Even if the sensational headline is accurate, it's not worth the conspiracy theories:<p>(1) Microsoft is a US Corporation<p>(2) With the Skype acquisition, Microsoft (arguably) becomes a telecommunications carrier.<p>(3) CALEA passed in 1994, "requiring telecommunications carriers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment 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." [a]<p>My (unfounded, optimistic) speculation is the skype acquisition was strategic positioning in the mobile market: seamless cutover to skype when your phone has WiFi.<p>a - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...</a>
Contrary to the article, Skype didn't previously use supernodes for traffic between NATed clients. They were just used for NAT hole punching and then the traffic was direct between the clients.<p>It is possible that after receiving a wiretap request Skype will route your calls differently. But they could have rolled this out by just upgrading the supernode code and keeping supernodes distributed.<p>It seems far more likely that they made this change for stability/reliability. Particularly after the Skype network crashes that have happened in the past.
The change is interesting (though not that new it seems), but Microsoft flatly state that calls do not go over supernodes [1]:<p>"This has not changed the underlying nature of Skype’s peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture, in which supernodes simply allow users to find one another (calls do not pass through supernodes)."<p>Now obviously this could be a lie, but it should be fairly simple to prove one way or another - simply force a call between 2 NAT'd clients, and trace where the voice packets go, it'll either be to one of these newly centralised supernodes, or somewhere else?<p>1 - <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-replaces-p2p-supernodes-with-linux-boxes-hosted-by-microsoft/" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-replaces-p2p-s...</a>
wow a 2 month old blog post with a HN comment as a single source?<p>To keep OT:
Perhaps they will be soon required to be able to wiretap
<a href="http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/security/111150/eu-seeks-to-change-skype-wiretapping-laws/" rel="nofollow">http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/security/111150/eu-seeks-to-...</a><p>It will also bring benefits to end users if the client's machines won't become supernodes. And perhaps avoid the problems from last December
<a href="http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2010/12/understanding-todays-skype-outage-explaining-supernodes.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2010/12/understanding-tod...</a>
The title is clearly a completely unsupported hypothesis.<p>Why do HN mods change perfectly good titles seemingly at a whim, and then when there's a linkbait title screaming to be changed, then don't touch it?
Just thinking out loud, but wouldn't it be possible to build a simple skype-addon that would look at your network traffic and be able to tell if your voice conversations were going through a supernode and not p2p.<p>This way you would get a quick indicator of whether or not you were likely being monitored.
<i>"Microsoft has replaced P2P Skype supernodes with thousands of Linux boxes"</i>
from <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-replaces-p2p-supernodes-with-linux-boxes-hosted-by-microsoft/" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-replaces-p2p-s...</a><p>Wow. Does it make it the first, large scale, internal(¹) deployment of non-Windows infrastructure by Microsoft? The question is: why? Do their engineers managed to convince the company that Windows is ill-suited to the task? I am quite stupefied.<p>(¹) "Internal" as opposed to situations where Microsoft inherited non-Windows infrastructure from external acquisitions, such as when they acquired Hotmail in 1997 and their 5000 FreeBSD servers (eventually migrated to Windows.)
The implication with wiretapping (and the NSA acronym) is that it is about security and safety against criminals and terrorists. I've always wondered how much of a business advantage it is to be able to tap into the world's biggest VoIP network?<p>I've seen Skype being used a lot in businesses both centralized and decentralized.
I admit I don't know much about the internals of this, but maybe it's because, by serving as a node to forward other transmissions, the former Skype client drained people's mobile broadband data budgets. In this way they avoid this.
I think it is more likely because they want to build a social network for collaboration around Office 365, Yammer and Skype, and maybe, be able to give some uptime/quality guarantees to customers (things would not necessarily be better, but more under control of Microsoft)<p>If you have a distributed system but want to wiretap some calls, I think it would be easier to have some back door for instructing clients "whenever you make a call/get a call from one of these numbers, CC us".
The evidence on this one is rather thin. It takes a speculation in a comment on HN about what Microsoft <i>could</i> be doing - without any proof that they are actually doing it, adds some code that proves something Microsoft claims they do not do could be done if they wanted to do it - and the conclusion is Microsoft definitely has sold everybody to the Man. I think a jump from "they could be doing it" to "they did it" requires more proof than that.
This is the kind of thing that makes it annoying that just about all interesting internet companies are in the US. Why can't Europe step up with some competition?
The National Security Agency put out an RFP for Skype decrypting/intercepting awhile back and this was the first thing that popped back into my mind when Microsoft bought Skype. Then, when M announced they were replacing the supernodes, it only re-confirmed what was going on, in my mind.
Any privacy we could had using Skype was dead the same day MSFT bought them. It was just a matter of time to make it official.<p>What's gonna be from now on? Stay put, and watch it.
Remember Microsoft has major contracts and relationships with the Chinese and Korean government, among others. This stuff is the dark underside of a Microsoft aquisition. Of course, they have relationships with the US govt as well, but Americans are obstensibly protected by the Constitution -- those protections (as well as due process) don't French exist in many countries with whom Microsoft does business.
Wiretapping sounds so innocent. Of course, all US comms must be available for lawful wiretaps in fight against crime.<p>No, what we're dealing with here is a dragnet cast upon the comms of users around the world, who aren't protected by US Constitution and thus can be tapped at will by US agencies and even private corporations without any warrants or oversight.<p>For instance, if Microsoft wanted to learn about technical or trade secrets of competitors communicating through Skype (say, a couple of start-up founders), now they're free to do it.<p>Also, if a US agency wanted to put on a no-fly list some people who casually converse about what morons those TSA people are or how all US administrations support the Israeli regime that commits war crimes against Palestinians, now it's very easy to do.
I think these 2 older articles support that conclusion as well:<p><a href="http://www.conceivablytech.com/8108/products/microsoft-may-add-eavesdropping-to-skype" rel="nofollow">http://www.conceivablytech.com/8108/products/microsoft-may-a...</a><p><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_...</a><p>All of the sudden the outrageous $8.5 billion price Microsoft paid for Skype (and twice as much as any other competing bid) starts to make sense.