I thought that the current running theory is that Skype is an NSA operation due to all the spooky crypto being used that seems to have come from nowhere. Assuming that is true, this recent "leak" would just be their attempt to convince more people (aka criminals) to use their service. - DEAN Eugen Leitl wrote:

That was also my first thought when I've read that.

----- Forwarded message from Adam Fields <cryptography23094893@aquick.org> -----

From: Adam Fields <cryptography23094893@aquick.org> Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:19:21 -0500 To: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu> Cc: cryptography@metzdowd.com Subject: Re: NSA offering 'billions' for Skype eavesdrop solution User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 11:24:35AM -0500, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

...

Counter Terror Expo: News of a possible viable business model for P2P VoIP network Skype emerged today, at the Counter Terror Expo in London. An industry source disclosed that America's supersecret National Security Agency (NSA) is offering "billions" to any firm which can offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic.

....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage...

Of course, this could just be a smokescreen to try to convince people that they can't already do it.

The voice traffic may be hard to break, but the fact that every client can download my entire IM history when logging into a new machine kind of kills the "it's p2p so we can't track it" argument. Those messages are stored somewhere.