Software Security

[+Silverblue]

Last week, someone told me my signal on Michael's show had been bad the week before, said it was crappy, and suggested Skype. I've heard a few complaints about it through the years, but this person said the program is more secure than others. I went to their site, read their terms and privacy statements, saw their claims of security, and tried downloading it, but was unable to. Today I saw disturbing news that Skype has 3 holes in it, despite their claim it is secure. This really upsets me. I'm glad I was unable to download it afterall. Below is an article from PC Magazine about this situation. I know there's no guarantee of a totally secure program or system, but when I see stuff like this it makes me wonder. It seems it wasn't meant to b for me to have Skype. I was gonna e-mail them to ask for help, now I'm not feeling motivated to get it, so I hope my signal on the show will be ok and maybe someday Skype will fix these holes so I can use it through blogtalkradio and have a better signal.

 

Problems With Skype

 

Remember this thread isn't only about Skype. If anyone knows how to make it work, I'd be interested, though I still wanna wait till they fix it, if they ever do. I'm not technically inclined but I do my best and manage well enough most the time, having been on computers since 1994. I don't count the times before Windows when I tried to learn. I'll be following the Skype story carefully and will post any info I get. I hope there's some interest in these issues; having strong security is a major concern for everyone.

 

Sincerely, Sb

[1337Gr33n]

Skype is a form of Peer-to-peer (P2P) software. with ANY P2P, there are going to be security holes because you are sharing files on one another's computers, essentially. (not really, but that is the jist of it.)

[+420Atheist]

I agree with 1337 completely. There is nothing that is 100% secure. One thing to keep in mind is a lot of these security issues are theoretical but not very likely in real world situations. For example in wireless I can crack any WEP key in about 5 minutes but the last WPA I tried to crack said it would take 4 years to get the answer. Possible? Sure but not very likely. As always using secure passwords and using antivirus/antispyware software is your best defense.

 

Most of these hackers are not interested in your data or listening to you on the phone anyway. They just want to use your computer as a bot so they can launch more attacks without being discovered easily.

[+Silverblue]

Thanks for the input. I do my best to stay secure, though when I see reports like the one I linked to, I am concerned. I wish I were more technically inclined.

 

Sb

[Dman]

Most of these hackers are not interested in your data or listening to you on the phone anyway. They just want to use your computer as a bot so they can launch more attacks without being discovered easily.

 

 

Yep this is very true. They only want to use your computer. To have 1 computer hacking away you get very little done. To have 1000 computers hacking away you get a lot done.

[+Silverblue]

Recently I saw another mention of Skype being unsecure, there's some kind of extension for it for the browser but someone said it's unsafe to use.

 

Sb

[+420Atheist]

I would agree with that. Often time extensions to browsers or whatever can make the insecure. On the plus side there will not be many people trying to exploit it unless it is a very popular extension.

 

The best thing you can do is run linux for your OS. I don't run any antivirus and have hit several infected web sites (I hang out in the dark alleys on the Internet once in a while) but never get infected. Virus are made for Microsoft because most systems run that.