[Clips] Is Skype a haven for criminals?

[Steve Schear]

At 07:07 PM 3/10/2006, Damian Gerow wrote:
>Thus spake Steve Schear (s.schear at comcast.net) [10/03/06 19:57]:
>: >While I have no key insights into how Skype encryption is handled -- aside
>: >from the fact that most crypto-knowledgable communities view it skeptically
>: >-- I /do/ know they've stated they will fully comply with any wiretapping
>: >request, and declined to comment further on what exactly that meant.
>:
>: I believe it means they will comply with wiretapping requests of calls that
>: touch the public switched network.
>
>They /do/ claim that there are no back doors within the code.  And the quote
>I was thinking of is:


>However, no matter what your approach (the trusting or the paranoid), it's
>all speculation.  So long as their crypto /does/ remain closed -- and
>they've given nobody any reason to believe it will be anything but -- we'll
>have a hard time telling just how good it actually is.
>
>Like I said, I'm waiting for Zfone and ZRTP.

One way to provide some measure of protection is to proxy Skype, for 
example from with a VPN.  At least they won't be able to ID your IP 
address.  If both parties are inside the VPN all the better.

Steve