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Skype Sending Instant Messages to Wrong People

The Internet-chat system Skype is meant to facilitate cheap and easy communication among any people who want to talk to each other.
/ Source: SecurityNewsDaily

The Internet-chat system Skype is meant to facilitate cheap and easy communication among any people who want to talk to each other.

Now it seems Skype also facilitates communication between people who don't necessarily want to talk.

At least two threads have appeared on the Skype support forums full of anecdotal tales of Skype instant messages being sent to the wrong people, and of old messages cropping up as unread.

"Messages sent by one contact (2 lines out of a hundred or so) were sent to another contact of mine. These 2 contacts are not connected on Skype," wrote user "strayle." "The 2 IMs appeared to be sent by me, so the other contact asked me if I sent them by mistake."

"The exact same thing has happened to me, except that I was the recipient of two lines of chat which were exchanged between my contact and one of his contacts," replied user "bla84." "I am not connected to my friend's contact."

"Sometimes when I open chat window with some contact, it lists all latest messages from that person although I have already read them," said "SunnyLady78," who also reported instant messages going to the wrong people.

Bla84 surmised that the glitch might be tied to a recent Skype software update, though with so many different versions of Skype running on various platforms, it might be hard to tell.

Skype's not sure exactly what's causing it, but is working to resolve the issue, according to an official blog posting Monday (July 16).

"We have identified a bug that we are working hard to fix," Skype employee Leonas Sendrauskas wrote. "This issue occurs only when a user's Skype client crashes during a Skype IM session, which may in some cases result in the last IM entered or sent prior to the crash being delivered to a different IM contact after the Skype client is rebooted or logged in as a new user."

Sendrauskas added that the number of affected customers appeared to be "small."

Sendrauskas said the versions of Skype software involved were Skype 5.9 and 5.10 for Windows, Skype 5.8 for Mac OS X, Skype 4.0 for Linux, Skype 4.0 for iOS, Skype 2.8 for Android and Skype 1.2 for Windows Phone.

Skype, which was purchased by Microsoft in 2011, has had other security issues recently. In late April, someone posted instructions online on how to use Skype to detect any user's Internet Protocol address.

Last year, a flaw was found in the Android Skype software that leaked a user's personal information, and a more serious flaw was found in the Mac OS X Skype software that could give an attacker remote control of the targeted computer.

Similar problems involving wayward instant messages have cropped up in second-hand or stolen Apple iPhones, with both old and new owners getting each other's messages.