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Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

blogs.voxeo.com

31–40 of 45 posts

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#31
post #17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same thing. What other big company CEO's would even think of investigating why their Skype was more jittery in some hotels, let alone actually know how to do it.

probably busy running big companies

CEOs have no free time? They don't eat, sleep, or rest. They will not stop until the stock prices surge?

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#32
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've looked around for the ability to turn off supernode on Linux and Mac clients for a while but have come up empty. Do you know which section of the preferences/settings it's supposed to be in?

I don't think there's a UI element for it, but you have to add a registry key, see here: https://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/view/CF/SkypeConfiguration...

How pray-tell, does a Windows registry entry disable super node functionality on Linux and/or MacOSX?

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#33
Well, the big question is not if Skype went down becase lots of supernodes crashed. The question is why they crashed, and if the trigger was external. There are messages on p2p-hackers list arguing just that:

  I have evidence that suggests this is being done 
  by a ddos attack on the supernodes' object list 
  cmd parameter.

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#34
post #5
post #2

A wonderful reason to have pre-release testers for every piece of software that communicates with other software, any time you plan to push updates. With pulls, your early updaters are your test beds; with push, you have to create your testing groups.

The problem with a big adaptive p2p network is that it is close to impossible to test under real production loads.

They could have setup their 'mega-supernodes' running the new client in a production environment, so that if it crashed horribly, it wasn't a client machine that failed (or their entire network).

Upgrading (relatively) untested software network-wide on what is essentially their critical infrastructure is bad news. If this didn't happen now, it would happen sometime. It was just a question of when.

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#35

I had the same issue: Shortly before Skype went completely offline, my Windows Skype client suddenly started crashing every few minutes. The Mac client didn't have that problem. Some bug in the new version is probably the likeliest explanation, but if someone deliberately attacked the Skype network, it would probably look similar, right?

...or vice versa. a bug could easily look like an attack.

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#36
post #25
post #6

Nice to see the CEO of a large company that knows how to walk the talk. I've also seen him post on HN. Does Steve Ballmer know the difference between a micro and monolithic kernel?

I am also surprised that a company as large as his, uses Skype instant messaging for their communication.

We're a very distributed company, with some projects being worked on by people in a dozen locations, so some form of IM is needed.

I'm a big XMPP proponent (and Voxeo acquired my xmpp-based company) and we do use XMPP for a lot of things inside Voxeo (like Phono, our jquery softphone: http://phono.com/).

Every voxeo employee has an XMPP ID, but they don't tend to get used. People gravitate to Skype naturally. It's the user experience on the client side of XMPP that keeps people from using it extensively for internal communications. At any given time I've got 40+ group chats going on and we create and destroy group chats many times a week for specific needs. The ability to make a voice call to one or more participants of the chat is also a winner.

The fact that everyone on the planet has a Skype ID also helps. We can easily pull partners and customers into chats as needed. They're already on Skype, so we don't need to teach them anything new.

It's a lesson in usability, certainly. Create a client that allows users, without any assistance, to create groups, move seamlessly between text, voice, and video, and has a foolproof signup and setup process, and folks will use it.

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#37

I had the same issue: Shortly before Skype went completely offline, my Windows Skype client suddenly started crashing every few minutes. The Mac client didn't have that problem. Some bug in the new version is probably the likeliest explanation, but if someone deliberately attacked the Skype network, it would probably look similar, right?

You're not going to get full client crashes without a major bug. Some amount of attack is possible but I've been getting crashes for a couple weeks now and skype should have fixed things.

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#38
post #31
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

probably busy running big companies

CEOs have no free time? They don't eat, sleep, or rest. They will not stop until the stock prices surge?

Wow, Ballmer must be pretty tired by now

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#39
post #32
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a UI element for it, but you have to add a registry key, see here: https://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/view/CF/SkypeConfiguration...

How pray-tell, does a Windows registry entry disable super node functionality on Linux and/or MacOSX?

Well barring effective virtualization, booting into Windows disables supernode functionality on Windows and MacOSX in the same sense that a brownout does

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#40
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their opening of the client is more of an opening of the interface -- all of the real work will still be performed by a proprietary blob that the open interface interacts with. I don't think that will be very useful. I'd prefer if they released something that was _really_ open-source.

It would be more useful then the current state of affairs. With a proprietary blob to talk to, it would be possible for people to do things like write text-based clients in curses, or the suggested 'server' version of Skype specifically for running as a super node or relay node.

We don't know how flexible the blob they give us will be. Since the current interface has no provision for toggling or dealing with one's status on the P2P network, there's no reason to believe that that will necessarily be a feature that the blob exports; Skype may still keep the network communications totally opaque, all handled behind the black magic of the blob, which would simply export the basics like contact list, etc.
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