September 24, 2007 - DIT announced discovery of "Skype Redirects Users in China to Censorware Version"
Dynamic Internet Technology Inc., September 24, 2007. Dynamic Internet
Technology (DIT) announced today its discovery of Skype's further
cooperation with the Internet censorship in China, apparently in an
effort to stop the spread of DIT's popular anti-censorship tool.
Skype (http://www.skype.com), an instant messaging, voice chat and file
downloading tool, is very popular in China. On September 13, 2007, DIT
established its presence on Skype, so users in China can talk to DIT
over Skype to get DynaWeb url and download its popular censorship-busting
software, Freegate.
On the morning of September 23, DIT started to receive reports from
concerned users in China that now when they try to download the Skype
software, Skype's website redirects them to Skype's Chinese partner's
site, http://skype.tom.com, which doles out a modified Chinese version,
instead of Skype's official version as before.
Such a version of Skype from a Chinese website is certainly fishy, as
some hidden capabilities can be built-in to censor Skype's usage. In
January, 2006, Business Week reported that "TOM and Skype now filter
phrases such as "Falun Gong" and "Dalai Lama." Internet freedom activists
in China have been warning people about the possibility that Tom.com's
versions have or will have more trojan capability to monitor and report
users' activities to Chinese government.
DIT has confirmed this redirection. DIT believes this move by Skype is
the result of Chinese government's pressure, targeting to curb
Freegate's wildfire-speed adoption in China.
Freegate is part of DynaWeb technologies. DynaWeb enable users to evade
Internet censorship and to visit websites that are otherwise blocked.
DynaWeb was first launched in March, 2002. It is developed and
maintained by volunteers and personal contributions, and has enjoyed
great popularity among users in China, despite of the various
efforts to stop its spread by the governments in these countries.
Dynamic Internet Technology Inc.
http://www.dit-inc.us/