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Skype protocol cracked
A Chinese company has successfully cracked the protocol used by Skype. While the ramifications of this are not yet fully clear, given the fact that Skype runs a commercial service alongside its free peer-to-peer voice over IP service, this can only spell bad news. Interestingly, the fact that the company that has performed the crack is located in China makes for a very difficult situation for Skype; since apparently the Chinese government blocks Skype, it appears that there is no interest amongst Chinese officials to go after this company for the transgression. This leaves Skype with very few options, other than changing their protocol, which would be a very costly move.[via Kevin Tofel]
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Subscribe to commentsAdamJul 16th 2006 2:09AM
If anything the folks at Skype have said is correct, then this is total BS.
Mainly, the fact that Skype uses AES 256-bit encryption makes this essentially uncrackable. We're talking top of the line encryption with AES, enough in fact that the US government uses AES for classified information encryption.
Thus far, any attempts at cracking AES have been theoretical. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard
FabianJul 16th 2006 8:37AM
I think Adam got it quite wrong!
They don't claim to have broken the encryption, they claim to have broken the protocol. That means they have reverse engineered the software and are now able to write their own software that is compatible with Skype. Think of Miranda, Gaim or Trillian using the ICQ protocol without being the ICQ messenger.
This chinese company has now announced to offer application code for licence. That means basically anyone could make Skype-compatible software. There is of course the problem that the reverse engineered stuff is illegal in a lot of countries, but at least the possibilites are given. And, knowing the internet, we can safely assume that such software will be written anyways.
To sum it up, I think we can expect some changes around Skype.