There is an exciting rumor that the National Security Agency (NSA) is offering big money to anybody who can provide a means to eavesdrop on Skype conversations. You would think that this would not be a terribly difficult task for hard core hackers. Skype uses P2P style communications to send messages across the network.The Skype P2P protocol is not an open one. However you would think that there are former Skype employees who know the secrets. It has also been mentioned that Skype itself could use some extra cash, and might be tempted to sell out to the NSA. I know this sounds a bit evil. However this is just business after all.
How would one go about breaking the Skype protocol? Well you could hook up a packet sniffer, filter out anything other than Skype, then participate in a Skype conversation. This is a reverse engineering exercise. The advantage is that you know what you are communicating over Skype.
I imagine this is not a simple task to reverse engineer the Skype protocol. But when a lot of money is at stake, I bet a motivated hacker can figure it out. Heck. I might even get myself Skype and take a crack at it. However I will not be sharing my findings with you. I will be going directly to the NSA or whoever else is willing to pay up.
