(Hey! A non-Warhammer related post for a change. ;-P)
Kivrin sent this my way via IM, from Ars Technica:
If you’re an authoritarian government that closely monitors your citizens’ online communications, here’s a tip from Ars Technica: tell your minions not to store the logs on publicly-accessible servers. This is exactly what China has done with information pulled from the TOM-Skype network, leading a handful of researchers to discover that China is logging text messages and analyze the country’s behavior with regards to the online monitoring and censorship of citizens.
It really should come as no surprise that the Chinese administration would be spying on its citizens in this manner. It is somewhat humorous to see just how bad they are at keeping that fact a secret.
Apparently hackers were well aware of these supposedly secret servers and had long since compromised them to store their pirated software and movies.
That also means they had access to highly sensitive personal information on everyone the Chinese government had logged, including those outside of China communicating with people in-country.
The report goes on to say:
Additionally, the findings raise the question as to what extent TOM and Skype are cooperating with the Chinese government. The report questions the legal basis for TOM-Skype to capture and log this information, who has access to it, and what will be done with it in the future. Villeneuve notes that Skype is neither transparent nor forthcoming about the exact nature of its compliance with Chinese authorities, a disturbing trend among US-based Internet companies conducting business in China.
Looks like Skype might take a PR hit on this one and will have its spin doctors toiling away madly.
While this sort of thing is expected of the Chinese administration, we shouldn’t look past our own governments doing this sort of thing, especially under the guise of homeland security and the spectre of home grown terrorism.
Tags: big brother, china, chinese government, skype, surveillance, voip
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