Skype flaw exposes users’ location, identity
Flaws in Skype and similar Internet phone systems could potentially disclose the identities, locations, and even digital files of hundreds of millions of users, a new study finds.
- James Devitt-NYU for Futurity.org October 20th, 2011
- Source: http://www.futurity.org/science-technology/skype-flaw-exposes-users%E2%80%99-location-identity/
Researchers at Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) and colleagues in France and Germany will present the findings at the Internet Measurement Conference 2011 in Berlin on November 2, 2011.
Keith Ross, a professor of computer science at NYU-Poly, explains that the team uncovered several properties of Skype that can track not only users’ locations over time but also their peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing activity. Even when a user blocks callers or connects from behind a Network Address Translation (NAT)—a common type of firewall—it does not prevent the privacy risk, he says.
