

Talibans abusing VoIP Skype client  - omfut
http://latestgeeknews.blogspot.com/2008/09/talibans-abusing-voip-skype-client.html

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noonespecial
1) Computers can encrypt data. Good encryption is easy to use and
prohibitively hard to break.

2) Voice is really just data.

These two concepts are still very vague in the minds of politicians and the
like but they are coming closer to finally colliding. Dim little bulbs are
soon going to come on over certain heads and we may have us a short trip to
Vernor Vinge's SHE.

I wonder how the people who went so far in recent days to tap phones (both
legally and otherwise) will react when they finally realize that the age of
the "phone tap" is coming to an end,

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thamer
Why abusing? They are just using the standard features. Does “they are abusing
the client” means “I disagree with their use”?

~~~
omfut
I guess they are using the standard features knowing the loopholes in the
client. They know for sure that these calls cannot be wiretapped. This, I
guess is one of the reasons why they are using skype instead of other
gazillion clients

------
wheels
The people that planned September 11th weren't idiots. If they could train
several people how to fly a 747, they can figure out encrypting their
communication. Once again, all this will really do is erode the privacy of
everyone else, all while waving the carte blanche that is "saving us from the
terrorists". I wish Thomas Jefferson could come back from the dead to tear
these guys a new one.

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mindslight
That horseman is a little lonely there all by itself. Can't you add something
about organized crime?

The FCC hasn't requested Skype to add a backdoor because that would only drive
people away from Skype to secure solutions.

~~~
Herring
skype already has a backdoor, google it.

The problem is network effects again.

~~~
mindslight
Which is why my comment was highly dismissive of this article as anything but
parroting of anti-privacy propaganda. I'd bet that these scary Taliban
transmissions are being intercepted just fine.

Requiring an overt backdoor for law enforcement would just encourage people to
move away from Skype, diminishing the value of whatever covert backdoors it
has.

~~~
omfut
This is not something new. Law enforcement official have the ability to
wiretap voice calls over landline and mobile. The issue is with the Voice
calls that take place over the internet. I agree privacy is an issue here.
However, we are missing the bigger cause here. These backdoors, if used
genuinely can save lot of lives and stop crime and terrorism.

~~~
mindslight
> These backdoors, if used genuinely can save lot of lives and stop crime and
> terrorism.

Don't forget kiddie porn and money laundering! They're feeling a little left
out here.

"Bigger cause" ? Physics does not work that way. The _only_ leverage over
Skype is that it's closed source.

Crypto genie is not going back in the bottle.

