Skype admits privacy breach by Chinese partner (Update)

Skype on Thursday became the latest US firm embroiled in controversy over its operations in China, acknowledging that its Chinese partner had been archiving politically sensitive text messages.

Skype, the online text message and voice service owned by auction giant eBay, said it had been unaware that the Internet chat of users in China was being stored on computer servers by Chinese mobile firm TOM Online.

Citizen Lab, a group of computer security experts at the University of Toronto, revealed Wednesday that TOM Online was spying on TOM-Skype users in China and collecting messages with specific keywords.

Citizen Lab said the messages, with words such as "Tibet," "Communist Party" or "Democracy," contained Internet addresses, usernames and other information which could make the senders and recipients easily identifiable.

Skype president Josh Silverman said in a statement that TOM Online "just like any other communications company in China, has established procedures to meet local laws and regulations.

"These regulations include the requirement to monitor and block instant messages containing certain words deemed 'offensive' by the Chinese authorities," Silverman said.

"It is common knowledge that censorship does exist in China and that the Chinese government has been monitoring communications in and out of the country for many years," he said.

He recalled that in April 2006, Skype admitted that TOM Online "operated a text filter that blocked certain words in chat messages" and unsuitable messages were to be "discarded and not displayed or transmitted anywhere."

"It was our understanding that it was not TOM's protocol to upload and store chat messages with certain keywords, and we are now inquiring with TOM to find out why the protocol changed," he said.

"We are currently addressing the wider issue of the uploading and storage of certain messages with TOM," Silverman said, stressing that the millions of people around the world using standard Skype software were unaffected.

"Skype-to-Skype communications are, and always have been, completely secure and private," he said.

In a statement, Hong Kong-based TOM Group, which is part of tycoon Li Ka-shing's business empire, said it was operating within Chinese laws.

"TOM Group reiterated that as a Chinese company, we adhere to rules and regulations in China where we operate our businesses," the statement said. A spokeswoman would give no further details.

In a 16-page report, Citizen Lab said "TOM-Skype is censoring and logging text chat messages that contain specific, sensitive keywords and may be engaged in more targeted surveillance.

"These logged messages contain keywords relating to sensitive topics such as Taiwan independence, the Falungong, and political opposition to the Communist Party of China," it said.

"These text messages, along with millions of records containing personal information, are stored on insecure publicly accessible web servers," Citizen Lab added.

The researchers said they gained access to eight TOM-Skype servers.

"With just one username it is possible to identify all the users that have sent messages to or received messages from the original user," they said.

The Citizen Lab team said there was no evidence the captured data had been used by the Chinese authorities.

But they asked: "To what extent do TOM Online and Skype cooperate with the Chinese government in monitoring the communications of activists and dissidents as well as ordinary citizens?

"What is clear is that TOM-Skype is engaging in extensive surveillance with seemingly little regard for the security and privacy of Skype users."

The monitoring by TOM-Skype is not the first time concerns have been raised about surveillance and censorship in China, most recently during the Beijing Olympics.

China exercises strict control over the Internet, blocking sites linked to Chinese dissidents, the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, the Tibetan government-in-exile and those with information on the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

A number of US companies, including giants Microsoft, Cisco, Google and Yahoo, have been hauled before the US Congress in recent years and accused of complicity in building what has been called the "Great Firewall of China."

The Citizen Lab report, "Breaching Trust," was published on Wednesday on the website of Information Warfare Monitor, a joint project between Citizen Lab and the SecDev Group, a think-tank on security issues based in Ottawa.

Keywords trigger monitoring of Skype messages

A group of computer security experts at the University of Toronto has revealed that the Chinese partner of the Skype online text messaging service was spying on Skype users in China.

The following is a list of politically sensitive keywords which Citizen Lab said triggered the monitoring of the Internet chat of TOM-Skype users in China:

-- communist

-- Communist Party

-- Falun

-- Hu Jintao

-- Taiwan independence

-- Skype

-- Wen Jiabao

-- quit the party

-- Jiang Zemin

-- June 4

-- Olympic Games

-- Nine Commentaries

-- Li Hongzhi

-- earthquake

-- democracy

-- Tibet

-- Mao Zedong

-- Circumvention

-- Deng Xiaoping

-- Diaoyu Islands

-- Kuomintang

-- Tiananmen

-- milk powder

-- SARS

-- Voice of America

© 2008 AFP

Related stories:

Harnessing network anarchy for the common good
(PhysOrg.com) -- Anarchy may be the bane of political conservatives, but on the internet it is the essence of the information superhighway.
Webcams get you in the picture
Q. I am finally getting a grandchild - so I want to give my son and his wife and myself a webcam for Christmas so that I can see this baby in Cincinnati more often! Is this the way to go? Can you recommend a good one?
China spying on Skype users: Canadian researchers
China is monitoring the chat messages of Skype users and censoring them if they contain sensitive keywords such as "Tibet" or "Communist Party," according to a group of Canadian researchers.
Skype joins in self-censoring in China
From the White House to business leaders in Seattle, policymakers and executives across the United States have been rolling out the red carpet for Chinese premier Hu Jintao. But even as the leader of one of the world's fastest-growing economies is feted, frustration about the country's policies ranging from its foreign-exchange regime to its human-rights record continues to mount.
Wireless World: Attack of the 'botnets'
A botnet -- or robotic network -- sends an instant message to your smart phone. You think it is from a friend and open the IM. But it's not a chatty note at all, as the automated message fraudulently scans the system, looking for your credit-card numbers, bank-account statements and secret passwords.
Hotmail banks on speed for better service
It's free and available worldwide, but Hotmail isn't known for its speedy access. What's more, if you're a dialup internet user, particularly in a developing country, the situation is worse. But the seemingly endless wait for Hotmail connectivity will soon be over, or at least the company is hoping.
World of Warcraft, VoIP and dating
On a cool October night, Laura Bowser, 27, returns home from her post-work run to her modest town house. She soon finds herself flopped into a high-backed leather office chair poring over her Macintosh keyboard as she sends instant messages to her boyfriend.
Faster handoff between Wi-Fi networks promises near-seamless 802.11 roaming
Road warriors may no longer have to stay put in an airport lounge or Starbucks to access the high-speed Internet via an 802.11 Wi-Fi network. Thanks to software developed by two computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, the time it takes to hand off from one Wi-Fi wireless network to the next can be dramatically shortened -- overcoming a major obstacle in Wi-Fi roaming.

News discussion:

Technology news