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Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

arstechnica.com

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Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#51

Post by rconti »

mrweasel wrote: post #9
dzdt wrote: post #5

Isn't the elephant in the room competing services : facetime, or facebook messenger, or whatever the google product is?

Which are all terrible in a business setting. Facebook is block at my employer, because most people doesn't seem to understand that they shouldn't be on Facebook during work hours. Also many companies doesn't exactly like it when you use a private account for business related communication. Google Hangout is just horrible, and not only because I'm require to have an Google account (and I'm NOT using person accounts f…

Hangouts is the most godawful piece of software ever.

It's yet another piece of GoogleAbandonware.

They tried to force everyone into New Hangouts at least once, I'm not sure what came of that, or if I'm using it now, or what.

The biggest offense is their inability to offer a proper windowed experience; instead it relies on a browser-as-a-window-manager nightmare. You can't use your OS's window manager to deal with it in a rational/sane way, the rules of how and why you might get a sound notification for a message are impenetrable. I can't mute a conversation on the computer but leave audio notifications on my phone. I can't login/logout on my phone without a number of slow actions (I really wish I could schedule my availability), it's just.. ugh.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#52

Post by kome »

lkrubner wrote: post #18

A personal anecdote: I had the same account on Skype for most of the last 10 years. The same username. It was stable. Lots of people could contact me reliably. It was an account that was created long before Skype was bought by Microsoft. Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login. There was some kind of "improvement" in the way authentication was done. So I had to…

> Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login.

I still use my very old skype account, not linked to any Microsoft ID.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#53

Post by cptskippy »

throwanem wrote: post #37
CaptSpify wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any difference in security between business-skype and normal-skype?

Probably, since "Skype for Business" is a renamed Microsoft Lync and has basically no technology in common with Skype per se. (Its user experience is also terrible, but differently so.)

They use the same icon and follow the same mantra "crash early, crash often."

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#56

Post by sandworm101 »

lkrubner wrote: post #18

A personal anecdote: I had the same account on Skype for most of the last 10 years. The same username. It was stable. Lots of people could contact me reliably. It was an account that was created long before Skype was bought by Microsoft. Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login. There was some kind of "improvement" in the way authentication was done. So I had to…

>I am a professional computer programmer. If I can't figure out how to reset a password on Skype, then what are the chances that a less technical person can do it?

The days of 'being good with computers' are gone. UIs change so rapidly that core skills are useless in comparison to daily use. You could be a linux guru with decades of database dev skills, but any 14yo youtuber will probably navigate a website better. I'm a lawyer. I know lots about tax law, more than most accountants. That doesn't help me navigate the tax office's website. My accountant is the expert there. (Actually, even she has someone who does the web stuff.)

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#57

Post by douche »

throwanem wrote: post #37
CaptSpify wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any difference in security between business-skype and normal-skype?

Probably, since "Skype for Business" is a renamed Microsoft Lync and has basically no technology in common with Skype per se. (Its user experience is also terrible, but differently so.)

An endless source of confusion. What's even more fun is that the two clients almost, but don't really, interoperate, when the stars are in the correct alignment. Peer-to-peer calls and instant messages tend to be okay, but things go sideways when they get stepped into an n-way. It's buckets of fun trying to figure out why some calls get dropped by a Lync-based chat application, only to figure out that the customer was using the wrong client.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#58

Post by nitrogen »

dangero wrote: post #34
1ris wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am a professional computer programmer. If I can't figure out how to reset a password on Skype, then what are the chances that a less technical person can do it? Had the same experience with the german postal service a few week ago. When you register there, you register for their shitty amazon-clone aswell. Turns out, you have only one account with one passwort, but the two sites have different password polices. My…

Man that's bad. Enforcing password policies at sign-in seems like a terribly flawed idea.

It can also happen if the API call to create the user on the other system is asynchronous and/or not checked for errors, and the API enforces the same (differing) password policy.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#59

Post by wepple »

binarymax wrote: post #2

Not sure about that elephant. Anyone using Skype still assuming their conversation is secure and private, is exceedingly naive. Those who really need security and privacy, know not to use Skype.

I feel that if a users assumption of privacy was based on skype being peer-to-peer and are now concerned their calls are being routed via the cloud, are in a bit of a misunderstanding about how intercept/collection can work.
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