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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

#111

Post by dimino »

meira wrote: post #101
dimino wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is: most of people need it to be safer, and there is no real option. You'll have to elaborate on how this is A) true, and B) there are no options. I can think of a dozen better options than Skype.

A) if you and your contact knows that a channel is compromised, you'll be able to adapt if needed. But if one thinks it is safe, the other don't care about its safeness and it happens to be a compromised channel, the first guy might be in trouble. (B) If the default option was something architecturally safer (like encrypted decentralized mail), they would be able to trust it without need to fully trust the other part…

I was hoping you'd prove that most people consider Skype to be secure, for A, because that's what you claimed. As for B, there are many other options, I don't really know what you mean by "they would be able to trust it without need to fully trust the other parts envolved (contact and service)." Are you saying PGP is backdoored? Do you know something we don't?

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

#113

Post by adeptus »

BonoboIO wrote: post #82

Stopped Using Skype years ago, now with slack and google hangouts ... who needs Skype. Got slower and slower with every version.

I know Slack is trendy, but as a non programmer and old IRC user, I find it is slow, centralized and clunky.

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

#114

Post by muddi900 »

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 still using my old Skype account.

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

#116

Post by mixmastamyk »

dimino wrote: post #109
mixmastamyk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works. If you don't fight for your rights, you will lose them.

That isn't what's at stake here, however, so the hyperbole is unneeded.

History begs to differ. The loss of privacy and LE overreach is real, whether you care about it or not.

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

#117

Post by dimino »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #116
dimino wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't what's at stake here, however, so the hyperbole is unneeded.

History begs to differ. The loss of privacy and LE overreach is real, whether you care about it or not.

Sorry, but a) that's not what I'm talking about, and b) there is no precedent for the Internet.

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

#118

Post by mixmastamyk »

dimino wrote: post #117
mixmastamyk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History begs to differ. The loss of privacy and LE overreach is real, whether you care about it or not.

Sorry, but a) that's not what I'm talking about, and b) there is no precedent for the Internet.

a) False, privacy is exactly what we're talking about. b) irrelevant.

When you allow yourself to be vulnerable to others with power over you especially the government, eventually they will take advantage. Whether you or someone unluckier, and we should protect the weak. This has been recognized for centuries, try reading some Locke or Jefferson.

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

#119

Post by dimino »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #118
dimino wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but a) that's not what I'm talking about, and b) there is no precedent for the Internet.

a) False, privacy is exactly what we're talking about. b) irrelevant. When you allow yourself to be vulnerable to others with power over you especially the government, eventually they will take advantage. Whether you or someone unluckier, and we should protect the weak. This has been recognized for centuries, try reading some Locke or Jefferson.

In the general, yes, we're talking about privacy, but specifically, no, it's not what we're talking about -- we're specifically talking about Skype's need to be completely private, and how if it's not, we're somehow losing the battle for privacy everywhere, as if Skype's insecurity will make people unable to use PGP or some other good encryption.

Just because I can post a bulletin on a public poster board, doesn't mean I can't also write a private letter. There are no "weak" people here, and plenty of better battlefronts to wage this war. Every single messaging platform doesn't need to be completely secure, that's absurd.

Just to back up a second, what is it you think I'm advocating here? That we not have privacy??

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

#120

Post by mixmastamyk »

dimino wrote: post #119
mixmastamyk wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) False, privacy is exactly what we're talking about. b) irrelevant. When you allow yourself to be vulnerable to others with power over you especially the government, eventually they will take advantage. Whether you or someone unluckier, and we should protect the weak. This has been recognized for centuries, try reading some Locke or Jefferson.

In the general, yes, we're talking about privacy, but specifically, no, it's not what we're talking about -- we're specifically talking about Skype's need to be completely private, and how if it's not, we're somehow losing the battle for privacy everywhere, as if Skype's insecurity will make people unable to use PGP or some other good encryption. Just because I can post a bulletin on a public poster board, doesn't me…

No, but the freedom to have "no privacy" is not a problem anyone has. There is no privacy online and no alternatives to Skype that we can get anyone to use.
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