Microsoft seeks patent for spy tech for Skype

June 28, 2011, 5:28 PM — A innovation called Legal Intercept that Microsoft hopes to patent would allow the company to secretly intercept, monitor and record Skype calls. And it's stoking privacy concerns.

The innovation in its patent application

From Microsoft's description of the innovation in its patent application, Legal Intercept appears similar to tools used by telecommunication companies and equipment makers to comply with government wiretap and surveillance requests.

"Data associated with a request to establish a communication is modified to cause the communication to be established via a path that includes a recording agent." The recording agent is at that time able to "silently record" the communication, according to Microsoft's description.

"Modification may include, for instance, adding, changing, and/or deleting data within the data. The data as modified is at the time passed to a protocol entity that uses the data to establish a communication session," the description notes.

According to Microsoft, Legal Intercept addresses gaps in current monitoring tools that are designed mainly for intercepting Plain Old Telephone Service. "With new Voice over Internet Protocol and other communication innovation, the POTS model for recording communications does not work," Microsoft noted in the patent application.

CALEA requires telecommunications carriers and makers of communications equipment to enable their equipment so it can be used for surveillance purposes by federal law enforcement agencies.

The implications of the research are much broader

But the implications of the research are much broader, Froomkin added. "First, making a communication research FBI-friendly means as well making it dictator-friendly, and in the end this is not good for movements like the Arab Spring," he said. "Second, experience shows that building in back doors invites exploits."

Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said the innovation aligns with Microsoft's broader goals.

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