Thursday, July 11, 2013

Can you stop the NSA?

Microsoft and Skype Hand Over your Personal Information


image of person messaging another personDo you assume your Skype call is just between you and the person on the other side of the screen?  Think a little bit before you answer.   If you thought you had to sign a disclaimer for your audio or video to be released, that's just for the Joe Schmo next door.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is obtaining content of emails and video chats from Microsoft and Skype.  Even though Microsoft's latest marketing campaign, launched in April, emphasizes its commitment to privacy with the slogan: "Your privacy is our priority."  These corporations are giving U.S. spy agencies everything they have with no question.  I mean, what can they really do?  These are the "Big Boy's" right?  It's not very clear if the data was intended towards specific subjects but the NSA is taking it all and hopefully for a good reason.  The documents indicate that the NSA doesn't need any kind of warrant for these requests.


"The NSA reportedly had access to pre-encrypted data, "For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption."



Apparently the NSA is very happy with the clarity of Skype's wiretap call quality.  Skype allows you to:  make calls to mobiles and landlines, have up to 10 video group calls at once, instant voice and text messaging, and share photos, videos, and files of any size.  Google and Yahoo are in a dispute with the NSA on knowing exactly what information is needed in order to answer questions from their users on the situation.

A document reported that the agencies do not need to specifically request the information from Microsoft, Apple and other Head Honcho companies.  Special Source Operations (SSO) .  NSA leaker Edward Snowden called the SSO the "crown jewel" of the NSA monitoring apparatus. -TechCrunch

The NSA was originally distressed with the ability to get around Microsoft's encryption for their web chats on Outlook.com.  Several months later Microsoft gave them a workaround so the decryption tactics came much easier.  Microsoft worked with the NSA to have access to communication between user on Skype, SkyDrive, Cloud-base, Hotmail, and Outlook data servers.

This 4th Amendment violation in our eyes is enough "probable cause" in the NSA's eyes to review and research our chats and phone calls for the rest of our lives.

Please visit http://www.hyphenet.com/blog/ for more blog posts on the latest technology and IT security news.

Images courtesy of [digitalart,Master isolated images] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

References:

Report: Skype And Microsoft Handed Over Video And Emails To NSA
http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/11/report-skype-and-microsoft-handed-over-video-and-emails-to-nsa/
Published July 11, 2013

NSA's PRISM Given Access To Microsoft's Encrypted Data
http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112895766/microsoft-gave-nsa-prism-special-access-encrypted-data-071113

Video Waivers and Releases For Recording People On Video: Legal FAQs
http://www.reelseo.com/video-waivers/

National Security Agency, Central Security Service
http://www.nsa.gov/index.shtml

Don’t miss out on the latest tech news and computer security alerts! Follow us on Twitter at @hyphenet,  “Like” us on Facebook or add us to your circle on Google+.

No comments:

Post a Comment