Microsoft can’t be trusted with Skype

(Shamelessly stolen from fossforce.com.)

Just because the OEMs aren’t afraid of Redmond any longer doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be. We weren’t surprised at all, this week, when H Online reported that Microsoft has been playing fast and loose with our privacy on Skype. We don’t use Skype here at FOSS Force, but evidently when you sign their user agreement, you let them read everything you write. It appears Skype’s EULA is a little like your Miranda rights. What you say can and will be used against you.

From the H-Open report:

“A reader informed heise Security that he had observed some unusual network traffic following a Skype instant messaging conversation. The server indicated a potential replay attack. It turned out that an IP address which traced back to Microsoft had accessed the HTTPS URLs previously transmitted over Skype. Heise Security then reproduced the events by sending two test HTTPS URLs, one containing login information and one pointing to a private cloud-based file-sharing service. A few hours after their Skype messages, they observed the following in the server log:

“65.52.100.214 – – [30/Apr/2013:19:28:32 +0200]
‘HEAD /…/login.html?user=tbtest&password=geheim HTTP/1.1′

“They too had received visits to each of the HTTPS URLs transmitted over Skype from an IP address registered to Microsoft in Redmond. URLs pointing to encrypted web pages frequently contain unique session data or other confidential information… In visiting these pages, Microsoft made use of both the login information and the specially created URL for a private cloud-based file-sharing service.”

That being the case, we must concur with H-Open’s and heise Security’s assertion that all users of Skype should assume this could happen to them too. In other words, when you’re using Skype, figure you’re on a party line. Better yet, figure everything you do is being routed through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.