5 ms·

I think they're filtering messages through their server now. Half an hour ago it worked, now it says "message removed". Implying they MITM our messages and can

by lalm 11y ago

I think they're filtering messages through their server now. Half an hour ago it worked, now it says "message removed". Implying they MITM our messages and can censor them.

SEMW 11y ago
> Implying they MITM our messages and can censor them. Their ability to do this has been known for a while - see past HN discussions: - Https URLs posted in private Skype chats visited by Microsoft https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5704574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5704574 - Skype and Microsoft man-in-the-middle chats to give targeted ads https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7369163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7369163
UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
I remember back in the day pre-Microsoft when Skype was unable to do that because it had point to point encryption. Then Microsoft purchased them, killed the Skype P2P infrastructure which was a massive cost saver for Skype and instead had it use standard servers. People have claimed, without much evidence, that the NSA helped finance the purchase for Microsoft in exchange for making Skype easier to monitor but so far as I said nobody has solid PROOF of that, just speculation. But I will say what Microsoft did made little logical sense. The whole point of Skype was to make running a network inexpensive and scalable, Microsoft's changes made running Skype much more expensive (and what company WANTS a product to cost more to run?).
- ygra 11y ago
  That change came in a time where Skype ran increasingly often not on PCs but rather mobile devices. And what tablet or smartphone user WANTS a chat application to consume excessive CPU and bandwidth while running in background? That's the official version, anyway. You may choose to ignore reasons giving by the people who made the change, of course. The infrastructure on which Skype was built relied on most clients being PCs with decent internet connections and CPU to spare. Something that's increasingly not true in today's world.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    Prior to Microsoft's centralisation, Skype was completely unusable on mobile devices. I know, I tried it.
    - lmm 11y ago
      It still is though.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
        It's still bad, but it's improved a lot from where it was.
  - Cthulhu_ 11y ago
    They could've done an either/or thing; P2P for desktops, client-server for mobile devices (including laptops). However, they'd have to maintain two separate systems, and nowadays there's far more laptops and mobile devices than PC's, so with that in mind it makes sense.
  - lewisl9029 11y ago
    P2P doesn't necessarily have to mean more CPU and bandwidth usage, especially while in the background. Modern P2P designs often have measures to disable participating in aiding network routing completely for devices with limited network/processing, which effectively only leaves as much traffic/processing as messages you explicitly send/receive.
- leppr 11y ago
  >I remember back in the day pre-Microsoft when Skype was unable to do that because it had point to point encryption. What about this piece of news from 2008? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/technology/internet/02skype.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/technology/internet/02skyp...

by lalm 11y ago

I think they're filtering messages through their server now. Half an hour ago it worked, now it says "message removed". Implying they MITM our messages and can censor them.

SEMW 11y ago

> Implying they MITM our messages and can censor them. Their ability to do this has been known for a while - see past HN discussions: - Https URLs posted in private Skype chats visited by Microsoft https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5704574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5704574 - Skype and Microsoft man-in-the-middle chats to give targeted ads https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7369163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7369163

UnoriginalGuy 11y ago

I remember back in the day pre-Microsoft when Skype was unable to do that because it had point to point encryption. Then Microsoft purchased them, killed the Skype P2P infrastructure which was a massive cost saver for Skype and instead had it use standard servers. People have claimed, without much evidence, that the NSA helped finance the purchase for Microsoft in exchange for making Skype easier to monitor but so far as I said nobody has solid PROOF of that, just speculation. But I will say what Microsoft did made little logical sense. The whole point of Skype was to make running a network inexpensive and scalable, Microsoft's changes made running Skype much more expensive (and what company WANTS a product to cost more to run?).

ygra 11y ago
That change came in a time where Skype ran increasingly often not on PCs but rather mobile devices. And what tablet or smartphone user WANTS a chat application to consume excessive CPU and bandwidth while running in background? That's the official version, anyway. You may choose to ignore reasons giving by the people who made the change, of course. The infrastructure on which Skype was built relied on most clients being PCs with decent internet connections and CPU to spare. Something that's increasingly not true in today's world.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  Prior to Microsoft's centralisation, Skype was completely unusable on mobile devices. I know, I tried it.
  - lmm 11y ago
    It still is though.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
      It's still bad, but it's improved a lot from where it was.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  They could've done an either/or thing; P2P for desktops, client-server for mobile devices (including laptops). However, they'd have to maintain two separate systems, and nowadays there's far more laptops and mobile devices than PC's, so with that in mind it makes sense.
- lewisl9029 11y ago
  P2P doesn't necessarily have to mean more CPU and bandwidth usage, especially while in the background. Modern P2P designs often have measures to disable participating in aiding network routing completely for devices with limited network/processing, which effectively only leaves as much traffic/processing as messages you explicitly send/receive.
leppr 11y ago
>I remember back in the day pre-Microsoft when Skype was unable to do that because it had point to point encryption. What about this piece of news from 2008? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/technology/internet/02skype.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/technology/internet/02skyp...