4 ms·

I've been saying this for, probably close to a year now. Moving supernodes from being personal consumers to running in a cloud is a good thing and has minimal i

I've been saying this for, probably close to a year now. Moving supernodes from being personal consumers to running in a cloud is a good thing and has minimal impact on privacy. Even comments here indicate people clearly didn't read this email or fail to understand it at all.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
pwnna 13y ago
Maybe I am understanding the system wrong.. but can you explain how it is good for privacy when Microsoft can decrypt your messages (They acknowledged that by saying they can do spam filtering and link blocking). I am unaware of a way to ensure privacy but still have a third party have the ability to read your messages. However, I'm open to ideas.
- tjohns 13y ago
  You're both talking about two different topics... The location of the "supernodes" (on client machines, or in a datacenter) is separate from whether encrypted traffic can be read by a third party. Using a totally decentralized system makes it a little harder to eavesdrop, but it's entirely possible to develop a completely secure system in the centralized model. That said, I've never been terribly impressed with Skype's security model. Even before Microsoft bought them. It might have been decentralized, and the traffic might be encrypted, but the encryption lacks a strong trust model. There's never been any way to make sure that your connection hasn't been MITM'ed, since the system doesn't provide any way to verify the identity (key fingerprint) of the person you're talking to. The current encryption is fine if you're worried about rogue network administrators, but has never been sufficient if you're worried about being targeted by state actors.
  - pwnna 13y ago
    I understand the concept of having a secure centralized network. I'm interested in attempting to learn about such one myself (and perhaps one day contribute or implement one). It just seem like the original comment said that security is totally fine now, which I feel like is incorrect. For Skype's security model, I thought that before MS bought them they had E2E encryption (sure, it can be MITM'ed, but the conversation's that's not MITM'ed cannot be decoded easily, whereas they could be now). (Is it fair to say that I verify _some_, not all, of my friends' identity via the way the talk? I feel like if I have E2E encryption, I would be fine as a MITM would have a pretty difficult time faking how some of my friends talk.)
    - jtheory 13y ago
      MitM doesn't involve anyone faking how your friends talk -- it's always just passing your actual packets back and forth, but recording them first. E2E encryption is only as secure as the key exchange, so if the central Skype server gives you and your friend the keys you need to encrypt/decrypt then just passes along your E2E-encrypted packets... anyone who was able to snag the keys and has access to the encrypted packets can decrypt everything just as you can.
      - pwnna 13y ago
        Yeah, I realized that immediately after I posted.
    - wmf 13y ago
      ...before MS bought them they had E2E encryption... Is there any evidence that they removed E2E crypto for voice calls? People keep saying this but their reason seems to be "because MS".
      - drivebyacct2 13y ago
        Not a single drop (that I've seen, and I'm a sucker for clicking on all the Skype-fud-bait links)
- drivebyacct2 13y ago
  I can think of ways, but I don't know how Skype does it. The client could have a local blacklist, they could only send hashes of URLs to a server, etc.
  - pwnna 13y ago
    Can you specify more details? Essentially my understanding is that you think it is possible to transmit something in plain text (encrypted but if a third party can decrypt it might as well be in plain text imo) over an untrusted network and ensure privacy.
    - drivebyacct2 13y ago
      I just explained that. You and I have a secure P2P connection (aka Skype). But my client and your client check hashes of URLs against a third party service before transmitting the message to the other person. There, you can blacklist URLs and it doesn't send any message contents to anyone (only hashes of ONLY urls) and then sends the actual full message, encrypted on the wire. It's not hard to conceive how this system would work.
mtgx 13y ago
Minimal impact on privacy? I wouldn't say NSA having access to all Skype calls a "minimal impact on privacy".
- tincholio 13y ago
  Given how supernodes worked, the NSA might have had as many supernodes as it wanted, with your traffic going through them and you none the wiser. Hence, your argument doesn't stand, really.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    Only if you had to use supernodes. All you had to do was open an outside port for skype and you wouldn't need supernodes for anything.
    - drivebyacct2 13y ago
      wrong on top of wrong on top of wrong. Like I said, people still don't get it. Supernodes are a directory service. "Traffic" as in text and video traffic rarely, if ever, is transmitted through Supernodes.
- drivebyacct2 13y ago
  Seriously? I give up.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

pwnna 13y ago

Maybe I am understanding the system wrong.. but can you explain how it is good for privacy when Microsoft can decrypt your messages (They acknowledged that by saying they can do spam filtering and link blocking). I am unaware of a way to ensure privacy but still have a third party have the ability to read your messages. However, I'm open to ideas.

tjohns 13y ago
You're both talking about two different topics... The location of the "supernodes" (on client machines, or in a datacenter) is separate from whether encrypted traffic can be read by a third party. Using a totally decentralized system makes it a little harder to eavesdrop, but it's entirely possible to develop a completely secure system in the centralized model. That said, I've never been terribly impressed with Skype's security model. Even before Microsoft bought them. It might have been decentralized, and the traffic might be encrypted, but the encryption lacks a strong trust model. There's never been any way to make sure that your connection hasn't been MITM'ed, since the system doesn't provide any way to verify the identity (key fingerprint) of the person you're talking to. The current encryption is fine if you're worried about rogue network administrators, but has never been sufficient if you're worried about being targeted by state actors.
- pwnna 13y ago
  I understand the concept of having a secure centralized network. I'm interested in attempting to learn about such one myself (and perhaps one day contribute or implement one). It just seem like the original comment said that security is totally fine now, which I feel like is incorrect. For Skype's security model, I thought that before MS bought them they had E2E encryption (sure, it can be MITM'ed, but the conversation's that's not MITM'ed cannot be decoded easily, whereas they could be now). (Is it fair to say that I verify _some_, not all, of my friends' identity via the way the talk? I feel like if I have E2E encryption, I would be fine as a MITM would have a pretty difficult time faking how some of my friends talk.)
  - jtheory 13y ago
    MitM doesn't involve anyone faking how your friends talk -- it's always just passing your actual packets back and forth, but recording them first. E2E encryption is only as secure as the key exchange, so if the central Skype server gives you and your friend the keys you need to encrypt/decrypt then just passes along your E2E-encrypted packets... anyone who was able to snag the keys and has access to the encrypted packets can decrypt everything just as you can.
    - pwnna 13y ago
      Yeah, I realized that immediately after I posted.
  - wmf 13y ago
    ...before MS bought them they had E2E encryption... Is there any evidence that they removed E2E crypto for voice calls? People keep saying this but their reason seems to be "because MS".
    - drivebyacct2 13y ago
      Not a single drop (that I've seen, and I'm a sucker for clicking on all the Skype-fud-bait links)
drivebyacct2 13y ago
I can think of ways, but I don't know how Skype does it. The client could have a local blacklist, they could only send hashes of URLs to a server, etc.
- pwnna 13y ago
  Can you specify more details? Essentially my understanding is that you think it is possible to transmit something in plain text (encrypted but if a third party can decrypt it might as well be in plain text imo) over an untrusted network and ensure privacy.
  - drivebyacct2 13y ago
    I just explained that. You and I have a secure P2P connection (aka Skype). But my client and your client check hashes of URLs against a third party service before transmitting the message to the other person. There, you can blacklist URLs and it doesn't send any message contents to anyone (only hashes of ONLY urls) and then sends the actual full message, encrypted on the wire. It's not hard to conceive how this system would work.

mtgx 13y ago

Minimal impact on privacy? I wouldn't say NSA having access to all Skype calls a "minimal impact on privacy".

tincholio 13y ago
Given how supernodes worked, the NSA might have had as many supernodes as it wanted, with your traffic going through them and you none the wiser. Hence, your argument doesn't stand, really.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  Only if you had to use supernodes. All you had to do was open an outside port for skype and you wouldn't need supernodes for anything.
  - drivebyacct2 13y ago
    wrong on top of wrong on top of wrong. Like I said, people still don't get it. Supernodes are a directory service. "Traffic" as in text and video traffic rarely, if ever, is transmitted through Supernodes.
drivebyacct2 13y ago
Seriously? I give up.