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[News] Skype (also for Linux) is Spyware Indeed

  • Subject: [News] Skype (also for Linux) is Spyware Indeed
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 01:50:52 +0100
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
Skype 1.4.0.99 reads /etc/ passwd and firefox profile!

,----[ Quote
| I just did an strace on Skype and can confirm your findings.
| 
| I fact I have recently been thinking about the "Bundestrojaner" german 
| minister Schäuble is planning to use and found that Skype would be the 
| perfect place to hide it:  
| - it is installed on a majority of systems
| - it is protected against decompilation / debuggers
| - it bypasses almost any firewall
| - it uses encryption for network traffic
| - it may send lots of data even when not making a call
| - it might have already been deployed by the NSA
| - eBay has a history of cooperating with federal agencies
| 
| But of course you would not care about big brother reading your harddrive 
| unless you are a terrorist... 
`----

http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=95261


Related:

Beware of Skype

,----[ Quote ]
| The Skype network has been a concern of government intelligence agencies 
| since its inception because it provides a worldwide network of encrypted VoIP 
| calls to potential “terrorists”. So how coincidental is it that 10 days after 
| Bush signs into law a Bill giving the government authority to track foreign 
| calls that go through U.S. networks that Skype, for the first time in its 
| existence, undergoes a massive worldwide outage?     
| 
| [...]
| 
| But there are FOSS alternatives to Skype people really should start 
| considering now. One is the OpenWengo Project. Businesses, and even 
| individuals, should also consider setting up their own Asterisk servers with 
| encryption.   
`----

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/2479


Skype Reads Your BIOS and Motherboard Serial Number

,----[ Quote ]
| An unreadable executable file coming from Skype sounds interesting,
| so I look at it. It's 46 bytes long. For copyright reasons I can't
| post the file or a complete disassembly. However, I can describe
| the program in terms of 16-bit DOS C:
|
| int main(void)
| {
| fwrite((const void far*) 0xF0000000, 1, 0xFFFF, stdout);
| fwrite((const void far*) 0xF000FFFF, 1, 1, stdout);
| return 0;
| }
|
| It's dumping your system BIOS, which usually includes your
| motherboard's serial number, and pipes it to the Skype application.
| I have no idea what they're using it for, or whether they send
| anything to their servers, but I bet whatever they?re doing is no
| good given their track record.
`----

http://www.pagetable.com/?p=27 


Skype staff play good cop bad cop with Linux users

,----[ Quote ]
| Thank goodness for another staff member, Ryan Hunt, who injected a 
| little decorum into the thread, and more than a little honesty, by
| admitting “With 1.4 we're taking it back to basics so we can do it 
| right - because that's what you deserve” and stating that “One of 
| the features at the heart of 1.4 is the greatly improved audio 
| quality and stability.
`----

http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1501.html


Why proprietary code is bad for security

,----[ Quote ]
| Tho Skype is using an encrypted protocol, it’s still their own, non-disclosed 
| code and property. So we don’t know what it contains. 
|
| [...]
|
| It’s time to stop accepting that *we* are the bad guys, and to stop consuming 
| things we just don’t understand (and cannot, because they are proprietary,  
| closed-source systems). 
| 
| Say no to companies, or even governments who treat you like this. Start using 
| open sourced products and protocols wherever you can. Even if *you* could 
| still never understand the code used in these systems, there are still lots 
| of people who can, and who will examine it. The magic word here is “peer 
| review” - your friend or buddy or neighbour may be able to understand all 
| that, and to help. No, not with Skype or Windows or any black box from Cisco.      
`----

http://wolfgang.lonien.de/?p=394

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