Privacy 101: Skype Leaks Your Location

[JMH]

The events of the past week reminded me of a privacy topic I’ve been meaning to revisit: That voice-over-IP telephony service Skype constantly exposes your Internet address to the entire world, and that there are now numerous free and commercial tools that can be used to link Skype user account names to numeric Internet addresses

The fact that Skype betrays its users’ online location information is hardly news. For example, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets warned last year about research showing that it was possible to coax Skype into revealing the IP addresses of individual Skype users. But I believe most Skype users still have no clue about this basic privacy weakness.

Update, March 22, 9:45 a.m. ET: Added quotes from Microsoft and Levene.

Privacy 101: Skype Leaks Your Location ? Krebs on Security