On 08/29/2009 02:09 PM, Joel Gomberg wrote:
On 08/29/2009 12:56 PM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 12:30:53 -0700,
> "Daniel B. Thurman"<dant(a)cdkkt.com> wrote:
>>
>> [perhaps off topic, but interesting security implications?]
>
> Yeah, don't let LE install trojan software on machines you use.
>
>> I wonder if backdoors are installed to comply with
>> government& law enforcement requirements. In the US,
>
> The Skype backdoors that have been covered in public (recently and in
> the
> past) that I have seen have all been additional software installed by LE
> on the victum's machine, not something specifically built into Sykpe.
> Since
> calls are dispatched through central servers and Skype is a US company,
> presumably call record information is being captured by the US, en
> masse. Some
> other governments probably also get easy access to this data.
What do you mean when you say that "calls are dispatched through
central servers?" I thought Skype was P2P application:
http://www.skype.com/intl/en/help/guides/p2pexplained/
They say they use a global index with a decentralized user directory,
but I have no idea what this means in practice. When you talk about
call record information being captured, do you mean summary records or
recordings? I would find it much easier to believe the former than
the latter.
I would presume that once a call record is given,
it leads to the source of everything else when
requested by the authorities or anyone else
with a judge's authorization? The sticking point
in this arrangement, I think, allows the authorities
to "peek" legally, and if enough [criminal] information
is obtained from this call record, to pursue further
information a with FISA, court order, or "by some other
classified [spook?] means"?