Verso Trials Skype Blocking in China

An anonymous reader writes to tell us MacWorld is reporting that Verso, a US company based in Atlanta, GA, has just begun a paid trial for 'NetSpective'. Verso hopes to use NetSpective, and M-Class filter to block VoIP calls made using Skype in China. From the article: "While Verso said in its release that the use of Skype is illegal in China, the situation is more nuanced. Chinese government officials have been generally tolerant of VoIP software, such as Skype, that is used to make calls from one PC to another. But the ability of Skype users to make calls to a phone via the SkypeOut service is more sensitive, because this directly affects the revenue that operators such as China Telecom earn from international phone calls." This seems to be just another in the continuing campaign of China vs VoIP.

Comments

Information free?

[Neo-Rio-101]

So let me get this straight...

It's perfectly OK for everyone in China to blatantly pirate information, but all hell breaks loose when you try and make a VoIP phone call overseas from there.

You'd think they'd want information to be free or something, but I guess that everything just cuts one way with these guys.

This never works

[ZachPruckowski]

Blocking VoIP is hopeless. If they try to block computer to international phones, then Skype can set up servers in the US that take the computer to computer call and re-route it here, making a computer to computer call from China to the US indistingushable from a computer to US phone call. If they try to block all Skype calls, then Skype can just change its software enough to make it unrecognizable to the filter. If everyone just goes online and downloads the new version every week...

Basically, the Internet by definition is a lot harder to regulate than any other communication medium.

cat and mouse

[Douglas Simmons]

There's got to be a simple change to the Skype protocol that will make it hard to detect and block. Randomizing ports, for example. If The Man can sniff out what Skype traffic looks like, encrypt it or create some mechanism that would generate random number "noise" to throw off the detection. That's about all I can come up with. Other than politics and laws, what methods could Skype do to make it difficult to be controlled?

Re:*sigh* well tell me SBC wouldn't love it?

[KiloByte]

Say that again: encryption. China.

Of course, using encrypted protocols is not only filtered (if it can be spotted), but also severely punished. I'm not talking about just a fine here -- you would be facing a prison term, or, if you try to start a group that spreads this knowledge, even a death penalty.

In Poland, in the 50s, my grandfather's bro was taken to a police station and this was the last time we heard of him -- all because he unknowingly walked near a place where an illegal printer was. China is about on this level now.
Believe me or not, but totalitarian states worse than the US still do exist.