Counter Terror Expo round-upNSA may offer "billions" for a solution allowing eavesdropping on Skype

Two groups of HS Daily Wire readers should be interested in this story: Those who use Skype for their phone calls at home or at the office, and those in the eavesdropping technology business. An industry source at the Counter Terror Expo, which was held in London this week, told Lewis Page that U.S. hush-hush National Security Agency (NSA) is offering “billions” to any firm which can offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic. The knowledgeable source confirmed that Skype continues to be a major problem for government listening agencies, whether intelligence agencies tracking terrorists or the police trying to listen in on criminals. This was already thought to be the case, following requests from German authorities for special intercept/bugging powers to help them deal with Skype-using bad guys. Britain’s GCHQ has also stated that it has severe problems intercepting VoIP and Internet communication in general.

Skype is an especially tough problem for the intelligence community. It is a P2P service, and the network can not be accessed by the company providing it, meaning that this normal route of gaining access to a phone call is not available. Skype guards the details of the encryption method it uses as religiously as Coca Cola guards its syrup formula. Since the company is based in Europe, it does not have to provide the U.S. government — or European governments, for that matter — with information about its encryption.

Some experts argue that the NSA can break Skype’s encryption ,but Page writes that even if it could, it would use up too much of the agency’s resources. “They are saying to the industry, you get us into Skype and we will make you a very rich company,” said the industry source, adding that the obscure encryption used by the P2Pware is believed to change frequently as part of software updates.

There are two business opportunities here. The first we noted above: Contracting with the NSA to provide the agency with encryption-breaking software. The second opportunity may be entertained by eBay, the owner of Skype. Back in the heady days of 2005, eBay paid $2.6 billion to purchase Skype, an acquisition which was followed by a write-down of $1.4 billion. Should we suspect eBay of toying with idea of asking the NSA for a billion or two for a backdoor into Skype, a move which would make the acquisition much more sensible?

Inquiring minds want to know.