Is someone eavesdropping on your Skype calls?

July 25, 2008

Slug from Atmosphere eavesdrops on Lucy?
Creative Commons License photo credit: Joe Howell

Just how secure is a Skype call? It’s often thought that a phone call is pretty secure and an encrypted IP phone call almost impossible to listen in on. Not any longer though, the Austrian government have revealed that it is “not a problem” for them to listen in on Skype calls.

Skype is proprietary software so no one really knows how it works, there is speculation that there might be a backdoor built into Skype to allow legal authorities to eavesdrop on calls. If that’s not the case then it appears Skype may have a flaw in the set up of calls enabling the call security to be compromised. AES encryption that Skype uses is secure, but not if the keys exchanged when a call is set up can be captured.

It’s long been known that GCHQ can listen in to land line or mobile phone calls and they can also read your emails. Does it really matter if they can eavesdrop on your Skype calls as well?

If the government really want to listen in on my mindless wittering on phone calls then they’re welcome - all the time Skype is free I’ll carry on using it. After all the alternative is to use mobile or land line phones and they can listen in to them anyway.

The big question of course is who else is listening in on calls, if governments and Skype themselves can intercept conversations then how long before someone less desirable gains access and starts monitoring calls?

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under News | 13 Comments