Posted on 02/16/2006 1:06:25 PM PST by SmithL
NEW YORK -- Even as the U.S. government is embroiled in a debate over the legality of wiretapping, the fastest-growing technology for Internet calls appears to have the potential to make eavesdropping a thing of the past.
Skype, the Internet calling service recently acquired by eBay Inc., provides free voice calls and instant messaging between users. Unlike other Internet voice services, Skype calls are encrypted — encoded using complex mathematical operations. That apparently makes them impossible to snoop on, though the company leaves the issue somewhat open to question.
Skype is certainly not the first application for encrypted communications on the Internet. Secure e-mail and instant messaging programs have been available for years at little or no cost.
But to a large extent, Internet users haven't felt a need for privacy that outweighed the extra effort needed to use encryption. In particular, e-mail programs such as Pretty Good Privacy have been considered too cumbersome by many.
And because such applications have had limited popularity, their mere use can draw attention. With Skype, however, criminals, terrorists and other people who really want to keep their communications private are indistinguishable from those who just want to call their mothers.
"Skype became popular not because it was secure, but because it was easy to use," said Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer at Counterpane Internet Security Inc.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I bet they give up the code to the ChiComs!
Is the media actually giving the terrorists advice on how to bypass the surveillance? F'ing unbelievable. Eavesdropping on terrorsists is treated in this article as something to be done away with.
"Skype became popular not because it was secure, but because it was easy to use,"
Skype indeed is very easy to use and with a web camera you get as close to a video phone as you can be.
NetZero is offering a VOIP service, free for 3 months. What I like about it is no external equipment is required.
Well, have terrorists never heard of Google, and don't know how to read an RFC and download code?
Creating secure communications over the internet is simple for anyone with the slightest technical skills.
Should be "That apparently makes them difficult to snoop on"
You could always just join Al Gore and call for an end to private encryption.
Private industry is always smarter than the government.
Philip Zimmerman must be smiling these days, as his dream of easy encryption for the masses to ensure privacy is coming true.
I never used skype, but I now video chat with my dad using Apple's iChat program. He says it is much better than skype.
You don't need external equipment for Skype, either, except the web-cam if you want to see each other.
The only trouble I have had with iChat is occasional bandwidth issues. But video chatting with my dad while he is in Nigeria is pretty impressive nonetheless.
I use SkypeOut regularly for calls from Afghanistan. It's great. Calls any where to the lower 48 and most of Europe/Japan/etc for 2 cents a minute. The quality is often so good it's better than calls within the US. Never realized the transmission over the internet was encrypted which is great news.
if the keys are long enough and the key exchanges cannot be comprimised, then absent a specifically placed backdoor, its hard.
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