[Lilux-help] Skype !?

[Mike Pressel]

Pascal, I've been fairly happily using Skype on Linux for several months now.  
I can't say just about security as there really isn't a way for me to check 
(I haven't been hacked yet).  

However, I can say that Skype for Linux still isn't very mature.  They do not 
support alsa, so you have to run the skype binary through artsdsp.  Most of 
the time it works fine, but occasionally, I have some really bad delays in 
the line (10 or more seconds).  This only occurs when I am talking with my 
wife who is also running skype on a Linux box.  Interestingly, despite Skype 
being Headquartered in Luxembourg (I'm pretty sure that it is the minimal 
legal staffing there) Luxembourg is the most expensive country in Western 
Europe to call using Skype Out. 

At present Skype doesn't have the capability of receiving phone calls from 
traditional telephones.  Though it can place calls to them.  They are 
supposedly working on this though.  

Now, if you are looking for an open source and open standard solution, take a 
look at www.sipgate.de for a publically accessable PBX.  You can then use 
something like linphone or kphone to connect to it.  Also, if you are really 
advanced and you happen to have a VoIP phone sitting around, you can connect 
it direct to the internet.  Sipgate offers German and UK based phone numbers 
that are accessable from normal phone lines and there are a number of other 
similar organizations around if you don't like sipgate.

The two big advantages of Skype over sipgate are that it "just works" so, NAT, 
proxies, and firewall rules are not much of an issue.  sipgate can be a pain 
to configure if you don't know what you are doing.

Now, if you are a hopeless networking nerd like myself, then check out this 
technical report on the skype protocol from a student at Columbia University:

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~library/TR-repository/reports/reports-2004/cucs-039-04.pdf

Mike

On Thursday 17 February 2005 09:32, pascal.steichen at lilux.lu wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Did anybody already download and use the skype P2P telephony tool ? Heard
> that its relatively nice, however do I have my concerns about the securiy
> inside, they talk about end-to-end enreyption, but as it's closed source I
> can't really check its quality.
>
> Has anybody knowledge about the quality of skype's security ? As it's a
> Luxembourg company, my interests are of courye also on a professional
> basis ;)
>
> thanks for any answers, links, etc.
>
> ciao,
> pst