07.01.12
Microsoft Skype Takes Over Machines Without Users’ Knowledge
Conversations recorded by those in power
Summary: Another timely reminder of the ‘aggressive’ nature of Microsoft’s Skype
IT is a little frustrating to see how various GNU/Linux bloggers are helping Skype, despite the newly-acquired NSA access to it, as we explained last year and this year. Microsoft is pushing automatic updates with a new EULA (waiver). In fact, there is malicious staff associated with this action:
Apparently by mistake, Microsoft’s Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) last night deployed a Skype update to Windows clients that had never had the telephony and messaging software installed. This resulted in Skype being installed on these computers.
Pushing binary blobs into people’s machines is not a service. It is actually a potential hazard, even if it comes from Google. When proprietary software gets proprietary modification it is impossible to know just what is happening underneath. A lot of time it is code which harms the user. A lot of the time software stays proprietary precisely because it harms the user; if made free, the malicious features would be stripped by users and their development-savvy peers. █
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Needs Sunlight said,
July 1, 2012 at 11:40 am
The alternative to Skype is SIP, but it needs more active promotion. Skype receives all the marketing and SIP barely gets a mention even in FOSS sites.
Also, while SIP is only a little less robust in regards to network problems, most SIP clients seem to lack the auto-redial feature that Skype has. When a bad network connection breaks a call in Skype, it automatically reconnects. With a SIP connection, the calls is dropped and the reconnection must be done manually. It’s a world of difference in how the technology is perceived especially by novice users.
dyfet said,
July 1, 2012 at 2:24 pm
We do of course develop sip but it is rather challenging, and silence does seem part of that problem. There does seems much interest in funding for furthering the means of enabling government or private communication intercept, and even in developing many other forms of less “openly” malicious but still malicious as entirely proprietary communication solutions and projects, but none I have found to support what we are actively doing. We would do more faster if we could.