[liberationtech] NYT report on Obama admin's wiretap plans

[Jim Youll]

On Sep 27, 2010, at 2:26 PM, Thomas Smyth wrote:

> Perhaps to a fledgling competitor who provides a secure alternative using available technologies and ends up growing appreciably as a result of this selling point??  If you're arguing that a strong market position makes a company not care about the quality of its product I think that's a flawed argument...


I said nothing of the sort.

a. there is no apparent competitor

b. unlikely that there will be, due to the size and audience ownership of the entrenched competitor (for a while, measurable in years), and the significant engineering and infrastructure effort that would be required to create one /in a climate of likely government pressure to prevent/make illegal such things/


I am merely questioning the foundation for the conjecture that "Unless some legislation compels Skype to create a backdoor, it would seem their interest is in keeping things a secure as possible"



> 
> On 27 September 2010 17:22, Jim Youll <jyoull at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> 
> On Sep 27, 2010, at 2:18 PM, Thomas Smyth wrote:
> 
> > That links to a document from Skype that describes how to get billing records and other records.  Also, the document explicitly says that Skype-to-Skype calls and chats don't create billing records, and that Skype doesn't keep login/logout records. To me it reads almost like a tacit 'up yours' to whoever is doing the legal spying.
> >
> > Yes there could be bugs or backdoors in Skype's software, but absent some incentive for Skype to keep them secret and not patch them (which I can't fathom) I don't know why they would.  Unless some legislation compels Skype to create a backdoor, it would seem their interest is in keeping things a secure as possible, right?
> 
> 
> Why?
> 
> Let's say Skype were revealed tomorrow to have wiretapping capabilities in it.
> 
> Their user base, paying $0 for online calls already, and actual money for profitable POTS-gatewayed calls (tappable) will turn to  ________ (what) in mass exodus?
> 
> 
> 
> 

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