The well respected German website Heise Online has fueled speculations about a backdoor that is implemented in the Voice over IP software Skype. According to Heise the Austrian interior minister revealed at a conference with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception of IP based services that they were able to listen to Skype conversations which was confirmed to Heise by several attendees of the conference.
Heise was not able to get a statement from eBay about the allegations other than they would not comment on media speculations. The Austrian broadcaster ORF (German article) published an article last week that already contained the allegations that the Austrian police was able to listen to Skype conversations. The possibility to listen to Skype conversations was not trivial but doable.
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[...] 1: Reports do suggest that in 2006 Skype agreed to implement keyword filters to be allowed by authorities to run services in China. Several Western governments are talking about attempts to crack down the encryption or simply putting pressure to allow wiretapping; and the proprietary nature of Skype software does fuel suspicion over some sort of backdoor access. [...]