On Monday 31 August 2009, Marko Vojinovic wrote: >On Monday 31 August 2009 00:02:26 Roberto Ragusa wrote: >> People studied Skype: >> >> http://www.recon.cx/en/f/vskype-part1.pdf >> http://www.recon.cx/en/f/vskype-part2.pdf >> >> and found that it contains tons and tons of cryptography, >> obfuscation and countermeasures against debugging or reverse >> engineering. >> >> A closed source code like that and with an explicit >> purpose to build a crypted P2P network bypassing firewalls >> with every trick possible is something to be nervous >> about. > >But that is just one more reason to reverse-engineer the protocol, teach > Ekiga to use it, and thus circumvent all malicious things skype is built > do to, right? > >As for the firewalls, using every possible trick to bypass them is a > feature, in my view. I typically use skype between machines both of which > are behind some NAT, and it is a Good Thing to be able to do that. I know, > it's ugly, I have to use third party bandwidth, but it is better than not > being able to make calls at all. I would wish to see the same thing > implemented in Ekiga, maybe more people would start using it. > >> The code constantly checks itself (this is why it uses a >> lot of CPU) and it decides things it should not (it was >> said that Intel convinced Skype to cripple multiconference >> on AMD CPUs to improve the reputation of Intel CPUs). > >Again, if we teach Ekiga to speak skype, we would have a client that is >faster, less bloated, open source and being able to communicate even with >those who are ignorant about skype misbehaving. > >If we don't, most of us will be pushed to use that misbehaved binary >ourselves, which is the current situation. > >> I'd like a good alternative to Skype, even _without_ >> Skype compatibility. > >I tried to convince one of my friends to use Ekiga. Other than technical >problems he grudged about, the main argument against it was that all of his >contacts already use skype, and don't see the benefit of switching. > Therefore, he is better off using it as well, than trying to convince them > all to switch. > >Skype has a very large userbase by now, and it seems that interoperability > is the only viable strategy of getting Ekiga or some other open source > client to gain decent userbase. Otherwise people will simply continue to > use skype, with all its flaws and quirks. > >Best, :-) >Marko Skype has a signup that vz doesn't block, or cannot block. I have attempted to sign up for an account with ekiga on at least 4 occasions now, also twinkle, and the confirming email which must be replied to never arrives for any of those services, which prevents a vz sub (only game in town) from getting to first base. Which is another reason skype has a liplock on this. Me, I'd druther sue vz for not being a common carrier, which they _claim_ to be. Yeah, sure they are.... -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. <https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp> There are twenty-five people left in the world, and twenty-seven of them are hamburgers. -- Ed Sanders -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
