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Skype finally getting end-to-end encryption
Since its inception, Skype has been notable for its secretive, proprietary algorithm. It's also long had a complicated relationship with encryption: encryption is used by the Skype protocol, but the service has never been clear exactly how that encryption was implemented or exactly which privacy and security features it offers.
That changes today in a big way. The newest Skype preview now supports the Signal protocol: the end-to-end encrypted protocol already used by WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Allo, and, of course, Signal. Skype Private Conversations will support text, audio calls, and file transfers, with end-to-end encryption that Microsoft, Signal, and, it's believed, law enforcement agencies cannot eavesdrop on.
Presently, Private Conversations are only available in the Insider builds of Skype.
Also at The Register, The Verge, and Wired.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @04:44PM (6 children)
Now, if everyone would just move back to an open standard so there is no funny business going on, and then federate so you can use whatever client you want to get to anyone else you want.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @04:50PM (2 children)
You mean like Matrix.org
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @05:17PM (1 child)
is a clusterfucked json implementation of the xml definition for jabber.
And from everyone I've heard who has looked at the source code, they recommend something else.
Also Matrix only has like 3-5 years of legitimacy while XMPP/Jabber has almost 20 now, despite being fucked over by every big company that has used it, and chose instead to roll it back to a walled garden.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @05:53PM
and it's coincidentally not secure "yet"...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @06:00PM
facebook used to federate, same with google
then they realized that was like a big bunch of holes in their walled garden and shut that down
also the signal website is pretty rad. they have a quote from snowden as their first promo and his picture makes him look like he's losing a pinchloaf struggle
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday January 12 2018, @06:14PM (1 child)
Yeah, good luck with that pipe dream. That'll happen right before people stop giving Facebook all their personal info and trusting their privacy to Zuckerberg, and move to Diaspora where they can have total control over what they post and who sees it and who hosts it.
The thing the dystopian sci-fi stories of the past always failed to predict and depict well was how people would happily *choose* to give up their freedom and privacy, even when viable alternatives were present, and had even been the norm previously.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday January 12 2018, @07:23PM
I beg to differ - Karl Marx predicted it all.
Even more... capitalists would give up all the money? Check; done by Nixon. Capitalists would give up all their factories? In progress - central banks are buying and everybody wants more of it. Workers own the factories? In progress as companie's managers will be the only workers and robots would do the rest.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.