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One way I can think of to make money would be to offer SIP access to your skype account for a fee.

I almost put this exact recommendation in my post. Then I found it already exists:

• Skip2PBX (Skype Extras #138)
• Skystone: the ultimate Software IP Skype Gateway (Skype Extras #722)
• SiSky Enterprise Edition (Skype Extras #924)

One way I can think of to make money would be to offer SIP access to your skype account for a fee.

I almost put this exact recommendation in my post. Then I found it already exists:

• Skip2PBX (Skype Extras #138)
• Skystone: the ultimate Software IP Skype Gateway (Skype Extras #722)
• SiSky Enterprise Edition (Skype Extras #924)

Anyone know a good free VOIP for Linux compatible with skype? I honestly never bothered looking.

Skype has a Linux client which runs perfectly fine: http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/

I stopped using Skype just a short time ago, mainly because of eBay's attitude toward AMD64 support:
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=93068

Since then I have found that there are already standards based open source replacements for Skype, mainly SIP and Ekiga. In contrast to Skype they got video conferencing and you can get a public telephone number for free.

Also I started to think about what would be needed for the german "Bundestrojaner" and compare it to Skype:
- it is installed on a majority of systems
- it is protected against decompilation / debuggers
- it bypasses almost any firewall
- it uses encryption for network traffic
- it may send lots of data even when not making a call
- it might have already been deployed by the NSA
- eBay has a history of cooperating with federal agencies

Tom

That, and this

Unfortunately, you seem to be wrong, if we are to trust what this user says on the thread: he cites Gaim acting the same way (among "other programs"). Then again, he's not too explicit.

Really? So when they said, "[t]he disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update", they didn't really mean it?

Come on, just admit that you're wrong. It was a fault with their auth service in the sense that it wasn't able to cope with a Patch Tuesday-induced slashdotting that it wasn't designed for.

The same way Australians can live in Australia, even though I've seen "The Road Warrior" and personally would not wish to.

It mentions Windows Update here: http://heartbeat.skype.com/

"The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users' computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update."

The Skype blog had info being posted all during the outage, and will have a summary of what happened soon. They never indicated it was anything related to any outside intrusion.

The Apple iPhone is a very attractive phone, but it seems to lack Skype support. http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=74159 http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2007/01/apples_ iphone_a.html Lack of SDK means we just have to wait until people hack the iPhone so Skype support might be added through homebrew.

Really?

http://www.xda-developers.com/
http://my-symbian.com/main/index.php
http://www.myphonegames.co.uk/
http://www.handango.com/home.jsp?siteId=1
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/download/skype/mob ile/
http://messenger.yahoo.com/mobile.php
http://www.agilemobile.com/download.html
http://www.pdamill.com/
http://www.adobe.com/mobile/

While I appreciate most of the applications you can get for a mobile phone are Java games, the market is heading towards smartphones using a version of symbian. The iPhone is really aimed at two parts of the mobile phone market, the first is the current PDA market (so blackberry's in the USA and Windows Mobile phones in the UK), the geek/hobbyist which would be the highend Nokia Symbian & Windows Mobile users, its price tag would young teen market (atleast in the UK) as most young teens (I am one and know many others) could afford one (sadly most have iPods) but own small cheap phones because they don't like taking expensive phones out and around with them. I don't understand that thinking myself but then again my last two phones have been free on contract.
I'm aware the American market does have carrier's which lock down phones but most of the rest of the world doesn't suffer this. About the most invasive I've seen is this annoying sidebar Orange stick on all their mobile phones, then again Orange is currently losing customers in droves (least in my home city) because of their new rigid pricing policy. By limiting themselves the way apple have to web 2.0 they've taken the java route on other lowend phones, sure Java can do all sorts of things but the only things that are prevelent for java phones are games. When you compare Doom and Snails (both of which are availiable for Symbian and Windows Mobile) the game selection for Java phones is not as good.
I have no idea how well this would do in American but if the pricing plan were to stay the same in the UK it would tank as its far too expensive for example, I believe the Samsung E900 or Sony Erricson W800i are the current trendy phone's for iPod owners both of which are £80-100 on pay as you go, for the more serious phone owner you have the Nokia N90, Blackberry and Windows Mobile selection all of which are free on 18 month plans, the iPhone is slated to be £200 on a 24 month plan (converting from american dollars.) Symbian and Windows Mobile 5 both have very good User Interfaces, I've yet to meet a person who could tolerate a non symbian phone once they had owned one and to this day every single person who has seen my Windows Mobile phone has been able to get to solitare in seconds (without assistance.)

Without a decent SDK I see the iPhone heading down the Java capable phone route, you'll get hundreds of cheap rubbish games oh and an expensive version of Pacman and Space Invaders.

I'm glad that SightSpeed beat out Skype on this list. The video quality of SightSpeed is far superior. Works better on my mac as well.

One of the other independent VoIP's: Packet8, BroadVoice, Skype (In/Out)...

Though depending on how Vonage's saga plays out, their futures may be uncertain as well.

Traffic analysis can be as valuable as content decryption for some purposes, and Biondi discovered that Skype's nominally encrypted call setup (as opposed to the voice encryption) was reusing an RC4 stream.

The session keys, however, are ephemeral if I'm reading Tom Berson's Skype security analysis correctly. See sections 3.3 and 3.4.1 in particular. The attack vector would be to impersonate one endpoint, which you could do with the Skype network private key.

Skype data is encrypted, apparently: When you call another Skype user your call is encrypted with strong encryption algorithms ensuring you privacy.

Which is just as well, since my Belkin Skype phone doesn't want to talk WPA-whatever to my wireless router. Open network? Yep. :-/

http://www.skype.com/download/skype/macosx/

Probably.

Looks like the submitter has this installed, which turns the phone numbers into Skype links. This toolbar was distributed with the latest version of Skype.

whoever is the brainiac who marked this as flamebait should check the forums, here is just one of many many threads on their terrible problems with billing. you have to love people who mark something as flamebait without checking into the facts in the first place

http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showforum=24

9. They combat credit card fraud by making it impossible to actually purchase minutes. Once you sign up for Skype and put a credit card on it - THAT credit card is the ONLY one you can use - EVER. First rule of business: repeat business.

Yeah, whatever. I think maybe I'll just wait a while -- maybe a year or a decade -- until it has a normal OSX interface and it's actually available and (one hopes) working.

The SkypeOut page says it will only be $14.99. I always recommend taking the word from the good old horses mouth.

Actually no. I remember a time long ago when there was tons of free software out there you could trust. I'm not talking about the open-source stuff (which I generally still trust when it's from SF.net or freshmeat), but demos, freeware utilities, shareware games, freeware episodes, etc.

There was a ton of free stuff out there without spyware, adware, or malware of any sort. Yes, you could get free screensavers (though many sucked). You could get free games (though most were demos). Nowadays, I see lots of things that look useful, but I just can't trust them to be *safe*.

There still is some safe free (non-os) software out there though, such as:

Skype talk to other computers, call phones in N. America for free?! Would you have trusted it
Screensavers and more Screensavers
Compression utilities

and more

The problem is that unless you have a lot of references on the software (and sometimes even then) you just can't trust them to be clean nowadays. The above are some ones that I do trust, but it's sad that I have to second-guess most things that seem free nowadays because there are too many scams and pieces of crapware out there.

Is anybody working on implementing the Skype API in gaim? http://share.skype.com/sites/devzone/2006/01/api_r eference_for_skype_20_bet.html http://www.skype.com/company/legal/eula/

Is anybody working on implementing the Skype API in gaim? http://share.skype.com/sites/devzone/2006/01/api_r eference_for_skype_20_bet.html http://www.skype.com/company/legal/eula/

12/31/06. It's a marketing promo and was clearly stated as such.

As for my little private opinion : maybe Skype doesn't really advertise as P2P and fully explains the 'potential overhead', but they don't hide it either. You just have to look for it and be sufficiently technical to understand how it works (see : http://www.skype.com/products/explained.html as a starter, I'm sure they have some kind of 'protocol-breakdown for dummies' too somewhere, too lazy to look it up right now but I'm sure I've read it in the past).

Personally I consider it a VERY small price to pay for the service that is being offered here, it works straight out of the box, is easy to use, and you surely can't call it a resource hog!

(disclaimer : I have no experience with the SkypeIN/OUT options, but some colleagues use it and seem to be quite happy about it.)

The only two things that might 'annoy' me occasionally is that the Skype homepage tends to address me in French whenever I log on to them (DUHUH, only 40% of Belgium speaks French as their motherlanguage), and (but that's hardly "their" fault I suppose) that about every week or so a 27-year old, aerobicizing girl is trying to become my buddy... As I have put my picture on my profile, I'm pretty sure they are bots and not real girls =)

(I have the privacy option that only people on my contact-list may contact me turned on, so "they" have to revert to this in order to be able to send me spam... First time I accepted such an invitation the conversation went something like this (I was sooo naive =)

Me> Hi there

Me> No offence, but am I supposed to know you ?

She> Hi, my name is Carla

Me> Hi Carla... [in the meanwhile checking her profile... NO YOU PERV, HER SKYPE PROFILE !]

She> yes, I'm from Brazil

She> You should meet me at my homepage, it's http: //www.hornysluts.ru /534538743/carla.html

Me> oh, that kind of homepage

She> Hi, I'm Carla

Me> Did you know the moon is made from cheese ?

She> yes, I'm from Brazil

Me> well, well, who would have guessed ?

[Add Carla to ignore-list]

FYI : Belgian ISP's have a 10 (sometimes 15) GB volume limit too, so welcome to the club =P

I love Skype, I really do. The program is slick and works well. But they have SERIOUS problems handing purchases for Skype-Out (their PC-to-landline service). The complaints are numerous ... so numerous in fact that Skype has had to set up a separate forum to handle them all. Here's a rundown of my personal nightmare with them. You really, and I mean REALLY, need to look at the problems that Skype is having before you go with them.

I love Skype, I really do. The program is slick and works well. But they have SERIOUS problems handing purchases for Skype-Out (their PC-to-landline service). The complaints are numerous ... so numerous in fact that Skype has had to set up a separate forum to handle them all. Here's a rundown of my personal nightmare with them. You really, and I mean REALLY, need to look at the problems that Skype is having before you go with them.

"See, I don't feel I should have to pay a monthly fee to keep my friends."

Ah, if paying is the issue it can be solved.

Just have them send a live feed via a SlingBox or even a free game cam.

Many MMORG players also often hook up via Skype or other voice-chat solutions so they can talk about what is going on while they are playing. You could watch, listen in, and be part of the action.

I am getting the feeling though the real issue is you aren't interested in their 'soap opera'.

"I think my friends should have diversity in their conversations, other than a pay-to-play game."

Yes, they should be interested in talking about things you are interested in.

But it isn't working out that way. The conversation automatically falls back to WoW doesn't it? It is a soap opera with more drama and excitement than 'everyday life'. Fun to talk about. New things happening, etc. Only it is more powerful with shared experiences bonding them together while you are being left out.

Honestly, I understand the dilemma as I have experienced it first hand.

At this point in time I am not aware of any other ways to maintain those 'group' friendships. You could always spend one-on-one time with them. Once you get them together they are going to start singing Barbershop like The Buffalo Bills in The Music Man

MMORGs have a huge impact on social life (fact) and they are here to stay. They will only get more immersive as we move closer to virtual reality in virtual worlds.

Good idea, but the Skype Wi-Fi Phone has this pretty much covered. Not available yet though. Even if it were, I wouldn't buy it because I wouldn't pay hundreds of bucks for a phone that's locked into somebody's proprietary protocol. If it were an open protocol I'd buy it in a second.

Yeah I know, not really related, but I cannot believe this has not made it to slashdot yet: Preview release 1.5.0.47

According to an article from the New York Times back in May 21, German authorities claim to have the ability to intercept and decrypt Skype calls.

to monitor skype...

http://www.secpoint.com/

or maybe some antivirus program could come out that looks for running exe's on the users machine:

http://www.skype.com/help/guides/firewall_norton.h tml

The new skype 2.5 also has a video function, and has had it for quite a while http://about.skype.com/2005/12/skype_launches_next _generation.html

Currently Skype is free to regular phones from your PC, in North America. This is a promtion untill the end of the year
http://www.skype.com/help/guides/skypeout.html

http://www.skype.com/download/skypewebtoolbar/fire fox.html

I maintain a salesforce database and this thing is brilliant. Just click the #.

The question is not that simple. Google earned a "(mod) +1 not evil" to the eyes of the community, or at least to a certain extend of it. See, by not releasing the code you don't actually "support Linux", or whatever OS. You support the specific OS in which you compiled the binaries, period.

It's the same problem with companies such as Skype. Yes, they do release a Linux/Windows/Mac version, but by not releasing the code people like me, who run on a powerpc are just out of the games. Just becasue we are a minority does that mean that we are not allowed to have that piece of software? Is this discrimination really justified for the sake of the "precious source code" that the company wrote?

In the end these "good companies" don't really listen to the community most of the times, only when they like to. Google summer code is cool, but what about the Skype support for powerpc, or *BSD, SPARC, why not? The answer in the forum was:

We have received quite a lot of requests for this. And even Torvalds himself runs it on G5 Wink so yes, don't hold your breath, but it might happen sometime.

Link http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?t=4153&highli ght=powerpc

After two years, we are still waiting.

Google is acting the same way. Picasa rus through WINE, which only works on x86. Let us not talk about Macromedia before I beat the **** out of them...

Now that Skype offers free calls to US numbers until the end of the year, why not drop the MPAA a line and let them know what's on your mind? Maybe we can all check in on them daily and thank them for their efforts!

Oh, and if you'd be so kind, could you also let them know that The Pirate Bay is back up? They seem to still be under the impression that it's down... (PDF link)

Oh. You might need their numbers:
Washington: (202) 293-1966
LA: (818) 995-6600
New York (listed as their "anti-piracy office"): (914) 378-0800

...buying all the competition around them. ... (Skype, Writely ...

http://share.skype.com/sites/security/2005/10/skyp e_security_and_encryption.html

There is currently a user comment at the end about this topic, but no answer from Skype staff.

What we don't know is whether this crack refers to phone calls made to a POTS, or those where both endpoints are Skype clients.

Aliens obviously use the plate to transmit geometrical patterns in an effort to contact us.

I doubt they'd resort to those means. I'm sure they know that Skype has just introduced free calls to land lines and mobiles in the US and Canada until the end of the year: http://www.skype.com/company/news/2006/skype_freec alling.html

I really don't think they're comparable at all. Vonage wants to be your home phone, but Skype clearly points out (here for example) that "Skype is not a replacement for your ordinary telephone and can't be used for emergency calling."

Also, is Vonage's call quality really "light years better than Skype"? Can you broadcast a live concert over Vonage now? Considering that I'm calling someone's rented bakelite telephone that's so big you could kill an attacking puma with it*, Skype's call quality is Good Enough For Me (TM).

* Thank you Lewis Black

Skype Codec
It was the first hit on google for "skype codec"

Skype have already answered this - when you make any SkypeOut call, paid or free, the 180-day counter will reset.

Skype have addressed this in the Beta of 2.5 - by adding a really easy to use dialing wizard/dialpad thing. It does a few things,

1) It automatically detects what country you are in and pre-populates all calls with that dialing code - unless you override it yourself
2) It provides a drop-down list of every country, their flag and international dialing code on the dialpad to help you dial properly.

So looks like they've addressed this problem - and hopefully 2.5 will come out of Beta quite soon and everyone else can benefit from this easy international dialing thing. For us in Europe, where Skype is based, we are so used to international dialing it probably didn't occur to them that not everyone else was...

Actually, Skype is more secure. It uses 256 bit AES end-end encryption. See here for more details: http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/index.php?p=91 9

From Skype's FAQ [LINK: http://www.skype.com/help/faq/privacy.html ]

http://www.skype.com/help/faq/privacy.html

Is Skype secure?
        Yes. When you call another Skype user your call is encrypted with strong encryption algorithms ensuring you privacy. In some cases your Skype communication may be routed via other users in the peer-to-peer network. Skype encryption protects you from potential eavesdropping from malicious users.
Why are Skype calls encrypted?

        Skype is encrypted end-to-end because it uses the public Internet to transport your voice calls and text messages and sometimes these calls are routed through other peers. Skype encryption ensures that no other party can eavesdrop on your call or read your instant messages.
What type of encryption is used?

        Skype uses AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) - also known as Rijndael - which is also used by U.S. Government organizations to protect sensitive, information. Skype uses 256-bit encryption, which has a total of 1.1 x 1077 possible keys, in order to actively encrypt the data in each Skype call or instant message. Skype uses 1024 bit RSA to negotiate symmetric AES keys. User public keys are certified by the Skype server at login using 1536 or 2048-bit RSA certificates.

Actually, Skype is more secure. It uses 256 bit AES end-end encryption. See here for more details: http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/index.php?p=91 9

From Skype's FAQ [LINK: http://www.skype.com/help/faq/privacy.html ]

http://www.skype.com/help/faq/privacy.html

Is Skype secure?
        Yes. When you call another Skype user your call is encrypted with strong encryption algorithms ensuring you privacy. In some cases your Skype communication may be routed via other users in the peer-to-peer network. Skype encryption protects you from potential eavesdropping from malicious users.
Why are Skype calls encrypted?

        Skype is encrypted end-to-end because it uses the public Internet to transport your voice calls and text messages and sometimes these calls are routed through other peers. Skype encryption ensures that no other party can eavesdrop on your call or read your instant messages.
What type of encryption is used?

        Skype uses AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) - also known as Rijndael - which is also used by U.S. Government organizations to protect sensitive, information. Skype uses 256-bit encryption, which has a total of 1.1 x 1077 possible keys, in order to actively encrypt the data in each Skype call or instant message. Skype uses 1024 bit RSA to negotiate symmetric AES keys. User public keys are certified by the Skype server at login using 1536 or 2048-bit RSA certificates.