Watch what you say on Skype

One of the last oases of privacy on the Internet, the service for video, phone and "chat" communication, "Skype", has recently cooperated with security services, writes "Washington Post", citing unnamed government and industry insiders.

Although the text is marked as exclusive, it hardly communicates anything new: speculations have been circulating in the "blogosphere" for some time that "Skype" has joined the Big Brother society, that is, that its program has a "back door" built into it that allows the security services to, with a certain procedure (or without it, depending on where), eavesdrop on the user's communications.

Many technical bloggers associate these changes with the change of ownership: "Skype", which was founded in 2003 by two Swedes, in May 2011, was bought for 8,5 billion dollars by the American IT giant "Microsoft", which has a long history of cooperation with the authorities.

The price raised many eyebrows at the time, given that "Skype", which has close to 700 million users, is free for most purposes: only calling via "Internet Protocol" is charged, but at prices many times lower than those offered by telephone companies.

After the sale, Skype became an American company, which is why, according to American laws, it is obliged to include a technical possibility for eavesdropping in its services.

The US law that regulates this area was passed at the beginning of the Internet era, and it requires telecommunications operators and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment to design their programs and devices in such a way that they can be "eavesdropped in real time" by federal agencies.

As the Internet magazine "Slate" (owned by the "Washington Post") announced, hackers noticed a change in the "architecture" of "Skype" back in the spring, explaining it with the need to enable "legal interception" of the communications of this service. Microsoft's corporate public relations service did not want to comment on those changes for this magazine, saying only that "Skype" "cooperates with law enforcement agencies as much as it is legally and technically possible."

According to "Slate", it is an interesting coincidence that just one month after buying Skype, Microsoft registered a patent for the technology of "legal interception", which enables the copying of voice communications over the Internet without the knowledge of the user.

There is no evidence that it was then incorporated into "Skype", but judging by the "privacy policy" that every user accepts as a condition for accessing "Skype", the service is able to hand over the content of communications to the authorities.

There, among other things, it is written that "Skype" or its partners "may provide personal data and the content of communications and traffic data to appropriate judicial, police or government services that legally require such information."

This applies not only to the aforementioned authorities in America, but also to "international" ones. The "Washington Post", referring to informed "representatives of the industry", claims, however, that the program changes that make this possible were made at the end of last year.

Be that as it may, "Skype" is no longer what it was until recently: a service that, due to its technology that made interception of data impossible and the resulting reputation of "secure connection", was gladly used by journalists, activists for the protection of human rights, political dissidents, and those on the other side of the law.