Chinese and Skype
A chinese company has claimed that they have cracked the Skype protocol enabling them to create compatible applications and, more importantly, enable the Chinese government to tighten its grip on free speech in China by blocking voice-over-IP connections from certain parts of the world.
From CIO Tech Informer:
By cracking the Skype protocol, the company claims it can also block Skype voice traffic, Paglee said. “They could literally turn the lights off on Skype in China very, very quickly,” said Paglee, who is also a lawyer and engineer, speaking from California on Friday.
The company could transfer the technology to the Chinese government, which has continually sought ways to tighten its filtering and control over the Internet. So far, the company doesn’t have any plans to market its blocking capabilities, Paglee said.
The company claims it can block calls by exploiting Skype software functions, he said. Skype’s software taps users’ computers to route calls. Paglee said the Chinese company can detect, map and block the computers that are passing on calls, and in doing so shut down Skype calls.
The company, however, has not been able to decrypt the phone calls passing through those computers and listen in because of the complicated encryption keys used during calls, Paglee said.
“Skype’s conversations are still secure, but what’s not secure is their present business model of using everybody else’s computer to propagate the Skype network,” Paglee said.
Well, at least they can’t listen to the conversations. I’m sure there would be mass arrests made by the Chinese government if they could.
