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Microsoft Reads Your Skype Chat Messages
An anonymous reader writes "A Microsoft server accesses URLs sent in Skype chat messages, even if they are HTTPS URLs and contain account information. A reader of Heise publications notified Heise Security (link to German website, Google translation). They replicated the observation by sending links via Skype, including one to a private file storage account, and found that these URLs are shortly after accessed from a Microsoft IP address. When confronted, Microsoft claimed that this is part of an effort to detect and filter spam and phishing URLs."
So, as I fully expected, this whole campaign about users being "Scroogled" that Microsoft has been involved in is misdirection, and they do the same thing.
Wanna bet they also scrape your hotmail and everything else in the same way they accuse Google of doing?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's no different than Google checking URL's for malware and warning you when you click a URL hosted on any of the Googleservices.
Also, this:
that makes no sense. First, why would HTTPS be some sort of exception? It's not like SSL'ing a website is all that difficult.
Second, why would you supposedly go through the trouble of using a 'secure' HTTP address if you are then going to pass in account credentials in the URL?
I know the whole communication is encrypted, but why would you pass "https://user:secret@www.supersecurebank.com/something?foo=bar" via a Skype message if it was really the intention to be secure ( putting aside the absurdity of leaving credentials in the URL ).
Long story short, this looks like Skype looking out for the 99% of the internet, and the 1% are crying foul. I'd rather every link my family sends each other via Skype be threat checked.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage