Skype 4.0 for Linux NOW AVAILABLE and WORKS

[GreyGeek]

A relative called me yesterday evening. His wife's Win7 threw an error and neither he nor she could fix it. I led them to Microsoft's "MrFixIt" website by sending the URL via the chat window (I'm running 4.0.0.7), which worked fine. I don't use the IM.

When she had problems with MrFixIt I asked her to share her screen with me. When she tried she got a msg saying that the screen sharing feature was only available in the paid version of Skype. He and I often use Skype and share screens, but we hadn't shared a screen since MS bought Skype.

She later got MrFixIt to fix her problem, so she didn't have to reinstall Win7 and risk loosing her Kubuntu Precise partition, which she uses to do her online banking and shopping.

[Snowhog]

When she had problems with MrFixIt I asked her to share her screen with me. When she tried she got a msg saying that the screen sharing feature was only available in the paid version of Skype. He and I often use Skype and share screens, but we hadn't shared a screen since MS bought Skype.

Have then in stall TeamViewer!

[GreyGeek]

Have then in stall TeamViewer!

After you and I played with it he was the first person I told about it. He installed it and we played with it for a couple hours, exploring it. But, neither of us have been using it since. I suggested that he install TV7 on his wife's computer but SHE didn't want him to install it. So now he's trying to convince her otherwise.

[GreyGeek]

I've been running Skype 4.0.0.7-1 without any problems since Skype made it available for Linux. Last night I upgraded to the 4.0.0.8 version. I don't know what bugs they were trying to fix, or what features they were trying to add or remove, but the new version isn't running as well as the previous one. Specifically, when turning off a shared screen your video does not always restart reliably in .8 as it did in .7. Also, in .7 I never got a video freeze. In .8 my thumbnail video freezes, even though my video is normal to the person I am talking to.

With the 2.x version of Skype for Linux when someone shared their screen with you it appeared in a separate window which could be re-sized to fill almost the entire screen. Not only that, using the mouse wheel one could zoom in on an area of the shared screen and see an enlarged portion of it. A single button could fill the screen. That made it easy to read text and see details not normally visible with the full screen setting. This feature is missing from 4.0.0.x. The captured screen appears in the Skype window, replacing the video from the user whose screen has been captured. To make the capture even slightly usable one has to make the Skype window full screen, and even then the captured screen only fills about 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the window. Zooming in isn't available. It is impossible to read error messages unless they happen to be in big print. As a screen capture it appears to be trying to mimic the Google hangout feature where participants can view the same video, a situation where resolution degradation won't matter except to the purist.

The problems aren't bad enough to merit a downgrade because turning my video off and then back on fixes them. But, as far as using Skype and its shared screen for remote problem solving, not any more. I'll be making sure those who want my help have installed TeamView7.

[dequire]

I've been running Skype 4.0.0.7-1 without any problems since Skype made it available for Linux. Last night I upgraded to the 4.0.0.8 version. I don't know what bugs they were trying to fix, or what features they were trying to add or remove, but the new version isn't running as well as the previous one. Specifically, when turning off a shared screen your video does not always restart reliably in .8 as it did in .7. Also, in .7 I never got a video freeze. In .8 my thumbnail video freezes, even though my video is normal to the person I am talking to.

With the 2.x version of Skype for Linux when someone shared their screen with you it appeared in a separate window which could be re-sized to fill almost the entire screen. Not only that, using the mouse wheel one could zoom in on an area of the shared screen and see an enlarged portion of it. A single button could fill the screen. That made it easy to read text and see details not normally visible with the full screen setting. This feature is missing from 4.0.0.x. The captured screen appears in the Skype window, replacing the video from the user whose screen has been captured. To make the capture even slightly usable one has to make the Skype window full screen, and even then the captured screen only fills about 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the window. Zooming in isn't available. It is impossible to read error messages unless they happen to be in big print. As a screen capture it appears to be trying to mimic the Google hangout feature where participants can view the same video, a situation where resolution degradation won't matter except to the purist.

The problems aren't bad enough to merit a downgrade because turning my video off and then back on fixes them. But, as far as using Skype and its shared screen for remote problem solving, not any more. I'll be making sure those who want my help have installed TeamView7.

Uh oh...I think you'll have a perked interest in this article from Forbes. I will NOT be using Skype. Hopefully some of the hackers who have taken the released code can produce a clean or forked open source client. I'm starting to trust no one.

[GreyGeek]

Before Microsoft purchased Skype they applied, on Dec 23rd, 2009 for a patent on "Legal Intercept" for both VOIP and Skype. The normal time between application and grant appeared to be significantly shortened because the patent was granted on June 23rd, 1011. Nineteen months.
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...RS=20110153809

This article was written six days after the patent was awarded and makes the following comments:

Microsoft was recently granted a patent for a technology called Legal Intercept, which apparently enables Microsoft to secretly intercept, monitor and record Skype calls. I'm skeptical. Many Skype calls are peer-to-peer (P2P) with the packets traveling across different router hops. There's no way to predict exactly where the packets are going.

Of course, if you know the target user's ISP, a government entity could put a packet capture device at the ISP where all the user's traffic goes first. However, Skype uses 256 bit AES encryption, which is very difficult to crack. So simply capturing the packets doesn't seem like a feasible way to wiretap Skype. Unless Microsoft's patent involves remotely turning off the encryption within the Skype client, I just don't see how this would work. Of course, this would be classified as a "back door", which Skype users won't be happy about.

According to Computer World, Microsoft's patent application for Legal Intercept was filed in 2009, which is before Microsoft's $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype. The patent was apparently granted last week. The abstract description of the patent doesn't really explain how exactly Microsoft intercepts peer-to-peer Skype traffic, but perhaps this patent only covers when Skype calls touch the PSTN?
...

With P2P routing the only fixed factor are the IP addresses of the caller and callee. The route a specific packet would take is not predictable, so it would be impossible to "tap" into a call unless you had a back door on either of the user's computers, a backdoor which tapped into the stream before the RSA encryption was applied at the source, or after it was decrypted at the destination. To tap it in mid-stream would require knowledge of the RSA keys.


So, with the announcement that because of "the collapse" of the Skype P2P network which, in my opinion is totally baloney, Microsoft is establishing a network of Linux servers to act as supernodes to handle Skype calls. I can understand why they'd not eat their own dog food and use Linux instead of WinSever 2008. Check out the pertinent parts of the patent:

12. The computer storage medium of claim 11, wherein receiving a request to establish a communication session comprises receiving the request at a component that resides in a communication path of at least one of the at least two entities, the communication path transporting attempts to establish communication sessions that include audio.

.....

14. The computer storage medium of claim 11, wherein changing the data comprises changing a flag, the flag indicating that the path that includes the recording agent be used for the communication session.

15. The computer storage medium of claim 11, wherein changing the data comprises adding additional data to the data, the additional data indicating that the path that includes the recording agent is to be used for the communication session.

Even with Linux server farms operating the supernodes and having recorders installed on them, a knowledge of the RSA keys would still be required. This, as far as I can tell, would be possible only if each Skype client sent the RSA keys with VOIP data stream. So, I believe you are right, Dequire. I believe that the Linux version of Skype 4.x has a back door in it. I further predict that in the near future the Skype supernodes will reject any packets sent from Skype clients that do not have the back doors. Users will be forced to either upgrade or not use Skype.

There are, at any given time, millions of Skype calls in progress. I suspect that each Linux server will have the ability to record the audio of dozens of calls at once. The big problem, of course, is how the Feds will determine who to monitor and tap.

I think this event also explains why Cisco put backdoors into their wireless routers. The Feds asked them to and since they had to do so, or risk Federal harassment, they decided to take advantage of it and force a registration on their new cloud. Cisco has since canceled the cloud registration requirement but I doubt that they have removed the back door.

Is Google Voice or Hangout getting the Federal treatment? I suspect that it is.


Will I continue to use Skype? Probably, at times, but with the certain knowledge that Big Brother-1984 could be listening in. I have little doubt that back doors have been put into many, if not most, of the critical communication apps and infrastructures.

What is taking place in this country (America) is little different from what the son of a friend of mine says happens in China, where he has recently earned his Masters in Linguistics at Beijing University. What is really sad is that this HAS happened in America, and everyone who warned about it in the past were called paranoids and qooks at the time. The 10 Amendments to the Bill of Rights have been MUCH MORE than infringed. They've been shredded and are essentially meaningless when it really matters. The 4th Amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

but that means NOTHING when a lower level FBI agent can write up his own search warrant without specifying what is to be searched for:

.. the three most troubling aspects of the Patriot Act are Section 213, Section 215 and the National Security Letter statute.


Section 213 allows “sneak and peak” searches. This means that the government can enter your house with a search warrant when you are away, search through your property, even seize property and not tell you they were there, until much later. Section 215 allows FBI agents to look through private records of your finances, medical history, Internet usage, bookstore purchases, library usage or any other activity that leaves a record. This type of surveillance can be triggered by the books you read, the websites you visit or a letter you write to the editor of a newspaper.


The National Security Letter (NSL) statute allows federal agents to write their own search warrants without having to show probable cause to a judge. Hundreds of thousands of such self-written search warrants called National Security letters, have been served by the FBI on law-abiding Americans. Sections 213, 215 and NSL letters are clear violations of the Fourth Amendment.

Read more: GUEST COLUMN: Has Patriot Act made us safer? - Easton, MA - Easton Journal http://www.wickedlocal.com/easton/ne...#ixzz216Mffd9E

Clear violations? Undoubtedly. But try to get them nullified or repealed.

Pardon the rant, but I am so disgusted by BOTH parties and BOTH candidates that for the first time since I first voted for president in 1964, I will NOT vote for any of the candidates from either party and will be writing in someone else as a form of protest. Admittedly, at 71, I have a lot less to lose than most of those visiting this site. The gas gauge of my life is well below the 1/4th tank mark. So, I don't care if they monitor what I say or write, or where I go. They way they are running the country I will be the least of their worries in the near future.

[dequire]

Well, we can't say we weren't warned. And again here. I became aware of this though Google+ that had a Twitter Feed made by the famous Anonymous hacker syndicate yesterday (As an aside, to be an informed citizen, Google+ is awesome and Facebook completely and utterly useless. After you click "Like" enough, they will know you better than you know yourself...).

I firmly believe Obama was hand-picked to indoctrinate these potential free speech killers and potential acts of National Treason. And the collective "We" stands around shouting how great it is that Microsoft supports Linux through their Skype client that they are completely missing the forest though the trees. It's cold, calculated, and evil. It's also a poster-child for Incrementalism at it's finest.

So when do we get mad enough to do something about it? It's too late, most likely. Once the Government realized that Americans will hand over there Freedom like it was spoiled milk post 9/11, it was game over. Do I sound paranoid? Maybe, but I'm pretty convinced that our government wants us to vote for who they want us to vote for and "they" elect whomever those who actually pull the strings want to be in office. meanwhile we all get a nice patriotic "I Voted!" sticker as we exit the polls somehow convinced that we did our civic duty.

Anyway...done hi-jacking the thread...back to how awesome Skype for Linux is now that it doesn't crash and Microsoft loves us....

And yes, Grey Geek, one nice thing about the Internet is it does allow us to back and piece together information in a way that becomes crystal-clear as to that action's intent, as we clearly now see in that aforementioned patent's speedy approval from 2009.

[GreyGeek]

And then I read this:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...w-law/tffCTwDd

Require the Transportation Security Administration to Follow the Law!

In July 2011, a federal appeals court ruled that the Transportation Security Administration had to conduct a notice-and-comment rulemaking on its policy of using "Advanced Imaging Technology" for primary screening at airports. TSA was supposed to publish the policy in the Federal Register, take comments from the public, and justify its policy based on public input. The court told TSA to do all this "promptly." A year later, TSA has not even started that public process. Defying the court, the TSA has not satisfied public concerns about privacy, about costs and delays, security weaknesses, and the potential health effects of these machines. If the government is going to "body-scan" Americans at U.S. airports, President Obama should force the TSA to begin the public process the court ordered.

So much for the Feds following the law. And, even if the petition gets the required signatures I suspect it will be blown off.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming ...

[Snowhog]

Terrorists
Supporting (Obama's)
Administration

or

TSA
Snubbing
Authority