News you may have missed #0084
August 28, 2009 Leave a comment
- Cargo ship with Israeli weapons destined for Philippines seized. The arms were apparently destined for “rebel groups or criminal organizations”. No word yet from the Israeli government.
- Even more CIA documents to be disclosed. Word comes that, in response to pending requests from the ACLU, more CIA documents about Bush-era interrogations and detentions could be released as early as Monday.
- Double spy’s son admits guilt. Nathaniel James Nicholson, youngest son of Harold James Nicholson, who in 1997 became the highest-ranking CIA officer to be convicted of spying on behalf of a foreign agency, pleaded guilty Thursday to collecting cash from Russian officials who owed his father for selling CIA secrets in the 1990s.
intelNews.org 
Has Skype’s VOIP encryption been broken?
August 28, 2009 by intelNews 2 Comments
NSA HQ
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
I have explained before that the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence agencies have found it impossible to intercept Skype’s instant messaging and voice traffic. Like other voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP) communications providers, Skype uses technology that converts audio signals to data, and transports them through most of the Internet infrastructure in binary, rather than audio, format. Furthermore, Skype uses very complex algorithms to encrypt its customers’ communications. Skype has repeatedly pointed to the technical complexities of VOIP communications, arguing that it is often technically impossible to facilitate communications interception requests by government authorities. There are rumors among communications interception specialists that the NSA is offering billions to anyone who can come up with a reliable eavesdropping model for Skype. Remarkably, on August 25, a Swiss software developer released what he claims is the source code of a program for tapping into encrypted Skype communications. I don’t know whether the source code (essentially a trojan) is effective. He claims it is. If this is confirmed, then several people in Fort George F. Meade, Maryland, will be really close paying attention.
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with communications interception, computer hacking, cryptology, Internet, NSA, Skype, telecommunications, VOIP