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Skype 5-way Calling Limit Cracked
BobPaul writes "It turns out when Skype limited 10 way calling to Intel Processors only it really was arbitrary! Maxxus has a patched version of Skype that allows 10-way calling regardless of the processor installed. There's also info about the patch: "The patch is the result of two phases: code analysis and design of the patch. The code analysis, or reverse engineering, reveals the relevant code block, which overrides Skype's limitation for Intel's dual-core CPUs. The patch design isolates the minimal set of instructions that need to be modified to cancel this limitation." Windows only so far."
I think this shows this was done on purpose to lock out amd users. A lawsuit by amd should be succesfull.
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Ah, Maxxuss. Is there anything you can't do? First you crack OS X, now Skype. You and DVD Jon should team up and become some sort of cracking superheros.
people really don't want to pay money to have less features in a product you dimwits [intel]. I hope AMD sues ya ass to kingdom come for anti-competative practices. where are maxxas based, somewhere where they can't be served with a DMCA order?
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Since this limit was "arbitrary", that means the only deciding factor was not technology, but money. I wonder how much the block cost Intel?
And now that it's in the open, (like that was going to take very long?) I wonder if they'll remove the block?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
..is someone demonstrating that the X2 can in fact handle 9+1 persons at once, which I have no doubt it can. Then it's time for Intel to open up the wallet and give AMD some nice $$$ and some even nicer PR. Stand by to bend over!
I know what you all are thinking. Great! He hacked it with three bytes, and showed his work. Now all AMD needs to do is get a 10-way conference call going on an X2 and they'll have another strike in their lawsuit against intel.
But wait -- there is a way out. See the code is written to identify CPUs, and to run on dual core CPUs, but it doesn't make that distinction for AMD. So all the defense needs to do is set up an XP box running an AMD 1.4 GhZ "Firebird", next to some oily rags, get a 10-way conference call going, and simulate a CPU heatsink failure. Clearly they were blocking AMD 10-way calls out of product liability concerns.
Skype made a lot of noise in their press release saying that the 10-way feature was "optimized" for Intel chips. This was picked up by the media of course as well as evidence of AMD's poor performance.
I'm having trouble understanding what this optimization that used the special features of Intel chips (presumably their high power) was. It looks from the patch that they just check who the manufacturer is, and if it is not AMD, they pretend your computer doesn't have the power to host 10 participants.
What's also interesting is that folks likely signed up for SkypeOut and other paid products not realizing that they would be treated differently depending on what chipsets they happen to use, especially as that choice matters almost no where else. They should give more warning about this to paid users.
This focus on locking software into specific vendor chips seems a dangerous one. No longer will it be the best chip that will win, but the focus goes to competing on locking up software applications. The proprietary unix'es went down that path, and it would be sad if Intel managed to get that to happen here.
Yeah right.. I'm gonna' d/l this patch and app from www.silo.ru (in Russia!!!), they even say on their aite that that "There is no virus or backdoor added!". You've got to be kidding me!
Will we see transcripts from depositions done by AMD?
I'd bet that they will be as funny as some of the SCO transcripts.
I'd bet that they will depose the programmer who wrote the code encryption and the GenuineIntel check, and then continue with his supervisors.
Who authorized to add code encryption?
Who approved it?
How were the limits to 5 or 10 concurrent connections determined?
Anybody know anything about their encrypted binary? I can't figure out what they were trying to achieve with that. Some sort of misguided anti-hax0r protection? Or perhaps they're trying to conceal something...
So what is now limiting the conference calls to 10 people now? Is that a phone company limit, or another arbitrary limit?
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
This has nothing to do with the DMCA or Patriot Act.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
How is this a violation of the law? Reverse-engineering things not a violation of the DMCA if done for interoperability.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
A lot of companies have a clause in the EUA that the user may not reverse compile or reverse engineer the binaries. I wonder if Skype will now add one of those then install a new block in a different section of the code, and close watch the IRC/Usenet/Bittorent/P2P nets etc. to catch those who claim they made patch, and slap them with a lawsuit.
Maxxuss is definitely making a name for himself (if it really is only one person). He is already heavily involved with removing Apple's restrictions on Mac OS X for Intel too.
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Y
The software doesn't make a call to the registry or other software settings. The software makes a call to the hard coded cpuid. To get around that, need to a) hack the processor; or b) hack the software making the call.
The drop from 64 bit to 32 bit is one thing, however, in this case, the Skype code specifically queried the hardware for the GenuineIntel. If I remember this correctly from another /. post (not mine)
The opcode used in Skype, when activated on the processor, sets 3 4-byte registers on the processor as an identifier. This is burned into the silicon, basically.
For Intel Chips, the registers become
Genu, ineI, ntel - Genuine Intel
For AMD:
Auth, enti, cAMD - Authentic AMD
Like I said, since it's burned into the chip, there's no real way of 'masking' those registers as something else. This crack skips the verification, basically telling Skype that 'any processor is cool to run 10way' as opposed 'only GeniuneIntel chips can run 10way'
BitTorrent Mirror here
The software doesn't make a call to the registry or other software settings. The software makes a call to the hard coded cpuid. To get around that, need to a) hack the processor; or b) hack the software making the call.
Would there be a way to run the software through an emulation layer that catches such calls and sends back false information, or would such a call always go directly through the hardware?
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
>I get a free Disney toy with my Happy Meal
The difference is that Skype is getting paid to make sure their software does NOT work fully with a competitor to Intel. That's a whole different ball game as far as the law is concerned. If this was 'Buy Skype and get a X% off of your next Intel Purchase' no one would give it a second thought. They're not making it BETTER on Intel, they're making it WORSE on AMD. This is very different.
(if this post is redundant it might be because I have to wait no less than 15 minutes in order to post it -- I wish this system could take into account the moderation of my earlier anonymous posts. But maybe that's patented? :-\)
Or, so as not to break other programs that use cpuid (to determine which instructions they can run, for example) perhaps this could be done in a user-space way.
I'm thinking of artsdp as a model, so you would just launch your Skype client with something like "cpufake --cpuid='Genuine Intel Dual Core We Like Skype' skype.bin" (or whatever it's called.)
I've got no idea how such a program would work, but the article did say the code was encrypted so I wonder if that would be an issue.
Just goes to show why we need open protocols and open code for the future of VOIP. It's too important to leave to a single company, which is why I prefer SIP and clients like Google Talk and Gizmo where possible.
utility is not the point. the point is to stick it to the unctuous twits who crippled their product and lied about the reason.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Unless Skype's playing reflector for the whole conference, each peer's connectivity limits what you can/can't do.
:-)
At 128kbps (the average upstream speed on broadband these days in the US...), you can typically host a four to six way voice conference or a 2-3 way video conference. This is because you have to provide the outbound traffic for each of the peers and control traffic. With a reflector system, you can host larger conferences, limited only by the inbound bandwidth because the reflector is flipping the traffic from your mic (and possibly camera...) to all the participants. However, that's REALLY bandwidth intensive, so to keep it economical, you'd probably limit it to 10 participants or so to limit hogging of that limited resource.
Now, this is all due to everything being unicast UDP. If we had IPv6 and Multicast support for the same available, one could handle at least up to the 10 without needing a reflector as the router infrastructure would handle it right along with the video on demand, etc. streams. However, since this is not likely to happen in our or several generations' lifetimes at the rates things are going, waiting or wishing for that is a waste of time.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Tell that to the judge.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Considering that SIPPhone already HAS voice conference calls of at least 10 or more, works with ANY SIP enabled device that's not crippled to a single provider (Vonage devices come immediately to mind...), and costs nothing for VoIP calls- I'd say, skip Skype all together, especially after this little stunt.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
well what can I say ... Intel is about to take one more for the team ... a law suit for unfare competition that is ...
Other than that I really could care less about skype and their limit of 5 people on a conference call. The only cituation that you would use a conference call with more than 5 users is a corporate environment and I have yet to hear about one that uses Skype.
It was a made-up limit? No kidding.
Remember folks; Asterisk. Skype isn't open source, and the company behind it has it's own motives. Asterisk is open source, has a good community behind it, and can do *anything* you want it to. Regardless of the hardware behind it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Possibly, but it would definately require quite a bit of overhead.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
openwengo not only uses open standard protocol but is also fully GPL.
The True FOSS Skype Replacement
Being in a company who worked exclusively on Intel and nVidia chips until recently, it is possible to have horrible performance when switching to AMD and ATI. In our case, we didn't use any nVidia specific GL calls. As for SS2, it is supported on both platform so in theory it shouldn't be an issue. The reality is, unless you are making a game and using what I'd call "game-oriented opengl calls", the performance is going to vary a LOT between ATI and nVidia. Don't believe the hype of these companies when they say that they support full OpenGL. Some either have very bad hardware for 2d ops with OpenGL or literally do software "decelleration". Benchmarks have shown speed dropping as much as 200% in some areas. As for AMD and Intel, after patching the executable, the performance was different, sometimes in favor of Intel, sometimes on AMD.
With that being said, no platform specific instructions or features were used. I suspect the Skype guys may have simply used Intel machines for so long and never bothered using AMD machines for development and then were too lazy to simply rewrite some of the code so that it runs normally on AMD. This happens especially when you write tight assembly loops by taking into account instruction latencies for one processor and then realize the performance sucks on another platform. You then have the choice, rewrite it so that the performance is similar, or slap a OPTIMIZED FOR INTEL on the box.
Thankfully we rewrote.
This whole issue has the icky stickiness of marketing all over it. Just think how much play the Skype name will get with this, especially if it goes to the old school media houses as a story. When my Grandma calls me after she hears about it on ABC nightly news, I'll know the truth.
You could always do full emulation in software, but that would be slow enough that the 10-party conference probably wouldn't work anyway.
I don't think there's any way to catch CPUID through processor virtualization (a la VMWare), since it's not a privledged instruction and doesn't touch any memory pages.
Dude, its freedoms ;)
Always make it clear that USA has a lot of those
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
Of interest here is also the code marked with (*). It reveals that the string is somehow used if a certain memory location has the value 4. Theory is, this 4 means "4 additional conference members";
Is that possible that by modifying some variables...we can have unlimited number of user in the conference?
This sounds an awful lot like the type of code built by Intel's compilers, for which they're being sued by AMD. Is it possible Skype is using that very compiler, and just couldn't figure out how to make it work on AMD machines (presumably pre-lawsuit)?
Mods: Do you disagree with me? Go ahead and mod me down. Meta-mods will sort it out. Good luck!
This is a case of DMCA IP Protection being abused for trade protection rights Intel bought and paid for and AMD did not.
Sherman Anti-trust aside (which this may be a real material breach) it looks like DMCA could either get abridged or affirmed for trade control purposes. For instance, does this mean someone with an Oracle license has the right to use some delta patches to open it wider open on their AMD Opteron for better threading than Intel?
Hmmm... you see how the lines get to be less than black and white.
http://www.aisnota.com/slashdot/ Welcome to Logic and the Future
Traditionally, judges (at least in the American legal system) are supposed to, in theory, make decisions based not on what's right or wrong, but on what's legal or illegal, according to precedents set in previous similar cases, existing laws, etc. The whole point of paying 8 million billion dollars for a team of lawyers is so that they can find and present as much evidence to convince the judge that something is legal or illegal based on those same standards. Lawyers have to know a lot of very uninteresting things, be good people-persons, and argue at least on par with (if not better than) Cicero. Tell the judge nothing. You'll only make it that much harder on your lawyer when he has to translate tech-to-law to convince a judge that you're in the right.
Paul: If you're reading this, pick your shoes up out of the hallway. I keep tripping over them. Slob.
In other words, he found the problem then fixed it. Forgive my ignorance, but how else would you possibly go about it? Apply random patches until one kind of works?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Well, you have to be a bit more careful than that, since CPUID's a lot shorter, opcode wise, than what you're replacing it with. The key here is to hack something in-place. (CPUID is only 2 bytes long.)
Program Intellivision!
Spoiled kids. When I was young, an occasional 3-way was enough.
The Skype software has been preset to only accept Intel's chips as having the performance necessary to host conference calls of more than five people, the representative said.
If that was said by a representative from Intel then that statement quite qualifies as misrepresenting a competing product. Comparison is perfectly fine, misrepresentation is definitely not and Intel should be forced to compensate for it.
1. This has zero to do with the Patriot Act. Absolutely zero.
2. While the decryption and reverse engineering of the code might have something to do with the DMCA (assuming Maxxuss is in the US), the DMCA has nothing to do with partisan politics. It's been noted repeatedly on Slashdot that many members of both the Republican and Democratic parties are more than happy to sell their constituents out to the media industry.
A lot of companies have a clause in the EUA that the user may not reverse compile or reverse engineer the binaries.
:)
In the EU at least, reverse engineering *for interoperability purposes* is a legal entitlement that can't be revoked by any licence agreement. Dunno how it works in the US though. (I also suspect that the EUCD overrides this entitlement since otherwise you'd be able to get away with cracking the DRM on bluray discs to make your open source player interoperable with them
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Reverse-engineering things not a violation of the DMCA if done for interoperability.
I'm sure the authorities will say different if you reverse engineer the DRM on BluRay discs of HDCP in order to make them interoperable with open systems.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
It's supposed to mean a system of government which adheres to the rules in the charter which establishes its legitimacy. The federal level has been rationalizing its way out of the 9th and 10th Amednments almost since the inception. If you're educated it's nearly impossible to claim that our government is truly republican with any semblance of a straight face--unless you're also really good at lying.
The government itself is not stealing your liberties. Their new programs are enabling criminals who will.
Can't you get the OS to look through the code before it's executed and replace the offending instruction with a simulated version, like they do to workaround the pentium f00f bug?
I am trolling
Are you saying that an underclocked Pentium D isn't faster than a multiprocessor AMD system running at a higher clockspeed!?
Of course, I'm ignorant. But how come a law suit? Companies make marketing arrangements all the time. What law says Skype has to work with AMD at all? Why should Skype have to write software to work on AMD? No reason at all other than the desire not to alienate a set of users. Skype doesn't have a monopoly on VoIP, if they want to limit their software to Z80s or PowerPC chips, why shouldn't they be allowed to? Market pressures will determine if self-imposed limitations prove workable for Skype, not the politics of Intel hate, and geeks frothing at the mouth...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Already done. Lexmark v. Static Control
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I don't see any reason why you couldn't apply the same sort of patch to the linux client. However, I don't think the linux client supports 10-way yet, even if you have an Intel Core-Duo. Once they come out with a 10-way capable client, one should be able to apply the exact same method as what Maxxus described. The only reason I made the Windows only comment was because the actual patch has only been applied to the windows only binary thus far. It will be repeated with any linux client that supports 10-way with an Intel Only restriction if such a client is released.
Also, I'm not sure a kernel patch would work anyway. I'm not convinced the OS is ever queried, the processor is asked directly by accessing a special register. You'd have to have skype running on a fake processor like Bochs or Qemu and then it might not be fast enough for 10-way anyhow...
Skype is b*tching for this time.
Some text to phyche out the spam filter.
Sound software typically is optimized quite well for both company's offerings, esp. if you don't use special features of the other brand. To be sure, there's edge cases where you need that- but Skype's NOT one of them nor is there evidence that there's the degredation you claim happened with your app experience. (Not to mention that there's tons of other P2P VoIP applications that use SIP and Jabber technology that work as good or better than Skype, and there's other commercial proprietary systems (such as Eyeball Networks' stuff...) that DOES handle up to 10 people (or more as bandwidth will allow...) without needing a dual core anything, let alone an Intel one.)
This is plain and simple being bought to support one over the other. Please don't try to defend this- it's not something that has much of any good explanation for this, especially considering that they actually DO appear to be just CPUIDing and crippling the app if it's not a dual core Intel CPU...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Not to mention that the DMCA was enacted under Clinton.
He didn't reverse engineer it in order to copy it.
Why not fork?
I'm sure you could, although again, it has to do with hard-setting registers, and a bunch of stuff I really don't understand. I'm sure if you wanted to, you could hack up the Linux kernel to simulate it, or try and get VMWare/Xen/QEMU to do it, but in terms of ease, jmp-ing over the check is far simpler.
There is no bribe here, it's a business agreement. Happens AL THE TIME in business. One business says to the other, "If you make your product exclusive to my product, I'll pay you some money". This is n ot called a "bribe". Get your facts straight.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Not quite true. It said "...preset to only accept Intel's chip...", which is more or less meaningless market-speak. It says nothing of the actual performance of any of the chips. It doesn't say AMD chips don't have the performance, just that Skype won't utilize the performance on other chips.
Intel does this crap all the time. They partner with companies and have them put "if (cpu == intel)" restrictions around some features so users will have an arbitrarily "better" experience on an Intel chip than on others, even though the experience is based on money not tech. I know a developer who was annoyed that he had to put special code in his Java app to disable certain features when not on Intel because Intel was giving his company a ridiculous amount of money to do it. It sucks, but small companies like receiving big checks, especially when its some rich idiot writing it.
I think its fantastic that it has been "cracked". Eventually this BS should come back to haunt them. If Intel can't compete on performance in an arena where performance is all that matters, all the crutches in the world won't help them. No system builder with half a clue will choose Intel over AMD based solely on the size of Skype conferences, especially when they know its a false "benchmark". Low-end consumers, who are more likely to be fooled by these shady tactics, buy their computers in a box based on the brand name of HP, Dell, or Gateway, not Intel or AMD. I really see no upside for Intel on this, just downside.
blog
x86 is a pain to virtualize--many "privledged instructions" have two (nearly identical) versions--one for privledged mode which does what it ought, and another for unprivledged modes, which does something else (e.g. silently fail). It would be much easier to virtualize if they either worked or generated a fault for the virtual machine monitor to catch, but such is not the case.
Therefore, VMWare does dynamic binary translation to catch instructions which don't generate a fault when executed in an unprivledged context. Calling CPUID does touch one memory page--the code page. VMWare will decompile your code before running it. In the case of self-modifying code, it will remove your execution permission after you start writing, and then check again before letting you run it. Any calls to instructions that ought be virtualized are replaced with code which will fault, and the virtual machine monitor will emulate them. That is, they dynamically change the binary. Yes, it is horribly complex. Yes, it can occasionally be dog slow (although VMWare has done a good job of making it as fast as possible). Yes, it would be much better to be able to avoid DBT (and you can if you have a Pacifica or VT chip). Unfortunately, it is the only way to virtualize an unmodified* OS without even more massive amounts of emulation. Which is why VMWare is "fast" and QEMU is "slow".
* Xen uses paravirtualization, where the guest OS has been slightly modified to make virtualization easy. So it sidesteps the whole problem, but can't run an unmodified Windows** (that is, without VT or Pacifica support).
** It can run a modified Windows, and does. However, they can't distribute such modified Windows to you, so you're SOL.
Skype is a commercial product, it's not some revolutionary life-saving tonic that will free the masses of their bourgeois chains. There can be no surprise other than from ignorance that such a commercial product would employ questionable marketing. This is really a non-issue. Certainly Skype is free to make whatever design choices it wants that it feels are in the interests of it commercial goals. Skype does not hold a monopoly on VoIP, and if they want to put limitations on their product that alienates part of their potential customers, well, they are free to do so. Non-issue. Move on.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Skype didn't break any laws, and no one (except /.ers) said they did. It's their software and if they want to intentionally limit their customer based they are more than welcome to do so.
The reason this issue is important is that it seems likely Intel went to Skype, and in some way coerced/bribed them to do this. This could be extremely strong evidence in helping AMD with their current lawsuit against Intel. Hence AMD issuing a subpoena to Skype, to retrieve information that will show whether or not Intel is to blame for this limitation.
It's silly to hear people saying AMD should sue Skype. AMD doesn't care about skype, nor are they trying to run a huge campaign of lawsuits. They are only interested in forcing Intel to stop their current tactics which have arguably kept AMD from massive success in the OEM market.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
Notice the last four words of the parent post: "... if done for interoperability."
I suppose there's a really weak argument that this reverse engineering was done to make AMD interoperate with Intel, but that's not going to fly.
Reverse engineering for interoperability is about examining the code to see exactly what the code was designed to do, so that you can make some other code do compatable things.
This reverse engineering was done to modify the code to make it do something which the code was specifically designed not to do.
The fact that this reverse engineering hack ended up modifying the behaviour of the Skype software throws out the interoperability defense.
I hate it when I make a joke and I get modded "+5 insightful". Mod the stupid comments "funny", not "insightful", pleas
"Why doesn't Microsoft get sued for every piece of software it makes that doesn't run on Linux?"
Because that division of Microsoft isn't a monopoly; the monopoly is used to try to establish app monopolies, not the other way around. According to AMD, Intel is a monopoly and this is anti-competative behavior.
As for the motive, intel already made an announcement that more or less admits they have no advantage in voip processing and this was the result of a marketing agreement.
The Skype software has been preset to only accept Intel's chips as having the performance necessary to host conference calls of more than five people,
Unless that quote was wrong (it wasn't mine), he Intel representative definitely made a statement saying that Intel's competition lacks the performance.
So, either the quote is wrong, or you are wrong.
Not that I don't believe what you say about their behavior, I have seen it often enough from them, but the point was that I think that they went beyond that this time.
bribe
n.
1. Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person's views or conduct.
2. Something serving to influence or persuade.
This is FUD pure and simple, the fact that Skype is applying it to a very untilized feature mean that it won't affect many people in the real world. It still does have a purpose to spread FUD, the messages from this are quite clear:
- If you want to be sure that all software will work you need Intel processors.
- If you want to run processor intensive tasks like a 10-way conference you will need the new Intel processors.
- The quality of the AMD chips are equivalent to the older Intel processors, and can only handle 1/2 the load of the new Intel processors.
Unfortunately not all people have the technical knowledge to know this is complete BS, so to be sure that their software will work some people will just opt for Intel processors, which is what the Intel marketing dept is hoping for.
Intel is quite clearly using their size and budget to keep a monopoly by imposing artificial limits. This is clearly anti-competitive and this practice should be stopped before it begins.
Then you might as well just go write your own patcher. Hell, he told you *exactly* what to do in the article.
More likely its in a server exterior to the US so some judge-with-a-god-complex can't just rip the server down at a request from the people who run Skype. Injunctions are like candy these days.
GCN...
If Camfrog wasn't around, I'd use that in a heartbeat. Sadly, both Camfrog and GCN require some good uploading bandwidth to be worth anything.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
My thoughts exactly. But probably it should be just as easy to replace the conditional jump that follows the CPUID call with NOPs or an unconditional jump.
Maybe you should go and *read* the DMCA. It specifically allows reverse engineering for compatibility reasons.
Oh well, what the hell...
Considering this incident on its own, yes. But I can't help thinking it would be better to fix this once and for all than have to change every single application that tries this kind of stuff.
I am trolling
Why is the above comment -1 at the moment? The openwengo site appears legit, and the comment on topic.
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
Judging by the code, I would've replaced the "add esi, 0ah" with "mov esi, 0ah" at location 007CCCF1.
Program Intellivision!
Everyone reading /. probably realizes that there is nothing special in Intel processors that would enable 10 way calling. Really, an quad Opteron should be able to handle the task in a VMWare session if push came to shove. =)
My point, is that it always should have been a co-marketing pitch. There's nothing wrong with that. If you go to McDonalds, you get a Coke with your Happy Meal and a Disney licensed toy. McD's doesn't tell you that Coke is Good and Pepsi is Bad.
However, in the Skype situation, it started to be marketed with terms like "only Intel has the performance to do x". At that time, it became a ticking time bomb for Skype and Intel for a PR disaster -- although, not as bad as the Sony Rootkit one.
Yeah. We're arguing semantics, but if anyone was to bring up a lawsuit, that's what it would boil down to anyway. The software is "preset to only accept Intels chips as having the performance necessary." It doesn't say "Only Intel chips have the performance necessary," which would be an outright lie.
To me it sends the message, "Non-Intel chips might have the performance, but Skype is programmed to ignore them."
The intended implication to the consumer is that only Intel has the performance, but its worded cleverly enough to keep them out of court.
In any case, its a cheap ploy that will hopefully bite them in the ass. Its like they're blatantly admitting that their processors can't compete on their own. Maybe the crackers could mod it to support 12-person conferences on non-Intel hardware.
blog
Regarding the whole "the limitation is there because of performance" nonsense... What happens if you run Skype on an OLD intel CPU? Does it limit you to only 5 calls on a PIII 500? I doubt it, but if anyone has the answer, I'd love to know for sure.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
The requirement is that the Intel chip returns a 'GenuineIntel' signature, which, if the chip IS an Intel chip, any Intel chip (at least since they introduced such ID signatures on chips) should be every single Intel chip. So yes, it pretty much is AMD they're locking out. It should be interesting to see how this revelation pans out in court with AMD already pressing charges to this effect, this article should be all the evidence they really need, although the courts have done weirder things in the past. I hope that such evidence as presented here is allowed into court.
As far as I know, that was actually hashed out in Sega v. Accolade, where Sega was trying to prevent unlicensed cartridges by requiring software to contain the trademark "SEGA" and to write it at a specific hardware register (the infamous TMSS or "trademark security system"). The court found that it was legal for Accolade to include the TMSS for the purposes of making their own code work on the system, as the TMSS was initally intended to help fight counterfeiters (by counterfeiting such a cartridge, it would display the "SEGA" mark that shows up before all games on a Genesis 2 or 3).
For more indepth information, read Sega v. Accolade.
FC Closer
Has anyone tested whether Skype allows 10-way conference calls on any of the Macs powered by the Intel Core Duo?
if you read the article, which explains exactly what he did, you would know that's exactly what he didn't do.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Has anybody confirmed that Intel actually had anything to do with this?
Could just be that Skype's dual cpu identification code sucks balls and their coder should be shot...
I really doubt intel would risk such a huge amount (swaying their antitrust case for example) on such an obscure, non-real-world "advantage" (for 99% of people out there).
If the app in question was 3dmark, or Doom 4 or whatever I'd be suspicious.... but 10way calls in Skype? Come on now....
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
If say AMD would use this in a case against Intel, they'd have to show also that this is by agreement between Intel and Skype in order to make products competing with Intel's processors look way worse then tjey are compared to the processors of Intel.
That is still misrepresentation however, regardless of the fact that they payed someone a lot of money to make things look that way.
At any rate, you are probably right that the words alone won't make this stick.
according to Wikipedia (and we all know wikipedia is always correct ;)
Bitrate 13.33 kbit/s (399 bits, packetised in 50 bytes) for the frame size of 30 ms and 15.2 kbit/s (303 bits, packetised in 38 bytes) for the frame size of 20 ms
so would a 3 way call simply be 3*13.33/15.2kbps? or some highschool math equation that's leaked out of my brain since?
f00f bug workarounds don't scan the binary for the invalid instruction, they do tricks with the exception handler so that a page fault (or some other error) will occur, at which point you can generate the correct exception rather than locking up.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Maybe you should reread what I quoted, specifically the part that I made bold.
The representative didn't give any opinion on his product or AMD's, he merely stated the (true) fact that the software itself discriminated between processors
1. Intel payed Skype to make this statement for them *by putting in the limitation)
2. An Intel representative supposedly said the thing I quoted, INCLUDING the part I made bold. It contains a supposed explanation of why a 10 way call would only work on an Intel cpu.
Add up those 2 things and you have a very clear and deliberate misrepresentation of Intel's competition. That Intel payed someone else to do the 'dirty work' really doesn't change anything here.
If skype detects SOFTICE (even if it's not enabled) it will exit out.
To get around this intercept&blocks calls to "void WINAPI ExitProcess(int uExitCode)"
I think.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
...http://www.kickassgear.com/Articles/Microsoft.h tm>"limiting the scope" of a given product.
And, we know where that ended up, don't we?
Simply put, limiting the scope in this manner is highly bogus- no matter HOW you slice it. And,like you said, it's stupid and serves no purpose other than to alienate your customers, esp. in this day and age. MS got away with their little impropriety because they did it before the Internet got prevalent; nowadays, word gets around a LOT quicker.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
That'll teach me to not preview before posting... NOT!!!
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Skype actually is pretty hardcore. The binary is encrypted multiple times and there are multiple checksums. It will not run under a debugger or SoftICE. You cannot even throw an int 3 breakpoint in without setting off the memory change detection. Of course, if you bothered to RTFA you would know at least some of these things.
?So a salary is a bribe, right? As is the monthly fee that I pay to the satellite company, right? Pull your head out of your ass, moron.
I know I shouldn't reply to users whose comments start at -1 by default... but yes. Salary is a way of bribing you to use your intelligence to benefit the corporation instead of yourself. The monthly fee you pay the satellite fee is a bribing them not to sue you for receiving their signal (which you can do without paying them -- they blast the signal through your skull 24/7, after all -- but that's "illegal" under the DMCA).
My other car is first.
Add up those 2 things and you have a very clear and deliberate misrepresentation of Intel's competition.
No, you don't. The statement is not different from saying "Skype has verified that Intel processors do have the capabilities to process the intensive conference calls, and since they are the only ones we have certified at this point, we will write the software to only allow them to use the feature." Everything in that statement is true. Nothing is actionable. It might "imply" some lacking in the competition, but it explicitly states only that the Intel was tested and none others were, so only the Intel was certified.
Learn to love Alaska
I'd like to try emulating arbitrary CPUs, simply by grabbing the CPUID instruction. If what you say is true, then the difference should be obvious.
Kind of like the wrapper someone wrote for NVidia's "Dawn" demo to get it to run on ATI. Only that was legitimate -- it was a tech demo, not an actual product.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Read Maxxuss's article. The code that did the check was *specifically* encrypted, when the rest of the program was not. That's not stupidity.
Normally, it's better to assume stupidity rather than malice. But here we have evidence of malice.
You're right about the DMCA - it only covers copy protection systems.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I know I'm going to get down-modded for this...
Guess I was right. *grin*
The initial ? in my post was supposed to be a >. I was replying to a person that replied to you, agreeing with you, not him :)
My other car is first.
I really hope that AMD's response to this will be to make CPUID programmable by the operating system. Then you could just use a program or device driver to set your AMD CPU to call itself GenuineIntel and be done with such stupid limitations.
They wouldn't get in trouble because the GenuineIntel string would have to come from something else, not AMD.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I went to install Netpumper, and as I went in 5 of my anti-virus and anti-spyware programs went off (Insert WOOP WOOP WOOP here) and told me that Netpumper is a medium-level threat that bundles adware and spyware in its install. DO NOT INSTALL IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO HURT YOUR PC. If you have installed it, uninstall it and run a full system spyware scan. Also: Can anyone give me the actual patch and stuff that I need to pull this off? IM me at NG Buddhist or email me at metalhead476@gmail.com please. :)
So I am wondering if after this, in US, Skype would introduce such "anti reverse engineering" clause in the agreements.
Perhaps, but strictly speaking, the DMCA only applies to defeating encryption schemes for the purpose of violating copyright. I don't see how this patch violates copyright at all.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, i'm sorry. that's what i get for filtering out -1. my most sincere apologies :)
If you turn all of the useless stuff off in Windows XP it is actually performs pretty well for most office tasks
Or, it performs pretty well for most office tasks if you have the shaders on. Remember, an operating system usually needs a computer made in the same decade to function well.
DATABASE WOW WOW
No, Gore must have been the Democan. The world would have to be pretty screwed up for a Republicrat to have invented the Internet.
The case you reference is interesting because Microsoft specifically used Compuserve groups to blame DEC for the problems that Microsoft created. They astroturfed and fanboyed their way through it and planned it all in advance. Today, they only have to spend more money to do exactly the same thing.
Of course, their reputation has suffered. It cost them much more to fool casual computer users and anyone who remembers anything will never trust them again.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
And would the Skype Mac OS X client recognize Core Duo CPUs in the iMac and MacBook Pro?
parent should never have had children.
The money wasn't given to persuade Skype's views or conduct. It was given as payment for a contract agreement between two parties. You just want to use the word "bribe" because of the negative connotations it has. By that definition, AMD bribed CryTek to put out the 64-bit version of Far Cry for AMD64 processors and add higher-resolution textures to make it look like the 64-bit version was somehow different.
"Sufferin' succotash."
As I said before, this is not interesting because they crippled their product. This is interesting because they appear to have wrongfully defamed AMD by lying about their reason for doing so (assuming the AMD chip does have the capability to run 9+1). Skype no more has the right to do that in order to gain revenue from Intel (if this is actually what happened) than a television company seeking greater ad revenue has the right to imply falsely that a car company's trucks tend to explode (to give a well-known example).
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
I can think of a few good reasons a program could work on XP but not on 2000. But the most likely answer (and not one of those good reasons) is that the coders were lazy - they didn't want to take the time/effort to find out if the code they wrote would work on non-XP.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Don't know if someone already posted this, but, it's possible that Skype made the deal already knowing this would happen. Well, the thought was so amusing that I don't even care if this is true or false :-)
It does check the checksum, every time a call is incoming and maybe at other times. The majority of the code also is encrypted in the binary and decrypted at runtime.
So I am wondering if after this, in US, Skype would introduce such "anti reverse engineering" clause in the agreements.
It's probably already in the EULA - most EULAs have a clause outright banning reverse engineering. The point is that in the EU it is unenforcable if you're reverse engineering for interoperability purposes because that's an explicit permission given by the law that cannot be revoked by a licence.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Well, you either cannot read or are refusing to understand, sorry, end of argument.
... instead of Skype.
Also, Gizmo Project is SIP based (which is a documented standard), not proprietary like Skype.
http://www.gizmoproject.com/
I remember Win98 "Lite" was brought up as an evidence in Microsoft lawsuit, by the judge.
;)
I remember Judge asked "I am not an advanced computer user, if I can easily do it, why you insist telling IE is integral part of system?" Something like that...
For people not knowing the IE 4 first ages, Win98 lite was an ".inf" file, no more! that could remove entire IE from the system. Yes, including DLLs.
It was not allowed by Microsoft in any way (EULA etc) but it was a evidence for court. The evil lawyers of MS couldn't take the inf file creator (Aussie teacher) to court too.
Sorry btw, I am not a lawyer and I don't know law spesific search sites. So, when you type "windows lawsuit win98 lite" to yahoo, you know what will happen
Well, you either cannot read or are refusing to understand, sorry, end of argument.
Ah yes, it is the end of the arguement because you say so. But that won't change the fact that nothing said by Skype regarding Intel or Intel's competitors was untrue. Unless you are asserting that Skype did, in fact, test AMD processors for the purpose of handling 10 conference calls and found that they worked just fine, but decided to lie and say that only Intel CPUs were verified to be sufficient. Is that what you are saying? Or are you just going to pretend that I'm stupid, since I don't agree with you and not bother to argue the facts, just just argue what you wish they were so you could go on your endless rants?
Learn to love Alaska
It is end of argument because you are simply not reading what is being said.
- An Intel spokesman made a claim, not a Skype spokesman.
- You failed repeatedly to read the claim being made.
So, I'm quite willing to argue about this the moment you actually start reading what is being said, but your posts simply show that you don't, so there is no point in arguing.
It boils down to a lack of any sort of business ethics.
When you can't compete on your merits, lie but run it by the lawyers first.
blog
So, I'm quite willing to argue about this the moment you actually start reading what is being said, but your posts simply show that you don't, so there is no point in arguing.
Then why do you keep arguing?
- An Intel spokesman made a claim, not a Skype spokesman.
So? Intel did not claim that theirs was the *only* device capable. Intel's claim was that the Intel chip posessed the necessary processing power. That you seem to think that excludes others from having the necessary processing power is irrelevant. What is quite true is that Intel's chip does have the power to perform that function.
- You failed repeatedly to read the claim being made.
Yes, yes, "The Skype software has been preset to only accept Intel's chips as having the performance necessary to host conference calls of more than five people," It is verified and tested to know that
1) Skype is inefficient with CPU cycles, especially in conference calls.
2) Skype tested with Intel chips and verified that those are capable of performing satisfactorially.
Do you agree that those two points are necessarily true? The statement makes it clear that only the Intel chip was certified for the higher capacity, and as such, only the Intel chips are in the preset list as having the necessary performance. It does not make it clear that no other device will be able of matching the performance.
brQuit reading it as you wish it read, and actually read the words. It doesn't say anything about Intel's competition. It doesn't say that only Intel has the power, but that it is only preset to accept Intel. It says that Intel's chips have the performance necessary. All are true, and none are statements against any competitor.
Learn to love Alaska
The confusion is obviously that there are legal definitions, and dictionary definitions, and rarely the two shall meet.
e &type=1&submit1.x=72&submit1.y=3&submit1=Look+up
bribery
n. the crime of giving or taking money or some other valuable item in order to influence a public official (any governmental employee) in the performance of his/her duties. Bribery includes paying to get government contracts (cutting in the roads commissioner for a secret percentage of the profit), giving a bottle of liquor to a building inspector to ignore a violation or grant a permit, or selling stock to a Congressman at a cut-rate price. Example: Governor (later Vice President) Spiro T. Agnew received five cents from the concessionaire for each pack of cigarettes sold in the Maryland capitol building. The definition has been expanded to include bribes given to corporate officials to obtain contracts or other advantages which are against company policy. http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?typed=brib
Is salary legally defined as bribery? No. Technically? Yes. So you're both right.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Did they maintain this lie with their shareholders? Or were their shareholders (lenders) in on the scam?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
reminds me of when Cyrix pissed off Creative Labs, and suddenly none of Creative's bundled software would install on a machine with a Cyrix CPU.
Fortunately both Cyrix CPUs and Creative's bundled software were crap, so no-one missed out.
--
When you can't compete on your merits, lie but run it by the lawyers first.
And make sure you comply with the letter of the law while in fact going against the spirit of the law. That should not fly in an actually working legal system.
Then why do you keep arguing?
:)
Remote chance that you might actually start reading? (obviously you did)
Never give up hope
Yes, yes, "The Skype software has been preset to only accept Intel's chips as having the performance necessary to host conference calls of more than five people,"
Note that this was implemented by Skype after reaching an agreement with Intel.
Also note that above statement comes from an Intel spokesman, not from Skype.
It is verified and tested to know that
1) Skype is inefficient with CPU cycles, especially in conference calls.
2) Skype tested with Intel chips and verified that those are capable of performing satisfactorially.
Do you agree that those two points are necessarily true? The statement makes it clear that only the Intel chip was certified for the higher capacity, and as such, only the Intel chips are in the preset list as having the necessary performance.
Yes.
It does not make it clear that no other device will be able of matching the performance.
It makes clear that Skype only accepts Intel CPUs as having this performance (after having accepted money from Intel for doing this). That by definition says that others don't for as far as they are concerned. It is what the word only stands for. They could easily have left that word out if the intention was to explain why it works with Intel and not with others. Leaving it in makes this a statement about non Intel CPUs implicitly.
Read the statement without context and without knowing who said it, and you can quite argue that this is just an explanation of what Skype does, without any implied statements about non Intel CPUs. Prior marketing agreement with Intel and an Intel spokesman saying this however are what make this much more then just that.
Last but not least, if you are trying to argue that this is within the letter of the law, you may be right, but it is definitely against the spirit of the law, and due to that I believe it should not fly in any working legal system.
But then, you might have problems with software which legitimately reads out the value.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I'm really just messing around. Bit of a social experement.
All that would mean is your proc appeared to be an intel one when it wasn't. I don't see this as being a big problem.
I am trolling
I could imagine that for an application working close to the hardware this could make a huge difference. Think e.g. about a BIOS update program which decides which BIOS image to flash according to the detected CPU. Or some program which tweaks chipset parameters.
But even if some program just goes into an Intel-optimized branch instead of an AMD-optimized it could hurt your performance.
Bottom line: Just because you don't know a way it may hurt doesn't mean there isn't one. (And in case you try to defeat the specific examples I gave: There may well be some example where it hurts which I didn't think of.)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I can see an easy way Intel could make it hurt - rather than going by the CPUID, make things run slow on any processor which supports 3dnow. That's something which would very much hurt to disable. However, I'm not sure Intel would dare do that - unlike now where they can just about squirm and say "only intel processors have the performance", it's impossible to claim not running on something if a specific feature is present is anything other than foul play.
I am trolling
Honestly, how long did anyone think it would be before such a patch was created?
You can get all the other data from the CPUID instruction as well (by using other values than 0 in EAX on the call). However the interpretation of the resulting values does indeed depend on if your processor is an Intel or an AMD (or something else, for that matter).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
This has everything to do with the DMCA. From TFA:
However, there are two obstacles:
* The code at 0x7CCCF1 is located in the encrypted code section of the binary.
* The whole code segment of the binary is checked or hashed by Skype. If something has been modified, Skype will detect it and quits.
That little part about the encrypted code section would fall under breaking encryption.
The second little part about the binary being checked or hashed would fall under encryption/content controls.
I want to see some benchmarks with and AMD X2, AMD64, Pentium Duo and a Pentium 4 to see if the hardware limitations were true or not. Would be great to see AMD come out on top of this one.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
It is different - they did it because Intel paid them to do it.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"