Skype Surveillance
(via http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1o7zfr/skype_under_investigation_in_luxembourg_over_link/)
The NSA was offering billions to anyone who offers a reliable eavesdropping solution for Skype.
1)
Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5 billion, more than twice what Google or Facebook were offering.
2)
A month later, Microsoft was granted a patent for a “legal intercept” technology designed to be used with VoIP services like Skype, which enables silently copying communications transmitted through them.
3)
MS moved Skype's supernodes to its own in-house data centers, getting rid of the decentralized P2P architecture of Skype (which was hindering eavesdropping).
4) and
5)
MS continued to state that the move to this new architecture is to ensure stability/reliability of the network.
6)
However, they continue refusing to comment on whether they eavesdrop on the communications, and their ToS/privacy policy make no guarantees about this.
7)
MS buying Skype for a whooping $8.5 billion, makes it a telecommunications carrier. And under CALEA, “telecommunications carriers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment are required to modify and design their equipment, facilities, and services to ensure they have built-in surveillance capabilities, allowing federal agencies to monitor all telephone, broadband internet, and VoIP traffic in real-time.”
8)
Skype developed a backdoor access system for the NSA before the Microsoft acquisition as part of a secret project involving only a dozen people and created by the government.
9)
Report: Skype Formed Secret “Project Chess” to Make Chats Available to Government
10)
What should I use then?
An alternative for your IM/VoIP needs is Jitsi. It's open source, supports every popular protocol, and out of the box full end-to-end encryption (uses OTR for instant messaging encryption and SRTP and ZRTP for XMPP and SIP encryption).