Skype and Microsoft have something to hide
Evidently, Skype and Microsoft have something to hide.. Why else would they go to such lengths (the Skype software itself does some things often seen in malware) to prevent people from figuring out the digital language Skype uses to communicate? Don't tell me it's for security; that's hogwash. Security by obscurity is useless. I suspect that they are placing more trust in the client software than they should, and they don't want to people to find out how flimsy the whole system is (if this is the case, then China probably already knows about it and has a plan to exploit it). They could also be trying to conceal a backdoor added for (ostensibly) use by law enforcement (in which case China probably uses it to crack down on dissent). Or, it could just be that they don't want to let anybody else make Skype client software so that they can maintain their iron grip on the whole system. Regardless of the reason, their behavior is awfully suspicious. I don't trust Skype, even more so now that Microsoft owns it.