Top-Secret NSA Powerpoint Slide Shows How to Hack Skype Calls; Microsoft Claimed Otherwise
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[url]http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/06/13/nsa_surveillance_leaks_suggest_microsoft_may_have_misled_public_on_skype.html[/url]
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[img]http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/future_tense/2013/06/13/nsa_surveillance_leaks_suggest_microsoft_may_have_misled_public_on_skype/166721853.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large.jpg[/img]
Last week, the Guardian and the Washington Post reported that Internet giants including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo are involved in an NSA program that enables the government to monitor emails, file transfers, photos, videos, chats, and other private data. The companies have denied providing the NSA with “direct access” to their servers. However, executives from unnamed companies linked to PRISM have since acknowledged some level of participation in the NSA program—which appears to involve using broad court orders issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to gain access to foreigners’ private communications.
There were many striking details in the Washington Post’s scoop about PRISM and its capabilities, but one part in particular stood out to me. The Post, citing a top-secret NSA PowerPoint slide, wrote that the agency has a specific “User’s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection” that outlines how it can eavesdrop on Skype “when one end of the call is a conventional telephone and for any combination of [b]'audio, video, chat, and file transfers' when Skype users connect by computer alone.”[/b] (Emphasis added.)
This piece of information is significant for a number of reasons. Last year, speculation arose in the hacker community that Skype, which was purchased by Microsoft in 2011 and had been difficult to wiretap, had become compliant with law enforcement demands. I pressured Skype to disclose its eavesdropping capabilities, but the company refused to discuss the matter. After a range of advocacy groups published an open letter calling for more clarity on the issue, Microsoft eventually released a transparency report detailing information about law enforcement requests for user data. The report devoted an entire section to Skype and claimed that in 2012, it hadn’t handed any communications content over to authorities anywhere in the world. Microsoft also said in notes accompanying the transparency report that calls made between Skype-Skype users were encrypted peer-to-peer, implying that they did not pass through Microsoft’s central servers and could not be eavesdropped on—except maybe if the government deployed a spy Trojan on a targeted computer to bypass encryption.
But the NSA “PRISM Skype Collection” guide casts doubt on whether any Skype communications are beyond the NSA’s reach. That the NSA claims to be able to grab all Skype users’ communications also calls into question the credibility of Microsoft’s transparency report—particularly the claim that in 2012 it did not once hand over the content of any user communications. Moreover, according to a leaked NSA slide published by the Post, Skype first became part of the NSA’s PRISM program in February 2011—three months before Microsoft purchased the service from U.S. private equity firms Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz.
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Who knew that Powerpoint could be so invasive :v:.
I'm on Skype right now.
That's just a bit worrying.
[QUOTE=IceyMalone;41021547]I'm on Skype right now.
That's just a bit worrying.[/QUOTE]
As long as you don't make a cellphone call you should be okay.
Otherwise they'll whip out the powerpoint slide and figure out how to get all of your call data :v:.
i thought people knew already that skype was unsafe, its everywhere for quite sometime, and that microsoft was working with the US goverment too.
NSA just keeps looking better and better.
[QUOTE=Reimu;41021446]Who knew that Powerpoint could be so invasive :v:.[/QUOTE]
The real message of this whole ordeal is, the NSA better stop using PowerPoint.
[QUOTE=DrTaxi;41022369]The real message of this whole ordeal is, the NSA better stop using PowerPoint.[/QUOTE]
Yeah. Keynote is so much flashier for this sort of stuff.
You could have the "How to Hack Skype" headline come in with a comet, and then set the "Microsoft" logo on fire.
The guy looks derpy and cross-eyed.
[QUOTE=Reimu;41022396]Yeah. Keynote is so much flashier for this sort of stuff.
You could have the "How to Hack Skype" headline come in with a comet, and then set the "Microsoft" logo on fire.[/QUOTE]
related: [url]http://www.slideshare.net/EmilandDC/dear-nsa-let-me-take-care-ou[/url]
I stopped using Skype before it was cool to not use Skype.
Also, use Jitsi if you're worried about the NSA watching your intimate liasons with you-know-who
[QUOTE=Lev;41023117]I stopped using Skype before it was cool to not use Skype.
Also, use Jitsi if you're worried about the NSA watching your intimate liasons with you-know-who[/QUOTE]
No, I don't know who. Please do tell us who you're "hypothetically" communicating with. Wink. Nudge. Am I doing this right? Uhh, Squirtle use splash!
[QUOTE=Worldwaker;41025029]No, I don't know who. Please do tell us who you're "hypothetically" communicating with. Wink. Nudge. Am I doing this right? Uhh, Squirtle use splash![/QUOTE]
It's a hypothetical you-know-who... I'm just remembering back to the spam messages I'd get every so often.. "HI THERE sugar, I am so lonely would you please skype back for fun!!"
Only their spelling was 10x worse than that.
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