[Infowarrior] - Skype snoop agent reads mobo serial numbers

[Richard Forno]

Skype snoop agent reads mobo serial numbers
'Quite normal' feature has been removed
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/11/skype_bios_snoop/
Published Sunday 11th February 2007 22:29 GMT

Skype has been spying on its Windows-based users since the middle of
December by secretly accessing their system bios settings and recording the
motherboard serial number.

A blog entry made on Skype's website assures us it's no big deal. The
snooper agent is the handiwork of a third-party program called EasyBits
Software, which Skype uses to manage Skype plug-ins.

Among other things, EasyBits offers DRM features that prevent the
unauthorized use or distribution of plug-ins, and that's why Skype 3.0 has
been nosing around in users' bios. Reading the serial number allows EasyBits
to quickly identify the physical computer the software is running on. The
practice was discontinued on Thursday, when Skype was updated to version
3.0.0.216.

"It is quite normal to look at indicators that uniquely identify the
platform and there is nothing secret about reading hardware parameters from
the BIOS," Skype's blog author, Kurt Sauer, assured us. He also says Skype
never retrieved any of this data. We're not sure that's the point.

Skype goes to great lengths to assure users they will not be fed spyware,
which the eBay-owned VOIP provider defines as "software that becomes
installed on computer without the informed consent or knowledge of the
computer¹s owner and covertly transmits or receives data to or from a remote
host." What's more, we were unable to find terms of service the spells out
what EasyBits does with the information it gathers on Skype users.

It's also hard to take Skype's nothing-to-see-here notification at face
value because of the lengths the software goes to conceal its snooping. As
documented in the Pagetable blog, the Skype snoopware runs a .com file and
prevents the more curious users among us from reading it. Were it not for
errors it was giving users of 64-bit versions, we'd probably still be in the
dark.

Skype's decision to remove the EasyBits DRM feature is a good start. Time
now for an apology and an explanation of what has been done with the
information already collected. ®