Sorry NSA - Terrorists Don't Use Verizon, Skype, or Gmail

All that money wasted--or as Bloomberg more bluntly puts it, the "infrastructure set up by the National Security Agency ... may only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The Prism surveillance program focuses on access to the servers of America’s largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not the services that truly dangerous elements typically use"--

Sorry, NSA, Terrorists Don't Use Verizon. Or Skype. Or Gmail. | Motherboard: "The NSA has to collect the metadata from all of our phone calls because terrorists, right? And the spy agency absolutely must intercept Skypes you conduct with folks out-of-state, or else terrorism. It must sift through your iCloud data and Facebook status updates too, because Al Qaeda. Terrorists are everywhere, they are legion, they are dangerous, and, unfortunately, they don't really do any of the stuff described above. Even though the still-growing surveillance state that sprung up in the wake of 9/11 was enacted almost entirely to "fight terrorism," reports show that the modes of communication that agencies like the NSA are targeting are scarcely used by terrorists at all. A recent Bloomberg piece points to a 2012 report on terrorism which found that most serious terrorists steer clear of the most obvious platforms—major cell networks, Google, Skype, Facebook, etc. . . . "

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New Skype malware uses victims machines to mine bitcoins

New Skype malware spreading at 2,000 clicks per hour makes money by using victims’ machines to mine Bitcoins - The Next Web: "To avoid this threat and others like it, don’t click on random links you receive on Skype. You’ll be doing yourself a favor, helping stop the spread of malware, and ensuring criminals get a smaller pay day."

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Skype Hijacked in China and Microsoft Does Nothing

Skype's Been Hijacked in China, and Microsoft Is O.K. With It - Businessweek: " . . . . Knockel, a bearded, yoga-practicing son of a retired U.S. Air Force officer, has repeatedly beaten the ever-changing encryption that cloaks Skype’s Chinese service. This has allowed him to compile for the first time the thousands of terms—such as “Amnesty International” and “Tiananmen”—that prompt Skype in China to intercept typed messages and send copies to its computer servers in the country. Some messages are blocked altogether. The lists—which are the subject of a presentation Knockel will make on Friday, March 8, at Boston University, as well as a paper he’s writing with researchers from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab—shed light on the monitoring of Internet communications in China. Skype’s videophone-and-texting service there, with nearly 96 million users, is known as TOM-Skype, a joint venture formed in 2005 with majority owner Tom Online, a Chinese wireless Internet company. The words that are subject to being monitored, which Knockel updates almost daily on his department’s website, range from references to pornography and drugs to politically sensitive terms, including “Human Rights Watch,” “Reporters Without Borders,” “BBC News,” and the locations of planned protests. (The system he traced does not involve voice calls.) Knockel says his findings expose a conflict between Microsoft’s advocacy of privacy rights and its role in surveillance. Microsoft, which bought Skype in 2011, is a founding member of the Global Network Initiative, a group that promotes corporate responsibility in online freedom of expression. “I would hope for more,” Knockel says of Microsoft. “I would like to get a statement out of them on their social policy regarding whether they approve of what TOM-Skype is doing on surveillance.” On Jan. 24, an international group of activists and rights groups published an open letter to Skype, calling on it to disclose its security and privacy practices. Microsoft, when asked for comment on Knockel’s findings and activists’ concerns, issued a statement it attributed to an unnamed spokesperson for its Skype unit.“. . . ."


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