From the creators of Skype: Wire provides E2E encrypted text and high-quality audio, has an open-source server and client, does not mandate disclosure of phone number or contacts, and is moving towards the IETF MLS protocol for E2E encrypted messaging.
Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
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Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
#42I remember when Skype debuted and after only crackly POTS calls as a reference point, the clarity whilst speaking from the USA to a friend in Berlin was AMAZING. I am not sure of dates but at some point it started to decline not just in call quality but UI and everything really, I assume this is when it was sold but cannot be sure. I had hoped Wire would fill that void for me PLUS add encryption, since some original Skypers were involved, but it seems to be fading as well on the Personal side.
Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
#43>Although Skype's website says that the company may analyze audio of phone calls that a user wants to translate in order to improve the chat platform's services, it does not say some of this analysis will be done by humans. I'm sorry, but isn't this just nitpicking? Just because they don't say how it's analyzed doesn't make this a scandal.
Yes and no. I think as techies we think "of course". Because we know how you would go about analyzing that information. I don't think the average person does (anyone in the bay is likely not your average person in this context). Analyze could be a whole lot of things. It doesn't mean that a human is listening in.
So yes, I think to us this is nit picking. But to the general public this is news.
I still remember a few years back having conversations with people about how companies like Google, Apple, and whatever hire people to listen to your recordings when you use services like Ok Google and Siri. Of course no techies bat an eye at this talk. But people in the general populous called me a conspiracy theorist.
I don't think we realize the technical literacy divide that exists.
Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
#44Slate and Forbes wrote an article about this in 2012 when it was noticed Microsoft had filed a patent for this.. although nobody from Microsoft would publicly comment on the issue. This has likely been going on for some time. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/07/22/its-terr...
Nitpicking, but "Forbes" didn't write that article as much as "Medium" or "Blogger" wrote any article you see hosted on those sites.
Notice that the article you linked is hosted on forbes.com/sites/ericjackson...
Some guy named Eric Jackson (https://twitter.com/ericjackson) - who appears to be a PE investor wrote that article.
Forbes is a content farm that hosts opinion posts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes#Forbes.com
Forbes.com uses a "contributor model" in which a wide network of "contributors" writes and publishes articles directly on the website. Contributors are paid based on traffic to their respective Forbes.com pages; the site has received contributions from over 2,500 individuals, and some contributors have earned over US$100,000, according to the company. Forbes currently allows advertisers to publish blog posts on its website alongside regular editorial content through a program called BrandVoice, which accounts for more than 10 percent of its digital revenue.
Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
#45Skype until relatively recently was a fully peer-to-peer end-to-end encrypted messaging (voice and text) platform, as part of Microsofts purchase and development of the platform rebuilt it as a centralised service.
Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
#46I remember when Skype debuted and after only crackly POTS calls as a reference point, the clarity whilst speaking from the USA to a friend in Berlin was AMAZING. I am not sure of dates but at some point it started to decline not just in call quality but UI and everything really, I assume this is when it was sold but cannot be sure. I had hoped Wire would fill that void for me PLUS add encryption, since some original…
Switching from P2P to centralised servers might be when things went south. Quality got much worse then it seems. Nowadays Skype's totally lost most of its gamer/techie audience to Discord because they actually are aware of what their customers want.
Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
#47>Although Skype's website says that the company may analyze audio of phone calls that a user wants to translate in order to improve the chat platform's services, it does not say some of this analysis will be done by humans. I'm sorry, but isn't this just nitpicking? Just because they don't say how it's analyzed doesn't make this a scandal.
It’s an ambiguity that tech companies love to take advantage of.
For instance, Google will say that they analyze your Gmail to improve the service etc, but that no human will ever read your email.
How is the average person expected to keep track?
Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
#48I remember a change to the ToS that said they might listen in for quality purposes... pretty sure I read it here on HN. Anyone remember that?
Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Specifically, you should realize anything that companies say is done with "AI" is probably in some part done by poorly paid contractors. And not always on the analysis end, for example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2019/05/28/25-of-go... There's something incredibly dystopian by using humans as part of a process you literally tell people is entirely machines.
Haha, I never realised it was that immature. As an aside: Being a tech I have been asked numerous times by non-techs "What actually is AI?" I usually answer "a lot of if-statements" :)
AI researcher here. While industry doesn't usually find the need for huge complex models, I don't think your statement is fair, nor accurate. Can you provide some examples of AI tech that in your opinion is "a lot of if statements"?
Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
The mobile app is probably why they ditched P2P. As much as I love old Skype, it existed in a pre-mobile world, and never translated well to phones... and in fact, most P2P platforms won't translate well to phones, since you at least need centralization for the push notifications. Such is life. Though to be clear, yeah, it didn't really fix the mobile app. It felt just as broken up to the moment I uninstalled Skype.
>most P2P platforms won't translate well to phones, since you at least need centralization for the push notifications. Such is life This isn't a fact of life, this is a flaw in the API of most popular mobile OSes. Open source comunnity maintaned operating systems have solved the problem of providing a network service for handling push notifications (local or not) multiple times now and these companies have refused to…
I work for Google and use an iPhone so I can’t claim to be unbiased. (My eyes have been on the Librem phone, with some skepticism and lately mostly excitement, but I’m just not quite sold on it as a daily driver.)
However, even if you allow apps to run in the background basically indefinitely as Android once did (there were IRC clients that Worked, using only the phone,) it simply is bad for battery life. Having multiple push services that are blessed to run periodically is also just not good for battery life. The proof is in the pudding; I switched to IRCCloud for IRC on the go after noticing what a terrible battery drain it was.
Now, third party push services can certainly do better than IRC, but they’re still centralized. Decentralized networks are just not power efficient. It requires always on machines to be effective.
I’m not saying I love the status quo, but it’s unclear how to do better.
(Obligatory legal line noise: these are my own opinions and not those of my employer.)