Just like most things technology in the country, China is a significant market for Skype. There are certain regulations in place that results in Microsoft requiring a local partner in the country, and there are certain concerns regarding user privacy.
Microsoft may have just recently signed a new partnership deal but questions still remained on what the company was doing for complaints about wiretapping and handing user data to the government.
The good news is that along with signing the new deal with Guangming Founder (GMF) in order to bring Skype to local users, Redmond has also tweaked Skype to address these censorship complaints.
According to this report, all user calls, chats and login details are completely encrypted from now on and are submitted to Microsoft via a secure HTTPS connection — meaning no one can intercept private information in any way.
Along with this, while Skype will be offered to users in China via local servers, the application itself is now under Microsoft’s control. The technology titan will now digitally sign each version.
And finally, just like the international versions of Skype, the latest version of the program for Chinese users now brings end-to-end encryption. What this means is that all user details and conversations are fully protected from now on.
Microsoft has not actually commented on these changes publicly, but if these changes are true, they are indeed a big step up (more like a total leap) for user privacy in China.
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According to this report,
all user calls, chats and login details are completely encrypted from
now on and are submitted to Microsoft via a secure HTTPS connection —
meaning no one can intercept private information in any way.
What this means? That our private infos can be seen by others 🙂 (companies, etc)
Yup. Not other companies though, but government organizations and other such agencies. With this added encryption everything will be even more secure and private from now on, one can hope.
According to this report,
all user calls, chats and login details are completely encrypted from
now on and are submitted to Microsoft via a secure HTTPS connection —
meaning no one can intercept private information in any way.
What this means? That our private infos can be seen by others 🙂 (companies, etc)