Microsoft may have misled millions of Skype users around the world by making claims last year that have since been contradicted by intelligence leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.<\/p>\n
\n National Security Agency documents leaked by Snowden to the
\n Guardian and Washington Post last week have grabbed the attention
\n of Americans concerned over the NSA\u2019s blanketing surveillance of
\n communications involving United States citizens. The NSA is
\n regularly retaining the phone records for millions of Verizon
\n customers, the documents revealed, and a separate program called
\n PRISM allegedly lets federal investigators access Internet use
\n information for customers of the biggest online services. One of
\n those documents, a slideshow examining how the NSA has access to
\n conversations conducted over nine major Internet services, may
\n have caught Silicon Valley giant Microsoft in a lie.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ryan Gallagher of Slate noted this week that one of the slides
\n cited by the Washington Post was labeled a \u201cUser\u2019s Guide for
\n PRISM Skype Collection,\u201d suggesting that the NSA has in place a
\n method for eavesdropping on conversations conducted over the
\n popular Web client acquired in 2011 by Microsoft.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to the slide, NSA agents can listen in or watch Skype
\n chats \u201cwhen one end of the call is a conventional telephone
\n and for any combination of ‘audio, video, chat, and file
\n transfers’ when Skype users connect by computer alone<\/i>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis piece of information is significant for a number of
\n reasons<\/i>,\u201d wrote Gallagher, but the most crucial perhaps is
\n how it compares to Microsoft\u2019s remarks last year. As RT wrote in
\n 2012, Microsoft was awarded a patent that summer that provides
\n for \u201clegal intercept\u201d technology that allows for agents to
\n \u201csilently copy communication transmitted via the communication
\n session<\/i>\u201d without asking for user authorization.\n<\/p>\n
\n At the time, Gallagher was one of the most critical reporters
\n examining the patent, and grilled Microsoft relentlessly to see
\n if this meant that a program previously considered
\n highly-encrypted and tough to crack could provide a backdoor to
\n government agents at the drop of a hat. However, Skype Corporate
\n VP of Product Engineering & Operations Mike Gillet also
\n explained to ExtremeTech.com that the company was making changes
\n in its infrastructure, but that they were being done to
\n \u201cimprove the Skype user experience<\/i>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSkype rejected the charge in a comment issued to the website
\n Extremetech, saying the restructure was an upgrade and had
\n nothing to do with surveillance<\/i>,\u201d Gallagher wrote at the
\n time, \u201cBut when I repeatedly questioned the company on
\n Wednesday whether it could currently facilitate wiretap requests,
\n a clear answer was not forthcoming. Citing \u2018company policy,\u2019
\n Skype PR man Chaim Haas wouldn\u2019t confirm or deny, telling me only
\n that the chat service \u2018co-operates with law enforcement agencies
\n as much as is legally and technically possible<\/i>.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n This week, Gallagher revisited the issue and explained how
\n Microsoft\u2019s explanation last year is now under fire thanks to NSA
\n leak. Gallagher recalled that Microsoft was driven to releasing a
\n transparency report last year, in which a significant chunk was
\n set aside solely for details on settling requests for Skype data
\n made by law enforcement.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe report devoted an entire section to Skype and claimed
\n that in 2012, it hadn\u2019t handed any communications content over to
\n authorities anywhere in the world. Microsoft also said in notes
\n accompanying the transparency report that calls made between
\n Skype-Skype users were encrypted peer-to-peer, implying that they
\n did not pass through Microsoft\u2019s central servers and could not be
\n eavesdropped on \u2013 except maybe if the government deployed a spy
\n Trojan on a targeted computer to bypass encryption<\/i>,\u201d
\n Gallagher wrote.\n<\/p>\n
\n Now enter the \u201cUser\u2019s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection\u201d slide,
\n and the story is much different. \u201cThat the NSA claims to be
\n able to grab all Skype users\u2019 communications also calls into
\n question the credibility of Microsoft\u2019s transparency report \u2013
\n particularly the claim that in 2012 it did not once hand over the
\n content of any user communications<\/i>,\u201d Gallagher wrote.
\n \u201cMoreover, according to a leaked NSA slide published by the
\n Post, Skype first became part of the NSA\u2019s PRISM program in
\n February 2011 \u2013 three months before Microsoft purchased the
\n service from U.S. private equity firms Silver Lake and Andreessen
\n Horowitz.\u201d<\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n In a statement emailed from Microsoft to Slate, the company said
\n it \u201cwent as far as it was legally able in documenting
\n disclosures in its Law Enforcement Requests Report<\/i>\u201d and that
\n \u201cthere should be greater transparency on national security
\n requests and Microsoft would like the government to take steps to
\n allow companies to do that<\/i>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Microsoft\u2019s statement came the same week that one of their
\n largest competitors, Google, pleaded with the government to let
\n them provide more details in their regular transparency reports
\n published online. In a letter sent to US Attorney General Eric
\n Holder and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert
\n Mueller on Tuesday, Google asked the Obama administration to
\n allow it to share more information.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Google’s numbers would clearly show that our compliance with
\n these requests falls far short of the claims being made<\/i>,”
\n said David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer. “Google has
\n nothing to hide<\/i>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n During testimony made Thursday morning before Congress, Mueller
\n said the NSA leaks attributed to Snowden \u201chave caused
\n significant harm to our nation and to our safety<\/i>\u201d and that
\n the FBI and Justice Department will take \u201call necessary steps
\n to hold the person responsible<\/i>.\u201d Meanwhile, US Reps. John
\n Conyers (D-Michigan) and Justin Amash (R-Michigan) plan to
\n propose legislation this week that would require that the
\n government provides \u201cspecific and articulable facts<\/i>\u201d
\n before it requests phone records of US citizens.\n<\/p>\n