The trail led him to TOM Online's computers, where, due to a security lapse, he was able to read their computer directories over the web.

Villeneuve monitored data generated by TOM-Skype and noted that when offensive words were sent using the service, an encrypted message was sent to an internet address. Nart Villeneuve, a research fellow at the Citizen Lab, made the discovery.

The report, entitled Breaching Trust: An analysis of surveillance and security practices on China's TOM-Skype platform, was published Wednesday on the University of Toronto's Information Warfare Monitor website. The group is housed at the university's Munk Centre for International Studies. The report is from Citizen Lab, a group of security researchers and human rights activists who focus on the intersection of civic politics and digital media. The discovery once again shines a spotlight on the collective internet filtering efforts at work in China - known as the Great Firewall of China - and raises the possibility that the data could be used for surveillance.

and eBay, the web auction company that bought online phone service Skype in 2005. The system keeps track of text messages, but not voice calls, sent through TOM-Skype, a joint venture between the Chinese wireless company TOM Online - a division of the Hong Kong-based TOM Group Ltd. University of Toronto researchers have uncovered a huge filtering system in China that tracks and keeps records of text messages containing politically charged words sent through the internet phone application Skype.

Saturday night online skype