NEW YORK — A Canadian researcher has discovered that a Chinese version of eBay’s Skype communications software snoops on text chats that contain certain keywords, including “democracy.” The revelation is not only of interest to rights groups that monitor Internet censorship.
Skype routes calls and chats between computers over the Internet, avoiding traditional phone networks. And the contents are supposedly encrypted. The FBI has argued for applying U.S. wiretapping law to Internet phone calls.
Privacy advocates and security experts say that Skype, while presented by the company as a secure channel of communication, has some kind of “back door” that allows eavesdropping. Whether “Skypetapping” is already going on in the U.S. and Europe is a matter that the company has equivocated on for years.
