[ale] Cable modem recommendation

[Michael Campbell]

On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 4:37 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:

> **
> On 4/19/2012 8:17 AM, Michael Campbell wrote:
>
>
> A colleague of mine uses Ooma and raves about it.
>
>  I use Skype dial-out (I can dial regular #'s with it), and it works well
> enough for me.   I'm on business in Belgium right now, and I use it to call
> my home phone in Atlanta on the anemic hotel wifi, and it works very well
> with voice.  It also works moderately well with video on a Skype-Skype call
> to home also.
>
>  I don't have a Jihad against Microsoft, so I'll continue to use Skype
> until a better valued option comes up, or it starts to suck.  So far
> neither have happened.
>
>  I haven't tried Google Voice from my computer to regular # yet, but I
> might try that in the next couple days.
>
>
> Hi Michael and all,
>
> I use both Microsoft and Linux products routinely, and don't have an axe
> to grind for or against either.  However, I thought I'd mention this
> regarding Skype.  Microsoft filed for a patent back in 2009 and it was
> recently published regarding allowing the covert "wiretapping" (my words)
> of VOIP calls.  Now that they've bought Skype, I think you have to assume
> that your Skype call could be monitored and recorded.  Now, it's supposed
> to be only legally authorized wiretapping, and I understand that law
> enforcement sometimes has a need for that.  However, it used to be only the
> highly regulated telco that had access to wiretap your calls.  Now, it's a
> less regulated (I would say) mega corporation that's routing the call, and
> one that's not intrinsically in the phone business.  I think that, if I
> needed VOIP for anything remotely sensitive, and if I had an alternative
> that I could encrypt, I'd avoid using Skype.  I don't know precisely what
> that alternative is though.  Just my 2 cents.
>
>

Security concerns noted and appreciated.  While I understand where you're
coming from, (and each user is different), I don't use Skype for sensitive
comms.   Mainly business stuff between colleagues (and Skype is the
standard where I work, so I more or less have to use it for that), and
talks to my family about dull family stuff when I'm away from the house.

Given that Skype's data goes through a (large?) number of different
routers, networks, and such before and after it hits Skype's/MS' servers,
worrying about MS specifically recording my calls is actually the least of
any worries I'd have (if I had any to begin with).

In short, I'm less concerned about THAT attack vector on my calling since I
believe there are so many other easier ones*.  And the NSA has  all my data
already.



* One that does give me slight pause is now MS owns the proprietary
protocol specs for Skype.  If I understand correctly, one of Skype's
security features was that it has not yet been reverse engineered very well
(or at all?).  Perhaps that's wrong; I haven't really kept up with the
progress along those lines.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20120420/a4386675/attachment-0001.html