Skype reverse engineered and posted online (updated)

In the latest news that will probably make one of the world’s most popular VoIP services pretty unhappy, a freelance researcher named Efim Bushmanov has undertaken the goal of reverse engineering Skype and turning it into an open source program.

Beyond his explanation of trying to figure out why Skype is “today’s trend”, it’s not clear why he wants to make the program open source. According to his blog, this project will let users have a look at skype’s internal protocol and encryption, and you’ll be able to see that “it uses strong AES and RAS encryption with public key infrastructure.”

While he hasn’t finished with his reverse engineering project yet, he is looking for likeminded folks to help him with the job, and he has uploaded what he’s done so far onto the internet for distribution. If you’re keen on checking it out (before Skype takes action against this man, if they do) head over to the Skype Open Source blog for more details.

Update (8.52AM): Skype has contacted us with the following statement concerning Bushmanov’s reverse engineering project:

“This unauthorized use of our application for malicious activities like spamming/phishing infringes on Skype’s intellectual property.  We are taking all necessary steps to prevent/defeat nefarious attempts to subvert Skype’s experience. Skype takes its users’ safety and security seriously and we work tirelessly to ensure each individual has the best possible experience.”