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How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

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Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#21

Post by tluyben2 »

alkonaut wrote: post #16
illuminated wrote: post #2

Sadly, Skype is still used a lot. More than half of the emails I receive with a next step of communication proposal come suggesting Skype. The only way to beat it would be to have another communication solution which can be used as simple as Skype is (for any age, technical literacy, etc.).

This. People talk about various alternatives, but I haven't seen one. The requirements are pretty simple 1) Chat and group chat (persistent) 2) Simple file transfer and image posting in chat 3) Good quality voice calls, video calls and group voice calls 4) Apps for android/iOS with shared contact lists 5) Single application for all of the above (to enable a single group set, switching between group chat and group cal…

3) Is not true for me though, it's awful mostly, but that's my pet peeve (all coders assume everyone else is on a 1000mbit connection as well all the time) and MS is really bad at making anything work on bad connections. Office 365 isn't even getting past the 'wait while loading' while Google drive/docs is completely usable when I have a bad connection (which is often). The software that was written for bad connections, like Whatsapp and Wechat, for me, have much better quality. But no video (which I personally don't need, but it violates your 3rd demand).

Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#22

Post by tokenizerrr »

sebisebi wrote: post #3
illuminated wrote: post #2

Sadly, Skype is still used a lot. More than half of the emails I receive with a next step of communication proposal come suggesting Skype. The only way to beat it would be to have another communication solution which can be used as simple as Skype is (for any age, technical literacy, etc.).

I got a lot of friends to switch to whatsapp. The audio quality and stability is usually better.

How do you use whatsapp from a laptop without signing up using a phone first? Doesn't seem convenient at all.

Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#23

Post by noelwelsh »

Most interesting to me was the response from the MS Security Response Centre: "[T]his is not a valid vulnerability ... [It] relies entirely on social engineering."

This narrow view of what constitutes the system shows that MS Security is seriously flawed. If you run hosted software you have to consider the security aspects of the total system, including support and other human factors. Seems like MS is stuck in the mindset of shrink-wrapped software.

Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#24

Post by pawadu »

bad_user wrote: post #11

Last week Skype dropped 2/3 of my contacts list. I contacted their chat support to tell them about it. The person on the other end was insisting that I might be using another Skype account where my other contacts are. Which of course I ain't since I'm not that stupid. He then suggested the stupid bullshit Tier 1 support usually does, like reinstalling Skype. I did as asked. Then he asked me for remote control of my P…

The support guy sure sounds like an ass...

With that said, is your Skype account linked to a Microsoft live account? In that case thats were your contacts should be now.

Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#25

Post by londons_explore »

walrus01 wrote: post #19
azernik wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been a lot of instances of this happening to feminist or LGBT groups on Facebook and YouTube. These systems are fantastically abusable.

If I were setting up an automated abuse-report-receiving system that could automatically disable accounts, I would run some sort of filter for "is the account reporting the abuse itself a newly created account, and/or one with suspiciously low and non-human looking usage patterns?". But on the other side, malicious actors can solve that problem by having clickfarm workers in bangladesh create 30 fake facebook account…

One can require the account before many years old before having much weighting.

Also, require verified phone number by sms or a verified non prepaid credit card.

Allow the user to use your site without that stuff, but restrict actions that spammers like to requiring it.

Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#26

Post by bad_user »

pawadu wrote: post #24
bad_user wrote: post #11

Last week Skype dropped 2/3 of my contacts list. I contacted their chat support to tell them about it. The person on the other end was insisting that I might be using another Skype account where my other contacts are. Which of course I ain't since I'm not that stupid. He then suggested the stupid bullshit Tier 1 support usually does, like reinstalling Skype. I did as asked. Then he asked me for remote control of my P…

The support guy sure sounds like an ass... With that said, is your Skype account linked to a Microsoft live account? In that case thats were your contacts should be now.

My account is connected to a Microsoft account, but I can no longer authenticate with my Skype credentials, I can only connect with my Microsoft account now.

But it's the same account, the Skype ID is still there. Or in other words, if I indicate my Skype ID as the username in the auth dialog, they now expect my Microsoft password, not my old Skype password (I have unique passwords everywhere).

If you have any idea of how I can get my accounts back (I'm not interested in getting the connections back, just the list of IDs, because I don't remember everyone) that would be great.

Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#27

Post by londons_explore »

tluyben2 wrote: post #21
alkonaut wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. People talk about various alternatives, but I haven't seen one. The requirements are pretty simple 1) Chat and group chat (persistent) 2) Simple file transfer and image posting in chat 3) Good quality voice calls, video calls and group voice calls 4) Apps for android/iOS with shared contact lists 5) Single application for all of the above (to enable a single group set, switching between group chat and group cal…

3) Is not true for me though, it's awful mostly, but that's my pet peeve (all coders assume everyone else is on a 1000mbit connection as well all the time) and MS is really bad at making anything work on bad connections. Office 365 isn't even getting past the 'wait while loading' while Google drive/docs is completely usable when I have a bad connection (which is often). The software that was written for bad connectio…

WhatsApp has had video for a while now...

I'm guessing on your slow connection the update is still pending...

Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#28

Post by pawadu »

tluyben2 wrote: post #21
alkonaut wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. People talk about various alternatives, but I haven't seen one. The requirements are pretty simple 1) Chat and group chat (persistent) 2) Simple file transfer and image posting in chat 3) Good quality voice calls, video calls and group voice calls 4) Apps for android/iOS with shared contact lists 5) Single application for all of the above (to enable a single group set, switching between group chat and group cal…

3) Is not true for me though, it's awful mostly, but that's my pet peeve (all coders assume everyone else is on a 1000mbit connection as well all the time) and MS is really bad at making anything work on bad connections. Office 365 isn't even getting past the 'wait while loading' while Google drive/docs is completely usable when I have a bad connection (which is often). The software that was written for bad connectio…

> 3) Good quality voice calls, video calls and group voice calls

In my experience, voice quality issues is almost always due to the people and not the technology.

Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#29

Post by pawadu »

coob wrote: post #17
robert_foss wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://appear.in/yourconferencename is rather convenient and should be usable by anyone with a browser.

appear.in regularly pegs my CPU at 100% :(

and silently drops connections.

you keep talking for 10 minutes before you realize the other end was kicked out of the meeting...

Re: How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities

#30

Post by ciaranm »

alkonaut wrote: post #16
illuminated wrote: post #2

Sadly, Skype is still used a lot. More than half of the emails I receive with a next step of communication proposal come suggesting Skype. The only way to beat it would be to have another communication solution which can be used as simple as Skype is (for any age, technical literacy, etc.).

This. People talk about various alternatives, but I haven't seen one. The requirements are pretty simple 1) Chat and group chat (persistent) 2) Simple file transfer and image posting in chat 3) Good quality voice calls, video calls and group voice calls 4) Apps for android/iOS with shared contact lists 5) Single application for all of the above (to enable a single group set, switching between group chat and group cal…

Discord does most of this.

I've entirely moved to using it for voice comms with people where I'm suggesting the platform. It's guest support is pretty robust, so just fire someone a link and they can dial in from their browser if they don't have the app. Call quality is better than Skype, there's separate persistent chat rooms too. I like it a lot.

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