Skype Denies Allegations on User Security and Privacy Changes

This week, reports on various modifications brought to Skype’s architecture to facilitate monitoring of users’ conversations have emerged, and the company stepped up to clear things up on the matter.

According to Skype, all allegations on it allowing law enforcements to access users’ conversations, call logs, video calls and the like are false.

The company did make a series of changes to its architecture, but all these were aimed at ensuring that users enjoy the best experience possible, and had no hidden agenda.

“We focus every day on building the best possible product for sharing experiences whenever people are apart. We want Skype to be reliable, fast, easy to use, and in most cases – free,” Skype’s Mark Gillett notes in a blog post.

“Of course, this doesn't happen by magic. It is no small technical challenge to make sure that people can connect whenever and wherever they wish. It requires investment, innovation and commitment to using new technology and capabilities.”

Mark also notes that the decision to move Skype supernodes to the cloud was made far before Microsoft acquired the company. Through this, the company ensured that the platform became more reliable than before, and that the user experience had to gain a lot.

These supernodes were moved both to Skype’s own data-centers, as well as to Microsoft’s. Users were those expected to gain from the change, Mark says.

“Early this year we completed our move of all of our supernodes into Microsoft's global data-center footprint so we and our users can benefit from the network connectivity and support that powers Microsoft's other global scale cloud software including Xbox Live, Bing, SkyDrive, Hotmail and Office 365,” he notes.

Mark also explains that the move was not aimed at facilitating access to users’ communications. The company remains committed to the privacy policy it has already posted on its website.

Moreover, he notes that moving supernodes to the company’s servers did not provide Skype and Microsoft with the possibility to monitor or record calls.

“Simply put, supernodes act as a distributed directory of Skype users. Skype to Skype calls do not flow through our data centers and the ‘supernodes’ are not involved in passing media (audio or video) between Skype clients,” he explains.

On top of that, he states that Skype’s encryption technology is still in place, and that this encryption continues to be applied to all Skype to Skype calls between computers and mobile devices that feature the full version of Skype.