Security and privacy concerns of Skype

[Frank V]

Fellow Avalonians,

I myself am not a Skype user -- I currently don't even own any of the equipment needed for using Skype (such as a microphone/headset or a webcam) -- and the information I will be sharing in this post is actually not exactly new, but it is my impression that most users of the Skype platform are either largely or completely unaware of the security and privacy implications associated with this software.

I know that there are many people here on Avalon who use Skype rather routinely, and that Bill, the mods and the Avalon Healing Group extensively make use of Skype for their conferencing needs. This is why I felt that I needed to bring some very alarming facts to the attention of the people here on Avalon who make use of this software.

Now, as I said higher up, I myself am not using Skype, but the matter came to my attention through a question from a poster in the alt.os.linux.ubuntu newsgroup on Usenet regarding the security and privacy of the Skype communication software.

The following indented and italicized paragraphs are only but a few excerpts from the Wikipedia article on Skype...:

Security researchers Biondi and Desclaux have speculated that Skype may have a back door, since Skype sends traffic even when it is turned off and because Skype has taken extreme measures to obfuscate their traffic and functioning of their program.

[...]

Some time before Skype was sold in 2009, the company had started its own program, called Project Chess, to explore legal and technical ways to easily share calls with intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

[...]

In November 2010, a flaw was disclosed to Skype that showed how hackers could secretly track any user's IP address. As of 2013, this has still not been fixed.

[...]

According to a 2012 Washington Post article, Skype "has expanded its cooperation with law enforcement authorities to make online chats and other user information available to police"; the article additionally mentions Skype made changes to allow authorities access to addresses and credit card numbers.

13 November 2012, a Russian user published a flaw in Skype's security, which allowed any person to take over a Skype account knowing only the victim's email by following 7 steps. This vulnerability was claimed to exist for months, and existed for more than 12 hours since published widely.

14 May 2013, it was documented that a URL sent via a Skype instant messaging session was usurped by the Skype service and subsequently used in a HTTP HEAD query originating from an IP address registered to Microsoft in Redmond (the IP address used was 65.52.100.214). The Microsoft query used the full URL supplied in the IM conversation, and was generated by a previously undocumented security service. Security experts speculate the action was triggered by a technology similar to Microsoft's SmartScreen Filter used in its browsers.

The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures revealed that agencies such as the NSA and the FBI have the ability to eavesdrop on Skype, including the monitoring and storage of text and video calls and file transfers. The PRISM surveillance program, which requires FISA court authorization, reportedly has allowed the NSA unfettered access to its data center supernodes. According to the leaked documents, integration work began in November 2010, but it was not until February 2011 that the company was served with a directive to comply signed by the attorney general, with NSA documents showing that collection began on 31 March 2011.

Wikipedia also has a separate article on Skype security, in which, among many other things, we read the following...:

Chinese, Russian and United States law enforcement agencies have the ability to eavesdrop on Skype conversations, as well as have access to Skype users geographic locations. In many cases, simple request for information is sufficient, and no court approval is needed. This ability was deliberately added by Microsoft after Skype purchase in 2011 for the law enforcement agencies around the world. This is implemented through switching the Skype client for a particular user account from the client side encryption to the server side encryption, allowing dissemination of an unencrypted data stream.

I recommend reading through both Wikipedia articles in their entirety so as to get a grip on all the risks associated with Skype. In addition to that, I would also like to point out -- as should already have become clear via the above quotes -- that Skype is currently owned by Microsoft, a company whose founder and former CEO Bill Gates has ties to the Illuminati...:

• Bill Gates' father, William Henry Gates II, used to own (and possibly still owns) a law firm which represents the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the Bush family, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co, and other Illuminati-related financial institutions and families.

• Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Braun are registered members of the Bilderberg Group.

• Bill Gates is a proponent of depopulation through the sterilizing of people (predominantly in so-called developing nations) by way of vaccines.

The bottom line is that Skype is something best stayed away from. There are alternatives via the Free & Open Source Software community, but they are most likely not compatible with the proprietary protocols used by Skype -- which, considering all the security and privacy implications, is only for the better -- and I know that it would probably be a hell of a job to get all of your contacts to convert to another communications platform.

However, you don't really need to do that for those contacts where your usage of Skype is limited to communications with a low security and privacy concern. For anything more serious -- and especially the more sensitive stuff discussed in alternative communities such as Avalon -- I heartily do recommend choosing one of the Free & Open Source Software alternatives instead. (Note: These alternatives exist for all of the popular computer platforms, so one does not need to also switch one's computer operating system of choice.)

Namaste.

[Bill Ryan]

-------

From my thread The retired CIA Director, a whistleblower, and Skype: a true story:

Dear Friends:

Enjoy this little story. Quite true, and happened nearly three years ago.

Someone I'd been in touch with for a while through Project Camelot (an intelligent and well-informed reader) contacted me on Skype audio one day to tell me a story.

He said that his partner was a family member of a retired CIA Director. He did not give the man's name, and even now I don't know it. This gentleman was now elderly, but very sharp and with all his wits about him.

Over a family dinner, this man had let slip to my friend's partner that the US had indeed made contact with an ET race in the early 1950s. That was basically what my friend wanted me to know.

This was not new, of course, but it was cool information. I thanked him for the story.

Three days later, he called me again, very flustered. This time it was not on Skype, but over iChat - a Mac application which I'd upgraded to be 256-bit encrypted.

He told me that the CIA Director had phoned him from Washington, having been handed a copy of the Skype transcript. "That was a PRIVATE conversation!" He was furious.

As he was telling me this, I could hear his cellphone ringing in the background.

"Better get that", I said. "It'll be him." I was laughing.

He didn't want to, but I persuaded him to pick up the call. "I'll stay right here," I told him.

Well, it was not the retired CIA Director. But it was a woman from Washington.

"GET OFF THE LINE NOW!!" she said.

The woman then sent a pulse through the phone that destroyed the SIM card and wiped the phone memory.

My friend was shaking. I could hardly contain myself. To his credit, he pulled himself together and was not intimidated. I thought it was hilarious.

Folks, no communications are secure. And 256-bit encryption means nothing at all.

[DarMar]

On a prison planet with HEAVY control set and manipulating/observing various frequency levels of awareness states, from awake until dream time.. and concern should be a software?

Pardon me I CAN CRACK OPEN YOUR LINUX/ WINDOWS safebox even if you dont have skype... and yet im a user with limited knowledge..
are we really need to poison this forum with white dots on gray dot, love toward guns and software awareness?!?!?!?

Is there anyhing else to share beyond keeping, hiding, grabbig, scaring?!?!?

and in moment while writing this:
The real truth with which we should be concerned...

Folks, no communications are secure. And 256-bit encryption means nothing at all.

[Tangri]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
-------


Folks, no communications are secure. And 256-bit encryption means nothing at all.
[/INDENT][/INDENT][/INDENT][/INDENT]

Ask to Paul,
He was trying months to solve this. Maybe he collected enough data for this problem.

[Karma Ninja]

It is false to assume we have any privacy or anonymity on the internet...

As I pointed out in this thread

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post924222

"Absolutely all OS's, browsers, apps, tools and whatever we use to access the internet is being monitored. All of it. If you really think there is anything happening anonymously on the internet you should give your head a shake. All the big corporations which offer internet service are now complicit and allow government virtually free, untethered, unmonitored access to everything you do. There are no secrets on the internet. The article above merely shows us that even the more sophisticated anonymity tools are not secure at all.

Which doesn't mean you should feel afraid or otherwise. Just carry on as we always did. "

The only part that is important to really remember from this comment is the last line... Just keep on carrying on. It's nothing to fear.

[Karma Ninja]

I remember about 15 years ago my local newspaper (The Ottawa Citizen) carried an article about software the governments of Canada and the USA are using that monitors every single communication imaginable. They could even read unopened letter mail! I seem to recall the software for electronic communication being called "Predator" and it wasn't named that because it could help catch online pedophiles or criminals. It was called that because it could hunt down and capture every single communication made by people. From what I recall it used keyword recognition (Specific words or phrases or combinations of words) to "flag" a transmission and store it for possible use in the future. I did a quick search and couldn't find anything that matches my sometimes shaky memory. If this were the case 15 years ago, just imagine where the technology would be today. Again, unless you are a pedophile or planning criminal activity then there is nothing to fear. However if you are planning an overthrow of the government online...you may be in for a surprise.

Here is another article regarding a similar theme that may be of interest to the headline topic which supports what I am claiming above. Nothing has ever been truly anonymous online.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ded-fbi-boston

[Frank V]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
-------

From my thread The retired CIA Director, a whistleblower, and Skype: a true story:

[...]

Well, it was not the retired CIA Director. But it was a woman from Washington.

"GET OFF THE LINE NOW!!" she said.

The woman then sent a pulse through the phone that destroyed the SIM card and wiped the phone memory.

[...]

Since the original thread from which you pasted that story is already stale, I'll reply to that particular part here, Bill, if you don't mind. ;-)

The thing is that all modern cellphones and smartphones -- presumably also all tablets and any other modern device which uses a SIM card -- have a built-in self-destruction mechanism for in the event that the device gets stolen.

See, the phone does not identify itself to the phone carrier company via its phone number, but rather via its IMEI code, similar to how your computer does not actually identify itself to your ISP via the IP address -- which it gets from the ISP -- but via the (hardware) MAC address of your network adapter (or that of your router's WAN-side network adapter). In the past, this IMEI code could be used to have the phone blacklisted in the event that it was stolen, but modern phones take that concept even farther and allow the device to be rendered useless, so that "the thief" wouldn't have access to the data stored in the phone and wouldn't be able to use the phone with another SIM card -- e.g. from a different carrier.

There's nothing esoteric about that, but in the end it once again shows how something that was initially intended to be used as a security feature to protect the rightful owner of the phone could ultimately be turned into a weapon against that rightful owner by (some value of) The Powers That Be™. Almost one year ago, on the 31st of January 2014, I even posted about an article on Slashdot about a secret meeting by the European Union in which it was decided that all new vehicles should by the year 2020 be equipped with a backdoor in their engine management system so as to allow law enforcement (including alphabet soup agencies, of course) to remotely shut down the engine of the vehicle in order to facilitate the arrest of fugitives -- a word so vague that it can easily be applied to whatever fits their totalitarianism, of course.

We are living in an Orwellian nightmare, my friend. And the sad part of it is that the vast majority of the people are not experiencing it as a nightmare because they don't even see what's going on right under their noses. So they call us "conspiracy theorists", and when that which we tried to warn them about then finally comes to the surface, their short attention spans have already long caused them to forget that we were the ones who warned them about that stuff in the first place, which they then chose to ignore, which is how come this situation was then of course allowed to manifest.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it's the sad truth, and the inertia of the masses is extremely frustrating. As I'm sure you'll know.

[Karma Ninja]

Posted by Aragorn (here)
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it's the sad truth, and the inertia of the masses is extremely frustrating. As I'm sure you'll know.

It's a good idea to preach to the choir Aragorn. Half the people here just showed up at church. New people join all the time and it is worth reminding the old users too.

[ThePythonicCow]

Internet security, in my view, is like protection against hostile weapons. There are various kinds and levels of protection, appropriate to various portential threats.

A relative inexpensive bullet "proof" vest might provide protection from a 22 calibre target round fired to the part of the torso that it covers, but such a vest won't provide much protection against a 50 calibre machine gun bullet, and won't even exist in any recognizable form after a nuclear bomb hit.

In my various activities as a member and administrator of this Avalon forum, I make frequent use of Skype to communicate with other members, moderators and administrators of Avalon. I almost always use just the text chat facility. The only significant use I make of Skype's video and/or audio chat facilities is to speak with personal family members. Skype text chat provides adequate "security" to keep what I type there private from other members of the forum, except those with whom I am knowingly interacting at the time (and whomever else I or they might choose to share the conversation with, later.)

As Tangri noted in Post #4 above, I also research other means of communicating more securely online, such as in these two recent threads:

• A somewhat more secure method for text chatting on the Web than Skype or iChat
• Secure, encrypted, easy to use, free email: ProtonMail.

I am not a computer security or cryptoanalyst expert, but I am perhaps one of the better informed amateurs that you are likely to find on the topic., thanks to

• my training in mathematics and computer science,
• my long professional experience in the computer system software business, sometimes involving such questions, and
• my long standing interest in the subject.

As with my "bullet proof vest" example above, computer security must take into account who or what you are protecting against. Are you trying to keep your six year old kid sister from reading your diary, or are you German Chancellor Angela Merckel trying to keep the full focus of the US Government's National Security Agency (NSA) from tracking your private communications? One of those tasks is much more difficult to accomplish than the other, just as protecting from a nuclear bomb is much more difficult than protecting from a 22 calibre target round.

===

I disagree on at least some of the points made by more than one of the posters above.

I disagree with the title of this thread - it is too alarmist in my personal view.

I disagree with the manner in which various security flaws of Skype are presented in the opening post of this thread - such is also too alarmist in my view, but without sufficient detail to actually enable anyone to make an informed judgement.

But I also disagree with one likely implication of Bill's statement that "no communications are secure". I would say that no communications is always secure, against any possible adversaries. To say that no communications are secure risks encouraging some readers to abandon all efforts to use some security measures, to provide some protection, against more likely threats, within reasonable effort.

I routinely make use of various levels of security when communicating with other people and institutions online:

• I routinely rely on SSL (https) to encrypt my bank account login details when I bank online; I am confident that this has so far, and likely will continue to, keep common thieves from stealing the modest funds I have on deposit in various bank accounts.
• I routinely use, and occasionally recommend, software such as Lastpass to help manage online account passwords.
• I work with Ilie to manage the password and account security and permissions of the files and data on our Avalon server.
• I routinely send messages to other Avalon forum members via the Private Message facility, confident that this keeps them confidential from other members that we mutually choose not to share such messages with.
• I routinely post in various Moderator-Only sub-forums of this forum on such questions as administering the server and evaluating new membership applications, confident that only forum moderators (and the NSA and their ilk) can read it.
• I have and will continue to use, research and sometimes recommend such tools and services as fastmail.fm, unseen.is, chatcrypt, pgp encrypted email, gnupg, protonmail.ch, ssh, and password protected accounts (100's of them), to provide a reasonable level of protection from various security threats.

None of the above are worth a tinker's damn against a full scale onslaught from the NSA.

===

Please, use security measures responsibly, at a level appropriate to one's resources and abilities, and appropriate the nature of the "threat" that one is securing against.

And please (Aragorn -- I'm looking at you <grin>) don't run around the deck of the passenger ship, shouting to the passengers that the life boats won't protect passengers from a full scale attack from a US Navy Destroyer, and listing (with too little detail to be of much use to anyone, but with sufficient, select, detail to be alarming to many) several of the various limitations, flaws and product recalls that the ships life boats and life preservers have been subject to, over the years, including observing that the former CEO of the company that subsequently bought the company that made the life boats is a likely member of the Illuminati. (Do however, if you like, take note of that last sentence -- it may be the kindest words you are likely to see me post regarding Bill Gates anytime soon <grin>.)

To do so is fear mongering, in my view. It is of little help (perhaps even a small hindrance) in "securing the safe passage" of our "ship's passengers", so that they can get to their various destinations more securely, reliably, rapidly, economically or enjoyably.

===

Posted by Aragorn
Attention Skype users -- important security and privacy concerns!

Aragorn - I invite you to suggest other possible, less alarmist, titles for this thread, if one is available that still adequately conveys your intention for the subject of this thread.

If no such alternative is available, then you might ask yourself just what was your purpose in posting this thread, in the manner you did, with the title you did, and with the opening post phrased as you phrased it.

[Frank V]

Posted by Paul (here)
[...]

I disagree with the title of this thread - it is too alarmist in my personal view.

I am open to a revision of the thread title, Paul. I'll get back to this farther down in my reply.

Posted by Paul (here)

I disagree with the manner in which various security flaws of Skype are presented in the opening post of this thread - such is also too alarmist in my view, but without sufficient detail to actually enable anyone to make an informed judgement.

Most of the statements in my opening post were literal quotes from the pertinent Wikipedia articles (to which I have provided the links). Said articles do contain references by way of footnotes and hyperlinks, but I have simply copied over the text, not the notes -- I've actually edited out the note numbers because the superscript does not translate well into the vBulletin markup language and because having those footnote numbers in the text body without that there are any actual footnotes is pointless -- and I did not incorporate any live links embedded in the Wikipedia article because that would have been far too labor-intensive. :grin:

My recommendation was that people would read the articles themselves. I have only attempted to distill a few highlights from those pertinent Wikipedia articles.

Posted by Paul (here)

But I also disagree with one likely implication of Bill's statement that "no communications are secure". I would say that no communications is always secure, against any possible adversaries. To say that no communications are secure risks encouraging some readers to abandon all efforts to use some security measures, to provide some protection, against more likely threats, within reasonable effort.

I fully agree with that.

Posted by Paul (here)
And please (Aragorn -- I'm looking at you <grin>) don't run around the deck of the passenger ship, shouting to the passengers that the life boats won't protect passengers from a full scale attack from a US Navy Destroyer, and listing (with too little detail to be of much use to anyone, but with sufficient, select, detail to be alarming to many) several of the various limitations, flaws and product recalls that the ships life boats and life preservers have been subject to, over the years, including observing that the former CEO of the company that subsequently bought the company that made the life boats is a likely member of the Illuminati. (Do however, if you like, take note of that last sentence -- it may be the kindest words you are likely to see me post regarding Bill Gates anytime soon <grin>.)

I'm afraid you misunderstood my intention behind this thread, Paul. However, again, I will clarify that farther below.

Posted by Paul (here)

Posted by Aragorn
Attention Skype users -- important security and privacy concerns!

Aragorn - I invite you to suggest other possible, less alarmist, titles for this thread, if one is available that still adequately conveys your intention for the subject of this thread.

If no such alternative is available, then you might ask yourself just what was your purpose in posting this thread, in the manner you did, with the title you did, and with the opening post phrased as you phrased it.

My intent was to notify the people who do use Skype of the security and privacy implications of it, given that most people take Skype for granted and that the community we are part of is undoubtedly one of the alphabet soup agencies' interests.

In no way did I mean to be or sound alarmist -- I don't even have a dog in that fight because I'm not a Skype user. I also contacted the mods because I know that you guys are using Skype. Furthermore, in my opening post, I even suggested that one could continue to use Skype for stuff with a low security/privacy concern.

Either way, if the thread is to be renamed -- which I fully support, because I wasn't even aware that the current thread title would come across as alarmist to anyone -- then I would suggest something along the lines of...

Why you should use another communications platform than Skype

... or...

Lots of reasons why you shouldn't use Skype

... or something of that flavor. It's pretty late here already and I'm afraid that both my eloquence [:cough cough:] and my contact lenses are starting to suffer under my fatigue, so if you find a way to more properly reword those thread title replacement suggestions, then by all means, be my guest. ;-)

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Aragorn (here)
Either way, if the thread is to be renamed -- which I fully support, because I wasn't even aware that the current thread title would come across as alarmist to anyone -- then I would suggest something along the lines of...

Why you should use another communications platform than Skype

... or...

Lots of reasons why you shouldn't use Skype

... or something of that flavor. It's pretty late here already and I'm afraid that both my eloquence [:cough cough:] and my contact lenses are starting to suffer under my fatigue, so if you find a way to more properly reword those thread title replacement suggestions, then by all means, be my guest. ;-)

OK - I took at stab at changing the title of this thread. I changed it

from

Attention Skype users -- important security and privacy concerns!

to

Security and privacy concerns of Skype

Let me know if that doesn't seem right to you, or if you would like to suggest something else.

Thanks.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Paul (here)

I also disagree with one likely implication of Bill's statement that "no communications are secure". I would say that no communications is always secure, against any possible adversaries. To say that no communications are secure risks encouraging some readers to abandon all efforts to use some security measures, to provide some protection, against more likely threats, within reasonable effort.

100% agreed. That's what I'd meant, and Paul said it much more precisely.

Personally, I operate on the assumption that a sufficiently high-level and technically-capable intel source can literally read my thoughts if they truly want to. No joke or imagination. (See http://projectcamelot.org/jake_simpson.html for an extraordinary personal surveillance experience in 2008 that changed my view of a lot of stuff.)

So I don't go to great measures to encrypt my regular communications. I do take the point that CASUAL hacking, maybe by non-intel people, can be far more of an issue in practical terms.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Personally, I operate on the assumption that a sufficiently high-level and technically-capable intel source can literally read my thoughts if they truly want to. No joke or imagination. (See http://projectcamelot.org/jake_simpson.html for an extraordinary personal surveillance experience in 2008 that changed my view of a lot of stuff.)

So I don't go to great measures to encrypt my regular communications. I do take the point that CASUAL hacking, maybe by non-intel people, can be far more of an issue in practical terms.

Indeed .

If I ever did have some matter to communicate that was of "extraordinary interest" to the bastards in power, say if I were the next Edward Snowden, then I'd be taking security measures substantially too complicated and too confidential to be even hinting at on this forum (after first updating my last will and testament, in the event that I failed.)

I do however, take some effort to keep some of my communications, even now, from being easily swept up in the usual broad spectrum information collection, and I do make some effort to support and recommend some of the more secure and usable tools that I can find, that make broad spectrum information collection more difficult.

Encouraging "good data security practices" is one of those things I can do that contribute a little bit to the well being of the Internet.

[Anchor]

PSA: If you are interested in this thread, AND you have not seen citizenfour then please watch it. Getting to see it online is a bit of a game, but I finally managed. Its slowly being blocked, but persist you will get to see it eventually. It is amazing.

Hints:

You tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4YOEHI8ctw

http://ultra-vid.com/watch-citizenfo...line-for-free/


I note the new title and the sobering down of the alarmist sentiment. Allow me perhaps to re-stress what has been said above.

You should not ever use skype with an expectation of privacy. You should expect that whatever you utter is recorded and whatever your camera sees can be permanently retained to be used against you if you ever cross the line. It is really is that dreadfully simple.

I concluded long ago that it is a compromised as they come. In the early days it was actually pretty secure but they would not open source the protocol. Eventually Microsoft bought it changed it and back-doored it for you know who.

(Good crypto has a habit of encountering market forces that defeats it - but they dont always win)

I recommend you seek out an alternative and completely remove skype from your computers - you do not know what that software can do to your computer... seriously you are opening the door and pretty much begging for the vampires to come in to your house. Most people let it update itself - and you are all being trained to follow "best practice" and install all your security patches either automatically - or to click YES when asked. This is all very convenient for people who may sometime want IN on your computer - no need to break crypto when they can break you instead.

If you have secrets to keep, you need more than one computer and unless you already have it - you need training. It is a bit like learning another language - except when you make mistakes, you risk compromise.

[DarMar]

ok, i'm going to do this only once and try to do it slowly..

computers=army
internet=army
chat program=security issue? really?

Motherboard is a sigil craft, since moment you let it in your house security level dropped below -100.
on sigil in computerism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigil_(...er_programming)

In computer programming, a sigil (/ˈsɪdʒəl/ or /ˈsɪɡəl/; plural sigilia or sigils) is a symbol attached to a variable name, showing the variable's datatype or scope, usually a prefix, as in $foo, where $ is the sigil.

Sigil, from the Latin sigillum, meaning a "little sign", means a sign or image supposedly having magical power.[1] In 1999 Philip Gwyn adopted the term "to mean the funny character at the front of a Perl variable"

funny makes it less stresfull...

personally i think throwing ALL of digitalia should do it... throwing a piece of software is.. illusion in better sentence

Sigils, on the other hand, are quick.

It’s not chance, by the way, that the name sigil is also used in modern circuit boards, in computer programming – a sigil is a mystical circuit diagram. By using sigils you are programming, you are creating, you are manifesting an outcome. Think about it. Seriously.

source for quote above: http://samaelstory.blogspot.com/2011...and-magic.html

now Paul is knowledge here, Paul what is variable? is there connection with MAGIC sigil and variable? is there connection with sigils on motherboard? can we do sigil calls through simbols on motherboard? can we trap counsciousness through that?
no? video games? forums? news? sitting whole day in fron of screen? anyone? am I ALONE HERE?

should i encrypt this?!?

one more quote for end:

If you take a quick look into the Linux source code, you’ll see that the _reboot() system call on Linux requires a “magic” variable to be passed that equals the hexadecimal number 0xfee1dead. If something tried to call that function without passing in that magic value first, it would just return an error.

questions was rethorical...



p.s.. things on motherboard are GOLD... who would tell?

[Billy]

Posted by Aragorn (here)
Fellow Avalonians,



I know that there are many people here on Avalon who use Skype rather routinely, and that Bill, the mods and the Avalon Healing Group extensively make use of Skype for their conferencing needs. This is why I felt that I needed to bring some very alarming facts to the attention of the people here on Avalon who make use of this software.

Namaste.

The team are very aware that Skype and most other forms of communications are not always secure. At times we actually say hello and leave a message to those who are monitoring our conversations. We have at times typed in key words that would attract their attention, then leave them guidelines on how to change for the betterment of all humanity.

Sometimes it is good to explain to a bastard who believes they have power, or the pawns that they use, That their game is failing and it is time not to be a bastard anymore.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Billy (here)

The team are very aware that Skype and most other forms of communications are not always secure. At times we actually say hello and leave a message to those who are monitoring our conversations. We have at times typed in key words that would attract their attention, then leave them guidelines on how to change for the betterment of all humanity.

Sometimes it is good to explain to a bastard who believes they have power, or the pawns that they use, That their game is failing and it is time not to be a bastard anymore.

Yes — very much so!

There's no scheming going on in the mods Skype chat that we would WANT to keep secret, anyway.

Most of it is very routine, interspersed with occasional philosophical discussion and personal updates of various kinds.

Any spook listening in, who had half a heart, would soon grow to think: "Wow, this is just a bunch of very nice people doing a voluntary job to help others. And, you know what: some of what they talk about is really quite fascinating. Interesting assignment I have here."

And it'd be true.

[Anchor]

Yes - well - I still use skype and when I do I know its not private (but it is also on a VM and isolates my host machine and doesnt give it much to play with).

Sooner or later the NSA will backdoor VMWare (assuming that has not happened already...)



/waves at NSA/

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by DarMar (here)
should i encrypt this?!?

Er ... eh ... I think you did ... quite successfully .

In other words, I failed to understand your post. Sorry.

[Karma Ninja]

Great info being shared. To add to the discussion about techniques that the NSA or law enforcement can employ...how about plucking the transfer out of the air and adding tracking software or spying software midstream.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...s-spy-program/