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Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls

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Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls

#71

Post by dmix »

AlexandrB wrote: post #65
dmix wrote: post #40

So does Twillio... not surprising at all when there's no encryption and they need to debug real phone calls routed all over the world which is not an easy task. As long as they're only spot checking and not browsing through any one persons calls for no reason I don't see why it's a big deal. It's mostly business lines anyway. That said, they should have some protocols and controls in place for listening to any calls,…

> As long as they're only spot checking and not browsing through any one persons calls for no reason I don't see why it's a big deal. Go back 50 years and apply this same logic to AT&T instead of Skype to see how far our expectations of privacy have degraded.

I assume the period after switch boards was much the same... but an even harder problem to solve.

I'm talking about engineers accessing it anyway.

I really don't have a problem with that and I'm pretty hardcore into privacy. I assume all Skype calls are 100% tapped, auto-translated, and data-mined available for any agency who wants it.

Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls

#72

Post by vinay427 »

tjoff wrote: post #63
jmull wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, eavesdrop means secretly listening to a conversation. If they communicate it in a reasonable way, it's not eavesdropping.

Well, since they don't communicate it in a reasonable way it is eavesdropping then.

If they communicate that they're eavesdropping, which is what was proposed here, it seems excessive to then claim that they're not communicating this monitoring or listening of calls in a reasonable way which would mean it's not eavesdropping.

Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls

#73

Post by logn »

xthestreams wrote: post #49
_Understated_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

The commenter is just referring to the nature of neural networks, a pile of weights and thresholds that you could conceivably write out as a maniacal mess of deeply nested if-statements.

Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls

#74

Post by Spooky23 »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #64
Spooky23 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? That was immediately before O365, and at that point BPOS/Exchange online was starting to get traction with some governments. Microsoft was also ramping their OCS/VoIP business. Government is a huge market for O365, they were able to get ATOs and go conquer most states and federal agencies. They also bought a huge VoIP play, learned how to operationalize it, quickly spun it into a service component that serve…

I don’t expect to change your mind, but this just isn’t how things work. MS are not a front for the government. Also, you are giving the government far too much credit in terms of how they are organized to even dream that a deal like that could work. Not to mention it would be a massive scandal when it inevitably leaked. This is the same company that famously refused to backdoor bitlocker and fairly recently has been…

I just said it was plausible.

Microsoft, like any company, isn’t good or evil, but will do whatever is in the company’s best interests, and they’ll act appropriately when their interests align with the government.

Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls

#75

Post by giancarlostoro »

jchw wrote: post #13
giancarlostoro wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once they ditched p2p the quality derailed. The worst thing was the Skype mobile app trying to sync on my phone. It never seemed to cache convos well enough, it also would not sync properly between devices in regards to notifications. Also Skype would try to pull in my entire history. I feel like some P2P concepts stuck deeply within Skype and thats what left it so awkward.

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.

Well, the way the chat history worked: it downloaded it from other devices. But it felt like it didn't cache it, and it tried to download your entire chat history. The mobile client would lag for a good minute as a result. Help you if you scrolled up.

Re: Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls

#76

Post by azinman2 »

_Understated_ wrote: post #55
azinman2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compromised by what? Whom? Listening / analyzing for what? These stories are really overblown. All these companies are doing it in order to make voice recognition better. It’s simply not possible to do with some QA... you have to know what people are actually saying vs what the system recognized.

I have nothing to back this statement up... I am sure they are "training" their AI. I don't doubt it but they have access to masses of data. Some mega-personal I would imagine and also some that can provide insight into other businesses and markets and so on. The temptation to "use" that data would be absolutely enormous and the financial pressures to use it to provide whatever advantage would be equally enormous. I…

I don’t think there’s as much pressing financial advantage in a 10 second clip of a couple fighting as you seem to think.

FB knowing what apps people use makes a lot of sense because it tells them how they’re doing relative to others. You’re not getting such information in the home.

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