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Skype protocol reverse engineered, source available

skype-open-source.blogspot.com

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Re: Skype protocol reverse engineered, source available

#141

Post by TerryS »

tttp wrote: post #28

Two major issues: http://skype-open-source.blogspot.com/2011/06/skype-under-rc... | | Copyright (c) 2004-2009 by VEST Corporation. | | All rights reserved. Strictly Confidential! The project is using existing code, and "All rights reserved" is not an approved OSI license I believe ;) And things like compression algorithm are patented, and that's very likely skype is using some of it. Reminds me of a project by Intel…

"All rights reserved" is not an obstacle to an OSI license. If you open source some code then you can still reserve all your rights to the code. This mean that you can redistribute/sell/license it under any other licensing schemes you wish to. Other people, of course, can only use it under the license you grant them.

Re: Skype protocol reverse engineered, source available

#142

Post by sometwo »

comex wrote: post #117
Xuzz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is incorrect. I purchased IDA Pro as an individual this year, and I am a simply a student interested in reverse engineering. (I believe what you are saying may be true for the "advanced" version, but from what I can tell anyone can purchase IDA Pro Standard.)

Assuming that the deleted parent is about the difficulty of purchasing IDA, as you know, it's only somewhat incorrect. I have wanted to buy IDA for almost a year now, but Hex-Rays is very picky about how they receive their money; I could probably arrange for it somehow but it is an completely inordinate amount of hassle. (And no, bank transfers are not only required with a student discount; I was willing to pay twice…

I think bank transfer is a requirement only for first-time private users, probably because credit cards are too easy to steal/fake and chargeback.

Re: Skype protocol reverse engineered, source available

#143

Post by pipaman »

braindead_in wrote: post #56
gst wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've got spyware installed on one of the endpoints you don't need any backdoor in Skype. Just dump the audio output and input directly from the audio card.

Easier said then done. The most reliable way to dump audio output is by API Hooking, which isn't easy in the first place and detectable by AV, Spybot etc. It much simpler to intercept the network traffic.

We at http://internals.nektra.com have done this for several customers. It's not easy but it really works.

Re: Skype protocol reverse engineered, source available

#145

Post by Eternal »

jcr wrote: post #44

I wouldn't venture to say this doesn't belong on HN since it really is interesting (if it was actually done correctly), but the files available for download are most likely illegal, were most likely created with pirated tools (IDA Pro/Hex-Rays, and yes, as a customer of theirs for over a dozen years I've reported it), and of course, the usual vilification of reverse engineering. If you're reading this on a desktop or…

I'm not a US citizen or a lawyer but is the separation of implementation and exploration really required by the copyright laws (ignoring patent issues)?

I can understand that exploration/implementation division as a preemptive "don't sue us" move, but do US copyright really provide that such strong protection that someone who has looked at a decompilation can't be writing an independent implementation? It seems to me the writing an implementation with a different structure or in another language ought to be different enough for copyright reasons.

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