Long before Edward Snowden told us about a govt privacy-abusing spy operation called PRISM or Prism, Skype had its own collaborative project with the govt that was code-named Project Chess.
That was going on while Skype executives were denying any such activity was taken place.
According to a New York Times report, Skype began looking at “the legal and technical issues in making Skype calls readily available to intelligence agencies and law enforcement official.” That was five years ago. Long before Microsoft acquired Skype.
The scratch-my-back-I-scratch-your-back relationship between Microsoft and government spy agencies is an open secret, but Skype? I’m referring to Skype before Steve Ballmer’s outfit acquired it. See why you just can’t trust proprietary software.
Like PRISM, very few people other than a handful of Skype executives, will be reading about Project Chess if not for the documents that Edward Snowden released to the Guardian, which has also written about Project Chess here.
Thankfully, we can communicate without Skype and other proprietary applications that do not respect our privacy. See Free Software alternatives to help you outwit PRISM for a list of options.
