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I didn't know this but I'm not outraged. How is this different in your view from targeted ads in gmail? You say "I don't mind having ads be presented to me fro

by rlu 13y ago

I didn't know this but I'm not outraged. How is this different in your view from targeted ads in gmail? You say "I don't mind having ads be presented to me from past traffic" ... why? How does that offend you less? I understand the difference from a technical perspective, but from an "end user that cares about privacy" perspective it seems the same to me. FWIW even with this off, I think Skype will still MITM you to check to make sure URLs you link aren't spammy. Messenger did that ages ago and Facebook does it too (try IMing someone a porn website for example). Not sure what Hangout/gmail's behavior is here. Btw it seems funny to me to use the term "MITM you". It's a chat service. It has servers that route IM and do other things. Of course it's going to be in the middle of you and your friend. Now, if you're upset that one of the many things they do while your IM is in the cloud is see if they can serve an ad for it, then fine. But any chat service that isn't p2p will "MITM you" - that's the entire point.

MichaelGG 13y ago
Well before, Skype was somewhat P2P and supposed to have end-to-end encryption. Obviously they could backdoor it on demand, but in general there was an expectation that, barring a legal order, your chats went were encrypted to their target. (Since Skype has no key exchange UI, obviously these keys are easily tampered with by the Skype service.)
hexasquid 13y ago
hmm. skyproogled.
bobbles 13y ago
Relevant Futurama Quote: "Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?" "Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree."
brownbat 13y ago
I'm not shocked either, but it is an annoying reminder that the market will not tolerate end to end encryption. You can't discover someone's marketing preferences if all their habits and speech look like random noise. For some software producers, security is a bug, not a feature.
- justincormack 13y ago
  Not "the market", the advertising industry.
Houshalter 13y ago
I thought skype was p2p, which is why sent messages only load when the other person is online. You can't get messages you sent earlier from a different computer unless it is online. Anyways, whether or not this has become 'normal', how is this not the equivalent of someone opening and reading your mail? Or worse, recording all your private conversations?
- noblethrasher 13y ago
  The Skype infrastructure became more centralized in order to accommodate the increasing use of smartphones. http://www.slashgear.com/skype-supernode-switch-for-stable-scaling-not-project-chess-nsa-spying-25287830/ http://www.slashgear.com/skype-supernode-switch-for-stable-s...

by rlu 13y ago

MichaelGG 13y ago

Well before, Skype was somewhat P2P and supposed to have end-to-end encryption. Obviously they could backdoor it on demand, but in general there was an expectation that, barring a legal order, your chats went were encrypted to their target. (Since Skype has no key exchange UI, obviously these keys are easily tampered with by the Skype service.)

hexasquid 13y ago

hmm. skyproogled.

bobbles 13y ago

Relevant Futurama Quote: "Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?" "Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree."

brownbat 13y ago

I'm not shocked either, but it is an annoying reminder that the market will not tolerate end to end encryption. You can't discover someone's marketing preferences if all their habits and speech look like random noise. For some software producers, security is a bug, not a feature.

justincormack 13y ago
Not "the market", the advertising industry.

Houshalter 13y ago

I thought skype was p2p, which is why sent messages only load when the other person is online. You can't get messages you sent earlier from a different computer unless it is online. Anyways, whether or not this has become 'normal', how is this not the equivalent of someone opening and reading your mail? Or worse, recording all your private conversations?

noblethrasher 13y ago
The Skype infrastructure became more centralized in order to accommodate the increasing use of smartphones. http://www.slashgear.com/skype-supernode-switch-for-stable-scaling-not-project-chess-nsa-spying-25287830/ http://www.slashgear.com/skype-supernode-switch-for-stable-s...