paulitician
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- Oct 7, 2011
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The Corporate/Government Complex at it again.
Microsoft gave the National Security Agency easy access to encrypted web chats, Skype video calls and messages and Microsofts cloud storage service, SkyDrive, according to documents published by the UK Guardian.
Top secret documents provided by former National Security Agency Edward Snowden show that Microsoft enabled the agency to intercept web chats by circumventing Outlook.coms encryption. In addition, the agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail, the Guardian reports.
This means that NSA analysts intercepting messages from Outlook.com did not have to decrypt the messages that might have been encoded to avoid privacy intrusions from eavesdroppers.
Microsoft, named as the first NSA private sector partner to join the PRISM Internet surveillance program in 2007, also worked with the FBI to enable the NSA further access to Microsofts cloud storage service, SkyDrive.
Skype, which joined as a PRISM participant several months prior to the companys acquisition by Microsoft in October 2011, also worked with intelligence agencies in 2012 to provide the video and audio of conversations.
Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a team sport, said the Guardian.
CNET notes that Microsofts Transparency report says the company did not divulge any Skype audio or video content to police in 2012, but the report only refers to law enforcement and not FISA-related requests.
Critics of the revelations have argued that the classified nature of the information in question makes it difficult for readers to know the full story...
Read more: Report: Microsoft gave NSA access to encrypted chats, Skype | The Daily Caller
Microsoft gave the National Security Agency easy access to encrypted web chats, Skype video calls and messages and Microsofts cloud storage service, SkyDrive, according to documents published by the UK Guardian.
Top secret documents provided by former National Security Agency Edward Snowden show that Microsoft enabled the agency to intercept web chats by circumventing Outlook.coms encryption. In addition, the agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail, the Guardian reports.
This means that NSA analysts intercepting messages from Outlook.com did not have to decrypt the messages that might have been encoded to avoid privacy intrusions from eavesdroppers.
Microsoft, named as the first NSA private sector partner to join the PRISM Internet surveillance program in 2007, also worked with the FBI to enable the NSA further access to Microsofts cloud storage service, SkyDrive.
Skype, which joined as a PRISM participant several months prior to the companys acquisition by Microsoft in October 2011, also worked with intelligence agencies in 2012 to provide the video and audio of conversations.
Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a team sport, said the Guardian.
CNET notes that Microsofts Transparency report says the company did not divulge any Skype audio or video content to police in 2012, but the report only refers to law enforcement and not FISA-related requests.
Critics of the revelations have argued that the classified nature of the information in question makes it difficult for readers to know the full story...
Read more: Report: Microsoft gave NSA access to encrypted chats, Skype | The Daily Caller