According to Bloomberg Businessweek, University of New Mexico graduate student Jeffrey Knockel, 27, studied the Chinese version of Skype. During the research he found out that the program contains a built-in keylogger that checks if the typed words are being banned and sends the data to the security agencies of China.
Skype service, with about 96 million users, is known as TOM-Skype, a joint firm with majority owner Tom Online.
Knockel discovered thousands of terms, monitored by Chinese authorities, related to such forbidden topics as pornography and drugs, as well as the political sphere: “International Amnesty”, “Tiananmen” (a term related to the protest actions and revolution), “Reporters Without Borders”, “BBC News” etc.
The researcher stated that the database is continually enlarging. Despite the fact that the data is encrypted, Knockel managed to allocate finite sequences of symbols corresponding to certain word combinations by successive division of the file into two and monitoring the network activity when the words are being typed.
According to the research data, China’s government is not only recording correspondence within the state, but also tracking messages sent to accounts abroad.
Knockel said that the results of the conducted study demonstrate the existing conflict between Microsoft’s propaganda of privacy and the company’s role in supervision and monitoring.
“I would like to get a statement out of them on their social policy regarding whether they approve of what TOM-Skype is doing on surveillance”, - said Jeffrey.
