> The FBI, whose officials have complained to Congress about the “going dark” problem, issued a statement Wednesday night saying it couldn’t comment on a particular company or service but that surveillance of conversations “requires review and approval by a court. It is used only in national security matters and to combat the most serious crimes.”
and most importantly
> But changes allowing police surveillance of online chats had been made since late last year, a knowledgeable industry official said Wednesday.
As an anecdote, just wanted to add that I live in an Eastern European country which has started to at least try to put up a fight against endemic corruption, with the help of some Western countries (i.e. the American and the UK ambassadors issuing worrying statements from time to time saying "corruption is bad" and meeting the head of the Anti-Corruption body).
Anyway, in a couple of anti-corruption cases investigated by our local anti-corruption prosecutors there were mentions of the authorities having access to the corrupt people's Skype conversations. Now, our NSA-like structure is no way as powerful as the real NSA, computationally speaking, so I don't see them breaking Skype's built-in encoding all by themselves, unless given that information on a silver plate by our friends from across the Atlantic Ocean. In exchange, we might help them with keeping nasty terrorists locked in an improptu prison, because that's how friends help each other out. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/inside-romani...)
I'm glad I'm not the only one having that opinion about MS's acquisition of Skype. There's this article from July 2012, after the MS acquisition and before the Snowden leaks: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/skype-makes-...
> The FBI, whose officials have complained to Congress about the “going dark” problem, issued a statement Wednesday night saying it couldn’t comment on a particular company or service but that surveillance of conversations “requires review and approval by a court. It is used only in national security matters and to combat the most serious crimes.”
and most importantly
> But changes allowing police surveillance of online chats had been made since late last year, a knowledgeable industry official said Wednesday.
As an anecdote, just wanted to add that I live in an Eastern European country which has started to at least try to put up a fight against endemic corruption, with the help of some Western countries (i.e. the American and the UK ambassadors issuing worrying statements from time to time saying "corruption is bad" and meeting the head of the Anti-Corruption body).
Anyway, in a couple of anti-corruption cases investigated by our local anti-corruption prosecutors there were mentions of the authorities having access to the corrupt people's Skype conversations. Now, our NSA-like structure is no way as powerful as the real NSA, computationally speaking, so I don't see them breaking Skype's built-in encoding all by themselves, unless given that information on a silver plate by our friends from across the Atlantic Ocean. In exchange, we might help them with keeping nasty terrorists locked in an improptu prison, because that's how friends help each other out. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/inside-romani...)