Jamie's Random Musings
Various thoughts and adventures, including but not limited to Linux, Windows XP and Widows Vista, and assorted bits of hardware new and old.
Sunday 12 October 2008, 4:37 PM
Skype Spying Debacle
Michael Robertson, of The Gizmo Project, posted in his blog that clearly states the issues, and makes a challenge to Skype. The CEO of Skype whines about the fact that censorship and monitoring are "common knowledge" in China, but GOSH, GASP, we never knew they would do THIS, Mr. Robertson says clearly that the choice is between standing up for principles that most European and Americans believe should be inviolable, and chasing the very large Chinese market by making a devil's bargain with the Chinese government.
I could go on and on about this, because I feel very strongly about it. But there has been plenty said already. All that I will add is that this gives an even more poignant meaning to what I have considered the Skype slogan to be for a long time - "Take A Deep Breath, This Is Going To Hurt". Put another way, Skype "loves" their customers so much, that they will help a repressive government ensure that they toe the party line.
The whole thing makes me ill.
jw 12/10/2008
P.S. Would you like to know how concerned Skype is about this? Check their Skype Security Blog. As far as they are concerned, there hasn't been a security problem since July! Apparently this spying scandal doesn't qualify as a security problem. (Perhaps it is not considered a problem, if you are doing it on purpose.) Neither does the well documented hijacking of Skype accounts and draining of credits. Odd, for a company that "loves their users"...
jw
PreviousComments on this post
Alas Mr Watson, survailance seems to be deeply ingrained. I never think that any of my communications on electronic media are private. Sad I know, but we are always being told in one way or another here in the UK that all our movements are tracked, for goodness sakes, we even have directional microphones under some of the cameras. The age of innocence is truly over, now we have generations of young people growing up who haven't known any thing else.
Roger, I hope you are wrong, but I fear that you are right. One thing I know for certain, though, is that if we all accept this now, without protest, they you will certainly be right. Perhaps there is still a chance to stop this, as long as users are willing and able to reject it, vocally and repeatedly, and as long as there are people like Michael Robertson and companies like Gizmo who are willing to say "we don't do that, and we will not condone that, even at the expense of that market right now".
However, what galls me about this as much as the actual spying is that Skype prances around, squawking to any and all about how much the "love their users", and that Skype is "1005 secure", and their download page has "No Spyware" written boldly at the top. Yet when this scandal broke, the CEO couldn't even say "we're sorry", all he could do was whinge about "we had to do it, that's life, it's the way the world is". It might help if they were at least to be honest enough to change the above statement to "100% secure - except when we decide to snoop on you, or allow someone else to snoop on you".
In any even, thanks for reading and commenting.
jw 13/10/2008
I hope I am wrong too. It's hard to know where you can make a stand when it comes to survailence. It doesn't seem to matter which government is in power, policy seems identical. Withholding tax is out of the question, as any kind of finacial crime in this country can see you do more jail time than than violent criminals. Not wanting to be consistantly gloomy, I do believe that there is potentialy a very bright future for us around the corner. It seems as though we in a stage of soul searching and in need of sorting some of our priorities.
As for skype, it sounds as though there marketing dept was given complete free reign to do and say "whatever it takes" to get the trade.
Of course the first thing to be forgoten is that people are generaly smart and any buls**t will see the light of day, these days sooner rather than later!
