Recently, nemo2 popped out over the fence
around uk.telecom.voip and said...
|On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:22:04 -0000, "RH"
|<spicedham@no-ham-exelsys.com> wrote:
|
|>snipped
|>Don't get me wrong I am not a super Skype user, I like my SIP systems as
|>well, running Trixbox with multiple SIP providers, but SKYPE does have its
|>place in the world. and without skype the whole home user VOIP sector would
|>be smaller. How many people on this list first looked at VOIP through SKYPE,
|>I know I did.
I did setup for one of my customers a voice intercom system running
through Internet when Skype wasn't even conceived, with Yahoo Messenger.
I've been there, etc...

|>I know I should not feed the trolls, but have done in this case...
|>
|RH,
|
|I have to admit that I use skype, the main reason is that it will get
|through a university firewall that blocks voipcheap. As my daughter is
|no longer in halls I could go back to voipcheap, but skype is easy to
|support; well it just appears to work.
This statement says it all. Let me examine it...

1) "...it will get through a university firewall that block
voipcheap...". = Security hole + Uni network policy violation + higher
bill to the Uni (that's paid with MY taxes, too).
I don't like the sound of it, and the Uni network admins either.

2) "...skype is esay to support..." = Like early MacOS, everything was
concealed to the user "because it's better they don't know". Wrong
business model. Open source OS based PCs are outnumbering Macs, and Open
Source OSs are around by 1/10th than MacOS.

3) "...well it just appears to work." = I'm washing my hands of the
consequences to my PC security, my network neighborhood connection
(shared) bandwidth clogged, and too much people relying on the same
stuff (we've been into this already, Mr. Gates loves you all).
Isn't this a bit irresponsible?

|I'm not worried about the security aspect of skype as we don't talk
|about anything confidential on skype. However, in reality what are the
|chances of my conversation being interceted by somebody who could
|capture the concersation and then use the information; not high I
|suspect.
The security hole is NOT in the fact that your conversation can be
tapped into, but the fact that some hackers - using bespoke crafted
packets pretending to be belonging to Skype traffic - can bypass your
firewall.

|I thought that your response was a good one, people use skype, because
|it's easy and a lot of other people use it and most of them won't know
|or care who owns skype.
I don't care neither, I'm too old to care... But I've been there, seen
that, and bought the T-shirt.
Skype is an expensive toy (to run securely) and I'm - again - too old to
play around.
A hundred quid for an all-in-one ADSL VoIP Wireless router (AVM Fritz!
Box Fon WLAN) and everything is served: 4 VoIP lines, 2 wired
extensions, broadband with traffic shaping, wired / wireless internet
throughout the house.
I'm using business grade VoIP telephony since August 2005, and a month
ago I ditched my landline. Never been happier.
Do this with Skype.

--
ßødincµs²°°° - The Y2K Druid
----------------------------
Law 42 on computing: Anything that could go wron@~ ¬
$: Access Violation -- Core dumped