Last year, Ars documented how Skype posed a minor challenge to Microsoft’s abuse of its instant messaging service, which scanned instant messages for potentially abusive Web links. Within hours, new links would appear and be transmitted through the service, so scanners were able to capture them from the cryptographically protected system and check if they were malicious. But now we know that the National Security Agency is also able to manipulate Skype, so analysts have deemed the Microsoft-owned service “vital” in the major surveillance scheme known as PRISM.
“PRISM has a new collection capability: stored Skype communications,” a confidential NSA memo from 2013 said. “The stored Skype communications will contain unique data not collected through regular real-time surveillance programs.” The data includes friend lists, credit card information, call logs, user account data, and “other material” of value to NSA special missions.
