Kim Dotcom Launches Fully-Encrypted "Skype-Killer" Voice Chat

[Happiness Assassin]

Maybe someone could give the the technical details on this but I have heard that since the program isn't open source, there is no way anyone could be sure that it is secure, with us basically taking Dotcom's word for it. If someone could be more technical as to why that is, it would definitely help.

Other than that... "Skype-killer."

Yeah, no. This will never be anything but a niche for people who are fearful of surveillance, which most people really aren't. If that were true then more people would use programs like TOR, instead of just the naturally curious or online criminals. Skype has massive fucking problems, but the average person just doesn't care. If this even ends up getting 5% of the users Skype has I will be impressed.

 

[MetalMagpie]

Meh. If you use any sort of electronic communication, you have to accept that those messages probably aren't "private" in the sense that no one but you and the recipient can read them. Your mobile provider can read your text messages. Your email provider can read your emails. Etc.

Engineers get a lot of surprising little windows into people's lives!

You can send encrypted messages to try and keep your conversations private. You can use pgp to encrypted your email and there are Skype alternatives

https://prism-break.org/en/

Personally, I prefer the convenience of services like GMail and SMS, even though I know my messages can be read by other people. But if I decide to plot an assassination, I'll be sure to use encryption.

 

[Charli]

Well I guess drug dealers and pedophiles rejoice? Not sure why folks get so god damned paranoid over the government reading your mail. Do you *honestly* think they care about what brand of tentacle porn you like?

They could at least have the dignity to send me popcorn if they're going to watch my porn with me!

And while I don't care (honestly I am so boring, looking at my internet history is like reading a text book on sawdust)... in a world where people in positions of power are very susceptible to abusing that power to bury people who get on their bad side. A need for this kind of stuff is growing.

I really don't like that governments (yes governments are made up of people) have the ability to see and mess with your data at their whim and for the 0.00001% of people they use to screw with such power, while you think it'll never happen to you, It fills me with dread and unease.


I support work like this even if its out of KimDotAss promoting it.

 

[gardian06]

Sigh. why must it be browser based. why cant it have a proper client. world is obsessed in putting everything in your browser now

making this a browser based application means that the code doesn't live on an individuals system to be de-compiled, or reverse engineered (realistically a somewhat smarter move more on this at the end)

Maybe someone could give the the technical details on this but I have heard that since the program isn't open source, there is no way anyone could be sure that it is secure, with us basically taking Dotcom's word for it. If someone could be more technical as to why that is, it would definitely help.

you kind of hit the nail with your own head in this point. if the system was open source then it would actually be easier to break. the easiest way to encrypt something so that it can be decrypted somewhere else is through key pairs. for example lets look at a password to a website where you type in the password into the box. each character, or combination of characters is then converted into a different thing, and saved on a server (so that you can access that site by using the same password). now you have to realize that for most password servers they use the same algorithm for every password, so if someone was to get effectively that algorithm, or cipher if you will then every account is now compromised, so this is why most of your encryption software/programs are rarely if ever open-source, and those that are, are just broken quickly.

on the topic at hand say that even if every conversation uses a unique algorithm to encrypt a conversation. there has to be a possibility of a reuse, and then if they only ever use one algorithm at a time then it is just a matter of observation. the more observation that can be done on a controlled sampling of these communications the easier it will be to break. lets say that for a series of calls the background is always the same, but the face keeps moving, by just taking each frame, and then dissecting everything that is similar, and compare it to the thing that are different you will soon be able to find the encryption algorithm.

then by making a browser based application they can actually insure a higher level of agility in their implementation every time they want to change something they change it on the server, and done. they don't have to release an update that then has to be updated. the other thing is that if this was a client based application then the same thing that happened with the Java installer a few years ago where someone got in, and changed where the updater pointed to, and it took Oricle almost 4 months to realize that 1/4 of their user base was using a obsolete version even though they had been releasing new versions (some of them in rapid succession)

 

[JLF]

If the government can easily read you information, so it is safe to assume that people with criminal intent would not find it that hard either. Strangely enough the government/large organizations in many countries could be seen to have similar intentions also.

In the long run it boils down to power, will you relinquish your power of integrity/privacy to a entity controlled by a few? There are always other options when fighting against "terrorism". Increase the infrastructure with schools that incorporate western propag... ehm i mean values. One only needs to look,see and understand to be able to use their imagination to create other solutions to a problem.

A more secure chat bring it on.

Thoughts?

 

[Albino Boo]

Sigh. why must it be browser based. why cant it have a proper client. world is obsessed in putting everything in your browser now

There are such things as procedures and accountability, you know.

haha. For you, perhaps. Organizations like NSA has none of such things.

In all seriousness, that analogy doesn't hold.
A house is searched by the police - for a reason.
Communications may have to be monitored by some agency - for a reason.
Cops can cuff you - for a reason.

One of those do not fit here. Thats because communications are monitored without a reason. they are just monitored. all of it.

Utter nonsense. There 144 billion emails sent every day, even if takes 0.01 second to parse each email it will take 3000 years to read one days email. When you add in social network posts, chat clients and chat in online games that figure becomes even more ridiculous. Simple maths will tell that there is too much to monitor it all. If they where monitoring it all why did facebook place certain profiles on separate server so the NAS could look at it? That's according to the Russian spy Snowden.

 

[VanQ]

Not sure what's worse. That the government feels the need to snoop through its citizen's and the world's private communications.

Or the government sympathizers that claim they don't care that this shit is going on.

Besides, if the government, who are mostly incompetent, can read your private shit then it's highly likely that people with criminal intentions can do the same. But who needs security, right? Not like they can do anything with your credit card number or paypal account, right?

 

[Abomination]

All we need now is for some terrorist cell to use this technology to coordinate attacks.

What's more, if he thinks he's safe because he's in New Zealand he should seriously think again, the government here isn't bound by a constitution and could pass a law FORCING him to allow governments a backdoor into his program.

So, in the event of the former being proven to happen the government in New Zealand would pass the latter law in a heartbeat.

 

[weirdee]

Yes, all of your stirring words have convinced me of the infallibility of law enforcement, who not too long ago were proven, repeatedly, over the course of the past year or so, in incident after incident, that their moral character and insistence that there be an absolute, concrete reason to do what they do are the foremost reasons why they should be allowed full access to, as far as we know, adequately supplied authority in every matter they are involved in, as far as we know, including the quite temporary, not at all institutional suspension of any kind of human right, which should not be afforded to people that we are always sure do not deserve them. After all, there's no reason why absolute authority figures would lie to us!

 

[Lilani]

I'm sure there's some kind of a market for such a thing, but it's not going to kill Skype. The kind of people who are this concerned about security likely aren't using Skype in the first place. Everyone else wouldn't want to go through the bother of changing VOIP programs. Besides, anything being touted as "completely secure" is just begging to get cracked into.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

You know what's really upsetting about all this? This piece of technology we're using, the internet, is possibly the greatest thing humanity has ever created. It facilitates almost instant communication between any two humans (or any number of humans) that have internet access. It is without a doubt, the most powerful staging platform for human co-operation ever. Do we use it for co-operation and progress? Fuck no, of course not, we're all too fucking stupid for that. We use the greatest repository of human knowledge not for education, but as an avenue from which we can insult and antagonise each other, another way to try and control each other.

Here we have the means before us, to organise across the entire globe, to build plans for a better tomorrow, and to spread the word so we can go about building that tomorrow, but instead, what do we use it for? To sell each other shit. To share mind-numbing crap. To spread misinformation. To spy on each other. To preserve the status quo.

Using the internet as a co-ordination tool, we could know what resources are needed where, at any time, what needs to be done with them, and we could organise the people with the skills to get it done. We could literally transform the world, end most of our problems. Unfortunately, society hasn't caught up to the internet. As a species, we're still thinking like this is the 20th century. We're still thinking in terms of politicians and world leaders; Nations and borders; upper, middle and working classes; globalism and corporatism; travel by internal combustion engine; electricity from oil, coal and gas; A world filled with hierarchy, where the decisions come from the top, where the interests of the elite are served long before the interests of the majority, where profit is the driving force of development. We are living in a world where Greed is more important than Need. It doesn't have to be this way.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I'm thinking it will actually but man, he's going to be putting even more pressure on himself... And where's he getting the money to do this anyway?

 

[Robert Marrs]

I look at this the same way I look at TOR. You are not on the governments radar until you start using it.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well the security is most certainly a bold claim, if I remember correctly his last legal conundrum came about because the government of NZ just bent over for whatever USA told them to do. So in what way do you imagine your system will be safe...

Honestly if you just get the basic communication to work properly that will be hands down enough to take over the Skype audience, because god fucking damn it is that piece of shit useless.

 

[samahain]

You know what's really upsetting about all this? This piece of technology we're using, the internet, is possibly the greatest thing humanity [...]
Using the internet as a co-ordination tool, we could know what resources are needed where, at any time, what needs to be done with them, and we could organise the people with the skills to get it done. We could literally transform the world, end most of our problems. Unfortunately, society hasn't caught up to the internet. As a species, we're still thinking like this is the 20th century. We're still thinking in terms of politicians and world leaders; Nations and borders; upper, middle and working classes; globalism and corporatism; travel by internal combustion engine; electricity from oil, coal and gas; A world filled with hierarchy, where the decisions come from the top, where the interests of the elite are served long before the interests of the majority, where profit is the driving force of development. We are living in a world where Greed is more important than Need. It doesn't have to be this way.

That is the most sane thing I heard all day. Somebody give this person a bigger soapbox.

 

[Armadox]

*shrugs* Feel about this the same way I feel about most things...

1. Those who move to trying to hide their belongings from public, only make the public more interested in seeing your belongings. You'd be safer doing what you're doing on mundane methods then to try and pull one over on the world by acting shady.

and....

2. How does the little fish keep from being eaten by the shark? Simple.

Surround himself with enough other fish to make it their problem as well. This program would be fine if everyone lump some went to it right now. But that isn't how tech works, the first adopters are going to put themselves on the line field testing this, and there won't be enough fish in the school if a shark comes by to drown it in numbers.

I've got a pretty good idea that I'm not doing anything of note to anyone, and that gives me a pretty good idea that in case of an issue, my stuff won't be important enough to bother with. It's not the best plan, but I keep my nose clean enough to make ends meet, and not looking like I'm doing something wrong is the best way to make people not think I'm doing something wrong.

 

[Strazdas]

and there are Skype alternatives

There always were much better chat programs than skype. skype, despite its popularity, was shit since its inception. the only reason i use it is because majority of contacts i got on there does not use anything else.

Sigh. why must it be browser based. why cant it have a proper client. world is obsessed in putting everything in your browser now

making this a browser based application means that the code doesn't live on an individuals system to be de-compiled, or reverse engineered (realistically a somewhat smarter move more on this at the end)

No. the code has to be loaded locally either way, otherwise you are sending unencoded data to the server to compile into encryption, which would defeat the process. if they are using proper encryption it cant really be (realistically) reverse engineered. And if Kim knows how to do something its how to do encryption correctly.

Utter nonsense. There 144 billion emails sent every day, even if takes 0.01 second to parse each email it will take 3000 years to read one days email. When you add in social network posts, chat clients and chat in online games that figure becomes even more ridiculous. Simple maths will tell that there is too much to monitor it all. If they where monitoring it all why did facebook place certain profiles on separate server so the NAS could look at it? That's according to the Russian spy Snowden.

Im sorry, NSA is not doing its parsin on a home desktop. This is one of many of its datacenters:
https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/

According to the article "The Utah Data Center is powered by the massively parallel Cray XC30 supercomputer which is capable of scaling high performance computing (HPC) workloads of more than 100 petaflops or 100,000 trillion calculations each second. "

So yeah, in theory, it could parse all those emails in a single minute if all its doing is keyword search. give it another minute to flag where it found stuff. here, solved your "nonsense". and i remind you again, this is only one of many servers. in fact for this server the limiting factor will be how fast it can download the data on those emails.

Despite the article on the escapist, i dont believe videogame chats are under surveilance. it would be quite pointless endavour and would require massive changes in infrastructure of games because online email and social media, not all games actuall log chats on their own servers.

As far as Snowden thing goes, there is a difference between supercomputer parsing your email and people actually looking at suspiciuos accounts.

What's more, if he thinks he's safe because he's in New Zealand he should seriously think again, the government here isn't bound by a constitution and could pass a law FORCING him to allow governments a backdoor into his program.

Kim kinda got your government in the twist after the MegaShare disaster.

 

[Abomination]

Kim kinda got your government in the twist after the MegaShare disaster.

Actually, complete flip side currently. He tried to get into politics and the party he attached himself to crashed so hard because of it.

We'll extradite him should we be given cause but at the moment the US has yet to provide sufficient evidence.

Either way, it doesn't change how NZ's government operates. They can and will push through law that would otherwise violate constitutions.

 

[fractal_butterfly]

So here we are. According to the comments in this thread have given up fighting the government surveillance, others were ok with it to begin with. Even as we are given an alternative, we shrug and ignore it, since this is more convenient.

To the guys, who don't understand "big data": The NSA does not look at each eMail and message individually. As Strazdas pointed out, they have huge datacenters and employ huge supercomputer cluster as well as the most modern filter software you can (or can't) imagine. They don't use some simple keyword matching (what year is is? 1990?). And these processes are automated. If something about your phone calls or online messages is suspicios, you will get flagged. And then you will be watched.

To the guys who have "nothing to hide": What if the government decides one day, that this one thing you like to do is suddenly illegal? I will use an example you all understand: Porn. What if they decide, that a certain type of porn, which was perfectly legal to look at before, is now illegal? This happened in the UK, so it is not some imaginary scenario. And, once again, these processes are automated. Even if it is not something like porn, but lets say, something more "legitimate", like opposing things your government does, not as a terrorist, but as a concerned citizen using your democratic rights of free speech and demonstrating against it. You will be flagged and monitored and watched, if the government decides, that they don't like what you are doing and let the search programs look for "offenders".

This is not democracy and has the potential of becoming a dictatorship. It is too much power in the hands of a few.

 

[Albino Boo]

Utter nonsense. There 144 billion emails sent every day, even if takes 0.01 second to parse each email it will take 3000 years to read one days email. When you add in social network posts, chat clients and chat in online games that figure becomes even more ridiculous. Simple maths will tell that there is too much to monitor it all. If they where monitoring it all why did facebook place certain profiles on separate server so the NAS could look at it? That's according to the Russian spy Snowden.

Im sorry, NSA is not doing its parsin on a home desktop. This is one of many of its datacenters:
https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/

According to the article "The Utah Data Center is powered by the massively parallel Cray XC30 supercomputer which is capable of scaling high performance computing (HPC) workloads of more than 100 petaflops or 100,000 trillion calculations each second. "

So yeah, in theory, it could parse all those emails in a single minute if all its doing is keyword search. give it another minute to flag where it found stuff. here, solved your "nonsense". and i remind you again, this is only one of many servers. in fact for this server the limiting factor will be how fast it can download the data on those emails.

Despite the article on the escapist, i dont believe videogame chats are under surveilance. it would be quite pointless endavour and would require massive changes in infrastructure of games because online email and social media, not all games actuall log chats on their own servers.

As far as Snowden thing goes, there is a difference between supercomputer parsing your email and people actually looking at suspiciuos accounts.

I am more than well aware that the Echelon network does not use a desktop computer but you failed to answer the bottom line point. Why did the NSA spend money and time duplicating intercepts when it monitors all traffic. Furthermore in murder of Lee Rigby by the islamic terrorists Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale the echelon networks did not pick up Michael Adebolajo 7 closed facebook pages and the online chat about the murder. The volume of traffic is too much to monitor all traffic.