wizzard

All Your Skype Are Belong To Us

It's confirmed -- Skype is revealing traffic to Microsoft.

A reader informed heise Security that he had observed some unusual network traffic following a Skype instant messaging conversation. The server indicated a potential replay attack. It turned out that an IP address which traced back to Microsoft had accessed the HTTPS URLs previously transmitted over Skype. Heise Security then reproduced the events by sending two test HTTPS URLs, one containing login information and one pointing to a private cloud-based file-sharing service. A few hours after their Skype messages, they observed the following in the server log:

65.52.100.214 - - [30/Apr/2013:19:28:32 +0200]
"HEAD /.../login.html?user=tbtest&password=geheim HTTP/1.1"

Utrace map
Zoom The access is coming from systems which clearly belong to Microsoft.
Source: Utrace They too had received visits to each of the HTTPS URLs transmitted over Skype from an IP address registered to Microsoft in Redmond. URLs pointing to encrypted web pages frequently contain unique session data or other confidential information. HTTP URLs, by contrast, were not accessed. In visiting these pages, Microsoft made use of both the login information and the specially created URL for a private cloud-based file-sharing service.

Now, the boys & girls at Heise are switched-on, unlike their counterparts on the eastern side of the pond. Notwithstanding, Adam Back of hashcash fame has confirmed the basics: URLs he sent to me over skype were picked up and probed by Microsoft.

What's going on? Microsoft commented:

In response to an enquiry from heise Security, Skype referred them to a passage from its data protection policy:

"Skype may use automated scanning within Instant Messages and SMS to (a) identify suspected spam and/or (b) identify URLs that have been previously flagged as spam, fraud, or phishing links."

A spokesman for the company confirmed that it scans messages to filter out spam and phishing websites.

Which means Microsoft can scan ALL messages to ANYONE. Which means they are likely fed into Echelon, either already, or just as soon as someone in the NSA calls in some favours. 10 minutes later they'll be realtimed to support, and from thence to datamining because they're pissed that google's beating the hell out of Microsoft on the Nasdaq.

Game over?

Or exaggeration? It's just fine and dandy as all the NSA are interested in is matching the URLs to jihadist websites. I don't care so much for the towelheads. But, from the manual of citizen control comes this warning:

First they came for the jihadists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a jihadist.

Then they came for the cypherpunks,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a cypherpunks.

Then they came for the bloggers,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a blogger.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

Skype, game over.