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(TS//SI) Letter to the Editor : About Skype...
FROM: the editor
Unknown
Run Date: 12/13/2005
(TS//SI) A reader overseas wrote in to comment on the article "A Tough Targeting Challenge:
Skype" :
Comment:
(U) My feedback pertains especially to the following paragraph:
"(TS//SI) Target Collection: Skype uses peer-to-peer networking. This means that the packets
from the same voice call will take different network paths to their destination. This requires
multiple SIGINT collection sites to be able to recognize and collect packets from the same voice
call. Skype also attempts to resolve latency issues in packet transmission, which means that, as
much as possible, Skype packets will keep to fiber- optic and other types of land-based
infrastructure for transmission purposes. As the Skype network and the global Internet grows,
only limited amounts of Skype traffic will be available over traditional FORNSAT collection."
(S//SI) SCS (Special Collection Service) sites frequently see landlines and may have access to
this traffic in certain situations. They are also more likely to have access to other VoIP systems
(VONAGE, Packet8 etc) since any VoIP system is likely trying to avoid satellites, when possible,
due to latency issues.
(S//SI) Another problem has to do with USSID-18 compliance. Anyone with any brains will buy
their VONAGE, Packet8, Lingo etc. phone in the U.S. and register it with a U.S. number. These
phones then work anywhere they are in the world with access to broadband internet. So even
though I have been overseas for a long time, I have a U.S. phone number that rings in my
home, in my hotel or wherever I am...and that location is not the U.S. When I call the U.S., my
number will show up on caller ID as "City Registered- Wireless." There were similar problems
prosecuting the Inmarsat targets in the mid 90's.
-- Name withheld
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108