8 ms·
Microsoft changes skype supernodes architecture to support wiretapping
- s_henry_paulson 14y agoJust thinking out loud, but wouldn't it be possible to build a simple skype-addon that would look at your network traffic and be able to tell if your voice conversations were going through a supernode and not p2p. This way you would get a quick indicator of whether or not you were likely being monitored.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- wslh 14y agoThis means new opportunities in the VoIP market. Than you Microsoft
- mtgx 14y agoIn the short term, I'm hoping Google Hangouts will be a viable alternative for both normal users and enterprise users. In the long term, I hope the WebRTC protocol will disrupt both of them.
- kevindication 14y agoWhy are Google Hangouts a viable alternative for people who care about privacy? (Ostensibly the point of this article.)
- alttab 14y agoI agree. Distributed and P2P with encryption is the only way to guarantee privacy.
- tinfoilhat 14y agofirst, make yourself familiar with WebRTC. it will require server side signaling. demo by google: http://www.webrtc.org/running-the-demos#TOC-Demos http://www.webrtc.org/running-the-demos#TOC-Demos sending srtp session keys over that signaling server sounds interesting
- mrb 14y ago"Microsoft has replaced P2P Skype supernodes with thousands of Linux boxes" from http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-replaces-p2p-supernodes-with-linux-boxes-hosted-by-microsoft/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-replaces-p2p-s... Wow. Does it make it the first, large scale, internal(¹) deployment of non-Windows infrastructure by Microsoft? The question is: why? Do their engineers managed to convince the company that Windows is ill-suited to the task? I am quite stupefied. (¹) "Internal" as opposed to situations where Microsoft inherited non-Windows infrastructure from external acquisitions, such as when they acquired Hotmail in 1997 and their 5000 FreeBSD servers (eventually migrated to Windows.)
- eli 14y agoDo their engineers managed to convince the company that Windows is ill-suited to the task? They acquired skype. So the question would be, Is it worth rewriting a ton of working code just so we can say it runs on our platform. I'm pretty sure Hotmail ran Linux or BSD for quite a while after Microsoft bought them (though probably not any more)
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoI was under the impression that they've used Linux in the past effectively as a firewall for their internet sites. Whether this was a temporary response to a specific situation or a semi-permanent thing I don't know but I recall reading that there was a period where Microsoft.com was returning non-Windows header information. While they obviously don't publicise it I think they've probably used Linux where it's appropriate for some time now.
- mtgx 14y agoI think these 2 older articles support that conclusion as well: http://www.conceivablytech.com/8108/products/microsoft-may-add-eavesdropping-to-skype http://www.conceivablytech.com/8108/products/microsoft-may-a... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_... All of the sudden the outrageous $8.5 billion price Microsoft paid for Skype (and twice as much as any other competing bid) starts to make sense.
- aerique 14y agoThe implication with wiretapping (and the NSA acronym) is that it is about security and safety against criminals and terrorists. I've always wondered how much of a business advantage it is to be able to tap into the world's biggest VoIP network? I've seen Skype being used a lot in businesses both centralized and decentralized.
- losethos 14y ago10 i = i + 1 20 PRINT i 30 IF i > 100000 THEN i = 0: GOTO 10 40 IF INKEY$ = "" THEN 10 50 PRINT "Bible, Line:", i God says... 14:21 Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us. 14:22 Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things. 15:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth. 15:2 And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.
- EwanToo 14y agoThe change is interesting (though not that new it seems), but Microsoft flatly state that calls do not go over supernodes [1]: "This has not changed the underlying nature of Skype’s peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture, in which supernodes simply allow users to find one another (calls do not pass through supernodes)." Now obviously this could be a lie, but it should be fairly simple to prove one way or another - simply force a call between 2 NAT'd clients, and trace where the voice packets go, it'll either be to one of these newly centralised supernodes, or somewhere else? 1 - http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-replaces-p2p-supernodes-with-linux-boxes-hosted-by-microsoft/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/skype-replaces-p2p-s...
- sspiff 14y agoCalls don't go over supernodes: I frequently call people on Skype for a conference, with my brother participating on the same network, and when the call drops, my brother and me can still talk. Might be that this is an exception for extremely local connections, but I've had similar experiences in other situations as well.
- 0x0 14y agoThat doesn't prove anything at all.
- sirclueless 14y agoRead the blog post. Calls still don't go over supernodes by default, it was just changed so that specific calls can be routed over them if desired.
- yread 14y agowow a 2 month old blog post with a HN comment as a single source? To keep OT: Perhaps they will be soon required to be able to wiretap http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/security/111150/eu-seeks-to-change-skype-wiretapping-laws/ http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/security/111150/eu-seeks-to-... It will also bring benefits to end users if the client's machines won't become supernodes. And perhaps avoid the problems from last December http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2010/12/understanding-todays-skype-outage-explaining-supernodes.html http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2010/12/understanding-tod...
- qq66 14y agoOr, you know, centralizing their architecture so they can own all your communications and sell you ads like every other Tom Dick and Harry.
- einhverfr 14y agoI don't think so. They wouldn't be able to target the ads without a lot of effort.... That's a LOT of voice recognition going on in a setting where people are not trying to dictate.
- qq66 14y agoMost companies these days are hoarding data with no current abilities to analyze it for profit. They're rightly predicting that analytical capabilities will improve and they don't want to be the ones living in that world without massive amounts of customer data.
- einhverfr 14y agoRight. That way I can send you the ads I would have targetted to you if you were still in college! That you are now 40 and have 3 kids is no matter. You still want all the cool college stuff, right?
- eli 14y agoData storage is stupidly cheap. You might as well save all the data your users provide to you.
- einhverfr 14y agoI am curious. Regarding voice communications, where does the Stored Communications Act come into this? What can they legally store?
- qq66 14y agoI'm not saying it'll ever pan out, I'm saying it's a much more likely explanation for Microsoft centralizing certain types of Skype communication than some shady back-alley deal with the NSA.
- shareme 14y agoFolks no need for wiretap theories.. Skype has been tappable via using the stop start his of audio compression since its creation...ie Skype encryption is breakable via the stop start gaps in audio via audio compression used. True such open holes does not affect text, except when skype forces it through China's servers. The most secure approach is still encrypted text..
- omh 14y agoContrary to the article, Skype didn't previously use supernodes for traffic between NATed clients. They were just used for NAT hole punching and then the traffic was direct between the clients. It is possible that after receiving a wiretap request Skype will route your calls differently. But they could have rolled this out by just upgrading the supernode code and keeping supernodes distributed. It seems far more likely that they made this change for stability/reliability. Particularly after the Skype network crashes that have happened in the past.
- lgeek 14y agoWell, you need a 3rd machine to route traffic between two machines if both are behind NAT^. It was my understanding that supernodes were (also) used for this. ^Unless you can predict the translated source port
- sharjeel 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_punching http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_punching
- viraptor 14y agoDoesn't contradict the parent post. For hole punching you need to know the source (host+port) your peer sends traffic from. If the source port is randomised (or already used by someone for udp if nat prevents sharing), hole punching will fail.
- cma 14y agoThat's where the third party supernode comes in; the sending peer tells the supernode which source port it is using to send to the non-supernode.
- viraptor 14y agoIf you're natted, the source port seen by supernode doesn't have to be the same as the one seen by others. Someone on your network may be talking to the same supernode already, so the conflict has to be resolved by some remapping in the nat.
- scrrr 14y agoRecently I have found https://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/ which seems to be a possible alternative for Skype.
- jjguy 14y agoEven if the sensational headline is accurate, it's not worth the conspiracy theories: (1) Microsoft is a US Corporation (2) With the Skype acquisition, Microsoft (arguably) becomes a telecommunications carrier. (3) CALEA passed in 1994, "requiring telecommunications carriers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment modify and design their equipment, facilities, and services to ensure they have built-in surveillance capabilities, allowing federal agencies to monitor all telephone, broadband internet, and VoIP traffic in real-time." [a] My (unfounded, optimistic) speculation is the skype acquisition was strategic positioning in the mobile market: seamless cutover to skype when your phone has WiFi. a - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...
- tijs 14y agoSo what happens when your not a US citizen, the wiretapping option is turned off then you think?
- dspillett 14y agoAs a fine upstanding non-US citizen you are simply not considered by that law, and so can't be considered as much as you might like by the companies implementing systems that have to comply with that law. Microsoft's options are move to another country (not going to happen), ignore the law (not going to happen as it could cost them dear), or implement the law even though it might cause problems in markets outside the US. For services hosted in other countries the law in those countries might well have something it can say/do, but even if they do successfully put their feet down MS could just pull the services out (costing the country if the investment in equipment/services/employees is significant) and move them elsewhere. They might be able to add the protection needed under those non-US laws the nodes in the affected areas, it depends on the exact wording and enforcement of the law, but even if they did you lose that protection as soon as you hit a node elsewhere anyway. Practically speaking if this is a concern for you (and it might legitimately be: contrary to what governments seem to think people and companies that are not criminal, not just the criminals/terrorists, have good reasons to want some privacy generally and more specifically those in competition with MS (amongst others) would not want to trust them as the gate-keepers) then your only option is to find an alternative to Skype. That isn't going to be easy though: any commercial provider is going to comply with the same regulations otherwise they'll find it difficult to operate in the US market (or the Chinese market which is growing much faster and is even more spy-y than the US) and even if you find something you then need to convince other to use it too.
- alttab 14y agoDid we really think we could trust Microsoft with such an acquisition?
- xSwag 14y agoWhat are some good open source alternatives for skype?
- yungchin 14y agoHere's a start: http://alternativeto.net/SearchResult.aspx?search=tag%3avoip&license=opensource&sort=likes http://alternativeto.net/SearchResult.aspx?search=tag%3avoip...
- aw3c2 14y agohttps://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/
- gdr 14y agohttp://guardianproject.info/wiki/OSTN http://guardianproject.info/wiki/OSTN
- sdfjkl 14y agoVSee (http://vsee.com/ http://vsee.com/) doesn't look bad, but it's also closed sourced. Something built on open standards (SIP/XMPP) like Jitsi is likely to be more transparent because you won't have to guess what some mysterious supernode does and doesn't do with your data. Good luck getting your non-techie friends to use that though. Skype became popular because it just worked, which at that point had not reliably been achieved even for plain voice calls, much less video.
- maked00 14y agoDuh, never heard of hostile take-over. Microsoft has a long history of simply buying out technologies and then deep sixing them.
- maked00 14y agoIts called a hostile takeover. MS has a long history of buying tech companies out and then deep-sixing the tech forever.
- tunnuz 14y agoI admit I don't know much about the internals of this, but maybe it's because, by serving as a node to forward other transmissions, the former Skype client drained people's mobile broadband data budgets. In this way they avoid this.
- hastur 14y agoWiretapping sounds so innocent. Of course, all US comms must be available for lawful wiretaps in fight against crime. No, what we're dealing with here is a dragnet cast upon the comms of users around the world, who aren't protected by US Constitution and thus can be tapped at will by US agencies and even private corporations without any warrants or oversight. For instance, if Microsoft wanted to learn about technical or trade secrets of competitors communicating through Skype (say, a couple of start-up founders), now they're free to do it. Also, if a US agency wanted to put on a no-fly list some people who casually converse about what morons those TSA people are or how all US administrations support the Israeli regime that commits war crimes against Palestinians, now it's very easy to do.
- HarshaThota 14y agoFor instance, if Microsoft wanted to learn about technical or trade secrets of competitors communicating through Skype (say, a couple of start-up founders), now they're free to do it. Is that any different from using, say, Gmail or Google Apps? Not saying that Google is looking at that data but this is a problem with essentially every web-based communication tool. People shouldn't have an expectation of privacy or security just because it's a company they know/like or it's a popular tool.
- pfraze 14y agoIt's a risky situation, if you ask me. Consider the data that tools collect on us: - location and contact history (cell phones) - message history and address book (email, social network) - interests/activities (calendars, event tools, feed subscriptions) - browsing history As an engineer, think about the evil fun you could have with that data. You could really mess somebody up if you didn't like them.
- untog 14y agoWhile technology makes this easier, it isn't new. You could hire a PI to follow the CEO of a competitor. You could break in and bug their offices. None of this is legal, and if discovered there would be a legal case to answer.
- cooldeal 14y agoSad to see a two and a half month old blog article with a flame bait headline and no references or proof being lapped up by HN.
- robert_nsu 14y agoYeah. Personally, I take all articles with a grain of salt when the author bandies about terms like M$.
- runjake 14y agoThe National Security Agency put out an RFP for Skype decrypting/intercepting awhile back and this was the first thing that popped back into my mind when Microsoft bought Skype. Then, when M announced they were replacing the supernodes, it only re-confirmed what was going on, in my mind.
- guelo 14y agoThis is the kind of thing that makes it annoying that just about all interesting internet companies are in the US. Why can't Europe step up with some competition?
- briandear 14y agoEntrepreneurship is far more difficult in much of Europe. It's much more difficult to set up a corporation, access capital, especially speculative capital (i.e. VC money) as well as some fairly strict taxation and regulatory schemes. This article: http://buswk.co/Hltv5F http://buswk.co/Hltv5F explains a few if those factors.
- qznc 14y agoSkype was originally a swedish company until it was aquired by eBay.
- briandear 14y agoRemember Microsoft has major contracts and relationships with the Chinese and Korean government, among others. This stuff is the dark underside of a Microsoft aquisition. Of course, they have relationships with the US govt as well, but Americans are obstensibly protected by the Constitution -- those protections (as well as due process) don't French exist in many countries with whom Microsoft does business.
- ck2 14y agoIt's amazing how citizen rights to privacy has completely eroded while their governments now get to operate in near complete secrecy against them.
- jaytaylor 14y agoSKYPE GOES OPEN SOURCE......FLAWLESS VICTORY: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/1799228 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/1799228
- crazygringo 14y agoThe title is clearly a completely unsupported hypothesis. Why do HN mods change perfectly good titles seemingly at a whim, and then when there's a linkbait title screaming to be changed, then don't touch it?
- smsm42 14y agoThe evidence on this one is rather thin. It takes a speculation in a comment on HN about what Microsoft could be doing - without any proof that they are actually doing it, adds some code that proves something Microsoft claims they do not do could be done if they wanted to do it - and the conclusion is Microsoft definitely has sold everybody to the Man. I think a jump from "they could be doing it" to "they did it" requires more proof than that.
- Scene_Cast2 14y agoThis is for anyone who was assuming that Skype wasn't wire-tappable. But then again, I don't know why anyone would assume that in the first place.
- mmariani 14y agoAny privacy we could had using Skype was dead the same day MSFT bought them. It was just a matter of time to make it official. What's gonna be from now on? Stay put, and watch it.
- Someone 14y agoI think it is more likely because they want to build a social network for collaboration around Office 365, Yammer and Skype, and maybe, be able to give some uptime/quality guarantees to customers (things would not necessarily be better, but more under control of Microsoft) If you have a distributed system but want to wiretap some calls, I think it would be easier to have some back door for instructing clients "whenever you make a call/get a call from one of these numbers, CC us".
- tinfoilhat 14y agoomg, I've just only now realized, my phone company can wiretap all my calls