In the news: Soon to be published, Skype back-door trojan code?

[Joel Gomberg]

On 08/29/2009 12:56 PM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 12:30:53 -0700,
>    "Daniel B. Thurman"<dant at cdkkt.com>  wrote:
>>
>> [perhaps off topic, but interesting security implications?]
>
> Yeah, don't let LE install trojan software on machines you use.
>
>> I wonder if backdoors are installed to comply with
>> government&  law enforcement requirements.  In the US,
>
> The Skype backdoors that have been covered in public (recently and in the
> past) that I have seen have all been additional software installed by LE
> on the victum's machine, not something specifically built into Sykpe. Since
> calls are dispatched through central servers and Skype is a US company,
> presumably call record information is being captured by the US, en masse. Some
> other governments probably also get easy access to this data.

What do you mean when you say that "calls are dispatched through central 
servers?"  I thought Skype was P2P application:

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/help/guides/p2pexplained/

They say they use a global index with a decentralized user directory, but I have 
no idea what this means in practice.  When you talk about call record 
information being captured, do you mean summary records or recordings?  I would 
find it much easier to believe the former than the latter.

-- 
Joel