Does Skype have a back door?

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Answer: probably yes. I’ve long suspected that anyway. Now comes this interesting report from an Austrian online news site…

According to reports, there may be a back door built into Skype, which allows connections to be bugged. The company has declined to expressly deny the allegations. At a meeting with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception of IP based services held on 25th June, high-ranking officials at the Austrian interior ministry revealed that it is not a problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations.

This has been confirmed to heise online by a number of the parties present at the meeting. Skype declined to give a detailed response to specific enquiries from heise online as to whether Skype contains a back door and whether specific clients allowing access to a system or a specific key for decrypting data streams exist. The response from the eBay subsidiary’s press spokesman was brief, “Skype does not comment on media speculation. Skype has no further comment at this time.” There have been rumours of the existence of a special listening device which Skype is reported to offer for sale to interested states.

There has long been speculation that Skype may contain a back door. Because the vendor has not revealed details of its proprietary Skype protocol or of how the client works, questions as to what else Skype is capable of and what risks are involved in deploying it in an enterprise environment remain open.

Last week, Austrian broadcaster ORF, citing minutes from the meeting, reported that the Austrian police are able to listen in on Skype connections. Interior ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia declined to provide heise online with a comment on the matter. He did, however, offer general comments on the meeting, which were, however, contradicted by other attendees…

I use Skype quite a lot and find it very useful for family stuff etc. But I wouldn’t use it for anything that was commercially sensitive.

Skype would be able to charge quite a hefty fee to governments for this, er, feature.

Also, I wonder how this latest speculation squares with an earlier report that I logged claiming the German police were unable to crack Skype encryption. Perhaps the Germans weren’t willing to pay Skype the required fee for entry to the back door?

Blowing in the wind

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Walking across the headland yesterday we came on something I’ve always longed to photograph — bog-cotton (er, Eriophorum angustifolium to you). It’s amazingly tough stuff, but I wouldn’t want to make a living picking it. Its presence, says Wikipedia, “is a useful indicator to hikers of potentially dangerous deep peat bogs to be avoided”. It is indeed: you should see the state of my jeans.

Dave’s bike

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Here’s an interesting stunt: David Cameron’s mountain bike was stolen recently and has now ‘turned up’ on eBay. Current bid (at 09:55 on July 25) is £1,020. Blurb reads:

Well this bike is not *exactly* new but it is *nearly* new because it has only been used for a couple of photo-opportunities.

It is BIG and BLUE and despite looking quite well-balenced [sic] it leans oddly to the right.

It would suit a real commuter right down to the ground.

I want to sell it because It ‘does not feel right’

I picked it up outside of Tesco. It comes complete with a lock (locked). Hardly a scratch on it to be honest.

Buyer should collect, directions to my South London lock-up can be found here.

Looks like a smart publicity stunt by an online gamer (who also claims to run The Omerta Shop). Wonder what eBay have to say about it. And I suppose now Gordon Brown will have to arrange for his bible to be stolen. Where will it all end?

Sarkozy’s charm offensive

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We arrived in Ireland on Monday morning. So too did the French President, but there was rather more fuss about him. Virtually everyone in the country had been seething about reports (which were, of course, denied) that he had said to his advisers after news of the Referendum result reached Paris that “the Irish will just have to vote again”. Miriam Lord, the Irish Times sketch-writer wrote an amusing account of Le Prez’s visit. It closes thus:

“I do not regret for one second having come over,” cooed Nicolas, who was charm personified. You could see he has charisma, and he has a nice smile, mused the ladies. Très distingué .

“Three-minute man,” sniffed the lads.

It went swimmingly, until the president protested that he couldn’t force the Irish to do anything.

“Have you seen the size of the Irish Taoiseach, talking about shaking up. He’s not a man you shake up easily, or shake down for that matter. Do I look as if I’ve been shaken in any way?” he said, to a sharp intake of breath from the locals.

Right enough, beside the diminutive Sarko, Biffo looked a bit like the Queen of Tonga.

The offensive was working a treat. Our Taoiseach is a “brave, courageous man” and “Ireland is a a warm country with a tradition of hospitality, a great country”. Then it was over. But not before Nicolas, who is very touchy-feely, had caressed Brian’s hand. The Taoiseach put them behind his back in case it happened again. Then, the French president made a lunge for Biffo and kissed him on both cheeks.

Biffo air-kissed gamely, making a disconcerting sloshing noise, but you could see he was mortified. He’ll be the laughing stock of Clara, but at least he can say he puckered up for Ireland.

A French kiss for an Irish Taoiseach on the steps of Government Buildings.

That’s Europe for you.

Footnote: Clara, in Offaly, is the Taoiseach’s home town, where — up to now at least — he has been much admired.

Lotus Notes: the Marmite of the IT world

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Charles Arthur has a nice post on the effect that Lotus Notes has on otherwise normal people.

I’ve just come across a new (to me) site: I Hate Lotus Notes which, um, does pretty much what it says on the tin.

What’s always interesting though is that pro-Notes people who will leap into these pits of hating and try, vainly, to tell people that the fact they’re hating Notes is because (1) they haven’t had enough training (2) it’s not an email program, it’s an application development platform (3) they’re using an old version – the latest version, v. [What you’re using 2] solves all those problems (4) it’s better than Outlook, anyway (5) all of the above.

I think it’s still telling that Notes 6.5.5, which dates from December 2005, still doesn’t support the scroll wheel on the mouse on OSX – which has done so from its start, a mere four and a half years earlier.

But you have to admire the determination of the pro-Notes brigade. They’re like people defending the right to smoke in crowded spaces: everyone else is wrong, it’s just them who can see the right way to run the world.

I’ve seen both sides recently. My university Faculty has merged with another one which long ago surrendered its IT to a team of Lotus Notes True Believers. To me, the product seems so dated and kludgy: it’s the epitome of 1980s, DOS-inspired software. And yet the True Believers are deeply attached to it in the way that Jehovah’s Witnesses are to the Watchtower. They are unfailingly courteous and willing as they patiently explain that Notes can be made to do virtually anything you want; but when one explains that a teaspoon can also be used to dig one’s garden they look blank: they don’t get it.

One of the comments on Charles’s post gets it right: Notes is “the marmite of the IT world”.

Er, don’t get me started on Marmite.

The Changing Newsroom

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The Project for Excellence in Journalism has produced an interesting report on “the changing newsroom”.

Meet the American daily newspaper of 2008.

It has fewer pages than three years ago, the paper stock is thinner, and the stories are shorter. There is less foreign and national news, less space devoted to science, the arts, features and a range of specialized subjects. Business coverage is either packaged in an increasingly thin stand-alone section or collapsed into another part of the paper. The crossword puzzle has shrunk, the TV listings and stock tables may have disappeared, but coverage of some local issues has strengthened and investigative reporting remains highly valued.

The newsroom staff producing the paper is also smaller, younger, more tech-savvy, and more oriented to serving the demands of both print and the web. The staff also is under greater pressure, has less institutional memory, less knowledge of the community, of how to gather news and the history of individual beats. There are fewer editors to catch mistakes.

Despite an image of decline, more people today in more places read the content produced in the newsrooms of American daily newspapers than at any time in years. But revenues are tumbling. The editors expect the financial picture only to worsen, and they have little confidence that they know what their papers will look like in five years…

Thoughtful piece of work. Worth reading in full.

Oyster card hack can be revealed

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Bet this wouldn’t happen in the US. The Register reports that:

Dutch researchers will be able to publish their controversial report on the Mifare Classic (Oyster) RFID chip in October, a Dutch judge ruled today.

Researchers from Radboud University in Nijmegen revealed two weeks ago they had cracked and cloned London’s Oyster travelcard and the Dutch public transportation travelcard, which is based on the same RFID chip. Attackers can scan a card reading unit, collect the cryptographic key that protects security and upload it to a laptop. Details are then transferred to a blank card, which can be used for free travel.

Around one billion of these cards have been sold worldwide. The card is also widely used to gain access to government departments, schools and hospitals around Britain.

Chipmaker NXP – formerly Philips Semiconductors – had taken Radboud University to court to prevent researchers publishing their controversial report on the chip during a the European computer security conference in Spain this autumn. Spokesperson for NXP Martijn van der Linden said that publishing the report would be “irresponsible” – understandably, the company fears criminals will be able to attack Mifare Classic-based systems.

However, the judge today ruled that freedom of speech outweighs the commercial interest of NXP, as “the publication of scientific studies carries a lot of weight in a democratic society”.

The researchers have always said they don’t intend to include details of how to clone the card and that publications could prevent similar errors occurring in the future. NXP says it is disappointed with the ruling…

I bet they are.