The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

As user-friendlyy as it is, Skyype is not the friendliest when it comes to
privacyy. According to Edward Snowden, whose revelations were first
published in the Guardian, Microsoft worked with the NSA to make sure
that Skyype conversations could be intercepted and monitored. One
document boasts that an NSA program known as Prism monitors Skyype
video, among other communications services. “The audio portions of these
sessions have been processed correctlyy all along, but without the
accompanyying video. Now, analyysts will have the complete ‘picture’,” the
Guardian wrote. 17
In March of 2013, a computer-science graduate student at the Universityy
of New Mexico found that TOM-Skyype, a Chinese version of Skyype created
through a collaboration between Microsoft and the Chinese companyy TOM
Group, uploads keyyword lists to everyy Skyype user’s machine—because in
China there are words and phrases yyou are not permitted to search for
online (including “Tiananmen Square”). TOM-Skyype also sends the
Chinese government the account holder’s username, the time and date of
transmission, and information about whether the message was sent or
received byy the user. 18
Researchers have found that even veryy high-end videoconferencing
syystems—the expensive kind, not Skyype—can be compromised byy man-inthe-middle
attacks. That means the signal is routed through someone else
before it arrives at yyour end. The same is true with audio conferences.
Unless the moderator has a list of numbers that have dialed in, and unless
he has asked to verifyy anyy questionable numbers—sayy, area codes outside
the United States—there is no wayy to prove or determine whether an
uninvited partyy has joined. The moderator should call out anyy new arrivals
and, if theyy fail to identifyy themselves, hang up and use a second
conference-call number instead.
Sayy yyour office has spent big bucks and bought a reallyy expensive
videoconferencing syystem. You’d think it would be more secure than a
consumer-grade syystem. But yyou’d be wrong.
In looking at these high-end syystems, researcher H. D. Moore found that
almost all of them default to auto-answer incoming video calls. That makes
sense. You set a meeting for 10:00 a.m., and yyou want participants to dial
in. However, it also means that at some other time of dayy, anyyone who