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The researchers also tracked content the volunteers downloaded with the BitTorrent file sharing eco-system, which is mainly used to illegally exchange copyrighted material like music, movies, and TV shows. Using MaxMind, a geolocation and online fraud detection tool, the researchers accurately tracked one volunteer researcher from his visit at a New York university to a vacation in Chicago, for example, his return to that New York university, lodging in Brooklyn, and finally to his home in France. By repeating the process over weeks or months, the intruder can track the movements of any Skype user, unbeknownst to him or her and construct a detailed account of their daily activities. The receiver is secure only in that he or she is not alerted to the call and so won’t answer, but Skype still allows the exchange of packets of information.
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Strangers can call and the callee just doesn’t answer. Such an attack can occur whether or not the receiver is on the caller’s contact list or even when the receiver has checked the box to block calls from non-contacts, because Skype is typically running whenever a computer is on.
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The caller can then input the IP address into commercial geo-IP mapping software to determine where the receiver is and what Internet service provider he or she uses. But a malicious caller can obtain a callee’s IP address by initiating a Skype call, blocking certain functions, and then quickly terminating the call without ringing or causing an alert window to pop up. They therefore reveal their IP addresses to one another. When people use voice and video online to call one another, both can be vulnerable because an “electronic handshake” confirming their connection involves exchanges of packets of data. His group, which studies peer-to-peer security, wanted to confirm what they think is obvious about the vulnerability of such systems and started with Skype because of its popularity. Specifically, they tested whether they could modify Skype transmissions and still obtain the Internet provider address of an unwitting Skype user. “It’s obvious that in any voice over internet protocol there is a natural vulnerability of getting the IP address of the person you’re speaking with, but no one had really explored this,” Ross said. Ross agrees that Google Talk, China’s QQ, and MSN Live also could be insecure, because they all combine real-time and peer-to-peer communication. We show that the problem with Skype is particularly serious because any hacker can track the mobility and locations of any Skype user.”Ĭurrently, Microsoft’s Security Response Center is in touch with French members of the team. Ross offers this counterpoint: “The problem with Skpye is much more serious than any other system Asher may be considering, because on other voice internet communication systems it’s not possible for any user to track another’s whereabouts–they would have to be on a Friends or Contacts list. Through research and development, we will continue to make advances in this area and improvements to our software.” Just as with typical internet communications software, Skype users who are connected may be able to determine each other’s IP address. A Skype spokesperson wrote to Fast Company on behalf of Adrian Asher, Skype’s Chief Information Security Officer, saying: “We value the privacy of our users and are committed to making our products as secure as possible. Rosenberg thanked the researchers for the information, but did not acknowledge a flaw, they said. Rosenberg, via email of their findings in November 2010, before Microsoft purchased Skype, and again in late September (2011). The researchers informed Skype’s Chief Technology Strategist, Jonathan D. “It took two months for two PhDs to pull off that technical feat,” Ross noted. To prove this, they called 10,000 random Skype users every hour for two weeks to discover where they were, a task that required about 20 computers working in parallel. The challenge for the researchers was to demonstrate that hypothetically, they could track large numbers of people employed by any organization. He explained, “A hacker anywhere in the world could easily track the whereabouts and file-sharing habits of a Skype user–from private citizens to celebrities and politicians–and use the information for purposes of stalking, blackmail, or fraud.” A professor of computer science at one of the institutions involved in the study, the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Keith Ross, says he was surprised to find that attackers could inconspicuously obtain the IP address of any Skype user, and that such breaches would only require the skill of a sophisticated, high school-aged hacker.