Skype's Chinese version left the surveillance door wide open

Found on CNet News on Sunday, 05 October 2008
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Security researchers recently found that IM conversations on the Chinese Skype program were not only filtered, but also recorded on a massive, nonsecure, server. The possibility of surveillance flies in the face of Skype's supposed strong encryption, and has provoked outcry among privacy advocates.

In fact, evidence suggests that the servers used to store captyured data have been compromised in the past and used to host pirated movies and torrents (for peer-to-peer file sharing).

China is a huge market and eBay/Skype is a huge company. For them, privacy concerns are nothing to think about. Those who need secure communication should always rely on open source applications which have nothing to hide.