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Russian FSB Can Reportedly Tap Skype Calls
An anonymous reader writes "Previous reports of a Microsoft provided backdoor to Skype has been unconfirmed. However, there are now reports that Russian federal security service FSB is able to tap call and locate users. 'FSB and the Internal Affairs Ministry (MVD) have been capable to wiretap and locate Skype users for some years already, reported Vedomosti on Thursday [Google translation of Russian original]. The newspaper is citing experts on information security. "Special services have been capable for several years not only to wiretap but also to locate a Skype user. That's why, for instance, employees of our company are forbidden to discuss business-related topics on Skype," General Director of Group-IB, Ilya Sachkov, says to Vedomosti. "After Microsoft acquired Skype in May 2011, it updated the software with technology allowing legitimate wiretapping," says Maksim Emm, Director of Peak Systems.'"
The Skype P2P protocol has always been an issue to worry about. It's hard to break/understand, and I've seen research papers that just scratched the surface of the protocol.
I never doubted that really smart minds (like Russians) would eventually crack it and exploit it. This would never happen with an open-source protocol.
Soviet Union was disbanded in the 90's
And therein we learn the lesson about closed source software and proprietary methods. If folk had adopted something based on SIP, XMPP, IAX or any other open and documented protocol, we'd be able to communicate using a tried and tested security mechanism.
For something like communications, if you're totally and absolutely reliant upon a third party then you also need to have total and absolute trust in that third party or you should consider all your communications using them to be public.
Closed source software with obscure network protocol, now owned by a corporation whose main concern isn't the users' best interest, turns out to be not so nice after all. News at 10...
The best way to do use Skype for anything more important than saying hello to your grandmother for free on the internet is not to use Skype. Everybody with half a brain has known that for many years.Duh...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
shouldn't be too hard to trace all packets coming out of an ISP's network in Russia and decode them? or at least decode enough packets for part of a call
and how many fiber connections go into russia from foreign countries? for all we know the FSB has tapped them all and is reading all the data
the NSA was doing something like this a decade ago with Narus appliances
Am I the only one who mentally interpreted the headline as: "Russian Front Side Bus Can Reportedly Tap Skype Calls"?
Would save a lot of trouble.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Great they can tap an IP phone call on Skype. I guess they'll be up on all the gossip at the local middle school! What a travesty.
Why would someone with something to hide use Skype?
Seriously - if you've got something to hide, use something to which you have the source and can control the encryption used.
Special services have been capable for several years not only to wiretap but also to locate a Skype user.
Special services have been capable for several years not only to wiretap but also to locate cellular phone and landline users.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Jitsi provides ZRTP encrypted voice chat. It's free, open source, and cross platform. Why use Skype?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
MS Russia denies allegations
So Russia, like the US and other Western countries, mandate that telecommunications hardware and software allow for wiretapping, or, as it is known internationally, Lawful Intercept
arlet's hear them about my dutch conversations, you know, about the cat coming out of the sleeve, and that it is baconslippery over here. we better called the roadwait.
"Special services have been capable for several years not only to wiretap but also to locate a Skype user."
"not only OF wiretapping but also of locating" etc.
What's happened to Americans' grammar?
"Bob is capable OF fixing a PC" not
"Bob is capable TO fix a PC".
This is a report in a newspaper citing unspecified sources. Moreover, it is in FSB's interest to have people believe that they are more capable/powerful then they really are. A large grain of salt is definitely in order.
This is why the anti-trust watchdogs have backed off in the US -- MS agreed to build in backdoors for spying in its OS.
I had suspected it, but proof was hard to come by.
I predict antitrust problems for Google Chrome/Android products in a few years.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
As an American I'm less bothered about the FSB doing it that than the NSA. Seriously, for my personal stuff, what does the FSB care? I'm much more concerned about the NSA (and if it can be done, I'm sure they are). For similar reasons I use Kaspersky on my personal computers. The FSB doesn't care about my bank account or the web sites I visit. The NSA/CIA/FBI maybe another story. Not that I'm terribly interesting, but having once looked at a web site that was slightly to the left of the Democratic party, I'm probably on some automated terrorist watchlist somewhere.
How could we guarantee no spying or eavesdropping via Skype? I think some sort of scrambling/de-scrambling/encryption program that sits at both ends of the Skype connection would do the trick. I'm surprised nothing like this already exists.
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
That the whole point of microsoft centralizing the skype servers after they bought it was to allow gov't taps.
But can they tap a call that doesn't origin or terminate in Russia? i.e a call from the USA to the UK or anywhere else in the EU.
Even more reason not to use Skype. Use an open source app like Jitsi. It does the same thing as Skype but is open source.
I do care that the russians can intercpet it... but...
It leaked at least as early as 2008, if not sooner that the Germans were intercepting Skype.
Who cares that the FSB can also.
Seriously? Why is this news again? Did everyone fucking forget?
Did you forget that MSFT acquired it since then and would have been required by law to build the capability in if it wasn't there already?
"Reportedly". Bullshit. It's as good as confirmed other people have the capability, and if you're using skype for anything where you have mission critical privacy needs, you're a damned idiot.
Just use satellite scramble phones, that is our militarys preferred option
Is this supposed to be a big surprise or big deal? It's not to anyone who knows about information security.
France can just outsource it's tapping warrants to the Russian FSB
if there is an audible clicking noise when they intercept a call in progress...
Am I the only one who searched for these company names and 'voip' and get results? Seems like the people quoted have a reason to want to make people scared of using Skype. Not saying anyone is right or wrong, but this just seems like rumor spreading.
Í dont think there is such a thing. Certainly this is in the eye of the beholder.
The strength of session keys does not matter. Forget difficulty of proprietary protocol reverse engineering, it is child's play.
Key negotiation is where the gold is, and there is only one real security wall that exists today among symmetric security systems: the Public Key Infrastructures with their strong prime factorization wall.
There are no other walls, only hurdles.
If someone were to pass along one little flash drive with the Certificate Authority chain signing and actual operating SSL private keys to NSA, FSB, whomever, Skype security becomes invisible. Same goes for the private keys for Google, others' SSL certs used for webmail/simap/spop3.
And I'm not talking about some dramatic ninja mission impossible burglary either. Suppose Skype, Google, et cetera were merely threatened with something awful, unthinkable --- unless they comply and hand over the keys. Once they do the pressure is off and everyone can go back to pretending everything is secure. And there are no direct corporate liabilities.
Ain't no free security lunch. Only true security that could ever exist is point-to-point between trusting individuals who have exchanged keys in person.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Yes, the Germas were putting malware on endpoints to listen in on conversations. That's a good bit like tapping a phone but much different than intercepting traffic on the fly and cracking it's crypto. No way is Russia whacking the crypto as easily as this claims.
What you're saying has a great deal of truth to it if it were done but Skype doesn't use SSL for any of it's communications so I think you can rule that one out...
How'd eatin yer words taste http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3417867&cid=42756893 , hmmm? Hahahaha.
Must have tasted pretty bad, considering they were spiced with YER FOOT IN YER MOUTH, lol, and then to top that off, ya also "washed 'em down" with "the bitter taste of SELF-DEFEAT" too, lmao!
(Took ya more than an entire month to eat 'em too, considering ya haven't posted on slashdot since 2/10/2013. Eating yer words != GOOD nutrition, fool. ROTFLMAO!!!)
How'd yer words taste http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3417867&cid=42756893 since you had to 'eat them', troll?
Your point's what? That you're a fool that had to eat his words?? You made your point in having to eat your words in that link above, hahahaha.
You avoid answering how your words tasted too. Gosh, why's that, troll? We know why, rotflmao.
Additionally, your post history shows you stalked apk for weeks, and you have the nerve to deny that???
LMAO. You are stupid, aren't you???? Your own bs gives you away from your post history!
Skype is an eavesdropping service. Im sure all users of it should know that. So what if the FSB can listen in. The bigger news is that Microsoft is tapping all your Skype calls... all the time. The encryption option has nothing to do with Microsofts ability to record everything. And why shouldnt they? Its a great way to build a valuable database of our most private moments. Skype is not regulated by telephone privacy protections laws the way a regular phone provider is. This is why some countries in the EU are trying to force Skype to register as a telephone service... to protect the people (somewhat). Clearly, if your using skype and assuming that there is any level of privacy like you get from regular telephones... you have not read the EULA and terms of service. Or not even bothered to read about the company on wikipedia.
Like jingle or SIP with encyption and it's wide adoption. Not that it's happening anytime soon, but a man can dream...
Jingle and SIP with encryption is called ZRTP (it's just adding an encryption layer over the usual RTP channels used for voice/video chat). And is already supported in several software out-of-the-box (like Jitsi which if often talked about here. But also Twinkle, and others).
For message, you have Off-The-Record, which works above almost any messaging channel. It's also supported by serveral software package out-of-the-box (Jitsi again, or Adium) or with a plugin (Pidgin).
These are technologies which exist RIGHT NOW, that you can START USING TODAY, and using your EXISTING XMPP and SIP accounts.
(Well, for obvious reason ZRTP is useless with SIP-to-PTSN gateways as the encryption last only to the gateway, not to the end-point.
And ZRTP is useless with Facebook's XMPP gateway, as they don't support Jingle video/voice chat, but use a Skype plugin instead. But you can still use OTR: both endpoint will be able to chat to each other, while the thing which ends in facebooks servers looks like encrypter crap.
But for anything else it's already doable).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Micro$soft may be providing backdoors now but prior? No way. This is FUD by the Russians.
That's not FUD. Skype's EULA has been clear about it since even before being acquired by Microsoft.
(Or at least it was back when I looked at it)
They will comply with local legal requirement, including investigation assisting.
For me that sounds that back-doors have always been a possibility should they be legally required to include them.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]