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New VOIP App. Profiled
sniggly writes "Cnet News.com has an interview with Kazaa co-founder Janus Friis about their latest product Skype. Skype is a p2p VOIP technology that quote '... is addressing all the problems of legacy VoIP solutions: bad sound quality, difficult to set up and configure, and the need for expensive, centralized infrastructure.' Windows only beta client available."
Sounds like Apple's iChat AV. But you KNOW they will claim they invented it first. :P
Skype sounds so much like hype.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Pop-up ads and spyware! Now when you mention the right world, it'll be replaced with an ad. "I'm going to go drink a soda" becomes "I'm going to go drink a refreshing ice-cold Coca-Cola."
Which, since it's from the same guys as Kazaa, I would certainly expect it to be.
Color me uninterested until accounts of user experiences pop up all over the internet with an overwhelmingly positive response.
Not to go too far off topic, but how long till the RIAA starting going after users who talk to people they haven't paid for?
I wonder how long til there's a Skype Lite out there..and how long before Google removes links to it. Grr.
The next wave of bell propaganda will be "If it's not copper, it causes terrorism".
Sounds like a good idea, after all Apple's trying to make video chat easy to use for the mases... Maybe Kazaa should also implement the same specs that Apple is with their iChat.
Now it's "Value-Added User-Profiling Ware"
use teamspeak: teamspeak.org
has excellent sound quality, is free, has windows and linux clients and servers...
Does Skype contain any advertising or Spyware?
No.
Link
If Kazaa is running this will my conversations be tapped into and downloaded to thousands of PC's in dorms across the nation?
the telecom industry still hasn't figured out that VOIP is going to take more and more $$$ away.
I wonder just when their lobbyists will get the US congress to outlaw or at least hamper the use of inter/intrastate VOIP?
Sounds like a good idea, after all Apple's trying to make video chat easy to use for the mases
Not to be trollish... but if it's apple users... how is it going to be for the masses? Is Jobs considering a hostile takeover of my hardware? Oh well. As long as their software for video chat is quality like quicktime for pc, count me in.
I'd like one with vorbis and/or speex <ducks>
Belief is the currency of delusion.
According to their FAQ there is no spyware. However it suggests that there is an Skype to fixed landline phone / mobile phone feature on the horizon. So they're marketing plan is probably, create a viral product, get everyone to use it, add a valuable service ( make a cheap call to your friends mobile on the other side of the globe ). So I don't think they need the spyware this time, and the apps quality is quite good also, although I would like to see conference calls implemented. Just hope we'll get a linux client soon.
The 911 argument is and will come every time that VoIP is mentioned mostly due to the huge effort that went into building the system by alot of players. Getting the physical addresses changed and databased was big and kudos to those involved. This 911 effort is now built out and everyone is mapped so now all voice services can take advantage. Do not forget that every cell phone and telephone in the USA is required by federal law to be usable to call 911 out of the box and that no service activation or account holder is required.
Disclaimer: I use Vonage, turned off Bell South, and am a Geek.
There are several similar applications out there, the oldest I can remember off-hand is Speak Freely which does secure p2p.
Right now we use Ventrilo internally at work - it's not secure, but we can do conferencing in super quality with VERY low bandwidth! It's excellent!
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
I've read all of the (completely non-technical documentation) and they don't actually say HOW the damn thing works.
ANY P2P application generally requires at least one open port (typically 6346 or similar) so that other people can initiate a peer connection to you. If someone's behind a firewall - and you have the above port open - a "push" request can be sent in which they initiate the connection to you, then you send them back the data after they've opened the connection.
It's not possible - at least with strong firewalls and valid packets - to make a peer connection when both ends are behind firewalls. Some raw socket hackery might do it, but that would technically be a hack and I'd expect firewall intrusion alarms to go nuts if you did that.
So... if anyone's actually used the damn thing and has a better understanding of it than I do... HOW does it work without end-users opening up ports?
I went to the Skype page. It says you can "Make free phone calls - all over the world!".
So I gleefully download the client and setup an account.
Wrong. No capability to actually call anyone's telephone.
I've found that after the initial interest passes however, few people really want to use it to talk, but it is a nice replacement for MS Messenger (actually I use Trillian, but that might be kicked from the MS Messenger servers soon).
The only problem(?) I've found so far is that initially a bunch of total strangers felt the need to talk to me, but I found the privacy options and set the app to only accept calls from people in my list, after that it was much quieter.
I'll use it as soon as someone produces Skype Lite without spyware, and either makes it run under Wine or develops a Linux client (my Linux box is on 24/7, and my Windows box is only on when I want to play games).
It's an operating system, not a religion.
Issues like 911 and power cuts are fairly trivial and are mainly being used as an argument against VoIP from the entrenched players.
while emergency calls are fairly rare, one still wants to have the ability to make them in the event of an emergency. getting rid of that capability would be a really dumb idea.
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musings on politics and technol
Winux users will be happy to make broad generalizations about Mac users.
Everybody wins!
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Windows only beta client available."
Someone will do it...Spyke-lite Cripple all the ads etc
President ISES
(International Society for Elimination of Sigs)
Yes, I have karma to burn. :-)
VOIP!!
Arrowed!
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
Q1. key exchange?
And the key exchange is handled by... ? AES is a symmetric cypher, so there has to be some kind of key exchange. I'd like to know what that mechanism is, or if there's just one key and they can listen in on anything. After all, who'd need spy-ware if the whole thing was insecure by design? Oh, and if they've reinvented a bunch of cryptologic libraries, look out - there will most likely be fresh exploits to be had.
Q2. Why the lock-in?
Okay, so they're trying to make a buck or two here eventually, but touting a proprietary protocol as being a good thing is usually not a good sign. People buy Microsoft Office though, so I guess it's not that big a deal for the average person.
Suggestion. Would someone (or some group) restart development on Speak Freely?
Okay, so this is a bit of a sidetrack, but it's a valid point. There is a large body of tested code available for doing most of this kind of thing, and it's called Speak Freely. However, on the downside, John Walker (Mr. AutoCad to you) has decided to cease development, as of August 1 2003 (yes, that's in the past). All the code is at SourceForge, (both Unix and Windows) so you can go wild with it.
Something to think about.
RIAA: "They must be hiding more songs in those VoIP packets. We must intercept and sue! Quick! To the batcave!"
:-))
But seriously, I remember using MS netmeeting several years ago when my fiancee was stuck at UC Davis. Even with the crummy sound quality, it was still nice not having to pay the 5 cents per minute that the long distance carriers charged. It is great to see that there is still ongoing interest and work with further development into VoIP. (Guess that is why ATT has the flatrate for their long distance service now, eh?
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
here
So long as it is non-free you'll never know the complete story on what it's doing on your computer. For all we really know, it could have spyware that goes undetected by the masses for a long time. Proprietary encryption is inhererently untrustworthy. Yet again, on practical grounds and on freedom grounds you want Free Software.
But I would not be surprised to learn that reporters are uninterested in talking about free replacements for this. They appear to be uninterested in talking about the groundbreaking GNU Radio project which has been doing interesting things for a while now. So, if there is a free VoIP app out there (perhaps one with strong encryption too), I wouldn't wait for mainstream news to catch up to it.
Digital Citizen
Skype doesn't appear to have free VoIP->POTS (The ability to call regular phones from the VoIP product), so I fail to see how it's different from any of these other VoIP-only products. There's hundreds of them already...
...bad sound quality, difficult to set up and configure, and the need for expensive, centralized infrastructure.' Windows only beta client available.
With this we are likely to see a new telemarketting trend if it takes off. Think about it, there's a no call list, but there's certainly no such regulations regarding this technology yet.
Yes, you are a troll. Inasmuch as the PC specification is proprietary, there is an Apple specification that is also proprietary. The only difference between the two are numbers. I find the word proprietary often to be incorrectly used. Until all computers use the exact same spec for both hardware and software (never happen) then they ALL are proprietary in design in some way.
just the sort of thing I've been waiting for. How long does anyone want to bet it remains "windows only"?
Not taking anything away from OSX or BSD folks; if they invented it first, then so be it. Credit where credit is due.
However, this Linux user thinks that this is the sort of "killer app" we've been needing for a long time (along with better desktop integration, et al...)
C|N>K
I just downloaded and set it up, and had a quick chat with a friend down in California. The quality is very nice and it's super easy to get working. Especially nice is the fact that, although we're both behind NAT connections, we were able to get connected with no problems at all - no configuration was necessary.
Personally, I'd be prepared to pay a fairly reasonable amount for a tool like this, if they decided to go down that route. I live in the US but my family is all back in the UK. I currently spend in the order of about $50/mo on international calls (and that's with a low rate international plan) so something like this could save a lot of money if it was priced reasonably. I've emailed my folks back in the UK to have them download it as well so I can test the latency and see how well it works.
The basically zero effort setup is what really makes this rule though. No worries about forwarding ports, etc. It Just Works[TM]. This may well turn out to be the killer VoIP app. Time will tell!
I'll just wait for Skype Lite from some .tk SLD. ;)
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
All the code is at SourceForge, (both Unix and Windows) so you can go wild with it."
...except it isn't, and you can't. After checking out both UNIX and Windows sourceforge pages you get presented with a foreboding
"This Project Has Not Released Any Files"
But stranger, apparently the speex codec was added to this project with "no files".
Having been born with the renegade gene myself, it's just hard to hate a company that admits one of it's main goals is to create "a major disruptive impact."
computerlady - a brand new Slash-daughter - alone, but no longer invisible, in the
Apple uses SIP in its iChat AV software. "Kazaa" implementing this in their Skype software is mentioned in the article (in reference to a question regarding Pulver's FWD).
SourceForge has an amazing feature called CVS that stores source code.
I just don't understand what the selling point of Skype is. Can't we use MSN messenger, Aim, ICQ, Netmeeting, Roger Wylco, Counter-Strike and 200 billion other programs that do the exact same thing? What does the "p2p" bring into the mix?
SKYPER END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:
This End User License Agreement ("Agreement") constitutes a valid and binding agreement between Skyper Limited (together with its affiliates, successors and assigns "Skyper") and you ("you," or "your") for the use of the Skype Software, Network and Services, as those terms are defined below. You must enter into this agreement in order to install and use such Skype Software.
BY INSTALLING AND USING THE SKYPE SOFTWARE, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE SKYPE SOFTWARE.
The Skype Software and the Services are not intended for use by or availability to persons under the age limit of any jurisdiction which restricts the use of Internet-based applications and services according to age. IF YOU RESIDE IN SUCH A JURISDICTION AND ARE UNDER THAT JURISDICTION'S AGE LIMIT FOR USING INTERNET-BASED APPLICATIONS OR SERVICES, YOU MAY NOT DOWNLOAD, INSTALL OR USE THE SKYPE SOFTWARE AND YOU MAY NOT ACCESS THE SERVICES.
1. License Grant.
Subject to the terms of this Agreement, Skyper hereby grants you a limited, non-exclusive, personal, non-sublicensable, non-assignable license to download, install and use the Skype Software, including any online or enclosed documentation, data distributed to your computer for processing and any future programming fixes, updates and upgrades provided to you (collectively, the "Skype Software") onto a computer for your sole use to install, interact with and utilize the Skype Software, including the content and features contained therein and the services and the Network related thereto ("Services"). The Skype Software may only be used in connection with the Services. As used herein, the term "Network" means the universe of computers connected to the Internet that are operating the Skype Software.
2. License Restrictions.
(a) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, you may not: (i) remove any proprietary notices from the Services, Skype Software or any copy thereof; (ii) cause, permit or authorize the modification, creation of derivative works, translation, reverse engineering, decompiling or disassembling or hacking of the Skype Software, the Services or the Network; (iii) sell, assign, rent, lease, act as a service bureau, or grant rights in the Skype Software or Services, including, without limitation, through sublicense, to any other entity without the prior written consent of Skyper; (iv) export or re-export the Skype Software in violation of United Kingdom export laws; (v) use the Skype Software or Services for any commercial purpose or the benefit of any third party or charge any person for the use of the Skype Software; or (vi) use the Skype Software or Services to, or in any way that would violate any applicable law, regulation or ordinance; (vii) collect any information or communication about the Network or users of the Skype Software or Services by monitoring, interdicting or intercepting any process of the Skype Software or the Network; and (viii) use any type of bot, spider virus, clock, timer, counter, worm, software lock, drop dead device, packet-sniffer, Trojan-horse routing, trap door, time bomb or any other codes or instructions that are designed to be used to provide a means of surreptitious or unauthorized access or that are designed to distort, delete, damage or disassemble the Skype Software, the Services or the Network. Furthermore, you may not use the Skype Software or Services to develop, generate, transmit or store information that: (A) infringes any third party's intellectual property or other proprietary right; (B) is defamatory, harmful, abusive, obscene or hateful; (C) in any way obstructs or otherwise interferes with the normal performance of another person's use of the Skype Software or Services, (D) performs any unsolicited commercial communication not permitted by applicable law; (E) is harassment or a violation of privacy or threatens other people or
Hmm, I hadn't thought about poking around much after seeing that it "Has Not Released Any Files" - didn't think to check the CVS section. Thanks for clearing that up.
Wait till people who like myself with a 3gig limit on broadband get their monthly bill. Lately I've been flat out changing friends over from Kaza to Kaza-Lite because of the extra bandwith Kaza (read GATOR) steals.
Their monthly bill tripled. Read the fine-print. I bet you have to let them use your bandwidth & CPU cycles & your monthly download bill will triple and your computer will grind to a halt if it's anything like kaza's network.
So lets see the loop counts, I/O blocking times, pipeline flushes and page fault results then...
'reviewed' would be a better word.
Once critical mass in telecoms has been achieved companies might start setting up gateways for this; they wouldnt want everyone be able to call just everyone within their company. Also they'll want conference and call forwarding. The whole shebang. Theyd pay good money for that if it means no more long distance charges.
If this does happen to skype (with its proprietary protocol), and it can easily happen because it's easy to use, spyware would poison a large portion of the virality of the marketing campaign, people wouldn't trust it. The very fact that kazaa's revenue model is ad- and soyware driven doesn't mean they'll port that pathetic model to their next venture. But the stench clings.
And if its not the next killer ap, well, they can always consider their options :)
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
I've been using this app for about 2 days now, and initial thoughts... this thing kicks some major ass. I've played with the MSN voice thing, and the yahoo one, and the quality of this is astounding.
I spent like 3 hours chatting with a friend in England yesterday. Other than a couple of program crashes (and it is beta software remember) we were able to talk as easily as being on a telephone.
This is astounding to me considering she's on a crappy dialup connection.
I'd be intersted to hear how dialup-dialup connections work. Oh, and if there is any ad or spyware included, its brand new stuff Ad-Aware doesn't know about it.
Wait till people who like myself with a 3gig limit on broadband get their monthly bill. Lately I've been flat out changing friends over from Kaza to Kaza-Lite because of the extra bandwith Kaza (read GATOR) steals.
Their monthly bill tripled. Read the fine-print. You have to let them use your bandwidth & CPU cycles & your monthly download bill will triple and your computer will grind to a halt if it's anything like kaza's network.
Oh great!
All I need is another Kazaa-devil virus crapper. What now? Call Jim Jimson using this VOIP and get Sally Salson instead?
What's a popup in VOIP? What's a virus in VOIP? What's Spyware in VOIP?
We're sure to find out...
VOIPOPOTS == Voice Over IP Over Plain Old Telephone System
It's a breakthrough!
Skype crashed instantly when I tried to run it on my Win2K machine (which is running a modern PIV CPU with 512MB of memory, nothing nonstandard).
I'd like to see it get out of beta first before hyping it.
In the meantime, Yahoo's VOIP isn't that bad (with two broadband connections) and is built-into it. Yahoo is a pretty light-weight download also.
As long as Yahoo doesn't go out of business or start charging for the VOIP I don't see how a decentralized P2P approach is an improvement within this space.
An interesting editorial regarding this CNET story run yesterday on Voxilla.com.
Being one of the people singled out in the story the good news is that since the story ran, I spoke with Janus and Free World Dialup will be working with the Skype team in interconnecting our respective networks.
What concerns me more than this story is that last Friday it was first reported that Wisconsin
joined the growing list of US States that is taking action against VoIP.
Regardless of their codecs, my mic and pc can't seem to record a clean signal from my pc mic. And trying friends systems, I know I'm not alone. I recently read about soundmax intergrating their noise cancellation tech into the soundmax applet.
It's called PureAudio 2.0 Speech Input Enhancement and Noise Cancellation Technology.
The maker of my mobo hasn't seemed to update the soundmax control panel. Is there a generic one I can download somewhere for my onboard soundmax?
Is there any linux sound cancellation type tech? I've looked but couldn't find anything.
Typical noise is a low steam hum from mics so it should be ideal candidate for sound cancellation.
VOIP will always be just a toy without having a seamless way to answer and make regular telephone calls.
/mo for unlimited internet, anyone tried to do VOIP with a smartphone?
I've been looking around for some open source gateways for voice modem to h323. Is there really nothing like this out there and were stuck with this?
Alot of cell providers are doing $30
Arn't windows only betas a problem of legacy solutions?
Kickass, now we can get Adware which transmits as bulk voicemail.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Once I got the program to actually run, it worked pretty well.. i have dsl so i can't really speak for modem people, but this doesn't really use that much bandwidth and manages to sound a lot better than other programs that do the same thing.
Give me one single robust protocol and the apps to run on it can be many and slendid. Just make sure it has everything useful from all the other IM apps out there. Even if the execution quality is poor, lay out the groundwork.
a) decentralized
b) secure
c) video and audio
d) messaging
e) file transfer
f) file browsing
g) open protocol
h) whiteboard
i) multiple logins j) basic multiuser functionality(a la IRC)
I am certain I am missing something. But I really didn't expect things to take this long... I know hypertext took a long time to turn into the www, but that was a bit more pioneering. This is largely a technical issue, since every feature above is offered by On of the big IM's, Skype or Waste.
Obviously, the Major businesses are not intersested in developing an interoperable standard. However, it is the technophiles and pedestrian Internet Users who would benefit from this. So it should be seen to by us to create one protocol to implement such an awesome app. And even if you couldn't call POTS from it, it would catch on. Hell, if it was open, the major IM providers would probably build gateways to access it or eventually leave their existing systems to jion it, increasing it's already immense value.
At least then I wouldn't need to have Trillian, ChatZilla, IIP, Waste and Shareaza all at once (and Y! Messenger, MSN Messenger, AIM and ICQ installed) just to share a few annecdotes and family photos with friends!
Please, coder people! Help us out!
Looks good for your age..
Until all computers use the exact same spec for both hardware and software (never happen) then they ALL are proprietary in design in some way.
Your reasoning leads to a flawed conclusion: "Not everybody uses the GNU system; therefore, the GNU system is proprietary software." WTF?
A system is "open" to the extent that any manufacturer can produce devices that interoperate with it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
So it's proprietary. But perhaps the Skype team is willing to cooperate more than, for example, AOL and Microsoft have:
The initial clients for Gnutella and eDonkey were proprietary, but because of published[1] specifications, Free clients that could interoperate emerged. Now the Free clients for those networks (Limewire and Gnucleus for Gnutella, and eMule for eDonkey) are the most popular.
[1] Here, "published" does not necessarily imply published by the author of the protocol's initial implementation.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I covered this issue in another comment.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Wait, iChat AV? Don't you mean NetMeeting? ;)
In my opinion, while the interview is indeed intriguing to read, this story should never have been approved nor posted. It's proprietary, closed-source software and the so-called "inventors" are assholes.
In reality, something as technologically groundbreaking should be open source, instead of some proprietary technology where the inventors want to make a quick buck. In all honesty, these people are worse than the telecom industry because atleast the telecom industry doesn't lie about making money -- these guys do.
Cheers,
Doug
Doug Mehus http://doug.mehus.info/
Lived in LA for 10 years and never saw the cops respond to 911 calls within 2 hours EVER. If you want a cop in LA, call a strip bar or an escort service.
Since Comcast now owns most of our Cable systems, I figured there is a large pool of informed readers that might know.
Actually, the latest version of Trillian Pro supports the new MSN Messenger protocols and they're updating the free version very soon, too.
Woo! Hooray for Trillian!
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
just as good as said.. Quality is great, easy to use, not a pain in then arse to config.... better than msn, stable... i give it a 9 out of 10... the thing is these guys made it work really smooth instead of msn that keeps making lots of noise and pops a little while others are speaking... i spoke about an hour from brazil to a friend in san diego, and it worked great... it's not open source, but i don't care as long as it works well and is free (or at least if charged a really small fee)....
It's interesting to see a lot of people casting their doubts here about this program, but how many of you have actually tried it? I just did, and it's fantastic. Someone on the Kazaa team really knows what they're doing. Encrypted conversations, better-than-phone quality, and they still manage to get the conversation going with a latency that's at least 3 times better than that of AIM Chat.
:-) We both think that this program will set new standards for VoIP, and perhaps be the beginning of it's widespread adoption (and you can consider us both Skype fanboys ;-)
I just played on online game with a friend with Skype running, and it was like he was sitting next to me
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
there doesn't seem to be any stupid adware or popups simply because their end user agreement specifies that after the trial period ends, the user will be offered a subscription or they'll be kicked out.
what's the point of installing if you'll only be uninstalling again in 3 months?
prof.
Granted there are still situations where this may work well for some; calling someone who is already on-line, a co-worker perhaps, or quickly calling someone overseas and asking them to get on-line.
When they have the ability to connect you to a "regular" telephone there will be charges -- some local telco will want their termination fees after all... And now, suddenly, without ads and spyware, they need billing systems, support, etc. And they are suddenly competing with folks like Vonage and capturing the attention of regulators, again like Vonage.
On the whole, however, the *masses* don't care that their calls are carried via P2P VOIP or some other technology. They'll put up with a little work or invonvenience to get a deal on rates so long as the quality is there (and I'll give these folks the benefit of the doubt on that) but most folks generally aren't at their machine 24x7 to make and receive calls.
On the other hand, they already have a service that is always on, requires no waiting for a system and software to start, requires no presence awareness/coordination, that works well, and has a very simple interface. (i.e. Their existing landline or mobile phone.)
You may have to pay for services like Vonage, but it's a good deal and once it's set up it "just works" from what I understand. It looks like AT&T is going to affer a similar service as well.
Thus, in the end, I think this this will be mostly used by folks avoiding expensive international tolls, or co-workers from time-to-time, but not much beyond that.
The OSS community already has developed an IM protocol that is decentralised, secure, open, free, does messaging and file transfer, etc. etc., known as Jabber.
Check it out. Sure, it doesn't yet have audio/video support as part of the main standard, but it's based on XML so anyone can extend it with their own "many and splendid" apps, and uses transporst to connect to other messaging systems like ICQ or IRC. I recommend Exodus as a good basic Windows client, the Jabber website lists many more.
As we've seen with the impending MSN shutout, we use proprietry IM systems at their owner's leisure. The sooner there's an open and decentralised IM standard the better, regardless of whether it's Jabber or not.
<!-- DHTML / JavaScript menu, popup tooltip, Ajax scripts -->
VoIP for calls at home.
Mobile phones for calls while not at home, and for 911.
End of problem.
Here in Japan, Yahoo Japan offers broadband with VOIP. The way it works is they give you a DSL modem and in the back of the modem is an RJ-11 connector. You just plug your phone in and use it like a regular phone. Done!
Of course I guess the issue is that they are charging you for the service were as most VOIP could be free. Their push is that they are cheaper than the local telephone company. First, there is no such thing as local unlimited dialing in Japan so even to call the next door neighbor costs a few cents.
Yahoo BB is like 1 cent (or 1 yen) cheaper AND if you are calling another Yahoo BB person it's free.
Also, international calls are cheaper. Especially from Japan to the US. 2.5 yen a minute or about 2 cents!!!! That means it's probably cheaper for me in Japan to call Los Angeles than it would be for someone in San Diego to call Los Angeles.
"Make free phone calls - all over the world!"
I saw nothing in their website with regards to IP->POTS or POTS->IP transversal. Therefore I don't see where I can make free phone calls all over the world in the traditional sense. "Hey, I wanna call you, but you need to have a computer with broadband and this computer -- oh, and I can't call you from my phone; I must use a computer too."
So isn't this just a hyped up distributed/proxied Voice-chat program? Doesn't Yahoo and ICQ (VIRC and others too) provide similar functionality?
I think I'll stick with Asterisk PBX and use hardware from Digium. Yes, it requires additional hardware for POTS/PSTN stuff, but you can do almost anything you want with it. SIP clients can make phone calls very well through firewalls (receiving takes an extra step or two) and many of the free clients give you a choice of what codecs to use (GSM, iLBC, G711u, G711a). Another option you get with asterisk is using their IAX protocol which is more forgiving around firewalls IMHO.
Just my 2cents
-
NAT and Firewalls are the two fundamental problems in making things like this work - they both interfere with SIP and Speak Freely and other peer-to-peer applications in ways that are fundamentally hard to solve, and since the Skype protocols are undocumented, I'm skeptical about how useful they are at home and more skeptical about how useful they are at work, and I don't know how to set up my firewalls to let their connections through.
As you say Key Exchange? - it's nice to know they're doing 256-bit AES, but how are they setting the keys? Microsoft's original PPTP had about seven things wrong with it, several of which were key-exchange related, rendering it totally insecure, as did 802.11's WEP. Diffie-Hellman with no authentication? D-H with some kind of SSH-like authentication persistence (User "Bob" has a different key than last time - are you sure?) Kerberos-like secret key server? How does it prevent man-in-the-middle attacks? Strong encryption doesn't help you if the keys are known.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Is it a standard codec family or not? The standard telephony codecs start with 8000 samples/second and 8 bits/sample (companded from a ~12-bit range, so it's better than a linear 8 bits), which gets you 4kHz audio, and then use compression algorithms that shrink this either by using simple predictive models or using complex models of human speech sounds which let you get much tighter compression at the cost of lots of CPU. It's easy to get better-than-telephones sound with no CPU horsepower if you use enough bandwidth, an 11kHz sample rate for 5.5kHz audio (natural for PC sound cards) instead of 8kHz, or 16kHz samples, or (less important) more bits per sample, and you could knock the bit rate in half with simple ADPCM compression, or you could get somebody to do a fancier voice compression model if you wanted. Silence Suppression typically cuts average bit rate by about 50%, but your upstream bandwidth needs to be big enough for the maximum rate.
Transmission overhead turns out to be an annoying problem for low bit rate codecs - IP plus UDP plus RTP is about 40 bytes of header, which if you really transmitted 8000 1-byte samples per second would kill you. The common codecs typicall accumulate a string of 10ms or 30ms of sound samples, compress them to a shorter string, and therefore put out 33-100 packets per second, but this still means that if you're not careful, that 8kbps codec will really need 22kbps to transmit (and if you are careful, it'll usually need about 10.5kbps) - so using it on modems is tricky.
A note about encryption overhead - if you take the simple approach and just use IPSEC, you not only have to wrap a layer of IPSEC headers around your packets, you also don't get to use the Compressed RTP (at least on Cisco routers), and you sometimes have to add another layer of headers to make NAT Traversal work. It's really ugly. On the other hand, if you've built encryption into your voice protocol, it's essentially zero overhead - you've got a few setup messages at the beginning of a session to do key exchange, and then the encryption just changes the compressed-voice bits to different encrypted-compressed-voice bits, but doesn't change the number of bits.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
please post again, when it will work on my PCs and on the PCs of people who like software quality as well as freedom.
:-)
I thought that all problems were adressed including
"addressing all the problems of legacy VoIP solutions: bad sound quality, difficult to set up and configure, and the need for expensive, centralized infrastructure.' Windows only beta client available."
BTW, how much are the sponsored links on slashdot?
Moritz
Making modifications to the Materials or creating derivative works based on the Materials is prohibited, as is using the Materials on any networked computer environment or other website."
This EULA should be copied and kept as a proof of that nobody ever reads the EULAs, or takes them seriously..
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
... as Kazaa is considered illegal by the RIAA, Kazaa makers are now building a high quality VOIP application. It can send voices and other sounds in a high quality, 128Mbit stream to your audio equipm^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H telephone. Call your favorite artist now!
my other sig is a 500 page novel
What often confused me about Kazaa was that the company behind it is called Sharman Something whereas the RIAA's guy is called Something Sherman.
Being a lazy reader, until I realized the two were different, skimming news articles was a source of confusion; A quote like "Sha/erman said..." often made me think, "Dude, make your mind up!"
Has anyone noticed that if you access internet through a proxy you just cannot create an account because the software doesn't allow proxy configuration at the registration mode, unlike a yahoo IM, for instance.
The best planning can be done after the project completes.
I'm sure a lot of the Slashdot crowd will be put off this program because it's by the makers of Kazaa. To them I say - download it. Start the installer, read the EULA. This isn't another Kazaa. It's not allowing copyright violation, so it's not going to get into legal trouble on that front.
I've been using this program for a little while. It doesn't contain any spyware, it works just fine even when both users are on NAT setups, and the quality really is as good as they say - it's like the person is right there in the room with you, it beats the telephone hands down.
In particular, the feedback cancellation is truly excellent - there is no need to use a headset. I'm using it with a desk standing mic, and the other persons voice coming out of 4 speakers around me, and they get no feedback at all.
Windows only beta client.
OK, back to work.
Use Netfone, http://www.haxial.com It's encrypted, great quality, and really cross-platform -Mac OS X, Windoze. Start-up delay is only penalty for not paying ($20) for it. I've been using it for ages: it's great.
.. that's what it says on their website! (On the page so aptly labeled 'p2p telephony explained - for geeks only') Quote: "FastTrack (the P2P technology behind KaZaA) was the first truly decentralized P2P application"
Sorry to disappoint you but last time I checked the first truly decentralized P2P application was *drumroll* Gnutella! (Or maybe I'm just not enough of a geek?) Now could somebody please point out what else on the page is only pure marketing gibberish or should I just hit CTRL+A?
It says that your calls are encrypted end-to-end. I wonder if there will be modules to use encryption that people could actually trust, and if that would violate some crappy TOS of theirs.
I have the same problem with the mic (c-media sound card and a altec lancing headset) What is the encryption, 40bit?
I have been testing this software since a month with my colleague (that's 2 meters I know).
The other day, he received a "skype" call from a company specialized in ear headset.
VoIP unsollicited calls could probably become a major problem, since the telecom cost for tele-marketing company could be zero.
For sure, some solution will emerge. black lists, VoIPassassin ?
Why else would they want to use the internet?
I also have a low-rate calling plan to the UK. It costs 5c/min. If you are spending $50/mo, at my calling plan rate this means you are talking to the UK for > 16 hours/month. Maybe you should return home. Maybe I should mind my own business.
A proprietary version of OpenH323! Where do I sign up?
Skype is a p2p VOIP technology ... addressing all the problems of legacy VoIP solutions...Windows only beta client available."
well, then by definition, they are not addressing all of the problems of legacy VoIP - and no, i'm not going to go look and see if there's a Linux or Mac OS X version planned..
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
The only difference between the two are numbers.
Ha. Yeah. Like 10,000:1
But I will happily buy a Mac if the day ever comes that they are priced competatively with PC hardware. Paying twice as much for half the power is dumb. No matter how much better the O/S may be.
I'll go for the first question. And the key exchange is handled by... ? AES is a symmetric cypher, so there has to be some kind of key exchange. I Normally, a session is started with an assymetric (public key) encrypted connection, which is actually quit slow in encryption of streaming data. So the only exchange (under encryption) is a symmetric key for both parties. This encryption (much faster for streams) is then used during the actual communication. Their FAQ is very light on details, and geared towards non-techies (why else would you reassure people with 'the government does it too' arguments ;)
-- my 7XL is not yet invented
The telecoms are trying to do the same thing that shipping company tried to do, and they will fail for the same reason.
(This analogy isn't original with me, but I've lost the link.)
0/S = .GHI...
FYI,
...
Nothing like a marketors spinning a disinformation web. Get real. No proprietary protocol has a chance at replacing Telecom infrastructure! What has the PSTN and Internet technologies taught us in the last 20 years.
Take it from a person that has attended two SIPit (SIP interoperability testing events), SIP is most definitely it!!! Over 10 Billion US VC dollars were invested in NGN VoIPtechnologies in 2000. The SIP Tsunami will strike hard in 2005. There are over 100 companies that already sell SIP products or have SIP products in the pipeline. There is plenty of SIP Open Source code:
1) iptel.org
2) vovida.org
3) sourceforge.net/projects/resiprocate/
4) www.siptrex.com/downloads/
5) dns.antd.nist.gov/proj/iptel/
The IETF has done a splendid job developing the SIP specification (RFC 3261) as a true international standard that will become as ubiquitous as HTTP and SMTP in the coming years.
There is plenty of room for innovation to occur using SIP technology. It is after all a third generation Web technology that uses P2P technology at its core. I would dare to say within two years SIP technology will cause great convergence in the following market spaces: Telecom, Game, Grid Computing and Distributed M&S.
Don't waste any time with Skype. SIP is it!!!
Sincerely,
Skaht
I'd say that giving the terrorists video conferencing would doom them to a middle-management bureaucratic hell and actually *prevent* them from completing their nefarious schemes, but that's just me...
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
The distributed directory of Skype is probably more efficient than SIP proxies that could be located dozens of hops away from my home PC (for example on the East Coast in the case of FWD). Call establishment should be faster as a result (note: I'm not a Skype user yet, I'm only making guesses).
Now looking at the PSTN, SS7 provides an effective solution for progressive address (telephone number) resolution, each central exchange contributing to the routing of the call signalling. Where is the innovation in Skype?
The claim about Skype implementing a better, proprietary, audio codec is dubious at best. G.723 and G.729, as well as other CELP based codecs, provide good compressed speech. An issue is that most users have only experienced the free GSM 6.10 codec in open source VoIP implementations. Skype may well sound better than GSM, but does it beat G.723 and G.729? - which have the added benefit of being standards.
But my main problem is in understanding what is the true meaning of the P2P nature of Skype. After all, once a SIP call is established, RTP media communication occurs directly between the two endpoints (e.g. soft-phones) of the call. What is the advantage of Skype over SIP/RTP?
Skype might have more focus on providing easy NAT/firewall traversal compared to SIP. However, SIP offers several draft recommendations on this same subject, most notably STUN. Setting up my XTen soft-phone for connection to FWD behind our company NAT/firewall wasn't easy, but neither was it impossible.
Pending more technical information about Skype, it seems to me that the main technology breakthrough has been made in making Skype easy to install and NAT/firewall friendly while re-using existing characteristics of proven, open, VoIP solutions.
Skype might be a really good product but I doubt it will survive in the heavily standards-oriented telephony world. But that's only my guess :)
Serge Kruppa, Simitel