was this exactly? 12th century or something?

from Wikipedia:
The 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica published between 1910-1911 noted the total population of Lhasa, including the lamas in the city and vicinity is about 30,000[5]; a census in 1854 made the figure 42,000, but it is known to have greatly decreased since. Britannica noted that within Lhasa, there were about a total of 1,500 resident Tibetan laymen and about 5,500 Tibetan women.[5] The permanent population also includes Chinese families (about 2,000).[5] The city's residence also includes people from Nepal and Ladak (about 800), and a few from Bhotan and Mongolia and other places.[5] The Britannica noted with interest that the Chinese have a crowded burial-ground at Lhasa, tended carefully after their manner and the Nepalese supply the mechanics and metal-workers.[5]

And Tibet before that time has been a part of China at least for the Yuan and Qing Dynasty.

Re:Shocked, I am

[amasiancrasian]

The title of Dalai Lama was in fact first conferred upon Sonam Gyatsu by the Mongol ruler Altan Khan in 1578. His two predecessors were given the title posthumously. Sonam Gyatsu was a part of the Ming and Qing Court. Part of the Chinese empire for sure.

Re:Shocked, I am

[amasiancrasian]

The Dalai Lama is a bit of a liar. He certainly never reminds his acolytes that the Tibetan exile community, lazy Lama included, was funded by the CIA (and George Soros). Michael Parenti, Ph.D has deconstructed the myths of Tibetan Buddhism and history in "Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth":

"Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that "more than 1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a result of the Chinese occupation." The official 1953 census--six years before the Chinese crackdown--recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000. Other census counts put the population within Tibet at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet, would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves--of which we have no evidence. The thinly distributed Chinese force in Tibet could not have rounded up, hunted down, and exterminated that many people even if it had spent all its time doing nothing else.

Chinese authorities claim to have put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment. They themselves, however, have been charged with acts of brutality by exile Tibetans. The authorities do admit to "mistakes," particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when the persecution of religious beliefs reached a high tide in both China and Tibet. After the uprising in the late 1950s, thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward, forced collectivization and grain farming were imposed on the Tibetan peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect on production. In the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls "and tried to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades."

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't sound any different from how the United States operate.

The US taps phone calls in an attempt to uncover evidence of violent crimes, to prevent them from happening, and to prosecute and jail those responsible.

China taps phone calls so they can find out who is speaking out against the one-party government, or bringing up other embarrassing subjects, so that they can send police to drag them out of their house, and put them in front of a firing squad.

Clearly, the two are not at all different.

US taps phone calls so they can find out who is speaking out against the one-part government demo/republican government too.

They just do it much more covertly.

Re:Shocked, I am

[Ortega-Starfire]

The US does not halt the messages and then jail its citizens for talking about its screwups. If it did, everyone hollering about the current financial crisis would be in jail right now and you wouldn't know about the crisis.

Re:Shocked, I am

[neuro88]

This doesn't sound any different from how the United States operate.

The US taps phone calls in an attempt to uncover evidence of violent crimes, to prevent them from happening, and to prosecute and jail those responsible.

Wait... are you talking about the calls tapped with a warrant or without? Because one is about uncovering evidence of crimes and jailing those responsible, and the other is about spying on US citizens.

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

There's really no need for the government filter this. James Watt (if it was him) has stated some pretty stupid shit some 20-25 years ago that can still be verified.

Re:Shocked, I am

[pluther]

The US taps phone calls in an attempt to uncover evidence of violent crimes, to prevent them from happening, and to prosecute and jail those responsible.

How do you know?

The Bush administration spent years denying it was tapping communications without warrants.

Then, when found out, their only defense was "It should be legal."

But, with no warrants, no oversight, no public records, even after the fact, there is no way to know what the phone calls are actually being tapped for.

The only support for your statement above is that you trust the current government officials to do what they say they are, and not to be doing anything nefarious with the information, and to always have your best interest in mind as they step outside legal boundaries to "do what must be done."

The United States was founded on a system of checks and balances. Oversight was the single most important guiding principle in the design of the Constitution. There is therefore no attitude more anti-American than your trust in government.

Re:Shocked, I am

[gstoddart]

Oh, look, it's the Michael Parenti article.

Funny how everyone who wants to make these assertions about Tibet trots out only this article -- which isn't peer reviewed, and is full of assertions that I'm not convinced he can back up. It's certainly written with a lot of innuendo and inference which I don't think is befitting of scholarly work.

His article has been excellently refuted here.

"A lie repeated a hundred times becomes the truth."
-Chairman Mao

You seem to have a very strong agenda to further the Chinese position on this matter. You'll forgive me if I'm underwhelmed with your tired rhetoric.

Do I seriously believe that Tibet was a perfect Shangri La before the chinese invasion? No. Do I believe that the entire country was a series of atrocities as detailed in the article? Absolutely not. Does this article make me have second thoughts about the sincerity and morality of the Dalai Lama? Not on your fucking life.

Cheers

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

And we at least have the power to vote the bastards out of office!

Yeah...we voted them out of office during the last Congressional election. What has happened since then? Well, nothing.

Nothing at all.

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear amasiancrasian (1132031)! Although I appreciate you don't agree with the chinese government persecututing Falun Gong Practitioners I am still very concerned with your posting. Please for gods sake don't publicly claim that Falun Gong Practitioners are crazy. That is very rude and insulting to them. Many of them are actually pretty smart academics or businessmen. I strongly suspect that you don't know first hand Falun Gong teachings. Since you call them crazy you propably just repeat communist propaganda. Don't do that! It is a historical crime and helps the criminals. The human rights violatians have begun to get unimaginably terrible. We have to stand up against it!

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty much it. It might look like observer bias but no, America really is that bad.

Re:Shocked, I am

[evilviper]

the president takes the citizen to Gauntanamo Bay and holds them in prison without lawyer or trial.

Point out ONE case where that has happened or just up.

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael Parenti is an absolute liar and blood libel monger. He's a Marxist historiographer , a paid revisionist shill of the Chinese government and an attack dog of the Nazi Han Chauvinist lobby in the US. His claims have just about as much truth in them as the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. You pretty much destroyed your credibility when you cited his dubious nonsense as implicit justification for Chinese-perpetrated genocide of Tibetans.

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

> Whether you like them or not, you can't deny that they destroyed a two-thousand year class system.

What can't be denied is that there's a new class system based on political favoritism and corruption that is slightly less dire than Mozambique but slightly moreso than Rwanda.

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

Re:Shocked, I am

[brm]

Unfortunately, that link is blocked in China. Is it available in any less inflammatory setting?

Re:Shocked, I am

[electrictroy]

True. But it is still a denial of rights. Being deprived of liberty year-after-year is no fun, especially when you know the U.S. Constitution specifically forbids it.

Re:Shocked, I am

[electrictroy]

How about a few hundred cases?

http://www.google.com/search?q="held+at+Guantanamo+Bay"

Re:Shocked, I am

[volxdragon]

"Citizen" being the operative word in the sentence and implying "US Citizen" given the context actually makes him mostly correct....there aren't "a few hundred cases" of US Citizens being down there...

Re:Shocked, I am

[yakiimo]

I call heavy bias and rose-tinted glasses on your description of US surveilance activities.

IANAS (I am not a spook) but I bet the stuff the US is looking for are things related to destabilizing the position of power of the US government. Some of those happen to be terrorist acts as I think you were referring to, but I would bet a lot of money that they would not act even on a very solid lead to stop some crimes being committed if they were not connected to the function of US government. Maybe they would pass it on to some other agency, but too much of that and they reveal the extent and limitations of their abilities.

What you talked about being caught in China is more or less the same thing. Except replace "one-party government" with just "government" and it's quite similar.

Speaking about the general level of freedom, and what happens with the spooks' information, I think we probably think the same thing: Americans have a significantly larger set of freedoms than the citizens of China, and have less to fear from the government. However, the spooks in both countries have more or less the same objectives and probably similar methods.

Re:Shocked, I am

[yakiimo]

mod parent up please

Re:Shocked, I am

[evilviper]

You're really demonstrating your stupidity here.

Firstly, those being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are NOT US Citizens. NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

Secondly, it's not even true that the foreign terrorist suspects are being held "without lawyer or trial". They ARE given access to lawyers, and are tried before a military tribunal.

The Patriot Act, or any other law, can say anything it damn well wants to... That won't make such actions constitutional, so it's not enforceable.

Re:Shocked, I am

[evilviper]

replace "one-party government" with just "government" and it's quite similar.

Yes, if you change important words, you can make any two things sound similar...

"one-party" is extremely important. It's the difference between totalitarian and democracy. It means it's both practical and beneficial to censor, and punish people, for political speech. With multiple parties, such heavy handed tactics become extremely impossible at best, and by and large, impossible.

Everything else you've said is just plain old conspiracy theory, with no evidence at all, and I've reached my quota of stupid for the day...

Re:Shocked, I am

[yakiimo]

I admit I don't have evidence and I even said that it was my guess in my post. You however have not posted evidence and said it like it was the truth. I would still bet that you are giving the US spooks the benefit of the doubt when it is not deserved.

Any political system can be corrupted and hijacked for the benefit of the few. Multi-party may be more difficult to corrupt, but by no means impossible. It's more of a matter of degrees. I personally think the US political system and many others are superior to the Chinese system by the measure of the quality of life and opportunity available to citizens.

My point was that your post made the US spooks sound like "the good guys" and the Chinese spooks sound like "the bad guys" when, again, they are really quite similar.

Re:Shocked, I am

[gstoddart]

Author is Joshua Michael Schrei
With luck, google will find you a reference which is reachable. Of course, most of them will be on pro-Tibet sites, who knows.

Cheers

Re:Shocked, I am

[Dog-Cow]

You have fallen into the same trap as most of the populous. You seem to think that a 200+ year old paper can actually affect anyone's actions. There is NOTHING stopping the Government from enforcing anything it chooses except the people in that Government, and perhaps the people they would rely on to do the enforcing.

There is a reason why Jefferson said that the Tree of Liberty must be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots (please excuse the bad paraphrase). He knew that the only way to stop a tyranny was with one's life. The Constitution CAN NOT do it. Only we can.

Re:Shocked, I am

[Dog-Cow]

Explain how we do not have a one-party system in the US.

Re:Shocked, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we get some useful people who can do something about these atrocities to oppose this instead of the current crop? Current opposers seem to be absolutely useless when it comes to any decisive action which might change things for the better.

Re:Shocked, I am

[evilviper]

You have fallen into the same trap as most of the populous. You seem to think that a 200+ year old paper can actually affect anyone's actions.

No, I'm not. You're just being extremely pedantic so you can raise a different point, trying to change the subject to something that is completely tangential and irrelevant to the topic.

Re:Shocked, I am

[specific_pacific]

What you're missing is the big picture here. At some point the Chinese said 'no' to the Falun Gong. Then the Falun Gong did some nasties to piss off the government. Then it escalated into a ban, and then into persecution.

There are western newspapers and publications (Epoch Times - http://en.epochtimes.com/) run by pro-Falun Gong supporters who do nothing but bag the Chinese government and have a hidden agenda supporting terrorist actions within Mainland China and Taiwan.

They conduct vigils and protest outside Chinese embasies in Sydney and in China town (probably other countries as well). They use shock imagery to win sympathy from westerners who are already under the influence of anti-Chinese media.

I did some research for a documentary I was making about Xinjiang which overlapped on a few issues and found the editors and journalists for the Epoch Times quite scary. The more I analysed the issues, I found patterns to the newspapers. What was a headline, how they stagger world news and international affairs around the pivot point of anti-China. Repetitive wording over many months to deal with single issues, and downright lies about the Chinese people who were apparently leaving the Communist Party (12 Party Talks) "at a million a day".

Last year they hijacked a TV Transmitter and broadcast anti-government material on there (lies actually). They also set fire to police buildings, murder police officers (and their families) and are now trying to convert (recruit) young people into their what is now referred to within China (and what I refer to outside of China) as a Cult.

Oh yeah, they're nice people - all they do is meditate and don't hurt anyone - which they don't really - just the extremists right?

I've met a few in my time as well - mostly handing me pamphlets. Speak to other Chinese about them - they do not regard them as safe or their ethics remain questionable.

For sure I won't be talking my mouth off them here in China (I'm in Beijing), either for or against. I regard the whole persecution and retaliation as wasted space over a historical power struggle. The only thing I did realise is that they're as bad as each other. They both make up lies and do questionable things - just that we want to believe the underdogs.

Re:Shocked, I am

[cavebison]

They're honestly crazy, and while I don't think the Chinese government should stop them from practicing, I really think they should just let them be so people can see how crazy they really are.

"..they should just let them be so people can be free to make up their own minds." There, fixed that for you. You may as well say the same thing for the Evangelical movement, they certainly look nutty to me. But at least they're free to be what they want to be, and who am I to judge someone else's experience?

We take the Dalai Lhama's word as gospel, even though he definitely has his own incentive to distort the truth.

Politicians do it all the time. But we don't call them evil. Well.. almost. Everyone has an agenda and there's nothing wrong with that. At least the DL is for freedom and knowledge, not supression and deception. If not everything he says is free from an agenda, we can forgive that considering he's seen his people decimated. If your family had been murdered, I doubt you'd smile and try to discuss it amicably with the culprits.

Whether you like them or not, you can't deny that they destroyed a two-thousand year class system.

What? Watch the movie called "Up the Yangtze" then tell us the class system doesn't exist anymore.

Re:Shocked, I am

[dwater]

IINM, that would be Japanese.

Re:Shocked, I am

[dwater]

How on earth the parent post got modded '-1 Troll' I'll never understand. It's blatantly neutral and well-balanced.

What is /. coming to? It seems to get worse and worse.

Re:Shocked, I am

[dwater]

Wow. Someone who knows something. What are you doing here?

Re:Shocked, I am

[dwater]

Another more well informed post. Thank you!

Why are such posts not moderated more highly?

Re:Shocked, I am

[mfriedma]

No... Falun Gong is batshit crazy. So what? People shouldn't be thrown in jail for believing in stupid things.

First post

[L4t3r4lu5]

All the others contained references to dehydrated breast fluids.

Re:First post

[L4t3r4lu5]

EPIC fail. *weep*

(Offtopic)

Re:First post

[jmashaw]

Whoever modded -1 Offtopic completely missed the joke.

Woooosh

freakin' funny.

In end-to-end security...

[sam0737]

...the last thing to trust is closed source implementation or even worse, proprietary protocol.

though I think real paranoid people won't trust something like Skype, right?

Re:In end-to-end security...

[Ostracus]

I think real paranoid people would hand-search the source code of everything. The rest of us would be more practical when it comes to risk management.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[Simon (S2)]

This is not about real paranoid people. The real paranoid people (like me) never trusted skype (encrypted, closed source binary blob).
This news is for the non-tinfoil-hat people. Now they too know, like us paranoid people, that their conversations are tracked, recorded, monitored and archived. For real. And now they know, if they read and understand the news, that what skype sad to us all ('full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of people's privacy.') was a lie. Skype (eBay) lied, maybe one time, maybe on other, more important things too, and maybe they will do it again.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[mpapet]

Except, even IF you could comb through the code, it doesn't mean that at some higher level your security isn't compromised.

I run a VOIP server and it's ridiculously easy to monitor everything going through it despite a TLS initiated client-server session.

- Text/sms/etc? In the database.
- Voice? Easy to keep a listener on the call. Very easy.

In both cases, there's encryption over the "public wire" but the server's got access to ALL of it. In the U.S., I imagine it's as simple as the NSA visits your CEO and gets full cooperation. CEO tells CTO to cooperate fully with the NSA. All of your communications are now monitored. That is, if the current monitoring at AT&T isn't enough somehow.

The "simple" answer is to decentralize VOIP. How you find and trust VOIP peers is where that ideas falls apart.

Another idea is to encrypt/decrypt the data on the client. Your sms would be good to go.. Encrypting the audio portion of the UDP packets would be very problematic. But it would work.

Running your own communications server is good too. A dumb old P3 with 1GB of ram will run VOIP and mail just fine. In that scenario, you own/control all the parts.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[Peaker]

And even then, they are not safe!

You could hide a trojan in the compiler, such that it compiles the seemingly innocent programs with trojans inserted.

Then, you could also hide the trojan in the compiler itself, such that when it compiles the innocent-seeming compiler itself, it inserts the trojan-insertion code into it.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody that understands security trusts Skype.
First off its closed source with no means of verifying its security, so its down to trusting the company.

What company? Ebay, who somehow had $2.8billion USD to spend on a product pretty far from their core market.

An american money, spending money they shouldnt have to buy popular communication software.

Yeah, Okay.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the last thing to trust is closed source implementation or even worse, proprietary protocol.

though I think real paranoid people won't trust something like Skype, right?

Are you calling me paranoid, Sir?

Re:In end-to-end security...

[Saint Stephen]

But the really cool one would be the compiler that secretly compiles the code for the compiler that secretly compiles the trojan insertion in the third compiler.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[dgatwood]

A good start would be AIM/Jabber/* video conferencing protocols using encryption and open source. In those protocols, the server helps you figure out the IP of the person you want to talk to, but otherwise doesn't see the messages (except in AIM for text messages when the user is offline).

Re:In end-to-end security...

[Anonymous Coward]

Another idea is to encrypt/decrypt the data on the client.

Another idea?! That's the only idea worth a damn.

Not only do VoIP servers legally fall within CALEA, but for pragmatic reasons they will be targets anyway, since they'll typically be fewer of them and they'll be operated by someone other than the users who are being spied on. Ergo, the servers aren't the right place to implement crypto.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[skeeto]

In both cases, there's encryption over the "public wire" but the server's got access to ALL of it.

If you look at the summary, article, and this thread's subject line, they all say "end-to-end". That means the server doesn't have access to anything except the encrypted stream. Ignoring MITM attacks, you don't need to trust anything in the middle as long as they don't start dropping pakcets, just trust the software on the ends (which you can't do with proprietary software).

Another idea is to encrypt/decrypt the data on the client.

Yes, that's called end-to-end. :-P

Re:In end-to-end security...

[xonar]

Who says its in the client code?

Re:In end-to-end security...

[sam0737]

I do have coreboot a.k.a. LinuxBIOS, we do have some open source CPU design AFAIK, or i think we know enough about 386 which can also run Linux!

So building it end-to-end with just open source, or at least with something we surely know what's there, is technically possible.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[RAMMS EIN]

Well, there is a possibility that end-to-end security goes for voice calls. Note that this story is about _text_ conversations.

I still refuse to use Skype for using a proprietary protocol and resent that the founders became millionaires by successfully getting the world to use a proprietary protocol for what was already being done using open protocols, _and_ I still maintain that trusting closed source software is more an act of faith than good security...but let's not go knocking Skype with false arguments.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[Peaker]

How can you surely know what's there, on any media?

Maybe the guys who burnt the CD thought they were burning clean binaries, but they too compiled their binaries with a compiler binary that they got from somewhere else.

Who says that the original compiler binary they used wasn't tainted and tainted everything from there on?

Re:In end-to-end security...

[sam0737]

In that case...may be one should go further back.

Build a transistor computer and review the compiler binary/assembly.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[sam0737]

A lot of other comments already addressed that what end-to-end is so I am not going into that here...

It might be difficult to encrypt just UDP, but i think it's feasible to encrypt IP, with VPN, IPSec...

Re:In end-to-end security...

[Burz]

I think you, like very many others, confuse paranoia with prudence and vigilance.

Paranoia is based on irrational fear, while vigilance depends on observation and rational assessment of one's situation and/or opponents.

Re:In end-to-end security...

[TheRaven64]

Some of us aren't paranoid, but took a look at some of the suspicious things that Skype does and made an educated decision not to trust it.

Sentries

[EVil Lawyer]

How is it we have 4 engies and only 1 sentry?

Re:Sentries

[gotem]

the other 3 are spies?

I'm writing from China right now

[Digitus1337]

I use Skype to communicate with friends in the US, and to discuss politics. I am appalled to read of this invasion of privacy.

Hold on, someone is at the door...

CHINA IS A GREAT NATION THAT WOULD NEVER INVADE MY PRIVACY. THIS ARTICLE IS UNFOUNDED AND BIASED.

Re:I'm writing from China right now

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait.... why didn't they delete what you had already typed before submitting?

Re:I'm writing from China right now

[Anonymous Coward]

in communist cina, post edit you! no wait, post edit everyone!

Re:I'm writing from China right now

[vvaduva]

Hehe..that's great. As someone who lived under Communism for most of my life, I am amazed that people are actually surprised to hear this. Either people are just plain stupid to be shocked by this, or they are bent on repeating/forgetting history pretty quick.

Re:I'm writing from China right now

[Anonymous Coward]

ALL HAIL BIG BROTHER!

Open source

[DoofusOfDeath]

'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.

This is also an argument in favor of using open source software. I've been dubious in the past about claims that closes-source vendors couldn't be trusted, but apparently I was being naive.

Sounds like the FSF got this one right.

Re:Open source

[ubrgeek]

Have you got a suggestion for one that's cross-platform, does video (perhaps even encrypted?) and is easy-for-grandparents-to-use friendly?

Re:Open source

[muuh-gnu]

> This is also an argument in favor of using open source software.

No it isn't, since simply no OSS application matches the features Skype provides accross platforms.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Which non obscure open source program can I use myself and recommend to my Windows using friends to be able to do text chat, VoIP and webcam, with a easy to use interface, without the need to compile anything and which is actively developed and provided in standard package repositories and will be available in the years to come?

Skype/MSN/ICQ/YIM (which all are able to do Chat/VoIP/Webcam and have been since the 90's) wouldnt be so prevalent if the OSS world would have _anything_ to match their features, or even be better than the proprietary alternatives. Getting a OSS app like firefox know in the CSS world worked because the app in question did its job well. OSS communication suites simply don't. I know half a dozen people who cant/wont leave windows solely for the fact that practically all the available Linux communication apps are scheiße and all lack at least one important feature practically their current Windows/proprietary communication app provides. Not only that, the fact that all leading Linux apps are scheiße, seriously (at least in my circle of friends) affects the linux uptake on netbooks. Whats the point on putting Linux on a mobile device when practically no app works as its mobile windows conuterpart and when yu practiclly cant do anythin besides browsing with firefox? Browsing becomes boring when you cant talk to anybody about it. Cant the "community" somehow team up together and at least get ONE FREAKING SINGLE MULTI PLATFORM COMMUNICATION APP right?

> Sounds like the FSF got this one right.

Then they should start paying developers to make it possible to communicate with other people. Otherwise nobody but IRC users will bother using free software.

Re:Open source

[DoofusOfDeath]

No it isn't, since simply no OSS application matches the features Skype provides accross platforms.

I wasn't saying that such software exists at the moment. I was just making the more general point that an open-source application with Skype's functionality would be less likely to secretly harbor such snooping and filtering functionality.

Then they should start paying developers to make it possible to communicate with other people.

They're trying. Can they count on your donation?

Re:Open source

[Free the Cowards]

I'd suggest that the app you use for politically-dangerous discussion and the app you use to do video chat with your grandparents should probably not be the same app.

Unless of course your grandparents are politically active and the video chat with them is the politically-dangerous discussion. But in that case, hopefully they retain enough flexibility of mind to learn something less user friendly.

Re:Open source

[Khashishi]

How does open source protect you from man-in-the-middle attacks?

Re:Open source

[Sloppy]

How does open source protect you from man-in-the-middle attacks?

Because it can be immediately forked, the "Skype shall always be treated as a totally trusted introducer" part can be removed, and replaced with something sane, such as an OpenPGP trust model.

Re:Open source

[sznupi]

It _should_ be the same app. If both "common chat/VoIP/webcam" traffic and sensitive info are equally well secured, there's no way of distinguishing the two.

Re:Open source

[GenP]

On a related note, are there any NAT-punching network libraries out there?

Re:Open source

[RAMMS EIN]

``This is also an argument in favor of using open source software. I've been dubious in the past about claims that closes-source vendors couldn't be trusted, but apparently I was being naive.''

It's not that closed source cannot be trusted, it's just that you need to realize that's what you're really doing. You are trusting that code to do what you think it does, and not do what you think it doesn't do. But really, you have no idea. With open source, you and others can actually verify whether a given claim about the code is true. Of course, doing so isn't necessarily trivial, but the fact that you and others are allowed to see for yourself what the program does, and change it if you see fit, makes a very real difference.

Re:Open source

[hughk]

Exactly. This is one of the key points about the use of cryptography. If you encrypt everything then your eavesdropper doesn't know where to concentrate their efforts. This is also why crypto should be as easy to use as possible, so there is no significant extra effort for using it.

Re:Open source

[Free the Cowards]

But good security may well require extra steps on behalf of the user.

Take for example something like OTR. OTR can be completely secure if used correctly, but correct use requires verifying other people's fingerprints and such. Blindly clicking through the security dialogs destroys the security of the system. Zfone is another good example of this. In these cases your grandparents could use the same app, but their use won't be secure even if your use is.

More generally, I'm not sure that a system can be made usable to completely clueless people and still remain secure for all involved. It's a great goal, and you can probably do better with it than what we have now, but I don't know that it can be achieved in general.

And more realistically it's quite likely that the super friendly video chat app your grandparents use is going to be insecure, and the super secure chat app you use for political subversion is going to be user unfriendly, just because that's how people tend to make them.

Not the same

[Bryansix]

Comparing the Chinese program to the program by the NSA is completely disingenuous. They have they only similarity that they involve surveillance. That is where the similarities stop.

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. Telephone conversations are two ways and you kind of need to here both side to know what is going on. Now was this illegal? Maybe. Should it have happened? That's up in the air. The program was supposedly done to protect the US Citizens from another terrorist attack.

Compare and contrast this with the Chinese Program. This program exists to control the thoughts of the Chinese people. It censors them and prevents the flow of information. Then it reports on them simply because they are talking about things which in the United States are completely legal to talk about but in China are completely illegal to talk about. China has no freedom of speech. Their every move is watched to control them online. They aren't trying to track terrorists here. They are trying to play mind control. They are trying to censor the publics thoughts.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck NSA. What do they have to do with this? The problem lies with Skype.

Closed source software is bad, mmmkay?

Re:Not the same

[megamerican]

That's only if you trust the government's claims. They have a pretty bad track record. Just do some research on COINTELPRO or Mockingbird. Or realize that the FBI was openly recruiting people to spy on protest groups in Minnesota before the RNC.

Also remember that the patriot act has been used 1000's of times against people who have done nothing terror related. Elliot Spitzer was caught because of the patriot act. It has mostly been used to get drug dealers and shut down strip joints.

Re:Not the same

[Bryansix]

I didn't say I always trusted the government's motives. I also didn't say it was right. I just said it wasn't the same as what the Chinese are doing. Also some protesters at the RNC did have plans to disrupt the convention so that was well founded. Lastly I agree the Patriot act should not be misused. It probably needs to be rewritten to prevent misuse.

Re:Not the same

[HungryHobo]

"They aren't trying to track terrorists here. They are trying to play mind control. They are trying to censor the publics thoughts."

Do you really think the issue in america is really terrorists? terrorists are about a big a deal as asteroid hits, yes it could happen, yes it's good to watch for, no it isn't worth shitting all over peoples rights to deal utterly ineffectively with the slim chance of it doing any real damage any time soon.

In china the difference is that you can be defined as a terrorist if powerful people simply don't like you... hhhmm... not that far from the US then.

Re:Not the same

[Jugalator]

Compare and contrast this with the Chinese Program. This program exists to control the thoughts of the Chinese people. It censors them and prevents the flow of information. Then it reports on them simply because they are talking about things which in the United States are completely legal to talk about but in China are completely illegal to talk about. China has no freedom of speech. Their every move is watched to control them online. They aren't trying to track terrorists here. They are trying to play mind control. They are trying to censor the publics thoughts.

Is it "thoughts" when it's about China and not when it's about the USA? Why are you using such a strong words as "thoughts", when it's really about what they say?

But yeah, there is a difference in what kind of activities the two governments want to stop. In both governments, that definition is up to the government though, and they are no longer always obviously serving the people. "Terrorists" sounds all good and well, but there have been so many news about strange definitions of that.

Re:Not the same

[mathmathrevolution]

What you did was repeat a baseless fairy tale about what the NSA program "was designed" to do, even though this lawless program has never been scrutinized or investigated by anybody and doesn't have a shred of oversight.

Re:Not the same

[owlnation]

Comparing the Chinese program to the program by the NSA is completely disingenuous. They have they only similarity that they involve surveillance. That is where the similarities stop.

That depends on whose propaganda you believe. Removing the red vs blue rhetoric, I'm not convinced there's much difference. There's theater and distraction tactics in both. It's safe to assume that both are censorship, and neither is a good thing, regardless of declared intentions.

Re:Not the same

[at_slashdot]

Are you sure you are not on the terrorist list? List time I checked the US had a do-not-fly list of 1 million names and the list continues to grow...

Re:Not the same

[NeutronCowboy]

Riiiight.... Here's the problem: if you'd know that one end is a terrorist, you'd go and arrest them. That's because if you have enough information to understand that a specific IP is a terrorist, you know where that IP is coming from and who is sitting behind it. The only reason to eavesdrop in this case is to get more intel, and that's easily achieved with regular FISA-type warrants.

A blanket monitoring system outside of FISA supervision can only exist for one reason: there is not enough information about the conversation to tie it to an existing surveillance program - in other words, the NSA doesn't know that one end is a terrorist. Which in turn means that it is doing blanket surveillance based on something other than pre-existing intel.

Quite frankly, the fact that you swallowed this piece of propaganda scares me more than the fact that it exists. Spooks will always be spooks. However, when the citizens are refusing to do a basic analysis of the propaganda they're being fed, just so that they don't have to deal with the consequences of that analysis, they stop being citizens and start being serfs.

The only difference between what China is doing and what the US is doing is that China is overtly suppressing speech. The US is just reserving its right to do so when someone feels its convenient. That's merely a difference of scale, not principle.

Re:Not the same

[lysergic.acid]

i don't see how surveillance is mind-control. the Chinese government want to root out dissidents and suppress dissenting opinions, just as has been done in the U.S. throughout history. ever heard of COINTELPRO? this kind of blatant abuse of political power to actively suppress political dissent was most rampant during J. Edgar Hoover's reign of the FBI and slowly declined after his death. but in recent years such practices have been revived once again.

all governments, especially unpopular ones, fear dissent and subversion. and since political activism can be seen as a subversive act, governments have always targeted activist groups, whether openly or behind closed doors. the recent illegal wiretapping scandal is concrete evidence of such abuses. and under the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T.A.C.T. the federal government can now freely target activist groups under the guise of combating terrorism.

Re:Not the same

[recharged95]

The chinese program is an open-ended restriction. The rules are maintained exclusively by the chinese ruling political party. There is no "law" in a real sense.

The US/NSA programs still are restricted to USC18-118. I'm sure it's taken seriously in all agencies ;) . Yes, there's been report on abuses or violations of this law, and/or a political agenda to rewrite it and releasing any protections, but that's completely different discussion and usually involves a small number of powerful [corrupt] people.

Re:Not the same

[goffster]

It simply means that the chinese are ahead of the curve. They do it, get away with it, and we follow the lead.

Re:Not the same

[HiThere]

Do you have any evidence from reliable sources for your claims? Then how do you know they are correct.

That said, it's quite possible that some people planned to protest at the RNC. And to arrest them for trespass, or some such, AFTER THEY HAD DONE SO would have been reasonable. To arrest them ahead of time is "prior restraint" and has in past decades been held to be unconstitutional.

Well, the court has changed, and there likely won't be an appeal that reaches them, so clearly the governments actions must be legal. Clearly.

OTOH, this *IS* a major difference. It's legal for the Chinese government to do whatever it decides to do. For the US government to act in the same way is illegal. This, however, is not proof that the government is acting legally.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Here comes this fascist again... Have you updated your resume already after you saw the last Presidential election polls?
I think you need to find another job fast. Or you might drown to death when your ex-president goes swim on a pool...
Fascist Americans won't have that much space on the new government...

Re:Not the same

[Bryansix]

Yikes. Logic escapes some people. My main point is they didn't censor anybody.

Re:Not the same

[Bryansix]

How are they both censorship? Please explain that magical leap in logic to me. I'd like to know.

Re:Not the same

[dogboi]

Lastly I agree the Patriot act should not be misused. It probably needs to be rewritten to prevent misuse.

It actually shouldn't be used at all. It allows invasion of privacy without due process. It should have been stricken down a long time ago.

Re:Not the same

[Bryansix]

I can't believe the vast array of people on Slashdot who so wholeheartedly think their Government is perfectly evil. I understand being critical and I think that's useful but to say that "The day is coming when the US will suppress your free speech" is totally asinine. No that day is not soon approaching. The constitution specifically forbids it. This is contrasted with China where THEY ARE ACTUALLY CENSORING PEOPLE. That IS a difference in PRINCIPLE!

Re:Not the same

[mathmathrevolution]

No, your point was that the American surveillance program was a safe, anodyne program with limited and necessary objectives and could not possibly be compared to the ubiquitous surveillance state of China. That's why you baselessly claimed to know the design of a beyond-top-secret classified government program:

The NSA program was designed to listen in on US citizens talking to people on a known terrorist list

Re:Not the same

[Bryansix]

RTFA! The Chinese actually block communication involving certain words. That is censorship. The mind control portion flows with the censorship because the the Chinese people don't know about something they can't think about it.

I never said what the NSA did was right. I just said it's not the same. Secondly COINTELPRO targeted organizations such as the Klu Klux Klan and the Weatherman. Both of those organization were actually terrorist. Did the program get misused? Yes it did and I don't defend that. But don't throw out blanket statements about history and expect me to swallow it when it's not completely factual. I agree oversight is needed. I agree with all that. However I think there is a difference from making speeches and promoting causes as compared to leading violent uprisings and committing crimes. We live in a democracy. If you don't like how the Government is then VOTE.

Re:Not the same

[MasterOfMagic]

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, especially to go to war, and especially not the NSA. 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."

Please tell me why I should trust anything that the NSA says at face value.

Re:Not the same

[evilviper]

That's only if you trust the government's claims.

Not at all. The government didn't come out and explain this secret program... The program was exposed by the press. Why is it that you believe the press can uncover this program in the first place, but only the relatively benign part, while the evil conspiracy is able to stay hidden?

Or realize that the FBI was openly recruiting people to spy on protest groups in Minnesota before the RNC.

After 9/11, FBI agents were sent out to go under-cover in just about every organization they could, to see if there was any signs of terrorist activities. Having an un-declared FBI agent joint your open group isn't exactly a violation of your human rights.

Also remember that the patriot act has been used 1000's of times against people who have done nothing terror related.

Yes, and? It's a big law, with lots of things in it, and it's not all related to the evil Arab terrorists.

The RICO act has probably been used 1000's of times in cases that it wasn't meant for... So? The law of unintended consequences applies, but that doesn't mean your neighbors are going to start disappearing tomorrow.

Did you just get a fresh shipment of red herring today?

Re:Not the same

[MasterOfMagic]

> The constitution specifically forbids it.

It also forbids warrentless wiretapping. Great job on following the Constitution the government has done since 9/11, wouldn't you say?

Re:Not the same

[NeutronCowboy]

Wow - you managed to completely miss the point of my post.

Whether the current approach is unconstitutional is completely irrelevant. It also has no impact on the evilness of Government. It simply is a surveillance systems that is forced to monitor EVERYTHING that it can, because it cannot possibly know enough to do the differentiation that the government claims it does. Simple as that. Once you monitor, you can intercept and censor. That's it. As for what is done with that capability, past experience is a good guide.

Re:Not the same

[MasterOfMagic]

Secondly COINTELPRO targeted organizations such as the Klu Klux Klan and the Weatherman. Both of those organization were actually terrorist.

COINTELPRO also targeted the following non-violent groups:

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Martin Luther King)
• Russell Means (American Indian Movement)
• NAACP
• The National Lawyers Guild
• Almost all groups protesting the Vietnam War (even the non-violent ones)

They were also investigated by Congress by the Church Committee, which talked about COINTELPRO and drug experiments and mind control experiments.

So, given their secrecy and refusal to play ball with the courts, and the evidence that they keep of their own wrongdoing, away from public view, I'm not willing to extend them the benefit of the doubt.

If you don't like how the Government is then VOTE.

I have, and many others have. We still do. That doesn't mean we can't disagree and distrust. That doesn't mean we should just hang back and accept.

Re:Not the same

[Bryansix]

http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/lets-compare-dnc-protests-vs-rnc-protests/
http://donklephant.com/2008/09/01/violent-protests-disrupt-rnc/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4660503.ece

Re:Not the same

[R2.0]

"No, your point was that the American surveillance program was a safe, anodyne program with limited and necessary objectives and could not possibly be compared to the ubiquitous surveillance state of China. That's why you baselessly claimed to know the design of a beyond-top-secret classified government program:"

Funny, I got an A in reading comprehension in grade school and it doesn't look to me like he said anything remotely like you are attributing to him.

Oh, and if it's a "beyond-top-secret classified government program", why does everyone and it's brother know it exists?

Re:Not the same

[Bryansix]

Hi. I don't think we've met. My name is fact. You can use me in your arguments and it will make them stronger. You can use me in daily life and it will make people listen to you. Oh and don't use that other guy over there called "falsehood". He's full of shit!

Please point out to me where wiretapping is in the Constitution. In fact the word "Privacy" is also NOT in there. Should it be? Probably but it is NOT.

Re:Not the same

[mathmathrevolution]

Oh, and if it's a "beyond-top-secret classified government program", why does everyone and it's brother know it exists?

The reason people know of the existence of the classified warrantless surveillance program is, as every fool knows, because several concerned whistle-blowers came forward and disclosed illegal details of the program to the NYTimes. The NYTimes then wrote a famous article describing the known details of the lawless surveillance program. You should consider reading it. You might learn something, especially with your A in "Reading Comprehension".

Re:Not the same

[MasterOfMagic]

I'll agree that the word "wiretap" does not appear in the constitution. That doesn't matter. I have no problems with this logically or truthfully. I think you missed the point though. Take a look at the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution. You know, the ones that the framers of the Constitution were around to argue about:

Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

In other words, the Federal Government, under the Constitution, does not have the right to wiretap anybody, if we are going to be literal and reject the common legal theory that the Fourth Amendment would prevent them from doing so.

This, of course, is bullshit. Look at the relevant part of the law, in this case, FISA. FISA says that you can have 48 hours of wiretapping for free without filing a warrant. After that, you either file a warrant or you're breaking the law. This is black-letter law.

Re:Not the same

[zippthorne]

The protesting isn't the problem. Protesters have free-speech rights, too. But disruption is. Because the RNC also has free speech rights. Further, the actual convention was technically a private event, and people have the right to freedom of association. There is something very wrong if the only way to prevent disruption is to allow disruption to occur.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing the Chinese program to the program by the NSA is completely disingenuous. They have they only similarity that they involve surveillance. That is where the similarities stop. ...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...
Compare and contrast this with the Chinese Program. This program exists to control the thoughts of the Chinese people. It censors them and prevents the flow of information....They aren't trying to track terrorists here. They are trying to play mind control. They are trying to censor the publics thoughts.

give it time.

Re:Not the same

[R2.0]

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?

Re:Not the same

[threat_or_menace]

Where to start.

None of what you say about US phone call monitoring applies, since Skype is not a phone call, it's an internet transmission. The law on collecting packets is a lot weaker than the law on collecting analog signals.

The point of this is that the "crypto" in Skype can be broken and has been broken per a government request. What this means is that virtually any Skype conversation since 2001 should be assumed to be available for review by the Feds. September 11 2001, the Feds installed packet sniffers at consumer ISPs across the country, and told the NOC staffs "this will only be for a few weeks, while we get the Tier 1 taps in place."

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/09/46747?currentPage=all

On to your trusting lunacy about phones: We don't know what the NSA program does and does not do, nor what it is or is not designed to do, nor what it is doing nor how the data can be reexamined in the future. We know a very small amount about what it could do circa 2004 from good reporting, but no one's ever testified about it in a courtroom.

What we do know is that speaking about it in the past tense is amusing.

The scenario you outline - only targeted calls are intercepted - is the current legal justification for continuing to permit it and for retroatively legalizing it.

Once you have the ability to start snarfing those calls, without a warrant and without asking the carrier for further assistance, you will start snarfing a whole lot more. If you accidentally leave your equipment on, you'll just have collected a lot more. Since there is no oversight, there's no reason to be concerned about being reprimanded.

Re:Not the same

[TheLink]

BTW in theory the chinese citizens have votes too and can even stand for elections (in theory :) ).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China

http://www.china.org.cn/english/Political/26325.htm

They only have one party though.

They do have some form of accountability though. In the past few food scandals, the previous food safety chief was executed for corruption, and the current one has resigned.

It's not like they got USD20 million bucks for screwing up.

They most certainly don't execute people for corruption in my country.

As for censorship, the best form of mind control is to give citizens something else to think about.

I think most chinese citizens spend a fair bit of time thinking about getting rich (or at least richer).

I doubt the infamous MMORPG gold farmers would really care about Tibet, Tiananmen, Falun Gong etc, even if they knew about them.

As long as the money and food is satisfactory most people won't care.

Do the US citizens really care either? Bush was reelected, and his party still has a good chance.
The Two Parties have a far better chance than the other parties (which got less than 1% of the total votes in the prev elections).

Re:Not the same

[mathmathrevolution]

So you are saying that we DO know the details, but you are criticizing the OP because the details are hidden? Which is it?

We don't know the specifics of the program and, your lame attempt at Gotcha notwithstanding, I never claimed we did. We don't know the scope, the targets, how long data is retained, who has access to that data, nor how that data is propagated across agencies. I criticized the OP because he blithely repeated unsubstantiated claims about the program as fact. Do you think it's justifiable to invent claims or repeat-as-fact the dubious claims of known liars?

Re:Not the same

[HiThere]

Thank you, especially for giving multiple sources. I hadn't seen that.

Surprise, surprise.

[CSMatt]

We already know that it's possible to listen in on Skype conversations. Is it any stretch of the imagination that China would be doing it?

Re:Surprise, surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, who cares about anything anyway?

How do they catch encrypted words?

[Van Cutter Romney]

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.

Don't tell me they're encrypting the text word-by-word.

Re:How do they catch encrypted words?

[pilgrim23]

ho-wa ould-way o-da at-thay?

Re:How do they catch encrypted words?

[adpsimpson]

From the summary, it seems that this is being done on the client's computer, before encryption:

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

Re:How do they catch encrypted words?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. I think they're probably using rot13.

No, wait. The Chinese use about 2000 simplified characters instead of words made of letters. So it's probably more like rot1027 or something like that.

Re:How do they catch encrypted words?

[nacturation]

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.

Don't tell me they're encrypting the text word-by-word.

There's a list of banned words inside the Skype software. That list of banned words is encrypted in order to prevent someone from arbitrarily modifying it through a hex editor, etc. When using Skype, you type something (obviously in plain text) into the Skype program. The Skype program then scans over the plain text you typed, compares it against its word list -- which is decrypted for the comparison -- and takes appropriate action.

A new arms race?

[Bragador]

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?

Once again

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again: Stallman was right. It's a trap!

Re:Once again

[Anonymous Coward]

404 File Not Found

Your World Delivered.... To the NSA

[megamerican]

What do you expect when the NSA is the phone company?

Echelon anyone?

Re:Your World Delivered.... To the NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd probably expect them to actually charge a fee so that they can pay for access in order to carry out this universal surveilance. Some sort of "Universal Access Tax."

Hey. Wait a minute...

Not the worst nightmare at all

[CSMatt]

'This is the worst nightmares of the conspiracy theorists around surveillance coming true,'

No. The worst nightmare would be when this comes true and no one cares.

Re:Not the worst nightmare at all

[EaglemanBSA]

Judging from not only the votes in congress with respect to bills like the FISA Amendments Act, I would say that already, very few people care. The unfortunate reality I have found is that those of us truly concerned about these things represent a small percentage of the population.

For the most part, John Q. Public is happy to hand over their rights, and they _don't_ care - and I am scared.

Re:Not the worst nightmare at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Right... so pretty much game over then. I would do a little research to see if this story is making headlines anywhere else... but I really don't have to. I think we all know it won't. Plus.. I don't really care.

Submitter is a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we have an interesting report about China,.

Then, for no intelligent reason, a trroll about a US story that has been hashed, rehashed, and corned beef hashed to death, in an obvious attempt to draw some kind of moronic equivalence.

Submitter is a troll.

Re:Submitter is a troll

[EaglemanBSA]

No, the fact of the matter is that Skype, when they stated that their software was encrypted end-to-end, lied. The question then remains, with the ongoing domestic spying operations in the United States, what is to keep software like Skype from applying such policies to all their closed-source software?

I think the poster's point is that Skype is enabling this behavior, and Skype, in case you haven't noticed, has a presence all over the world.

Re:Submitter is a troll

[mathmathrevolution]

Jing Xu writes:

So, we have an interesting report about China.

Then, for no intelligent reason, this submission is typical anti-China propaganda about bogus allegations that have been hashed, rehashed, and Mu Shu Pork Lo Mein hashed to death. Submitter is grasping at straws to draw a moronic parallel between the limited and lawful use of technology in China and the secret prisons, state-sanctioned torture, warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, process-less and indefinite imprisonments, and the virtual abolition of Fourth Amendment guarantees of the USA.

Submitter is a troll.

Re:Submitter is a troll

[Un pobre guey]

Hey! Wait a minute! When we do it it's good! We're fighting evil and tyranny, promoting democracy and free markets, blah, blah, blah. When anyone else does it, it's criminal.

Damn foreigners.

Re:Submitter is a troll

[Burz]

No, the fact of the matter is that Skype, when they stated that their software was encrypted end-to-end, lied.

I think they might have been telling the truth at the start.

But then they got bought by a US corporation and then Congress revised CALEA regulations to cover all data, not just POTS telephone network.

In the end though, closed stuff can't be trusted for maintaining security.

Now, this 'Administrative layer' that eBay references is intriguing! So the Skype protocols perhaps have a way of telling a client to use a SuperNode middleman instead of going peer to peer.

Either open-source the Skype engine or abandon it

[Morgaine]

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.

zzzzzzzzz.

[apodyopsis]

well. if they monitor the internet usage of the average slashdotter then they'll go blind, I'm sure.

honestly, did anybody seriously think this was *not* happening?

LOL nice

[mfh]

I won't end the friendship yet, digitus (just in case you survive the beating) but ... this article would be news if the title read, "Skype *not* monitored in China!" because China is a dictatorship and therefore you need to expect they monitor everything that everyone is doing to ensure it's in line with the dictator's wishes. What kind of dictatorship would it be if they didn't monitor everyone? It'd be a chaotic dictatorship! It helps to know what's going on when scheduling executions and public beatings. I would be far more concerned if these types of occurrences were arbitrary!

Re:LOL nice

[Anonymous Coward]

On the same note :
    - "So, been around a lot, have you ?" >;->

Well, congratulations. Nice one.

But I'm waiting till they pull the other one "it's got bells on it".

Monitoring affects text-chatting only, not voice

[g_adams27]

According to the Skype Blog, this is a text filter that only applies to TOM-Skype. If you use regular Skype, or if you use Skype or TOM-Skype for voice (rather than text) communication, you are still secure.

Yeah, I know... I don't trust them either. But even the NYT article didn't uncover any snooping of the actual voice calls (although the phone numbers and names of those involved in the call [b]were[/b] being recorded.)

I tried using Zfone with Gizmo a year or two ago, since I trusted the inventor of PGP to provide a better security solution than Skype's proprietary secret encryption. Unfortunately (at least at that time), the voice quality and ability to handle NAT wasn't as good in Gizmo as it was in Skype. Wonder if they've improved it yet?

John Markoff, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me when a real journalist reports on it.

And no one cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they selectively care based on whether "their" party is in power or not.

Dear Cowboy Neal,

[Green Salad]

Please send my agency the list of IP addresses, indexed by user-name, linked to the comments users have posted here in response to this article about online privacy. If you could export it to Excel, my analysts would much appreciate it. I promise not to abuse this information and will use it only to help identify and track enemies. By the way, my organization is considering advertising on your website.

an interesting link

[Anonymous Coward]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iD_wQwD-Ra3ADqTfFRGr1thY8aTA

Seems that the problem was not buggy crypto, but their communist partner company. Should avoid these.

Re:Monitoring affects text-chatting only, not voic

[g_adams27]

> If you use regular Skype, or if you use Skype or TOM-Skype for voice
> (rather than text) communication, you are still secure.

Following up on my own comment, I should point out that you are not secure if you are having a text chat with someone who uses TOM-Skype, even if you yourself use the regular Skype.

Stock response

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that just goes to show you how much better I am than all of you because I use NoScript! Stupid commoners!

Wait, what's this story about, again? Encryption? Oh, right, right, I meant to say OTR. Yeah, that's it. OTR. I'm better than you.

Also in Bavaria

[solweil]

Here is some information on Bavarian police interception of Skype. http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Skype_and_SSL_Interception_letters_-_Bavaria_-_Digitask

seriously people...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish the tubes were free and secure, but they are not and never will be. Telephone lines never were either, snail mail too ... pile up all the law and activism you want against wire tapping, it's not gonna change and if you believe them when they say it has changed ... well, that's your own fault.

How do you know?

[Reality Master 201]

The NSA program was designed to listen in on US citizens talking to people on a known terrorist list.

How do you know that? That's what they say, but how do you know that?

Was the program under some kind of oversight outside of the executive branch? No. Are the details of the program publicly available? No.

You don't actually know how the NSA program compares to the Chinese one. You just hope that's the way it is.

Re:How do you know?

[Bryansix]

Did the NSA cut off phone calls or otherwise censor people?

Re:How do you know?

[lysdexia]

Don't be obtuse. The point of the program is information gathering. Why would you inform the spied-upon?

Re:How do you know?

[Bryansix]

I'm not being obtuse. I brought it up because the Chinese program DOES censor people.

New?

[Un pobre guey]

This is more or less the way things have always been. Why the shock? The only news is that it is much easier and cheaper to gather orders of magnitude more data of a wider variety than back in the day (whenever you think that was).

Prudent individuals should assume that all of their actions, transactions, and speech are being monitored and recorded, either passively by devices that are coincidentally nearby, or actively by individuals and organizations that are collecting data for some particular purpose. They should also assume that the records will last forever, at least for practical purposes, and will likely become public at some point.

Too paranoid for you? OK. Ignore me.

Har...

Joke about freedom of mail

[saigon_from_europe]

A communist from the West decides to move to USSR. He explained to his friends that he would write letters to them. Worried about freedom of mail, he explained them that if he writes anything in red ink, that would mean that reality is opposite from the written.

He moves there, and after a while, the first mail finally arrives. It says: "Everything is great here in USSR. People are happy, wealthy, there is a lot of everything in stores, freedom is enormous. The only problem I have seen here is that you cannot buy any red ink."

'It's "X-Files" without the aliens.'"

[Anonymous Coward]

'It's "X-Files" without the aliens.'

come on, GWB is an alien.

Am I the only one who went...

[dos4who]

Milk Powder... huh?

communist country

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it amusing that people are shocked by this. It must be because China makes everything now. I guess a lot of people forget it is a totalitarian communist country.

You don't read the news?

[toby]

That would be THIS NEWS.

You don't get, uh, Google News down there?

Oh hey

[kjzk]

Welcome to America!

No,

[toby]

He's just a dangerously stupid, uncivilised and corrupt figurehead (per Occam's Razor.)

Get the list from 2006!

[Anonymous Coward]

June 2006: http://recon.cx/en/f/vskype-chinese-blacklist.7z
which comes from
http://recon.cx/en/f/vskype-part1.pdf
http://recon.cx/en/f/vskype-part2.pdf
(more goodies about this on http://recon.cx/en/f/)
which are a sequel of the more known
https://www.secdev.org/conf/skype_BHEU06.handout.pdf

What's more a secure IM (or VOIP) than Skype?

[Rick Bentley]

Is Yahoo! better? Google's? Does it matter who hosts the hub, or do we have to have our own IM servers out there to communicate completely securely?

I see things like X-IM (http://x-im.net/protocol.asp), but is anyone checking the source to ensure client-to-client comm is secure as advertised? No back doors?

Does anybody have a run down?

Re:What's more a secure IM (or VOIP) than Skype?

[Pushpabon]

Zfone is software for secure voice communication over the Internet (VoIP), using the ZRTP protocol. It is created by Phil Zimmermann, the creator of the PGP encryption software. Zfone works on top of existing SIP- and RTP-programs, like Gizmo, but should work with any SIP- and RTP-compliant VoIP-program.

http://zfoneproject.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zfone

Re:What's more a secure IM (or VOIP) than Skype?

[RAMMS EIN]

Back in the day, I used H.323. Nowadays, I use mostly SIP. Both are open standards that can be used with a variety of clients, such as Ekiga, XMeeting, and Gizmo.

By default, these protocols are unencrypted. I would run them over a VPN (I use OpenVPN) so that all communication is encrypted. This also solves some of the connectivity problems that Network Address Translation creates.

From Skype's Website

[velen]

[Todayâ(TM)s Financial Times posted a story](http://news.ft.com/cms/s/875630d4-cef9-11da-925d-0000779e2340.html) about how Skypeâ(TM)s partner TOM Online is filtering text messages in China.

Skype has a joint venture with TOM Online. As part of that venture, we provide a co-branded version of Skype called TOM-Skype, which is the version of Skype that is available in mainland China.

As part of the joint venture, TOM provides guidance to Skype about how to co-operate with local laws and regulations in China. In every country we operate in, we always work with local authorities to follow local laws and best practice.

TOM operates a text filter in TOM-Skype. The filter operates solely on text chats. The filter has a list of words which will not be displayed in Skype chats.

The text filter operates on the chat message content before it is encrypted for transmission, or after it has been decrypted on the receiver side. If the message is found unsuitable for displaying, it is simply discarded and not displayed or transmitted anywhere.

It is important to underline:

* The text filter does not affect in any way the security and encryption mechanisms of Skype.
* Full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of peopleâ(TM)s privacy.
* Calls, chats and all other forms of communication on Skype continue to be encrypted and secure.
* There is absolutely no filtering on voice communications.

Where is the insecurity?

[FilterMapReduce]

Maybe I'm missing something, but is this necessarily evidence that the Skype client and transmission are not themselves secure? The third link 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:Where is the insecurity?

[peteratskype]

You're absolutely right - standard versions of Skype are unaffected by the issues highlighted in the Information Warfare Monitor / ONI Asia report. I can assure you, however, that Skype-to-Skype communications are, and always have been, completely secure and private.

Re:Joke about US economy

[Cro Magnon]

He really should have stocked up before he left. There is LOTS of red ink here.

Who uses skype for TEXT messages anyways?

[__aailob1448]

...Apparently, 166,000 messages were logged in two months. 88,000 messages/month.

Ebay said that the lack of security that allowed the monitoring to be uncovered was the problem and affirmed their concerns for the privacy of their users (then why did they LOG their messages to begin with?):

the company spoke to the accessibility of the messages, not their monitoring. The security breach does not affect Skypes core technology or functionality, she said. It exists within an administrative layer on Tom Online servers. We have expressed our concern to Tom Online about the security issue and they have informed us that a fix to the problem will be completed within 24 hours. EBay had no comment on the monitoring.

Yeah...tough to justify logging messages, dates, IPs and phone numbers when keywords like "milk powder" or "earthquake" were used and providing them to the chinese government.

It seems the logging was done client-side. Skype is p2p based so this might have been their only option.

Re:Either open-source the Skype engine or abandon

[Anonymous Coward]

At least in the US, Skype is legally *required* to provide CALEA-style law-enforcement interception capabilities. You can open source it and they'll still have to do that, like any other VoIP service would.

The People's Privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

'full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of people's privacy.

Did he say "people's privacy" or "The People's privacy?"

The former would indicate individuals, while the latter would indicate the collective, happy body of people of the PRC who have no need of privacy from their comrades in the government.

what a joke

[hackingbear]

a list of politically charged words that includes words related to Falun Gong ... the Chinese Communist Party ... the Tom-Skype software blocks the transmission of these words

So Skype believes either (1) nothing bad would be said about FLG and nothing good would be said about CCP; or (2) FLG and CCP are in fact allies and both are cults.

I dont think End2end means what you think it means

[DrYak]

Except, even IF you could comb through the code, it doesn't mean that at some higher level your security isn't compromised.
I run a VOIP server and it's ridiculously easy to monitor everything going through it despite a TLS initiated client-server session.

No, sorry no.
End-to-end has nothing to do with those application that provide some toy-protection by securing communication with the server (like IMAPS or SSL protection in stock MSN).

End-to-end means that the whole traffic is encrypted between both *end points*. A direct channel going from my software on my computer, all the way to your software on your computer. Every one else along the chain only sees crypted garbage.

You can't spy an End-to-end encrypted traffic (I mean you can record packets, but you can't understand them). If any one attempts a man-in-the-middle attack (at the server, for example), both end points will see the wrong encryption certificates. (Each end of the communication will see the middle-man's certificate, not the original one).

You could compromise the system :
- at the key exchange step the first time 2 previously unknown people get in touch (if you manage to trick each one into thinking that the key they recieved from *your* the first time they did exchange the key were their keys).
- at the end point of the communication. If something is compromised at the exit of the secure channel, no matter how the channel itself is secure.
The system could be root-kited, or the software could be not trustworthy.

How you find and trust VOIP peers is where that ideas falls apart

Building a chain of trust which tops at meeting the first key persons in real life in order to exchange keys (that as that portion of communication is secured, you can obtain further security tokens from other persons).
Or at least using a separate better trusted channel to confirm the keys' hashes.

Another idea is to encrypt/decrypt the data on the client.

Been done since ages on opensource implementations of IM clients. "Off the Record" is currently a very popular application, running on Pidgin (plugin), Adium (out-of-the-box) and several others, and functioning as a layer above the message protocol.

(If both end points are running OTR, when you type a message in your client, the plugin converts it into a cyphered text. Then that message is sent using the classical route of whatever protocol you use underneath (MSN, Jabber, Whatever), the client at the other end receive it too, and its plugin decrypts the message back before displaying it, check also if the encryption key matches.
Regadless of what is the network used, the message that transist is only something looking like line noise. Microsoft's MSN server could log it, its still meaningless.)

Encrypting the audio portion of the UDP packets would be very problematic

Been done for ages too. You should google around for ZRTP (by nothing less than the author of PGP). Supported in several project, including the open source Twinkle, support comming in Ekiga next major release too. Nothing problematic.

Running your own communications server is good too.

...as long as you use end-to-end encryption between the people.
or at least as long as everyone exclusively use secure communications from/to the server.
(but then, *they* shouldn't trust it as they don't control what's happening on the server)

Ignoring MITM attacks

[mpapet]

Ignoring MITM attacks

Ignore it at your peril.

The skype method of providing communication establishes a permanent a man in the middle. Now, they did it in the beginning to provide exceptional voice service by eliminating NAT and other issues. If you have a decent set of networking tools, you will see the number of connections opened by their client far exceeds a similar VOIP compliant call.

you don't need to trust anything in the middle
You do need to trust what's in the middle because the actual words/audio aren't encrypted to the server. See below illustration.

skypeclient1 --- SkypeServices --- skypeclient2

For those three parties, the voice/text data isn't encrypted. If a bad guy tried to jump in the middle of those three parties after the sessions are created, then yes there is encryption. Any agency would simply listen on the server providing Skype services.

Re:Ignoring MITM attacks

[skeeto]

What you are describing is not end-to-end encryption. TFA seems to indicate that the Tom-Skype software is end-to-end encryption. One end encrypts the message such that that only the other end (the person the user is talking to) can decrypt. This is the same as when you send a PGP encrypted e-mail: you don't have to worry about the mail servers in the middle reading your mail. In true end-to-end encryption, at no point do the servers in the middle normally handle un-encrypted messages. From TFA,

The encrypted list of words inside the Tom-Skype software blocks the transmission of those words and a copy of the message is sent to a server.

The user was betrayed by Skype software itself, the "end", not some server in the middle. The software monitored the messages and sent anything that looked suspicious (i.e. matched a list of words) off to the government.

You should also read up on man-in-the-middle attack because what you described is also not MITM. MITM attacks are active attacks that take advantage of identification and authentication issues and can only be countered in some way external to the communication system that is being secured. A mail server simply eavesdropping (a passive attack) is not MITM.

End-to-end for IMs

[DrYak]

A good start would be AIM/Jabber/* video conferencing protocols using encryption and open source.

Already exists.
It's a plugins called Off the record which is supported in Pidgin (plugin), Adium (out of the box) and several other softwares (including as a stand alone proxy - although slightly less secure : it's still vulnerable to a binary client backdoor).

It doesn't break or change the protocol.
Instead, it works one layer above, encrypting messages before sending them and decrypting them after receiving them.
Indeed it works even with non open protocols, as long as Pidgin/Adium are able to communicate (could be used over MSN or FaceBook).

In those protocols, the server helps you figure out the IP of the person you want to talk to, but otherwise doesn't see the messages (except in AIM for text messages when the user is offline).

With encryption-as-an-additional layer, it doesn't matter if the server sees the messages or not.
What the server will see is a message containing only garbage (base64 or line-noise like). Only after going through the plugin to these message mean something.

Plus, OTR keep track of signatures and alerts if hashes sudenly don't match (if someone is trying a man in the middle attack).

Don't you wish.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The US taps phone calls in an attempt to uncover evidence of violent crimes, to prevent them from happening, and to prosecute and jail those responsible.

And the US intelligence and law enforcement agencies - at all levels and over essentially all time - have a long track record of misusing their investigations for suppressing political enemies, both individual and movements.

This happens over and over and over. (For starters look at the FBI for a number of examples, including J. Edgar Hover's political blackmail files and the COINTELPRO program.) It normally comes to light only a decade or more later, because it happens in secrecy and is only discovered through chance or later examination of records. So it always looks like "It used to be that way but we've cleaned it up now."

You have to keep a tight rein on the government at all times because such power will ALWAYS be misused.

Skype in China

[ChayesFSS]

55555

Left Wing Rhetoric

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't bothering arguing it is a typical left wing rhetorical trick called the Tu Quoque fallacy. Rather than actually discuss the issue (phone tapping China), they'd prefer it if we shifted the burden of proof onto the "main enemy" aka the USA.

Don't worry comrade. It'll be a glorious egalitarian utopia when Obama is voted in where phone tapping is replaced with rainbows and guns with chocolate (see ain't Tu Quoque fallacy fun?).

Bush approved eavesdropping program BEFORE 9/11

[jbeach]

The article incorrectly states that this was as part of an eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.

If we're talking the NSA program to secretly mass-monitor electronic communications of US citizens **whether or not** they're guilty, and with no judicial oversight - this program was actually approved by Bush **right after he got into office in January 2001**.

http://www.truthout.org/article/jason-leopold-bush-authorized-domestic-spying-before-911

Declassified doc showing that's the case, here: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB24/nsa25.pdf

This is an easy mistake to make - because whenever this program is mentioned, it's always deliberately mentioned in the context of 9/11, and mentions changes made after 9/11. But that is all spin.

It's a shame that we have to look that far into the details to find out when a program was started - but with this administration we apparently do.

And as a side note, it's important to know that this was started well before 9/11 - because it also proves it did nothing to stop the 9/11 attacks. This is more proof that this kind of mass warrantless eavesdropping with no oversight doesn't even make us safer from terrorists - it only puts us in more danger from our government.

Posting this note to the original article also.

No Aliens... How naive!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "X-Files" without the aliens.

Oh, there are aliens already. They're just using their fancy surveillance technology to hide from us.

Damn hairy wookies!

milk and powder

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess I should discuss my two favorite activities, titties and cocaine, separately on my next visit to China.

Open Source is not a panacea.

[westlake]

This is also an argument in favor of using open source software.
.

The source code doesn't tell you what resources the NSA or the Chinese can bring to the problem.

You control a single node or super node.

Your adversary controls ten thousand nodes or super nodes - whatever it takes to insure that almost nothing moving across the net escapes their eyes.

'It's "X-Files" without the aliens.'"

[Anonymous Coward]

So it is X-Files!

I told you so!!!

[sideswipe76]

When this ebay/skype deal went down I mentioned here on SD that is was just a way to get skype into the hands of a company under US jurisdiction. Take that a step further: Put it into the hands of a company that can be bought. I got modded interesting +3 before -- now maybe I will get +5

Inconcievable!

[Anonymous Coward]

In the U.S. the PATRIOT ACT allows the current president, and the future 2009-2013 president to do NOT the exact-same thing. The only difference is rather than drag the citizen in front of a firing squad, the Dept. of Homeland Security arrests the NON-citizen and sends them to Guantanamo Bay where it holds them in prison and where they ARE allowed a lawyer and eventually a trial.

There, fixed that for you.

Who uses Encryption?

[Froeschle]

I do and have used encryption. Being the geek that I am I enjoy using it too - however - my non-geek friends and family (which is just about everyone I know and work with) cannot be bothered with it. It would be nice if email/im clients and such actually *implemented* encryption by default. Unfortunately most of the software that non-geeks would use do not use encryption by default and it's a real PITA for most people to implement it.

Jumping to conclusions here ...

[ScrewMaster]

'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.'"

How does he know it's without the aliens?

Here's the solution....easy

[Anonymous Coward]

If people feel like their privacy is being invaded or violated, or if they simply don't like other people listening to their conversations, they should simply employ the good old distributed overload attack, aka DOA. It goes something like this: every time you have a conversation on the phone, skype, what-have-you... make sure to have a quick one or two sentence 'aside' about something you're sure is on one of those "lists of bad words to look for". For example, in China, just as you're about to say good bye and hang up, say instead "So you know, I drank some of that tainted milk at the Falun Gong meeting last week when I was in the Independent Republic of Tibet, ok ttyl bye". And there we go, once 1b people start doing this, I don't think there are ever gonna be enough computers to filter everything out. Even if I am wrong and there will be enough computing power, as the budget for these sort of activities swells under the DOA sooner or later the politicians will realize that it's a silly thing to do anyway.

Duh.

[dtjohnson]

If something CAN be done, it WILL be done.

Nothing new...

[xded]

http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/07/26/152239.shtml

Just goes to show

[Arancaytar]

Closed software cannot be trusted. Personally, I had taken a somewhat naive, optimistic view regarding the makers of Skype, who were admittedly secretive but consistently maintained that their software "contains no malware".

We now know for a fact that this is a direct falsehood.

I'm putting another few bucks into the "put voice-chat into Pidgin" fund now.

Re:Joke about US economy

[Anonymous Coward]

No no, you're thinking of red tape.

Just imagine what QQ calls home about...

[lostinmadnez]

If you got this problem with skype, then you probably have a direct link with social security number to the PSB in tencents QQ.

Now I understand....

[mfriedma]

For example, both countries through people who try to oppose the current rulers in jail. This explains why pro-Democracy activists are jailed in China and why Obama and Biden are jailed in the US. Um... wait a minute... something's wrong there. Can you explain things again so I understand why the US and China are the same?

Absolute nonsense...

[mfriedma]

Speaking about the general level of freedom, and what happens with the spooks' information, I think we probably think the same thing: Americans have a significantly larger set of freedoms than the citizens of China, and have less to fear from the government. However, the spooks in both countries have more or less the same objectives and probably similar methods.

No... you see the spooks in China are trying to prevent the people of China from exercising political power and the replacement of the current party in power with any other party. The spooks in the US are trying to prevent violent attacks. They aren't involved in preventing the replacement of the current party in power with any other party and the people of the US do exercise political power, as we will all see on November 4. It's the difference between a democracy and a totalitarian dictatorship. T