[perhaps off topic, but interesting security implications?]
I wonder if backdoors are installed to comply with government & law enforcement requirements. In the US, Sen. Jay Rockefeller proposes to allow the POTUS to shutdown public & private Internet for any reason they want?
Well back to Skype in the news: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28/skype_trojan_source_code/
Fact or hype?
FWIW, Dan
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 12:30:53 -0700, "Daniel B. Thurman" dant@cdkkt.com wrote:
[perhaps off topic, but interesting security implications?]
Yeah, don't let LE install trojan software on machines you use.
I wonder if backdoors are installed to comply with government & law enforcement requirements. In the US,
The Skype backdoors that have been covered in public (recently and in the past) that I have seen have all been additional software installed by LE on the victum's machine, not something specifically built into Sykpe. Since calls are dispatched through central servers and Skype is a US company, presumably call record information is being captured by the US, en masse. Some other governments probably also get easy access to this data.
Fact or hype?
Probably both. The existance of trojans has come up before, this guy just seems to be hyping his claim that he wrote one of them.
On 08/29/2009 03:56 PM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
on the victum's machine, not something specifically built into Sykpe. Since calls are dispatched through central servers and Skype is a US company, presumably call record information is being captured by the US, en masse. Some other governments probably also get easy access to this data.
I haven't heard any allegations that Skype is forwarding all of its call records to any government agencies, though it's not unbelievable.
But either way, those call records could certainly be obtained via court order, in a criminal investigation, or even just a civil lawsuit, if they exist.
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 16:13:39 -0400, "Ryan B. Lynch" ryan.b.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
But either way, those call records could certainly be obtained via court order, in a criminal investigation, or even just a civil lawsuit, if they exist.
Not in the US. Some high level government spook would talk to the CEO of Skype (or EBay if they are still owned by them) and ask them to cooperate in comabtting terrorism. And if the CEO hestiated, they would point to what happened to the CEO of QWest who didn't roll over when he was asked to. (e.g QWest lost of a lot of dollars worth of government contracts and the CEO was investigated and convicted of insider trading. And insider trading is something that happens a lot and seems to be only prosecuted in extreme cases and/or when someone wants to make an example of someone.)
I am about 95% certain that the US goverment gets copies of all skype call records in near real time.
On 08/29/2009 12:56 PM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 12:30:53 -0700, "Daniel B. Thurman"dant@cdkkt.com wrote:
[perhaps off topic, but interesting security implications?]
Yeah, don't let LE install trojan software on machines you use.
I wonder if backdoors are installed to comply with government& law enforcement requirements. In the US,
The Skype backdoors that have been covered in public (recently and in the past) that I have seen have all been additional software installed by LE on the victum's machine, not something specifically built into Sykpe. Since calls are dispatched through central servers and Skype is a US company, presumably call record information is being captured by the US, en masse. Some other governments probably also get easy access to this data.
What do you mean when you say that "calls are dispatched through central servers?" I thought Skype was P2P application:
http://www.skype.com/intl/en/help/guides/p2pexplained/
They say they use a global index with a decentralized user directory, but I have no idea what this means in practice. When you talk about call record information being captured, do you mean summary records or recordings? I would find it much easier to believe the former than the latter.
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 14:09:18 -0700, Joel Gomberg obligor11-fedora@yahoo.com wrote:
They say they use a global index with a decentralized user directory, but I have no idea what this means in practice. When you talk about call record information being captured, do you mean summary records or recordings? I would find it much easier to believe the former than the latter.
Who called who, not recordings. Traffic analysis is a lot cheaper than trying to analyze the content of traffic.
On 08/29/2009 02:09 PM, Joel Gomberg wrote:
On 08/29/2009 12:56 PM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 12:30:53 -0700, "Daniel B. Thurman"dant@cdkkt.com wrote:
[perhaps off topic, but interesting security implications?]
Yeah, don't let LE install trojan software on machines you use.
I wonder if backdoors are installed to comply with government& law enforcement requirements. In the US,
The Skype backdoors that have been covered in public (recently and in the past) that I have seen have all been additional software installed by LE on the victum's machine, not something specifically built into Sykpe. Since calls are dispatched through central servers and Skype is a US company, presumably call record information is being captured by the US, en masse. Some other governments probably also get easy access to this data.
What do you mean when you say that "calls are dispatched through central servers?" I thought Skype was P2P application:
http://www.skype.com/intl/en/help/guides/p2pexplained/
They say they use a global index with a decentralized user directory, but I have no idea what this means in practice. When you talk about call record information being captured, do you mean summary records or recordings? I would find it much easier to believe the former than the latter.
I would presume that once a call record is given, it leads to the source of everything else when requested by the authorities or anyone else with a judge's authorization? The sticking point in this arrangement, I think, allows the authorities to "peek" legally, and if enough [criminal] information is obtained from this call record, to pursue further information a with FISA, court order, or "by some other classified [spook?] means"?
On 08/29/2009 02:16 PM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 14:09:18 -0700, Joel Gombergobligor11-fedora@yahoo.com wrote:
They say they use a global index with a decentralized user directory, but I have no idea what this means in practice. When you talk about call record information being captured, do you mean summary records or recordings? I would find it much easier to believe the former than the latter.
Who called who, not recordings. Traffic analysis is a lot cheaper than trying to analyze the content of traffic.
With data-mining, its not terribly hard to "gather more information"?
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 4:30 PM, Daniel B. Thurman dant@cdkkt.com wrote:
[perhaps off topic, but interesting security implications?]
I wonder if backdoors are installed to comply with government & law enforcement requirements. In the US, Sen. Jay Rockefeller proposes to allow the POTUS to shutdown public & private Internet for any reason they want?
Well back to Skype in the news: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28/skype_trojan_source_code/
Fact or hype?
FWIW, Dan
Welcome to the Real World.... all your calls are belong to THE MAN (NSA)...
"SAFARI C(Cubed) is the only totally integrated carrier class VoIP switch that incorporates -- at no additional cost -- all of the components that make up the distributed voice switching infrastructure, eliminating the need for operators to purchase, maintain, upgrade and regression test separate Call Management Servers, Media Gateways, *Call Detail Records (Record Keeping) Servers*, Announcement Servers, Signaling Gateways, Ethernet Switches and *Legal Intercept (CALEA) servers*."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_A...
FC
On Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:37:02 -0300 Fernando Cassia fcassia@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 4:30 PM, Daniel B. Thurman dant@cdkkt.com wrote:
[perhaps off topic, but interesting security implications?]
I wonder if backdoors are installed to comply with government & law enforcement requirements. In the US, Sen. Jay Rockefeller proposes to allow the POTUS to shutdown public & private Internet for any reason they want?
Well back to Skype in the news: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28/skype_trojan_source_code/
Fact or hype?
FWIW, Dan
Welcome to the Real World.... all your calls are belong to THE MAN (NSA)...
"SAFARI C(Cubed) is the only totally integrated carrier class VoIP switch that incorporates -- at no additional cost -- all of the components that make up the distributed voice switching infrastructure, eliminating the need for operators to purchase, maintain, upgrade and regression test separate Call Management Servers, Media Gateways, *Call Detail Records (Record Keeping) Servers*, Announcement Servers, Signaling Gateways, Ethernet Switches and *Legal Intercept (CALEA) servers*."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_A...
FC
If you are so inclined read "The Puzzle Palace" (http://www.amazon.com/Puzzle-Palace-National-Intelligence-Organization/dp/01...)
Consider the advances in computers since that time (1980) and extrapolate the surveillance capabilities that the book claims to today.
Steve the advances
On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 14:09 -0700, Joel Gomberg wrote:
I thought Skype was P2P application
Supposedly it is, but with closed source, you've no real idea what it's going to do. Even hacking software to reverse engineer it may only give you a partial picture, particularly if it's convoluted.
The understood nature of Skype is that it spreads itself across a network in a group peers-to-peers technique (as used by many filesharing systems), where they co-ordinate other peers amongst themselves, but the end-to-end communication between two peers directly communicating with each other (i.e. a phone call) will be direct peer-to-peer, where possible, but perhaps not when its not possible (e.g. when firewalls get in the way of making direct connections).
The gestalt behaviour does lend itself to all sorts of snooping, without having to plant trojans on individuals. All that's needed is for enough spy machines to be on-line within the network, and for them to act as the bigger nodes in the network, and they can keep tabs on what's going on around them.
Moral of the story; don't conduct illegal business over it, don't conduct legal but confidential conversations over it; and if you're in one of those places where criticising the government has nasty repercussions, I wouldn't do that over it, either.
On Sunday 30 August 2009 09:20:59 Tim wrote:
On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 14:09 -0700, Joel Gomberg wrote:
I thought Skype was P2P application
Supposedly it is, but with closed source, you've no real idea what it's going to do. Even hacking software to reverse engineer it may only give you a partial picture, particularly if it's convoluted.
Is there any initiative or attempts to reverse engineer its protocol?
I have a feeling that the majority of Linux users would switch to Ekiga or something else open source, if only it gave them support to communicate with skype peers on the other end. Linux folks (myself included) use skype mainly because all their friends and other contacts also use it, and it is completely impossible to convince them all to go the open source way. But if Ekiga would support the protocol, it would eliminate the need to install or use skype binary itself, while functionality would be preserved. Not to mention better support for sound and video hardware etc.
This would not be the first thing to reverse-engineer in the Linux world, and I bet such a project would gain quite a lot of support from the community. I would do it myself, if I only had the appropriate knowledge in Linux programming... But surely *someone* does, is there any known attempt to do this?
Best, :-) Marko
Marko Vojinovic:
Is there any initiative or attempts to reverse engineer its protocol?
It's closed source because they want it to be secret, other vendors with the same attitude repeatedly change their protocols to thwart third party clients, and I wouldn't expect skype to behave any differently. That sort of thing puts a bit of a dent in people wanting to reverse engineer something.
On Sunday 30 August 2009 12:01:22 Tim wrote:
Marko Vojinovic:
Is there any initiative or attempts to reverse engineer its protocol?
It's closed source because they want it to be secret, other vendors with the same attitude repeatedly change their protocols to thwart third party clients, and I wouldn't expect skype to behave any differently. That sort of thing puts a bit of a dent in people wanting to reverse engineer something.
I understand that some vendors do this, but I believe skype needs to preserve protocol compatibility over different versions, simply in order not to break communication between peers with different software versions. I doubt it can force all users to upgrade to the latest protocol simultaneously, like some other vendors can. So I think it would be enough to reverse-engineer *some* version of the protocol, and have Ekiga present itself as some (maybe a little older version of) skype. I do understand that reverse-engineering closed and intentionally secret software is not easy in itself, but I believe it would have a good lifetime if done.
And I also believe such a project would get immediate and strong support from the community. I myself would do a lot to help out --- testing, internet hosting, cpu cycles, writing documentation... I just don't have any money to offer, and I lack the knowledge to do serious coding.
But surely I am not the first one to have such an idea, or am I?
Best, :-) Marko
Marko Vojinovic wrote:
But surely I am not the first one to have such an idea, or am I?
You are not.
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.
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).
I'd like a good alternative to Skype, even _without_ Skype compatibility.
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
On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:28:58 +0100 Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday 30 August 2009 09:20:59 Tim wrote:
On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 14:09 -0700, Joel Gomberg wrote:
I thought Skype was P2P application
Supposedly it is, but with closed source, you've no real idea what it's going to do. Even hacking software to reverse engineer it may only give you a partial picture, particularly if it's convoluted.
Is there any initiative or attempts to reverse engineer its protocol?
There have been but it uses every malware like trick of the book to self encrypt and the like. With virtual machines it isn't of course quite so safe any more.
There are also some other awkward factors
- The person who completely reverse engineers skype probably destroys it. If you can write a skype client than the spammers can write skype spam tools as well.
- Skype appears to contain various law enforcement intercept facilities judging by the evidence - although mostly circumstantial.
- The Skype business model depends upon interoperability not working (like early instant messaging systems), so you would expect a mix of protocol changes and thermonuclear level legal responses if the work was done in the USA or other countries with broken DMCA type laws.
programming... But surely *someone* does, is there any known attempt to do this?
I would imagine anyone doing so is keeping fairly quiet - there is big money on offer from the bad guys for skype trojans, intercepts and clients, while anyone on the good side fiddling with it faces jail and harrasment - a fine example of perverse economic incentives.
Alan
Bruno Wolff III wrote:
On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 16:13:39 -0400, "Ryan B. Lynch" ryan.b.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
But either way, those call records could certainly be obtained via court order, in a criminal investigation, or even just a civil lawsuit, if they exist.
Not in the US. Some high level government spook would talk to the CEO of Skype (or EBay if they are still owned by them) and ask them to cooperate in comabtting terrorism. And if the CEO hestiated, they would point to what happened to the CEO of QWest who didn't roll over when he was asked to. (e.g QWest lost of a lot of dollars worth of government contracts and the CEO was investigated and convicted of insider trading. And insider trading is something that happens a lot and seems to be only prosecuted in extreme cases and/or when someone wants to make an example of someone.)
I am about 95% certain that the US goverment gets copies of all skype call records in near real time.
Delivered by black helicopters...
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....
On Monday 31 August 2009, Alan Cox wrote:
On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:28:58 +0100
Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday 30 August 2009 09:20:59 Tim wrote:
On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 14:09 -0700, Joel Gomberg wrote:
I thought Skype was P2P application
Supposedly it is, but with closed source, you've no real idea what it's going to do. Even hacking software to reverse engineer it may only give you a partial picture, particularly if it's convoluted.
Is there any initiative or attempts to reverse engineer its protocol?
There have been but it uses every malware like trick of the book to self encrypt and the like. With virtual machines it isn't of course quite so safe any more.
There are also some other awkward factors
- The person who completely reverse engineers skype probably destroys it.
If you can write a skype client than the spammers can write skype spam tools as well.
- Skype appears to contain various law enforcement intercept facilities
judging by the evidence - although mostly circumstantial.
- The Skype business model depends upon interoperability not working
(like early instant messaging systems), so you would expect a mix of protocol changes and thermonuclear level legal responses if the work was done in the USA or other countries with broken DMCA type laws.
programming... But surely *someone* does, is there any known attempt to do this?
I would imagine anyone doing so is keeping fairly quiet - there is big money on offer from the bad guys for skype trojans, intercepts and clients, while anyone on the good side fiddling with it faces jail and harrasment - a fine example of perverse economic incentives.
Alan
Absolutely spot on Alan.
Gene Heskett wrote:
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....
Are you saying that vz blocks you from using gmail or yahoo mail so that you can't even use those to sign up for an account with ekiga?
On Mon, 2009-08-31 at 12:05 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: [...]
There are also some other awkward factors
The person who completely reverse engineers skype probably destroys it. If you can write a skype client than the spammers can write skype spam tools as well.
Skype appears to contain various law enforcement intercept facilities judging by the evidence - although mostly circumstantial.
The Skype business model depends upon interoperability not working (like early instant messaging systems), so you would expect a mix of protocol changes and thermonuclear level legal responses if the work was done in the USA or other countries with broken DMCA type laws.
programming... But surely *someone* does, is there any known attempt to do this?
I would imagine anyone doing so is keeping fairly quiet - there is big money on offer from the bad guys for skype trojans, intercepts and clients, while anyone on the good side fiddling with it faces jail and harrasment - a fine example of perverse economic incentives.
Well said.
poc
On Monday 31 August 2009, Ed Greshko wrote:
Gene Heskett wrote:
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....
Are you saying that vz blocks you from using gmail or yahoo mail so that you can't even use those to sign up for an account with ekiga?
Yes. No proof of course other than none of the emails confirming the registration and which must be replied to have never been rx'd here. All this took place before I was able to make use of two other accounts I now use, one at gmail and one at the tv station.
Ekiga in particular makes it almost impossible to even attempt to re- register, so I had to be pretty creative to get ekiga to accept a 2nd and 3rd attempt. Twinkle I gave up on after the 2nd try.
vz, in their attempts to control spam, has decided that these mailing lists that have so much traffic have to be spam, and has refused to accept 2 or 3 of them, forcing majordomo to unsub me, so I have had to switch to gmail for some lists.
Call tech support with smoke coming out of both ears, escalate the call 2 or 3 times to get to someone who might have a quarter, and they'll of course deny it. To do otherwise confirms they are controlling traffic, and that they sleep with M$. Like I've said, I sure wish there was another game in town for that last 30 miles to here, but in WV, it will never happen.
The latest insult is that news services, like cnn or fauxnews or the bbc, are all being throttled, so if I want to watch a story without a bunch of 20 second pauses in a 3 minute package, I'll pause it for a minute or 5 & go check email, so it is all downloaded when I unpause it. msnbc of course doesn't suffer from that throttling cuz its M$. File fetching still has mostly full speed as those speeds are usually reported by the app pulling the file. And so far, torrents are pretty good if there are enough seeders.
Gene Heskett wrote:
On Monday 31 August 2009, Ed Greshko wrote:
Gene Heskett wrote:
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....
Are you saying that vz blocks you from using gmail or yahoo mail so that you can't even use those to sign up for an account with ekiga?
Yes. No proof of course other than none of the emails confirming the registration and which must be replied to have never been rx'd here. All this took place before I was able to make use of two other accounts I now use, one at gmail and one at the tv station.
So, you were able to sign up (register) with ekiga using gmail....
Ekiga in particular makes it almost impossible to even attempt to re- register, so I had to be pretty creative to get ekiga to accept a 2nd and 3rd attempt. Twinkle I gave up on after the 2nd try.
Oh....So you're simply the victim of, in this case, ekiga's poor registration system and vz poor email system.
vz, in their attempts to control spam, has decided that these mailing lists that have so much traffic have to be spam, and has refused to accept 2 or 3 of them, forcing majordomo to unsub me, so I have had to switch to gmail for some lists.
Call tech support with smoke coming out of both ears, escalate the call 2 or 3 times to get to someone who might have a quarter, and they'll of course deny it. To do otherwise confirms they are controlling traffic, and that they sleep with M$. Like I've said, I sure wish there was another game in town for that last 30 miles to here, but in WV, it will never happen.
The latest insult is that news services, like cnn or fauxnews or the bbc, are all being throttled, so if I want to watch a story without a bunch of 20 second pauses in a 3 minute package, I'll pause it for a minute or 5 & go check email, so it is all downloaded when I unpause it. msnbc of course doesn't suffer from that throttling cuz its M$. File fetching still has mostly full speed as those speeds are usually reported by the app pulling the file. And so far, torrents are pretty good if there are enough seeders.
OK....so this is really "rant" about vz. And somehow vz is "in bed" with anything M$ cause it supposedly allows MSNBC through....
On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Ed Greshko wrote:
Gene Heskett wrote:
The latest insult is that news services, like cnn or fauxnews or the bbc, are all being throttled, so if I want to watch a story without a bunch of 20 second pauses in a 3 minute package, I'll pause it for a minute or 5 & go check email, so it is all downloaded when I unpause it. msnbc of course doesn't suffer from that throttling cuz its M$. File fetching still has mostly full speed as those speeds are usually reported by the app pulling the file. And so far, torrents are pretty good if there are enough seeders.
OK....so this is really "rant" about vz. And somehow vz is "in bed" with anything M$ cause it supposedly allows MSNBC through....
supposedly?
On Monday 31 August 2009, Michael Hennebry wrote:
On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Ed Greshko wrote:
Gene Heskett wrote:
The latest insult is that news services, like cnn or fauxnews or the bbc, are all being throttled, so if I want to watch a story without a bunch of 20 second pauses in a 3 minute package, I'll pause it for a minute or 5 & go check email, so it is all downloaded when I unpause it. msnbc of course doesn't suffer from that throttling cuz its M$. File fetching still has mostly full speed as those speeds are usually reported by the app pulling the file. And so far, torrents are pretty good if there are enough seeders.
OK....so this is really "rant" about vz. And somehow vz is "in bed" with anything M$ cause it supposedly allows MSNBC through....
supposedly?
Obviously the doubting Thomas here has never had to deal with vz an an ISP. I rest my case.
Gene Heskett wrote:
On Monday 31 August 2009, Michael Hennebry wrote:
On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Ed Greshko wrote:
Gene Heskett wrote:
The latest insult is that news services, like cnn or fauxnews or the bbc, are all being throttled, so if I want to watch a story without a bunch of 20 second pauses in a 3 minute package, I'll pause it for a minute or 5 & go check email, so it is all downloaded when I unpause it. msnbc of course doesn't suffer from that throttling cuz its M$. File fetching still has mostly full speed as those speeds are usually reported by the app pulling the file. And so far, torrents are pretty good if there are enough seeders.
OK....so this is really "rant" about vz. And somehow vz is "in bed" with anything M$ cause it supposedly allows MSNBC through....
supposedly?
Obviously the doubting Thomas here has never had to deal with vz an an ISP. I rest my case.
I don't know what you are alleging....
MSNBC uses a Flash Player as does CNN, fauxnews, and the BBC. Of course the flash players they use are all different. But, I believe the underlying network protocol used to transfer data to the players is the same. So, maybe you are alleging that vz is "controlling" bandwidth based on source IP to discourage you from watching those other news outlets that don't have MS in their names?
Being in Taiwan I obviously don't have vz as my ISP. But, MSNBC, fauxnews, and MSNBC works just fine while CNN can be jerky. I suppose, based on your logic and no evidence, I can conclude that my ISP has something against CNN. Maybe CNN had an unflattering article on 馬英九 (President of Taiwan)?
FWIW, I did ask my Dad in NJ to watch videos on each of those sites you mention and to let me know which performed well and which didn't. He said he watched 2 or 3 on each site and all were good. He is on vz. Not sure of his plan...but I believe he has FIOS (forgot to ask).
So, I have no doubt that you have having a bad experience with watching videos....but it would seem a Federal law would be broken if what you seem to be alleging is true. And, I suppose, it is only being broken where you are as evidenced by my Dad's experience. Of course he is 83 and may have nodded off while watching the videos and didn't notice anything.... :-)
On Monday 31 August 2009, Ed Greshko wrote:
Gene Heskett wrote:
On Monday 31 August 2009, Michael Hennebry wrote:
On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Ed Greshko wrote:
Gene Heskett wrote:
The latest insult is that news services, like cnn or fauxnews or the bbc, are all being throttled, so if I want to watch a story without a bunch of 20 second pauses in a 3 minute package, I'll pause it for a minute or 5 & go check email, so it is all downloaded when I unpause it. msnbc of course doesn't suffer from that throttling cuz its M$. File fetching still has mostly full speed as those speeds are usually reported by the app pulling the file. And so far, torrents are pretty good if there are enough seeders.
OK....so this is really "rant" about vz. And somehow vz is "in bed" with anything M$ cause it supposedly allows MSNBC through....
supposedly?
Obviously the doubting Thomas here has never had to deal with vz an an ISP. I rest my case.
I don't know what you are alleging....
MSNBC uses a Flash Player as does CNN, fauxnews, and the BBC. Of course the flash players they use are all different. But, I believe the underlying network protocol used to transfer data to the players is the same. So, maybe you are alleging that vz is "controlling" bandwidth based on source IP to discourage you from watching those other news outlets that don't have MS in their names?
That is the feeling I am getting. There was a story on the beeb tonight but it was badly coded, and was not playable as it insisted on reloading the page to replay it.
But, I just hit everybody but abc, even the beeb, and it is all working fairly well ATM.
Being in Taiwan I obviously don't have vz as my ISP. But, MSNBC, fauxnews, and MSNBC works just fine while CNN can be jerky. I suppose, based on your logic and no evidence, I can conclude that my ISP has something against CNN. Maybe CNN had an unflattering article on 馬英九 (President of Taiwan)?
FWIW, I did ask my Dad in NJ to watch videos on each of those sites you mention and to let me know which performed well and which didn't. He said he watched 2 or 3 on each site and all were good. He is on vz. Not sure of his plan...but I believe he has FIOS (forgot to ask).
So, I have no doubt that you have having a bad experience with watching videos....but it would seem a Federal law would be broken if what you seem to be alleging is true. And, I suppose, it is only being broken where you are as evidenced by my Dad's experience. Of course he is 83 and may have nodded off while watching the videos and didn't notice anything.... :-)
Chuckle, while I OTOH, am only nearly 75, and can be presumed to be awake.
Most of the time...
On 08/29/2009 12:30 PM, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
[perhaps off topic, but interesting security implications?]
I wonder if backdoors are installed to comply with government & law enforcement requirements. In the US, Sen. Jay Rockefeller proposes to allow the POTUS to shutdown public & private Internet for any reason they want?
Well back to Skype in the news: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28/skype_trojan_source_code/
Fact or hype?
FWIW, Dan
More 'In the news...', Skype included... read on down the page where it's possible that Skype can remotely view and listen via your webcam. Guess if one does not know what is proprietarily written in code, it can't hurt you? One could be wrong. I have purged Skype from all of my systems, thanks, but no thanks - Open source please? ;)
_http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/opinion/1531895/new-breed-spycams-pose-t...
Dan
On Tue, 2009-09-01 at 14:46 -0700, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
read on down the page where it's possible that Skype can remotely view and listen via your webcam.
That sounds like tinfoil hat rumouring, but I have seen something similarly disconcerting, with flash on some pages: While viewing the odd page with flash on, I've noticed the "on" light for my webcam light up. Of course, I can't tell if that's just because a driver has woken up something, or if the camera is actually sending. But my flash preferences were set to always deny access.
Unfortunately, this webcam is one built into my laptop, so simply disconnecting is not an option. I've opened up as much of the laptop as I can without risking breaking bits, and I can't find a connection for the camera. So mine has tape over it, now.
On Wed, 2009-09-02 at 22:34 +0930, Tim wrote:
Unfortunately, this webcam is one built into my laptop, so simply disconnecting is not an option. I've opened up as much of the laptop as I can without risking breaking bits, and I can't find a connection for the camera. So mine has tape over it, now.
Do you have cotton wool over the microphone as well?
poc
On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 7:28 AM, Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com wrote:
On Sunday 30 August 2009 09:20:59 Tim wrote:
On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 14:09 -0700, Joel Gomberg wrote:
I thought Skype was P2P application
Supposedly it is, but with closed source, you've no real idea what it's going to do. Even hacking software to reverse engineer it may only give you a partial picture, particularly if it's convoluted.
Is there any initiative or attempts to reverse engineer its protocol?
Just drop your land line and use a SIP VOIP client. Then you get a land-line phone number in your country of choice AND you can also use that line to call anywhere when not near your phone, using a Softphone (SIP protocol).
Open standards like SIP make all the difference.
There´s even SIP clients for smartphones... so I can carry my land line with me on my mobile if I want to....
FC
Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2009-09-01 at 14:46 -0700, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
read on down the page where it's possible that Skype can remotely view and listen via your webcam.
That sounds like tinfoil hat rumouring, but I have seen something similarly disconcerting, with flash on some pages: While viewing the odd page with flash on, I've noticed the "on" light for my webcam light up. Of course, I can't tell if that's just because a driver has woken up something, or if the camera is actually sending. But my flash preferences were set to always deny access.
Unfortunately, this webcam is one built into my laptop, so simply disconnecting is not an option. I've opened up as much of the laptop as I can without risking breaking bits, and I can't find a connection for the camera. So mine has tape over it, now.
Just find the ID codes for the webcam and blacklist it in modprobe. If the driver isn't loaded, the camera can't be used. You might also want to mute the microphone using your favorite volume control app. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer ricks@nerd.com - - AIM/Skype: therps2 ICQ: 22643734 Yahoo: origrps2 - - - - "Do you suffer from long-term memory loss?" "I don't remember" - - -- Chumbawumba, "Amnesia" (TubThumping) - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim:
Unfortunately, this webcam is one built into my laptop, so simply disconnecting is not an option. I've opened up as much of the laptop as I can without risking breaking bits, and I can't find a connection for the camera. So mine has tape over it, now.
Patrick O'Callaghan:
Do you have cotton wool over the microphone as well?
No, and that wouldn't stop much, anyway. The same tape covers the microphone, but that'd only make a slight difference. Like those people who think you can't hear what they're saying about someone on the phone when they hold the microphone to their chest... ;-)
But surreptitiously getting people's pictures in private and being able to do something with them, which is dead easy to do, such as people using their laptop in bed, lends itself to all sorts of undesirable scenarios. Merely being there lets someone make use of your picture.
Sound, on the other hand, requires you to be talking. That's probably something most people won't be doing, unless they're really bad readers, or are silly enough to speak out their password as they type it in.
-
Alan Cox -
Bill Davidsen -
Bruno Wolff III -
Dan Thurman -
Ed Greshko -
Fernando Cassia -
Gene Heskett -
Joel Gomberg -
Marko Vojinovic -
Michael Hennebry -
Patrick O'Callaghan -
Rick Stevens -
Roberto Ragusa -
Ryan Lynch -
Steve Blackwell -
Tim