Can my employer "hear" my SKYPE phone calls

In message <> Susan

No, what I'm saying is that whether or not the encryption is breakable,
it wouldn't stop a bored IT person.

 

Thus spaketh Christian 'CeeJay' Jensen:

Trouble is the bible is just a book of fiction.

 

Your traffic on your employers computers is as private as a message
written on a post card and put in regular mail.

 

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 23:01:52 +0200, Christian 'CeeJay' Jensen
<44bfef2e$0$84031$>

[snip]

This last paragraph sound very much like my previous employer. Their
response was to put more pressure on their employees, demanding more and
more be produced in less and less time. People were fired for even the
most trivial breaches of the rules. To listen to company management,
all they did was whine about how it was so hard to find people--during
the time I was there, the wages actually dropped 15% for new-hires, so
there was even more pressure to get those more experienced workers out
so they could be replaced by lower-paid new-hires.

This is the reality in much of corporate America today; companies will
vie for government handouts, and will move to new locations when the
handouts stop after a few years. They'll locate in relatively-depressed
areas, with little work opportunities, knowing they've got a captive
workforce. Most of the people I worked with were single-mothers; the
employer knew they _needed_ their job to feed their kids, so they'd put
up with just about anything to keep it, knowing full-well that there
were almost no alternatives for them.

The rates of absenteeism were very high; people were just stressed-out
to the breaking point. Virtually everyone that I knew was on medication
to help them cope with the stress.

The sweatshops of the 19th and early-20th century featured sewing-machines;
those of the 21st now feature computers.

Herne <-rhei.eu.org>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iD8DBQFEwFYah0fX3LEFYPsRAlB1AJ9aL44IrHj7WGmMgthdLeqPcyY+8wCeKmCM
3ZBlEFR3LJ/4tpEfnD8uNP0=
=xEyb
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

 

Oh my. Is this the summary.

1. The employer can "see" SKYPE calls but not "hear" them.
2. Unless they "tap" your sound card (is that hard or easy on a network?).
3. The SKYPE encryption has been broken.
4. It's safer to buy a cell phone and sim card.

I didn't think about the cell phone idea.
Are you saying I can get a phone with TWO sim cards. One for my normal use
and one for my, shall we say, personal issues?

If I switch from one sim card to the next, does that guarrantee me being
anonymous? That is, if a certain someone at home were to flip through the
cell phone with the "home" sim card in, would he be able to see the calls
made from the "personal" sim card?

I'm so confused but I do revere your advice,
Susan

 

Yes you are.

Kenny G.

 

Get a prepaid cell phone and use that.

 

They don't need the key. They have this:

"Tell us who these calls were to, and what they were about, or you
are fired"

That works as good as having the key.

 

Can he stand outside your office door?

No. You've been given good advice WRT prepay mobile phones and I'd take
that if I were you. It's not worth the risk. Maybe giving your husband
the push would be a good start.

(Rest snipped)
--
Huss

They come together like the Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murdered
reputations of the week.

William Congreve

 

It makes "easy" seem difficult. It's trivial for anyone who's taken
an electronics course in high school. Network or not, it's done right
on the computer. And it's easily done inside the computer, with a
tiny component, so unless you know what you're looking for, and where
it is, you'd never notice it.

If you have a cell phone with a SIM card (Verizon, for one, uses
technology that doesn't use SIM cards), go to a cell phone store - one
where the employees know what they're doing - and ask them to show you
how to swap SIM cards in your phone. You can get adapters to use 2
cards in one phone, but they're not common in the US yet.

Yes, if your phone keeps your calls list in the phone, not in the
card. Some do one, some do the other, some can be set to do whichever
you want. A second phone is easier and safer. Just leave it in your
desk drawer at work.

Wouldn't a divorce be a lot simpler?

 

Cell phone calls have records kept that the calls were made. It is true
that if you have a second cell phone account, your spouse will not see the
calls listed on your regular cell bill.

BUT there is a hitch.

If you were to be suspected of having an alternate cell phone account, the
records could be subpoenaed and all of your past calling activity would be
exposed. That is why I think you should seek a solution where there are no
calling records kept.

Depending upon how committed you are to doing this, there are a couple of
workarounds that will cost you a couple of dollars:

If you don't want to initiate your calls through your employer's Internet
connection, you could buy a laptop and set yourself up with a data plan
through a cell phone company. You could then use BitWise IM to carry your
voice and text messages with your sweetie. Your spouse might know that you
have a laptop, but the could not subpoena any calling records, because there
aren't any.

You could also communicate with each other via your home computer. Just run
BitWise off of a disk, take it out when you are done, and there is no record
of the application even existing on your computer. If your spouse were to
find the disk and run the application, there would be no calling records.

The key, in my opinion, is to leave no audit trail, and that is why I am
reluctant to suggest an alternate cell phone account. Only if you can
purchase a calling card without giving your name would this be an acceptable
option. And, even then, you had better be certain that your spouse doesn't
get hold of the card number, because those records could then be identified
and ordered turned over by a court.

There are also Long Distance calling cards that enable you to make a call
from any phone and have it billed to the prepaid card. AT&T and MCI sell
them at wholesale clubs--700 minutes for $15.00. You could call from any
phone, and the call record would only indicate that a call was made to the
calling card's 800 number. What you did from that point on would not be
available.

BUT if your spouse got your calling card number, a court could order your
records turned over.

Once you create a record of a call, it stays on some phone company database
forever. You can't erase it. So I would think long and hard about doing
anything that might one day be subject to disclosure. If you want no audit
trail, the Instant Messenger offers an important margin of superiority over
any type of cell phone or prepaid card. Your calling records cannot be
disclosed, because they are never created in the first place.

Sorry to make this sound so complicated.

 

Wow..... how about posting some pictures of ya self.

 

The employer can easily "see" them, and with some effort "hear" them.

Unless you set the 'phone to do things. everything is stored _only_ on
the SIM card. Of course, if you leave the 'phone laying around and
someone is suspicious it is possible that they might change the settings
on the 'phone, so it's probably better to do as one of the other posters
suggested, buy a 'phone just for this and stash it at work, or somewhere
else that is "secure".

Cheers,
Gary B-)

 

Thanks everyone.
I have one more question.

If I use a cell phone with a pre-paid sim card that keeps the records in
the sim card, then I would guess that the permanent records at the phone
company would indicate exactly which phone used that card (probably by the
serial number of the phone?).

Assuming the permanent records tie the sim card to the telephone by
telephone serial number, if we remove the first sim card and put a second
sim card into that same telephone, wouldn't that second sim card also be
recorded as having been used by that telephone serial number?

My point is, wouldn't someone knowing the first telephone number from the
first sim card then allow them to find the records of ALL phone calls made
from all sim cards ever put in that phone since the phone has only one
serial number?

Isn't the telephone serial number a weak (identifiable) link that negates
the "privacy" afforded by the second pre-paid sim card?

Does this question make sense?
Susan

 

The cell phone provider is bound to know the ESN of the telephone that was
used to make the call. Ordinarily this would not be a concern, but if your
spouse were to learn that you had another SIM, and if he could get a court
to demand that the cell provider turn over the call records that are
connected with that SIM, it could all be tied in to you.

If you are going to use a cell phone, I think you would do better to buy a
completely separate phone and use a completely separate provider. You might
also want to look into a prepaid walkie-talkie type of provider, because you
can get unlimited walkie-talkie contacts and I do not believe that records
of those communications are kept, because they are not "phone calls."

A lot of my city's local drug dealers buy cell phone cards from "Boost,"
which uses the Nextel network. They pay $30/month and can make
walkie-talkie calls to one another all month long. If you were to use that,
your friend would need one of those phones, too, and you'd each have to pay
the monthly charge. I do not know if there is an extra charge to
communicate outside your local area.

Regardless of what cell phone you sign up with, you want to be sure that the
bill won't be sent to you at home. By all means, look into some prepaid
plan. Do not recharge your card by calling over the phone and having your
checking or credit card account debited (that will leave a record that you
possess another phone). Go somewhere that you can pay in cash. I think
Wal-Mart has these plans available.

But be warned: all of these schemes rely upon your keeping any record
private that you have another phone. If your spouse finds out about it,
everything might unravel. It takes only one slip-up to crack the thing wide
open.

If you can make calls from your office without getting into trouble,
consider a prepaid card from AT&T or MCI. You dial their 800 number, enter
your card number and the number you want to call, and your connection is
made and charged against your card's remaining minutes. The card issuer
doesn't know who you are and doesn't care, because the card is prepaid.

Commit your card number and its access number to memory, or write it down in
some coded form, and dump the card. Now there is no evidence that connects
you with that card. What you keep in your own head remains private.

Oh, and do not ever call the prepaid access number from your cell phone.
Your spouse may ask why you make so many calls to the same toll-free number
when he sees it displayed on your cell bill.

 

I'm beginning to think this whole thing is a joke.
***

 

And the Call Detail Records (all the digits you dialed in every phone
call you made) from your phone at work are subject to discovery during
the divorce proceedings. Your company is going to love that!

 

Yes, but there are plenty of other weaker links generated by a second
cell phone. If the sim is bought at a store there is going to be
security camera footage of you buying that sim card. I supposed you
could wear a burka, but that has its own set of problems...

FYI, in the age of the CALEA and E911 "interlocking" laws, all cell
phone calls can be tracked to within a small number of feet of where
they were made. Is the position of the phone routinely recorded in
the billing system? Who knows? If not now, it might be at some point
as part of a fraud detection scheme. I wouldn't count on all that
much anonymity.

If you've ever used your home or office phone to make a call to the
destination number or received a call from that destination number,
there are already phone records that tie you to that other person. If
a cell phone call were made from the same general area, to the same
destination, someone looking at the records is going to wonder if both
calls are somehow related.

Unfortunately your quest boils down to the same one that some random
terrorist has -- making untraceable calls. As such there is going to
be lots of machinery in place to be able track all such calls and tie
together the associations. Also, this is a really bad time to try any
phone hanky-panky. Hezbolah has just announced that they are very
pissed-off at the US. This would be a time where all the machinery
would be in high gear trying desperately to spot any activation orders
coming in.

So I guess I'm saying, if all you want to do is keep calls off of your
home phone bill a second cell phone with a prepaid sim should do the
trick. If you want it fully untraceable I think you are out of luck.

-wolfgang

 

Oh, I dunno, it's kinda entertaining, in a 'watching a train wreck'
sort of way. She can only hope her hubby has never heard of Usenet,
and his lawyer won't have any idea how to use Google News. 8*|

 

The SIM card serial number is what ties things together. The account
is linked to a particular SIM card, not to a particular telephone
handset. If you know the SIM card number, and you have access to the
records of the cell phone company, you can break a whole slew of
federal laws and get information about calls made by that SIM. Or, if
you're the government, you can get the information and not worry about
the law.

Knowing the serial number of the handset won't do anyone much good.