Skype, oh Skype

Via /., via pagetable:

To quote a fellow blogger: “As a Web Worker, you have undoubtedly used, tried, or at least heard of Skype, that wonderful peer-to-peer IM/voice tool that end users love, but security administrators detest.”

Wee. I had my own experience with Skype (see the first posting, Bloglines still isn’t able to recover all the postings correctly); they just kill your account-balance if you don’t use your account for a while. They claim that the administrative hassle is too much, so I can’t be with them anymore. Whatever, probably I wasn’t made for loving them.

Also there was quite a discussion what kind of encryption Skype uses, their motto is security through obscurity. They’re using a propriatary encryption which was never disclosed and is therefore of doubtful security.

Now i just read this posting at /.; The Skype-software is now accused of reading the BIOS.

For what? There is no apparent reason why Skype should be reading the BIOS. Except maybe reading some serial number.

Skype. What’s your bloody problem. Eh? Tell us. This is crazy. Not that you only take the piss with your customers accouting-wise, now you’re collecting data about your customers which you aren’t supposed to collect. And, I make this statement clear: This action is absolutely illegal in Germany. The german privacy-laws clearly say that you’re only allowed to collect data about users if they AGREE and that you’re only allowed to collect data necessary for billing. Nothing bloody else.

What the hell is wrong with those people? Isn’t there an organization in the EU which could sue their ass off? Well, there’s the newly founded EFF Europe, but I doubt that they’re already fully operational.

Tech Tags: privacy