How serendipitous_ Weeks after Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, Microsoft has also received a patent for technology that lets it eavesdrop on VoIP calls.
Microsoft applied for the patent back in 2009, so it’s unlikely it was already preparing for a Skype acquisition two years later, but perhaps it had in mind similar voice messaging software such as Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications.
The patent, titled “Legal Intercept,” is for an interception software that lets someone surreptitiously record a call on a VoIP network. Microsoft rationalized the patent as a way to answer to government requests for surveillance and wiretapping.
“Sometimes, a government or one of its agencies may need to monitor communications between telephone users,” the patent reads.
“Traditional techniques for silently recording telephone communication may not work correctly with VoIP and other network-based communication technology,” it reads. “For example, VoIP may include audio messages transmitted via gaming systems, instant messaging protocols that transmit audio, Skype and Skype-like applications, meeting software, video conferencing software, and the like.”
Sophos security advisor Chester Wisniewski said the patent would help Skype overcome resistance from foreign governments insisting on the backdoor. Skype itself is no stranger to this. For instance, last year the Indian government has threatened to ban Skype, Google, and Blackberry for not complying to stringent surveillance laws. In 2008, Skype’s reputation in China took a dive after it admitted to monitoring calls on behalf of the government. The Austrian police has also claimed it can bug Skype calls, though Skype has never commented on the matter.
Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami, told Computerworld that the patent could be a step back for anti-government efforts, “First, making a communication technology FBI-friendly means also making it dictator-friendly, and in the long run this is not good for movements like the Arab Spring,” he said. “Second, experience shows that building in back doors invites exploits.”
Last fall, reports surfaced that the Obama administration was working on regulations that would make it easier for law enforcers to wiretap communications, which would probably require companies to create backdoors for the government to listen in.
A Garden City businessman and former vice president of the USD 457 Board of Education has been accused of placing and using a concealed camcorder to eavesdrop in the women’s bathroom at his business.
John Scheopner, 56, was arrested at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday in Finney County on allegations he used a concealed camcorder to eavesdrop on a 53-year-old Garden City woman, a 28-year-old Lakin woman and a 32-year-old Garden City woman in the women’s bathroom at Scheopner’s Water Conditioning, 2203 East Fulton Plaza, according to Garden City Police Sgt. Michael Reagle. Scheopner allegedly eavesdropped on the 32-year-old woman twice, Reagle said. The incidents allegedly occurred on April 30.
Scheopner, whose resignation from the school board was accepted on May 23 after 14 years on the board, also is accused of two counts of intimidation of a witness or victim for allegedly attempting to deter the 53-year-old woman and 28-year-old woman from testifying, Reagle said.
Scheopner could not be reached for comment.
Scheopner made his first court appearance Wednesday and was released on his own recognizance, according to the Finney County Jail log. He has been charged with four counts of use of a concealed camcorder to eavesdrop and two counts of intimidation of a witness or victim, according to the Finney County Attorney’s Office. All are misdemeanors.
Scheopner is scheduled for a case management hearing at 1:15 p.m. July 28.
Reagle said that while the incident occurred April 30, the investigation continued after that. An arrest affidavit was filed requesting Scheopner be charged. The arrest warrant was issued, and he was arrested when he made his first appearance, Reagle said.
Lawyer Lara Bors was appointed Monday to Scheopner’s seat on the board in a unanimous vote by the board.
The term to which Bors was named expires on June 30, 2013.
Washington, June 3(ANI): Chinese hackers enjoyed months of access to the personal Google emails of senior US officials and human rights activists, according to a US computer security expert.
Google had on Wednesday said that hackers based in China tried to break into hundreds of Google mail accounts. The company later claimed that the hackers’ “goal” was to eavesdrop on the officials “to monitor the content of the users’ emails”.
The first details of the attack emerged in February on the blog of Mila Parkour, a pseudonymous computer security expert who found a “spear phishing” email on the systems of one of her clients, The Telegraph reports.he had alerted Google after which they made their official announcement.
An example described by Parkour appeared to originate from the US State Department and contained link to a document named “Draft US-China Joint tatement”.
In fact, when clicked, the link summoned a facsimile of the Gmail login page.he bogus page asked targets to enter their password, granting the attackers full access to their email account. Google said the attackers then changed settings so that all incoming messages would be forwarded to them.
The security breach was revealed as the Pentagon warned that the US might retaliate with military force against countries that sabotage its computers.
Google said that the latest attack was believed to have been executed from the city of Jinan.
China, however, claims that the hacking is not state-sponsored, said the allegations are “completely unfounded and made with ulterior motives.” (ANI)
Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International and former editor of The Sun, has been shown evidence suggesting her phone was hacked more than 20 times by a private investigator employed by another Rupert Murdoch title, it emerged last night.
News International confirmed the 43-year-old media executive met detectives last week from Operation Weeting – Scotland Yard’s third investigation into phone hacking – to see records showing she was targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective employed by the News of the World to eavesdrop on the voicemails of numerous public figures.
The alleged hacking took place between 2005 and 2006, when Ms Brooks, who is also a former editor of the NOTW, was in charge of The Sun, and raises the question of whether Mr Mulcaire was at the centre of an effort by Britain’s top-selling Sunday newspaper to spy on its daily stablemate.
The revelation that Ms Brooks was a likely repeated target for Mr Mulcaire was made by Sky News, whose largest shareholder is Mr Murdoch’s News Corp. In a blog, the broadcaster’s City editor, Mark Kleinman, suggested the hacking could also have been done by the private investigator on behalf of a rival newspaper.
Before his arrest in August 2006, Mr Mulcaire was employed on an exclusive contract with the NOTW worth ÂŁ104,000 a year to supply “research and information services”. No evidence has been produced to show that the amateur footballer-turned-private detective was working for titles outside News International.
The reason why Ms Brooks, who edited The Sun between 2003 and 2009, had her voicemails intercepted was unclear, though she became the subject of media interest in her personal life in November 2005 when she was arrested for an alleged assault on her then-husband, the actor Ross Kemp. She was released without charge.
Sky News reported that legal advisers to the News International chief executive, who has always denied any knowledge of phone hacking, were considering whether to apply for a court order requiring the Yard to hand over copies of the evidence found in Mr Mulcaire’s documents.
A News International spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that Rebekah Brooks was recently shown documents by the police that proved she was a victim of illegal voicemail interception.” It was unclear last night whether Ms Brooks would consider joining the list of high-profile individuals suing the NOTW for breach of privacy.
In a sign that the revelations may be damaging Mr Murdoch’s popularity, it appears his annual summer party is no longer the hot ticket it used to be. As the media mogul stands on the verge of achieving his dream of taking complete control of the BSkyB satellite broadcasting empire, an invitation to last night’s grand bash at the ornate Orangery, in the grounds of Kensington Palace, west London, drew more refusals than acceptances.
The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who is set to announce whether the BSkyB deal can go through, has decided not to attend the party for fear that his presence might be misinterpreted. His colleague Ed Vaizey, the Culture minister, is also expected to be give it a miss. Liberal Democrat MPs, who attended in strength with Nick Clegg last year, are also likely to be conspicuously absent as the parliamentary party is attending an annual away day.
The Independent understands the event was also expected to be less star-studded than in previous years. Downing Street would not confirm whether David Cameron was attending, as he did last year with his wife, Samantha.
A team of quantum cryptography researchers from Singapore and Norway have managed to eavesdrop on a communication that was encrypted by quantum key distribution (QKD) without being detected.
QKD is one variety of quantum cryptography, and is probably the most well known. In a nutshell, a communication encrypted by QKD is one where both the sender (known in the literature as “Alice”) and the receiver (“Bob”). Like the most common encryption protocol used today, public-key encryption, QKD relies on electronic “keys” to decrypt messages sent back and forth between Alice and Bob. In public-key encryption, the keys are very large prime numbers, which are difficult to current computers to calculate and determine through brute force.
In QKD, the key is actually in the form of stream of photons, where each photon consists of one bit of information about the key, depending on the photon’s state. In theory, this would prevent an eavesdropper (“Eve”) from breaking into the communication, because the very act of Eve trying to measure the state of the photons will actually change their state. That change would enable Bob and Alice to know that Eve was trying to listen in on their conversation, and also prevent Eve from obtaining the complete key.
In practice, however, this has turned out to be more difficult, due to the physical limitations of a QKD system. This has enabled several successful attacks on QKD systems, including the ability of Eve to obtain the key and listen to the communications. However, all of these methods still introduce some errors into the communcations and key receptions, meaning that it’s possible for Alice and Bob to notice the eavesdropping and act accordingly.
The researchers at the University of Singapore, however, have managed to go one step further — they’ve developed a method of producing a full exploit of a QKD system that allows for Eve to eavedrop on Alice’s and Bob’s communication — without introducing enough errors to allow her to be detected. Her eavesdropping appeared to be no different from the random background errors that are inevitable in the physical implementation of a QKD system.
Although the researchers were able to infiltrate this system with basically off-the-shelf parts, it’s worth noting that this exploit doesn’t mean that QKD isn’t a viable method of encryption. The researchers themselves suggest several countermeasures, and no doubt other countermeasures will be developed as this research continues. As the researchers themselves note: ”a more pointed question is what problems still lurk unnoticed in the gap between the theoretical description and the practical systems. Just as in classical cryptography, an ongoing search for backdoors is required to build hardened implementations of quantum cryptography for real-world use.”
Quantum cryptography is still in its infancy, but it’s still more than likely the future of encrypted communications once its been further refined and developed.
