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Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

skypeopenletter.com

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Re: Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

#41

Post by wmf »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #6

Has there been any confirmation of the very juicy rumor about Skype and the NSA? Brieftly it is this: The NSA put out a $1 billion RFP to crack the encryption of skype - their inability to listen in on this huge communication channel was really a bummer for the NSA. Microsoft says "Hmm" and buys Skype for $8 billion, re-engineers the archtecture of Skype so that it is centralized rather than P2P and easily decrypted…

OTOH, I've heard that years-old versions of Skype still work fine and if you believe that those old versions have working end-to-end crypto...

Re: Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

#42

Post by magikarp »

StavrosK wrote: post #34
polymatter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only know about Tor ( https://www.torproject.org ) which could help. I hope someone else can recommend any others.

https://silentcircle.com/ aims to do just that, secure communications. Disclosure: I work there.

As the person behind the Open Letter to Skype, I have also written copiously about how dangerous Silent Circle is to cryptography software development.

Silent Circle has repeatedly told untruths in the media regarding the open source nature of their software. Their software remains largely closed and not open for public review (except for Silent Text, which has only released incomplete source code.)

All the same, Silent Circle has been consciously targeting activists in life-or-death situations. They have repeatedly told activist and the media that their tools are open source and transparently and publicly reviewed. Silent Circle has been lying to those in life and death situations for four months. Their software, except for portions of Silent Text, is not publicly reviewed and closed source software. Furthermore, they claim to have servers based in Canada whereas most of their network is in the U.S., subject to U.S. surveillance laws.

I have written about this here:

http://log.nadim.cc/?p=89 http://log.nadim.cc/?p=102

Re: Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

#43

Post by marme »

The problem with complain to microsoft about this is they are locked into some of these things with deal skype setup before they were bought out. Microsoft is contractually obligated to only supply skype TOM in china, this is the reason why they wont shutdown MSN in china because they are unable to control the skype network within china. You cant expect microsoft to reveal all these things while they are trying to clean house and get skype in order. Dont hold your breath on microsoft revealing anything

Re: Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

#44

Post by [deleted] »

StavrosK wrote: post #39
dmix wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phil Zimmermann founded this? Nice. Although I remember reading about the lack of open source and the odd terms of service wording. http://log.nadim.cc/?p=89 Is that still being addressed?

Okay, before I say anything, this isn't official in any way, as I only work on the web-facing side, so this is just my experience: I couldn't really respond about either, because I don't know, but I know that the Silent Text sources are on GitHub: https://github.com/SilentCircle/silent-text The rest of the clients's code is probably being cleaned up, but I guess we're trying to build more functionality and are very b…

[deleted]

Re: Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

#45

Post by StavrosK »

magikarp wrote: post #42
StavrosK wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://silentcircle.com/ aims to do just that, secure communications. Disclosure: I work there.

As the person behind the Open Letter to Skype, I have also written copiously about how dangerous Silent Circle is to cryptography software development. Silent Circle has repeatedly told untruths in the media regarding the open source nature of their software. Their software remains largely closed and not open for public review (except for Silent Text, which has only released incomplete source code.) All the same, Sil…

I couldn't comment on that, as I hadn't heard about these concerns before. My personal opinion is the opposite from yours, I think you're reading too much of a bad intention into a startup having its hands full with development. I guess the issue will be put to rest when the code is released, so there's no point in arguing about it too much.

Re: Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

#46

Post by magikarp »

StavrosK wrote: post #45
magikarp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the person behind the Open Letter to Skype, I have also written copiously about how dangerous Silent Circle is to cryptography software development. Silent Circle has repeatedly told untruths in the media regarding the open source nature of their software. Their software remains largely closed and not open for public review (except for Silent Text, which has only released incomplete source code.) All the same, Sil…

I couldn't comment on that, as I hadn't heard about these concerns before. My personal opinion is the opposite from yours, I think you're reading too much of a bad intention into a startup having its hands full with development. I guess the issue will be put to rest when the code is released, so there's no point in arguing about it too much.

I would appreciate it if Silent Circle did not repeatedly claim to the media that the code has already been openly released and reviewed when it hasn't been.

Re: Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

#47

Post by StavrosK »

magikarp wrote: post #46
StavrosK wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't comment on that, as I hadn't heard about these concerns before. My personal opinion is the opposite from yours, I think you're reading too much of a bad intention into a startup having its hands full with development. I guess the issue will be put to rest when the code is released, so there's no point in arguing about it too much.

I would appreciate it if Silent Circle did not repeatedly claim to the media that the code has already been openly released and reviewed when it hasn't been.

I'm not aware of that. The Silent Text repo is here:

https://github.com/SilentCircle/silent-text

Do you have any references of anyone saying the code of the other clients has been released? I'm curious.

Re: Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

#48

Post by sandstrom »

StavrosK wrote: post #45
magikarp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the person behind the Open Letter to Skype, I have also written copiously about how dangerous Silent Circle is to cryptography software development. Silent Circle has repeatedly told untruths in the media regarding the open source nature of their software. Their software remains largely closed and not open for public review (except for Silent Text, which has only released incomplete source code.) All the same, Sil…

I couldn't comment on that, as I hadn't heard about these concerns before. My personal opinion is the opposite from yours, I think you're reading too much of a bad intention into a startup having its hands full with development. I guess the issue will be put to rest when the code is released, so there's no point in arguing about it too much.

Perhaps this is a good time and place to do so (just because you hear something for the first time doesn't mean that you can't comment).

(I think both Silent Circle and the Skype open letter initiative are great and I'm not affiliated with any of them. Just wanted to point out that not being able to comment on something because it's the first time one hears it sounds weird.)

Re: Open Letter to Skype from Internet Activists, Journalists and Academics

#49

Post by StavrosK »

sandstrom wrote: post #48
StavrosK wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't comment on that, as I hadn't heard about these concerns before. My personal opinion is the opposite from yours, I think you're reading too much of a bad intention into a startup having its hands full with development. I guess the issue will be put to rest when the code is released, so there's no point in arguing about it too much.

Perhaps this is a good time and place to do so (just because you hear something for the first time doesn't mean that you can't comment). (I think both Silent Circle and the Skype open letter initiative are great and I'm not affiliated with any of them. Just wanted to point out that not being able to comment on something because it's the first time one hears it sounds weird.)

I meant I can't comment with prior knowledge, because I haven't discussed these issues, not having heard them before. I did comment with my personal opinion in the next sentence.
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