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

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Mon, 2009-08-31 at 12:05 +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
[...]
> There are also some other awkward factors
> 
> - The person who completely reverse engineers skype probably destroys it.
>   If you can write a skype client than the spammers can write skype spam
>   tools as well.
> 
> - Skype appears to contain various law enforcement intercept facilities
>   judging by the evidence - although mostly circumstantial.
> 
> - The Skype business model depends upon interoperability not working
>   (like early instant messaging systems), so you would expect a mix of
>   protocol changes and thermonuclear level legal responses if the work
>   was done in the USA or other countries with broken DMCA type laws.
> 
> > programming... But surely *someone* does, is there any known attempt to do 
> > this?
> 
> I would imagine anyone doing so is keeping fairly quiet - there is big
> money on offer from the bad guys for skype trojans, intercepts and
> clients, while anyone on the good side fiddling with it faces jail and
> harrasment - a fine example of perverse economic incentives.

Well said.

poc