Defending The Kingdom

From Wired:

A Chinese-language version of Skype scans users’ chat messages for keywords such as “democracy,” and sends a copy of the offending message to the company’s servers, according to a report released Thursday by a Canadian online human rights group.

That’s despite adamant claims by the Ebay-owned company that its software offers encrypted, safe communication.

Emails, too, often prove less than private. The hacking of Governor Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account is only the most recent example.

Bottom line

if you would be unable to bear the consequences of your communication getting intercepted, you probably shouldn’t send it by Skype, email, or any other electronic medium. Of course, even snail mail can be intercepted, face-to-face conversations recorded. No communication method is perfectly secure, and, as always, you must make make tradeoffs between security and convenience. Few of us would be satisfied to go the tin foil hat route.