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Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

signal.org

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Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#11

Post by fhood »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #5

I guess I'll be downvoted to hell, but.... This absolutely stinks. Signal is most likely blessed by the NSA. This is a ruse to get people comfortable with using Skype again for confidential conversations. Ever since Microsoft bought Skype and completely gutted it, it's been an open secret that they only did so to fulfill an $8B RFP by the NSA to break Skype's encryption. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8106721 h…

You know what else absolutely stinks? Skype in general. I cannot fathom why something so simple as remembering conversation history is beyond their engineers.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#14

Post by usaphp »

While on topic of Skype: My God the latest Skype design update is abysmal, whoever come up with that horrible mess should be fired and never touch any design or management role at all.

And it’s not only design but the ux is horrible too, when you switch between conversation - it does not focus on the chat box field so you can start typing right away, instead you have to click it first. This is a basic stuff for a chatting app and whoever missed that is apparently clueless about ux

Edit: also if any of Skype iOS app developers is reading this - on iPhone X when you accidentally click top left corner of the phone where the clock is - for some inexplicable reason the whole conversation scrolls all the way to the top, which is incredibly annoying!

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#15

Post by notatoad »

ryanpcmcquen wrote: post #3

Ugh, people are still using Skype?

Anecdotally, Skype seems to be the go-to solution for talking to infrequent business contacts. If you don't want to give somebody your personal number or your WhatsApp or similar, and they're not on your slack, but you want something quicker than email then Skype is the usual solution.

If you suggest some app they don't already know, it might feel like you're inconveniencing your contact. but everybody knows skype and it seems like there's an implicit understanding that if you aren't on skype you should be, so it's always the fallback option for chat apps.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#17

Post by GunlogAlm »

fhood wrote: post #11
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #5

I guess I'll be downvoted to hell, but.... This absolutely stinks. Signal is most likely blessed by the NSA. This is a ruse to get people comfortable with using Skype again for confidential conversations. Ever since Microsoft bought Skype and completely gutted it, it's been an open secret that they only did so to fulfill an $8B RFP by the NSA to break Skype's encryption. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8106721 h…

You know what else absolutely stinks? Skype in general. I cannot fathom why something so simple as remembering conversation history is beyond their engineers.

But... Skype does remember conversation history?

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#18

Post by fhood »

GunlogAlm wrote: post #17
fhood wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what else absolutely stinks? Skype in general. I cannot fathom why something so simple as remembering conversation history is beyond their engineers.

But... Skype does remember conversation history?

Not the version I use for work. If you close the conversation, the history is gone, unless you fancy digging it up in Outlook, which of course you don't, because the way it is stored there is terrible.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#19

Post by DKnoll »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #5

I guess I'll be downvoted to hell, but.... This absolutely stinks. Signal is most likely blessed by the NSA. This is a ruse to get people comfortable with using Skype again for confidential conversations. Ever since Microsoft bought Skype and completely gutted it, it's been an open secret that they only did so to fulfill an $8B RFP by the NSA to break Skype's encryption. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8106721 h…

2/4 of the links in your sources don't work.

I don't see any evidence that the OTF is a front for the NSA, or that you think somebody with the capability to make that in a year would sell their soul for $455,000.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#20

Post by criddell »

woah wrote: post #8
Aissen wrote: post #2

I can't help but read this with a cynical voice in my head: Skype used to have an incredibly bleeding edge P2P E2E encrypted protocol, and Microsoft threw it all away. Some might say for good reasons (mobile use case, supernodes straining routers, legal wiretap compliance issues); I'd respectfully disagree and observe that there's just going full-circle.

Did they remove some e2e encryption or did they just start running the supernodes themselves/move closer to a centralized architecture?

Considering that they can comply with wiretap orders from law enforcement, I'd say there's no e2e encryption. Maybe e2msft2e.

Also, I don't think they ever encrypt their chat. I remember a while ago where somebody showed that when you send a private web address to the person you are chatting to, that URL is visited by a machine with an IP belonging to Microsoft. That was a few years ago though and I think the explanation was that Microsoft was looking for malware.

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