A Canadian researcher has discovered that a Chinese version of eBay Inc.’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. The discovery also likely intrigues law enforcement and intelligence agencies in other countries, because they have been bothered by the growing use of Skype, which claims 338 million users across the world.
Oct
12
Beijing (China) - A group of computer security researchers and human-rights activists based in Canada at the University of Toronto recently found a gigantic surveillance system in China that is being utilized to monitor and archive Internet text conversations that contain politically charged wording. The system is capable of tracking text messages that are sent by TOM-Skype customers. TOM-Skype is a joint venture between eBay and a Chinese wireless provider.
Oct
12
NEW YORK (AP) A Canadian researcher has discovered that a Chinese version of eBay Inc.’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. The discovery also likely intrigues law enforcement and intelligence agencies in other countries, because they have been bothered by the growing use of Skype, which claims 338 million users across the world.
Oct
11
Skype Security Breach Reveals Anti-Communist Movement in China http://en.epochtimes.com/ ‘њWe can’t use Yahoo messenger, email is not safe, phones are not safe, and now Skype is not safe. We don’t know what to use.’ќ A report by Citizen Lab stated that Villeneuve’s findings should serve as a warning for groups engaging in political activism or using censorship circumvention technology accessed through companies that have compromised on human rights.
Dec
20
Internet telephony hasn t put phone companies out of business the way it was supposed to. But there s now evidence that Web calling is making it hard for at least international phone companies to continue doing business as usual. A TeleGeography Research survey has found that, for the first time in several decades, the growth rate for total international voice minutes is falling. Volume growth is a crucial factor in international carriers survival strategies.
Dec
20
For the more talkative members of MySpace, the last two months must have seemed like an eternity. In mid-October 2007, the social network and Skype announced that they had agreed to integrate the latter s Internet-calling capabilities with the former s IM (instant messaging) functions. The integrated service has finally gone live, adding 110 million MySpace members to the 245 million registered Skype users who can potentially call each other for free.
Dec
20
RipIt RingIt breaks new ground, enabling free ringtones for Skype. The ringtone maker allows users to record their own ringtones that can be assigned to individual callers or, for greater impact, sent to each of their contacts. The ringtones can be simple voice announcements or anything that users can record, limited only by the user s creativity. RipIt RingIt offers a completely new mode of personal expression, even branding.
Dec
17
According to the statement, the description should read, Nothing per minute nationwide calls to any phone within the U.S. and Canada. No connection fee applies for calling within the U.S. and Canada. Fair usage policies apply to all SkypeOut calls. Company also informed that the Skype team is working to correct the inaccuracy as quickly as possible.
Dec
17
The other nugget that rose to the surface was the forthcoming enhancement of Skype Prime , which is soon going to enjoy better integration with Skype’s directories service. It seems that 80,000 people have signed up as service providers for the scheme, but as for user numbers… well, they’re not talking about that, really. Maybe because they’ve only been letting users in during the last month, whereas the service providers have been hanging around since March.
Dec
14
Skype and 3 Mobile have joined forces to create a mobile phone that can use both normal phone networks and Skype internet telephony, PCWorld reports. Set to be available in Australia by Christmas, the ‘њ3 Skypephone’ќ lets people make free Skype-to-Skype calls and send free instant messages to other users internationally as well as accessing 3’s other network services.