Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling • Hacker News Board

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#81

Post by kyro » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:20 PM UTC

jallmann wrote: post #77

kyro wrote: post #66

Yes, please, please, please kill Skype. Kill it mercilessly. Using it has been the worst experience I've ever had with an application. I've been in a long distance relationship for a few years now and Skype has sadly been our main mode of video communication. The app crashes when I search chat history, can take upwards of 90+% of my CPU, literally forcing me to shut down every other application I have running. The fo…

Not saying Skype is perfect (it isn't), but WebRTC by itself doesn't come close to being a Skype substitute. While stability for particular client-side bits (media, transport, etc) will now now fall on the browser vendor, you're still going to depend on another service for all the niceties (media and signaling relay, contacts, presence, history, etc), and they could screw it up just as badly as Skype, or worse. Skype…

What matters most to me is video chatting that doesn't suck. If WebRTC is that and only that, I would be more than willing to use another chat app as a buddy list and for chat history.

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#82

Post by sandfox » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:20 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #72

kyro wrote: post #66

Yes, please, please, please kill Skype. Kill it mercilessly. Using it has been the worst experience I've ever had with an application. I've been in a long distance relationship for a few years now and Skype has sadly been our main mode of video communication. The app crashes when I search chat history, can take upwards of 90+% of my CPU, literally forcing me to shut down every other application I have running. The fo…

The one key element of a Skype Killer, which isn't present in WebRTC, is a prescribed infrastructure to support these communications. Skype is made up of users who actually are, usually, unaware that they are also routing calls for other users. Even more precarious (and absent from WebRTC) are the skype SuperNodes, which no one is going to redo for WebRTC. The things which we love about skype, most notably the direct…

Google twelephone

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#83

Post by pteredactyl » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:24 PM UTC

That's cute.

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#84

Post by TranceMan » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:24 PM UTC

homosaur wrote: post #68

TranceMan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if we encrypt stuff we are not spied on? Naive....

Yeah, but what does it matter then? I can stand outside the bank safe all day and stare at it but unless I know the code I'm still just looking at a locked box. Strong encryption is the same way, feel free to stare at my VPN stream all day, it won't help you.

You fail to get my point, why do you think that that the US has has little issue with allowing encryption to be used these days?

How strong is your 'locked' box? It's only a bunch of 1s and 0s.

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#85

Post by mnutt » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:25 PM UTC

jallmann wrote: post #77

kyro wrote: post #66

Yes, please, please, please kill Skype. Kill it mercilessly. Using it has been the worst experience I've ever had with an application. I've been in a long distance relationship for a few years now and Skype has sadly been our main mode of video communication. The app crashes when I search chat history, can take upwards of 90+% of my CPU, literally forcing me to shut down every other application I have running. The fo…

Not saying Skype is perfect (it isn't), but WebRTC by itself doesn't come close to being a Skype substitute. While stability for particular client-side bits (media, transport, etc) will now now fall on the browser vendor, you're still going to depend on another service for all the niceties (media and signaling relay, contacts, presence, history, etc), and they could screw it up just as badly as Skype, or worse. Skype…

You're correct that you'll depend on another service for all the niceties, but I for one am super excited about decoupling all of those services from the connection itself. Hopefully it'll lead to a lot more competition and innovation in the space.

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#86

Post by TranceMan » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:28 PM UTC

sdp wrote: post #63

TranceMan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if we encrypt stuff we are not spied on? Naive....

Encrypting data certainly increases the barrier to entry for spying.

No it doesn't, it means if somebody doesn't really want to spy on you they just will not waste their time....

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#87

Post by dhx » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:31 PM UTC

dhx wrote: post #75

jstalin wrote: post #6

Well, it's encrypted, so that seems like a reasonable alternative to the potential of being spied upon when using Skype.

It may be encrypted -- but is it protected against traffic analysis? The following papers are a good starting point: [1] Guessing the URLs being browsed by users over an encrypted TLS session: https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gdane/papers/... [2] Guessing the co-ordinates of where a user is scrolling around on Google Maps over an encrypted TLS session: http://www.ioactive.com/pdfs/SSLTrafficAnalysisOnGo…

To explain further in the context of WebRTC, traffic analysis of the encrypted data could determine the pace and duration patterns of speech between multiple speakers. This could:

(a) narrow down or uniquely identify each party

(b) provide information on the mood of each party (are they interrupting other speakers more often than usual?)

(c) guess the nature of the call (information dump from one person to another, one person quizzing another person, ...)

(d) determine the languages used in the conversation

(e) guess demographic information from the conversation including approximate level of education/intellect, age, male/female, ...

(f) narrow down the physical location of speakers who are attempting to mask their identity through intermediate nodes

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#88

Post by aeflash » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:32 PM UTC

TranceMan wrote: post #84

homosaur wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but what does it matter then? I can stand outside the bank safe all day and stare at it but unless I know the code I'm still just looking at a locked box. Strong encryption is the same way, feel free to stare at my VPN stream all day, it won't help you.

You fail to get my point, why do you think that that the US has has little issue with allowing encryption to be used these days? How strong is your 'locked' box? It's only a bunch of 1s and 0s.

Unless the NSA/FBI/whatever is decades ahead in mathematical research from what is common in academia, or has computers that are many orders of magnitude faster than what we have today, well encrypted data is basically random data to anyone who lacks the keys. That's a pretty tough locked box.

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#89

Post by jallmann » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:34 PM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #8

It's good to see this moving forward. A few questions need to be addressed in order for this to become really useful. How is XMPP/Jingle supposed to work over WebRTC? I.e. in order for the browser to connect to a standalone VoIP client for example (think of implementing Google Talk plugin in pure JavaScript). From what it looks like, this can require some support for this scenario in XMPP servers (not unlike they nee…

Interoperability with V/VoIP protocols will still require a translation layer somewhere. That can be on the browser, or on the server, but you will still need some server-side component to relay the signaling information through (eg, websocket proxy), or a browser-interoperability mechanism (for xmpp, BOSH). If the remote endpoint doesn't support WebRTC's flavor of SRTP, then you're going to have to relay media through your server.

If SDP offer/answer is still being considered for WebRTC, then that should simplify interop a bit since media negotiation shares a common denominator with most other V/VoIP protocols (which is really the only relevant part when we're talking about WebRTC). Of course, all that is moot if both endpoints can't agree on a codec to support. Opus is brand new, and no one cares about VP8. Hardware devices are not likely to be compatible anytime soon (without a transcoding layer in between), which leaves softphones.

Re: Hello Firefox, this is Chrome calling

#90

Post by icambron » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 10:37 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #72

kyro wrote: post #66

Yes, please, please, please kill Skype. Kill it mercilessly. Using it has been the worst experience I've ever had with an application. I've been in a long distance relationship for a few years now and Skype has sadly been our main mode of video communication. The app crashes when I search chat history, can take upwards of 90+% of my CPU, literally forcing me to shut down every other application I have running. The fo…

The one key element of a Skype Killer, which isn't present in WebRTC, is a prescribed infrastructure to support these communications. Skype is made up of users who actually are, usually, unaware that they are also routing calls for other users. Even more precarious (and absent from WebRTC) are the skype SuperNodes, which no one is going to redo for WebRTC. The things which we love about skype, most notably the direct…

It would seem to greatly lower the cost of building a Skype-killer, though, and that's a pretty big deal.