4 ms·

Skype hands 16-year-old's personal information to IT company

108 points by 1337biz 14y ago

pvarangot 14y ago
Way to go iSIGHT! That's what we always dreamed the "infosec" industry would be! A bunch of for-hire goons willing to do the dirty work for private companies. Fun fun fun!
mtgx 14y ago
If I were to guess, Skype is probably the most privacy breaching communication tool there is right now. They are giving the information way too easily to pretty much any type or level of law enforcement right now, from police to national security agencies and anyone in between, and it's not just US either.
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  Wait so is this a "guess" or fact?
  - TallGuyShort 14y ago
    It's a well-informed classificaton, and he openly called is his "guess". Declaring something "the most privacy breaching software" is inherently subjective and arbitrary, so I don't think anyone here is stupid enough to think that's being passed off as fact. This is obviously just his opinion and you're entitled to disagree, but we've all seen Skype in similar headlines before - do you have a more interesting counterargument?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
imperio59 14y ago
Skype let my personal account of more than 3 years be hacked, charged with hundreds of dollars on my credit card. When I called they said they didn't see the charges. I changed my password right away and decided I would call my bank to contest them if they went through... Two days later they cancelled the charges and locked my account, and I had to spend 2 hours with their slow customer service to get it unlocked. Clearly that company doesn't understand a thing about security OR customer service. I switched to Google Voice.
TillE 14y ago
> Gommers contacted Skype, another of his firm's clients, and asked them for the suspect's account data. This seems to be an ongoing theme: personal relationships causing people to do unethical things. It's particularly true in journalism. You want to help your friend, right? You don't want to make them mad. Standards (like Skype's alleged "policy") need to be better, and much more strictly enforced.
- stfu 14y ago
  If this were the case I would argue that the bigger problem is the apparently very easy accessibility of client data to employees.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    Yes! Training people to not be human is much harder than just maximizing accountability and minimizing opportunity for people to do the wrong thing.
antidoh 14y ago
"The company says it is reviewing how personal information came into the hands of a private firm." I thought that was pretty clear from the article - they asked.

108 points by 1337biz 14y ago

Way to go iSIGHT! That's what we always dreamed the "infosec" industry would be! A bunch of for-hire goons willing to do the dirty work for private companies. Fun fun fun!

mtgx 14y ago

If I were to guess, Skype is probably the most privacy breaching communication tool there is right now. They are giving the information way too easily to pretty much any type or level of law enforcement right now, from police to national security agencies and anyone in between, and it's not just US either.

UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
Wait so is this a "guess" or fact?
- TallGuyShort 14y ago
  It's a well-informed classificaton, and he openly called is his "guess". Declaring something "the most privacy breaching software" is inherently subjective and arbitrary, so I don't think anyone here is stupid enough to think that's being passed off as fact. This is obviously just his opinion and you're entitled to disagree, but we've all seen Skype in similar headlines before - do you have a more interesting counterargument?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

imperio59 14y ago

Skype let my personal account of more than 3 years be hacked, charged with hundreds of dollars on my credit card. When I called they said they didn't see the charges. I changed my password right away and decided I would call my bank to contest them if they went through... Two days later they cancelled the charges and locked my account, and I had to spend 2 hours with their slow customer service to get it unlocked. Clearly that company doesn't understand a thing about security OR customer service. I switched to Google Voice.

TillE 14y ago

> Gommers contacted Skype, another of his firm's clients, and asked them for the suspect's account data. This seems to be an ongoing theme: personal relationships causing people to do unethical things. It's particularly true in journalism. You want to help your friend, right? You don't want to make them mad. Standards (like Skype's alleged "policy") need to be better, and much more strictly enforced.

stfu 14y ago
If this were the case I would argue that the bigger problem is the apparently very easy accessibility of client data to employees.
- wpietri 14y ago
  Yes! Training people to not be human is much harder than just maximizing accountability and minimizing opportunity for people to do the wrong thing.

antidoh 14y ago

"The company says it is reviewing how personal information came into the hands of a private firm." I thought that was pretty clear from the article - they asked.