Huge System for Skype Surveillance, Censorship Discovered in China

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/technology/internet/02skype.html

by joshwa • 18 years ago

21 14 18 years ago

nytimes.com

LPTS• 18 years ago

Tomorrow on the NY Times:

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Does anybody think the American government isn't either doing the same thing or trying really hard to get that power?

astine3• 18 years ago

Certain members of government certainly are, though I don't think you can say that the government as a whole is pursuing this.

MikeCapone• 18 years ago

If the government as a whole could pursue anything, we'd all be screwed.

jhancock3• 18 years ago

Encrypted comm channels, tunneling, and anon networks are tools we hackers are good at utilizing. There are many solutions that enable these tools for "joe user". The problem is that any solution I can think of that simplifies privacy for the end user is fairly easily blocked by a government that controls the network.

I think it comes down to the fact that if you're a great tool-smith, you can have some privacy. Others get to be monitored or blocked.

Note: my opinion is based on my experience as an American living in Shanghai for 8 years.

notphilatall• 18 years ago

I'm tempted to think that a Chinese national using encryption would be subjected to stronger, maybe even in person surveillance.

jhancock3• 18 years ago

Chinese savvy programmers use encryption tools and I have not heard of them being "visited" by officials. Its not a big problem. Censorship is a numbers game. It doesn't matter much if highly educated tech savvy people have access to info. The government isn't concerned with what this sub group reads. They do care what they say ;).

mindslight• 18 years ago

How about when the traffic from privacy tools looks the same as legitimate business traffic? Surely ecommerce in China uses SSL, and blocking such traffic would really piss off large businesses.

The usage patterns may look different which may result in further scrutiny, but it seems hard to block such tools outright, especially when used while mobile.

jhancock3• 18 years ago

You are correct. I get around the firewall by tunneling (SSH) to my U.S. server. However, when you simplify "tunneling" by using point and click tools, now you have something generally identifiable and blockable as these tools also will use known discover and tunneling points. So if you don't have your own server in a foreign land, you can't easily tunnel without being blockable.

someperson• 18 years ago

"To his surprise, the coded messages were being stored on Tom Online computers. When he examined the machines over the Internet, he discovered that they had been misconfigured and that the computer directories were readable with a simple Web browser."

How dumb can that company be?

dpatru• 18 years ago

The phrase "It's good enough for government work" comes to mind.

fjsjex• 18 years ago

Why not create a spambot that spews "democracy now" or something to everyone? It will make the haystack much larger.

astine3• 18 years ago

Do you want to turn the Chinese off to the concept for good?

0_o• 18 years ago

Fuck Great Firewall !

Huge System for Skype Surveillance, Censorship Discovered in China

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