Skype Users Gain Back Some Privacy Thanks to New Program

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When you?re Skyping with a friend, how private do you think your conversation is?? You may think that a closed door and a private chat session is enough to protect your privacy, but it can be surprisingly easy for other internet users and law enforcement officials to eavesdrop on your friendly conversation.

Tech savvy individuals don?t need a spy listening device or a few hidden surveillance cameras learn about a Skype user?s private information.? In the past Skype was heavily criticized by both the US government and other countries for their data encryption methods and other features that made it difficult to track users and their information.? Since the company was purchased by Microsoft they?ve been quietly making changes to their programming and services to appease upset federal authorities.

It?s no secret that Skype has recently made it easier for policemen and other law enforcement officials to recover transcripts from online chats, but some aren?t aware of all the personal information the proper authorities can get from your Skype activities.? In the summer of 2012 Skype made changes to their programming that can give the authorities information on their user?s entire chat history, addresses, and even credit card numbers.

Skype users and privacy advocates have been extremely critical about Skype?s newest changes, and have also been speculating about other possible semi-secret changes Microsoft has made to make monitoring its users easier.? Thanks to talented individuals from The Institute of Telecommunications in Warsaw, Poland, Skype users now have a way to make some of their personal communications private once again.? Wojciech Mazurczyk is the head on the institute?s SkypeHide system, and their newest discovery can allow users to hide extra non-chat messages when they?re making a call.

After analyzing Skype data traffic during calls the team discovered an interesting feature.? When Skype transmits silence it chooses to forgo sending no data between spoken works, instead it sends 70 bit long data packets instead of its usual 130 bit ones that carry speech.? The researchers found a way to hijack the silence packets and inject them with encrypted message data which the message receiver can decode.? Since the secret data is indistinguishable from the silence data, it is extremely difficult for outside parties to detect it.? The team found that they could send secret text, audio, and even video during Skype calls at a rate of almost 1 kilobit per second.

The team is planning on presenting their SkypeHide system at a steganography conference in June, but if you?re interested in learning about the system you can read about it in the paper that they?ve chosen to publish online.

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Source: http://www.spyassociatesblog.com/2013/02/skype-users-gain-back-some-privacy-thanks-to-new-program/

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