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Skype Protocol Has Been Reverse Engineered

Posted by timothy on from the limited-victory dept.

An anonymous reader writes "One researcher has decided he wants to make Skype open source by reverse engineering the protocol the service uses. In fact, he claims to have already achieved that feat on a new skype-open-source blog. The source code has been posted for versions 1.x/3.x/4.x of Skype as well as details of the rc4 layer arithmetic encoding the service uses. While his intention may be to recreate Skype as an open source platform, it is doubtful he will get very far without facing an army of Microsoft lawyers. Skype is not an open platform, and Microsoft will want to keep it that way."

2 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Reverse-Engineering for Interoperability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's protected. Lawyers may bark, and pound a table or two, but ultimately, they'll fail.

    Sec. 103(f) of the DMCA (17 U.S.C. 1201 (f)) says that if you legally obtain a program that is protected, you are allowed to reverse-engineer and circumvent the protection to achieve the ability the interoperability of computer programs

  2. Torrent here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's the torrent if it gets taken down. http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6442887