17 ms·
Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
- astrodust 10y agoThis is apparently from 2012 but not labelled as such.
- digi_owl 10y agoMay explain why he didn't mention webrtc, unless he has some misgivings about it.
- tonyedgecombe 10y agoThe only reason I need to not use Skype is that it is shit.
- mankash666 10y agoStallman claims Skype isn't encrypted end-to-end and then suggests using "free" alternatives that are not in the least bit security concious or end-to-end encrypted.
- elmerfud 10y agoAlso the "long distance phone card" suggestion ignores that every major telephone company in the US was caught providing information without any legal obligation to do so.
- loup-vaillant 10y agoThis articles seems to date back to 2012, most likely before the Snowden revelations. He probably have changed his mind since.
- legulere 10y agoOf course, in the free software world the only thing counting is if the software is under a free license. All other properties can only be used to attack non-free software
- simooooo 10y agoAlso plenty of proprietary firmware being used on the telecom hardware used to transmit the call
- roesel 10y agoI am not sure who this guy is, but he seems a little out of this world.
- elchief 10y agohave you heard of GNU?
- tluyben2 10y agoHe is quite famous in software circles [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
- joe563323 10y agoRMS is a legend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman. Every one would be living in a little bit of a different world and all the computer tech guys would be living in a completely different world with out RMS.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- lightedman 10y ago"Every one would be living in a little bit of a different world and all the computer tech guys would be living in a completely different world with out RMS." Someone else would've likely done the same thing sooner or later.
- astrodust 10y agoFree software was not necessarily an inevitability, but efforts to accelerate that certainly pushed it forward. The problem now is this rampant hostility towards all proprietary software of any form for any purpose. The FSF is still fighting the same pointless war against proprietary operating systems when the real threat is IoT junk, cars, and medical devices full of unauditable code.
- 10y ago
- mrleiter 10y agoThe problem with his first argument is that it is a logical fallacy (affirming a disjunct). Just because one does not say A, does not mean that it automatically must be B. He says "most likely", but even this is not certain. I agree, it feels that it must be true. But then again this is an inductive fallacy. Simply because most companies we know that have acted in such a way actually were eavesdropping on its customers, one cannot say with certainty that this is a general rule.
- loup-vaillant 10y agoHe said "almost certainly". If Skype could not eavesdrop on calls, they would most certainly say so when ask —because not saying so would make them look bad. It's then a simple matter of probability theory to deduce that their silence most probably means it can eavesdrop on calls. Affirming a disjunct is perfectly legitimate approximation in this case.
- fredmorcos 10y agoBig fancy words with zero content and a complete lack of arguments. > He says "most likely", but even this is not certain. That is the exact meaning of most likely. > Simply because most companies we know that have acted in such a way actually were eavesdropping on its customers, one cannot say with certainty that this is a general rule. It would be plain idiotic to not assume the worst until proven otherwise, especially after everything we learned in the past few years.
- joe563323 10y agoSkype is owned by Microsoft. No worries it will die out eventually.
- nkkollaw 10y agoMicrosoft has been around for almost 50 years, though. They must do something right?
- astrodust 10y agoMicrosoft has acquired very few products, and of those a shockingly slim number have succeeded. I can only think of Excel as being the real survivor here. Others, like SoftImage, were a fleeting acquisition. Many more were buried alive.
- tonyplee 10y agoDOS is a acquired product, for $50k? :-) They only finally disable cmd.exe in the latest update. .bat files still run.
- astrodust 10y agoSomehow I overlooked that, but it's true, that's their first and most significant acquisition. They didn't buy the company or talent, mind you, just the software.
- astrodust 10y agoMaybe they'll accidentally delete the production database and then realize they don't have any backups. You know, as is tradition? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sidekick_data_loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sidekick_data_loss
- fsiefken 10y agoI use the Matrix messaging client riot.fm instead
- ycmbntrthrwaway 10y agoWhat is riot.fm? Maybe https://riot.im/ https://riot.im/? Is it able to do at least audio calls?
- kscz 10y agoRiot can do audio and video calls, I've had good luck with it (currently gets used between my friendgroup instead of phonecalls). Check out http://matrix.org/ http://matrix.org/ for the server implementation details and https://riot.im https://riot.im for the biggest client. Currently, it only supports 1-on-1 audiocalls/videocalls. No group calls yet. Forewarning that while it supports end-to-end encryption for the chatting bits, the actual audio data is not encrypted. The call request/advertisement can be encrypted though!
- wonko1 10y agoAnother reason not to use Skype is that their support is pretty poor. They've deleted Skype numbers from my account without warning. Someone linked my and my wife's account because we used them on the same PC, and refuse to unlink Skype and Microsoft accounts. I'd love to find an alternative, but given that everybody already has Skype accounts the lock-in is pretty significant. Don't much like the alternatives Stallman proposes. Using long distance phone calls seems worse than Skype, phone companies have provided governments with even more access to user data than most tech companies.
- dandandan 10y agoStallman won't like it but Facebook Messenger has voice calling built in now and it works very well. I was calling someone in SE Asia from rural Massachusetts recently and the quality was great with very low latency. It felt like a natural conversation given the connectivity challenges on both ends.
- mtgx 10y agoAt least you should be using Whatsapp calls, which are end-to-end encrypted, and also have very good quality with the data saving option enabled.
- wonko1 10y agoInteresting. I can't see myself using it for work though, which the majority of my Skype calls tend to be.
- dandandan 10y agoYou don't need to be Facebook friends to complete a call but I can still see that expectation being an obstacle to establishing one. Is there a space for a very simple WebRTC call application? It seems like everyone is focused on video calling or more full-featured products.
- wonko1 10y ago
- raverbashing 10y agoWhat is a good solution that allows dialing to pots? Google voice and what else?
- astrodust 10y agoRoll your own with any VOIP software?
- jjawssd 10y agoCould you elaborate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13345341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13345341
- drc0 10y agoPiggybacking the question to state a general info: There are voip operators like the italian mtalk that give you free local national numbers, free calls between users of the same provider, but the call is not encrypted. This have the good thing that anyone can choose the preferred provider, you can receive calls also from "traditional" phones. A phone number is like a mailbox, it's clearly provider independent, but sadly it's often non free calling between different operators.
- snvzz 10y agoThis is true of all IM that isn't based on open protocols and has mandatory end-to-end encryption. Which is why I use tox [0]. [0] https://tox.chat/ https://tox.chat/
- Veratyr 10y agoI prefer Matrix[0] since it has some nice features (encryption, message history, multiple devices, audio, video, files), supports most major platforms, can be self hosted and importantly, supports push notifications so your battery isn't destroyed like it is with Antox. [0]: http://matrix.org http://matrix.org
- snvzz 10y agoBut alas, it sucks (no support at all!) at ipv6 (e.g.: On a ds-lite scenario), it is federated instead of decentralized, and its end-to-end encryption is optional.
- Veratyr 10y agoIPv6 is indeed bad but: - "federated instead of decentralized": I believe Matrix's federation implementation qualifies as decentralised. There's some centralisation (homeservers) but not much. - "its end-to-end encryption is optional": I don't really see this as a problem. If you want it, you have it. If you don't, you don't. Sometimes end-to-end encryption isn't desirable, in a business environment where you need communications to be auditable for example.
- snvzz 10y ago> IPv6 is indeed bad It's terrible, and the reason I don't use matrix. While behind ds-lite, the only option I'd have is to run my node on an untrusted location (eg: a rented server). > "its end-to-end encryption is optional": I don't really see this as a problem. If you want it, you have it. If you don't, you don't. Sometimes end-to-end encryption isn't desirable, in a business environment where you need communications to be auditable for example. Sure, but in a post-snowden climate, I can't recommend a solution where end-to-end is optional to anybody. The problem is that when it is optional, people will readily downgrade to point-per-point encryption when they experience any issues. It's terrible to give less tech-literate people the option of insecure communication.
- lightedman 10y agoReason to use skype: So your dead account doesn't get immediately compromised and you screw your friends over in the process as your account starts sending out malware-infested links. glares at the seven or so users in his blocked list, users that jumped ship to Telegram and left their Skype accounts open to exploitation
- heinrich5991 10y agoUsing a strong and unique password would be a good step in not getting compromised.
- homakov 10y agoNot for skype, i've seen spammy messages from tons of contacts, pretty sure it's yet another hole in skype they can't patch https://hub.zhovner.com/geek/how-skype-fixes-security-vulnerabilities/ https://hub.zhovner.com/geek/how-skype-fixes-security-vulner...
- Qwertious 10y agoSounds like you should delete your account when you go inactive, and sounds like you should GTFO if their security is that terrible.
- lightedman 10y agoNot much else has quality video chat at high resolutions/ Hangouts likes to drop out. It's one of the reasons Google Helpouts failed so hard, Hangouts utterly sucked as the video chat intermediary.
- ycmbntrthrwaway 10y agoIs there any usable alternative for voice calls? Ring and Tox had problems setting up connection from android to debian linux last time I tried both of them. I really want to replace Skype with something so I can stop using Google Play. Signal is not an option as it is only available via Google Play too. [0] https://ring.cx/ https://ring.cx/ [1] https://tox.chat/ https://tox.chat/
- kscz 10y agoI've found matrix[0] to work pretty well. Main downside is that the calls themselves are not end-to-end encrypted, but there is end-to-end encryption for the call setup. Riot[1] is available via f-droid[2]. You can host your own homeserver to prevent metadata leakage if you want, and run the TURN/STUN server to setup the calls if one of both parties are behind a NAT. [0] http://matrix.org/ http://matrix.org/ [1] http://riot.im http://riot.im [2] https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/im.vector.alpha https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/im.vector.alpha
- tversteeg 10y agoLinphone is a decent alternative, it supports both voice and video calls.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoSignal is available for desktop browser, although I don't know how well works.
- sschueller 10y agoHow about wire? https://wire.com https://wire.com
- alkonaut 10y agoIt sucks - but as is always the case with free vs nonfree software - there are few alternatives. Among the few alternatives available are Google (hangouts) and Facebook. Stallman waves his hand and mentions Jitsi and Mumble which aren't comparable in features to Skype (Chat + Voice + video + desktop sharing on all platforms including mobile). Jitsi does look promising but not quite complete. A chat/voice app is like a social network, it has a critical mass so I can't switch unless everyone else does or my alternative is interoperable. Software being free as in speech is perhaps twice as important to me as it is for the average user, but that still means I'd rather have a polished proprietary app that spies on me, than an unpolished free alternative. Skype is exceptionally bad, so shouldn't be too hard to beat in terms of polish.
- fattire 10y agoThere's also bluejeans, though I have no idea what their security situation is. https://www.bluejeans.com https://www.bluejeans.com Skype is a horror show, so really like you say anything is better. If video isn't required, Signal is probably the best bet. Would be great actually if Signal supported video as well...
- usernam 10y agoBut did you _actually_ try the alternatives? I've been using mumble for more than a decade now, and I've pushing it into 3 working places as a substitute to skype, asterix and lync (the microsoft voip solution). It's not really oriented for 1-1 conversation, which is odd to use at first, but once people start to use channels and the built-in chat you hardly go back. The latency and voice quality is stunning, even across lousy links. There's simply no match. The built-in mic wizard is also well designed. If people follow the setup correctly, you can have hour-long conversations across the globe with 10 people and it's absolutely fantastic. I work in research, and I've aggressively pushed to do long phone conferences over mumble for exactly this reason. With some colleagues we even setup some channels that broadcast with PTT, and it's genuinely fun if you're spread across offices. You can decide if you want to participate by joining or not the right hierarchy. This is something is often done for lan parties, but turns out you can find other uses too ;) Like I said, the main shortcoming is that mumble was never designed for 1-1 conversations as you would expect in skype. We hack it around by creating temporary channels. I've always meant to improve the UI in this regard, but we found that the temporary channel approach has advantages as well [you can invite other people in a call - for one]. With outdated hardware we still manage to hold >100 of conversations over a single server, as basically it's only network bound. You have a point that mumble does only audio, but fortunately this is what I care the most. We (unfortunately) still have to use other software for desktop sharing, but generally still use mumble for audio.
- briandear 10y agoNot a fan of Skype, but in one of Stallman's other articles he says: "Public agencies exist for the people, not for themselves. When they do computing, they do it for the people. They have a duty to maintain full control over that computing so that they can assure it is done properly for the people. They must never allow control over the state's computing to fall into private hands." This guy has a lot of faith in government and his treatise actually sounds rather Marxist. History is littered with public agencies that obstensiby exist for the "people," but in fact exist for no other reason than to enforce the power of the state. I don't trust government -- I endure it. Government is necessary in a way not dissimilar to the necessity of colonoscopies.
- wuschel 10y agoGood points. Check out as a possible alternative: 1) riot.im 2) matrix.org
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- wodenokoto 10y agoHow does he feel about landline phones? The entire thing is just as closed source as Skype and even more easily monitored. And assuming he is okay with landline, would Stallman call a cellphone? What if it was a free software cellphone?
- doctorshady 10y agoWhile I get your point, most traditional landline networks do encryption at the premises. Look at, for example, the Secure Terminal Equipment ISDN phone used by defense agencies. To state the obvious, the alternative of provider enabled encryption would be a bad option anyway; the track record of most telcos doesn't inspire a lot of faith in their ability to keep anything a secret. It wouldn't be hard, and certainly not a capacity strain, to get some old modems and haul encrypted PCM in realtime across them. Or even to roll your own PSK/FSK standard to transport said PCM over. There's no packet format or anything you're necessarily limited to. As for cell phones themselves, I can certainly see the threat. Even without going into Batman-esque theories of someone putting malicious software on your phone that activates the mic when it's idle, it's well known that the cellular networks make extensive use of GPS capabilities. With access to an operator's network, it would probably be relatively trivial to build a very detailed history of someone's whereabouts.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- edblarney 10y ago"A nonfree program denies users freedom, which is unjust in itself. " This is the worst reason to not use Skype. The remaining reasons about surveillance etc. are reasonable reasons to not use Skype.
- inian 10y ago"Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire page are permitted provided this notice is preserved." - Stallman's blog is not giving me the freedom to distribute the blog as please. It is infringing on my freedom. Anyone else find this ironic / hilarious?
- noselasd 10y agoWhy would that be ironic ? It's ensuring others receive the same freedom for the copy you make of the page, which is also the essence of the GPL license, and the whole philosophy of the FSF.
- inian 10y agoMy issue is with the no-modification part. This is the exact argument he gives for not using some software - that users are not free to modify the software and hence it is malicious.
- htns 10y agoHave you heard of the FSF? It's not called the free everything foundation for a reason. There's no irony or contradiction here.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- loup-vaillant 10y agoYour freedom to do what exactly? Misrepresenting Stallman's views? Preventing your readers to copy and distribute the page you gave them?
- inian 10y agoI can say the same argument about commercial software. They do not want you to modify their software for you to inject say malware in them. Just cos they don't want you to do that, it doesn't make their software not free.
- tiatia 10y agoOpen Source Minisip (discontinued?) offered encryption over VOIP calls: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/minisip http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/minisip It is amazing that Skype still has not been re-engineered and and open source lone released. http://www.oklabs.net/skype-reverse-engineering-the-long-journey/ http://www.oklabs.net/skype-reverse-engineering-the-long-jou...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Radle 10y ago"Skype requires the use of a client program that is not free software; in other words, the users don't control it — it controls them. A nonfree program denies users freedom, which is unjust in itself. Making the ethical issue sharper, for you to use Skype is to encourage someone else to use Skype, which means you're pressuring someone else to surrender freedom as well. This is plenty of reason to refuse to use Skype, but there are more reasons." How it pains to read such texts. "Everything that's not open source is evil."
- lorenzhs 10y agoYour use of "open source" in summarising RMS' opinion is rather unfortunate and leads me to think that you don't know his positions very well.
- benevol 10y agoUnderstanding what Microsoft does with Skype tells you everything about Microsoft. The only reasonable conclusion: Switch from Windows to Linux.
- hoodoof 10y agoWith all due respect, Stallman I think it would be reasonable to describe, as so many other famous technology people are, on the spectrum - as evidenced by his extreme dogmatic position on many things. Beliefs so dogmatic and extreme that it's just impossible for me to even read what he has to say any more. Frankly its the raving of a ..... well you choose the word.
- clentaminator 10y agoIf it's a spectrum then aren't we all "on it" at some point?
- hoodoof 10y agoSurely I think many, many developers are "on the spectrum", including myself, to some extent. The question is how far you are towards the extremities of the spectrum. Stallman is surely at the far end. I've never heard of him wearing a tinfoil hat but he can't be far from that.
- arximboldi 10y agoIn Spain we say: "When the wise points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger."
- maverick_iceman 10y agoI'm against Stallman's dogmatic positions as well but to dismiss his views by saying he's on the autism spectrum is an ad hominem attack. I've seen this argument used a lot against technologically sophisticated people but that only shows that the respondent can't rebut the arguments and hence resort to personal attacks.
- sctb 10y agoPlease don't take these threads into generic criticism of the author. They're not good for HN because they're so predictable.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- xchip 10y agoAgreed, use anything else (but whatsapp)
- tscs37 10y agoFor once I agree with RS; I haven't used Skype in ages, particularly because it's just crappy software. Honestly, I'd view Skype as malware at this point, the number of exploits is too damn high and it barely integrates with anything ever. It's the kind of integration you'd normally see from a cheap car purchase where the Entertainment System is a iPhone 2 taped to the seats and the trunk smells like dead raccoon.
- cm2187 10y agoIn fact, like java it tries to install malware and other browser toolbars when you install it. Microsoft reached the bottom and is still digging.
- george_ciobanu 10y agoI agree it needs improvement and we should have alternatives but it's the best in terms of video and audio quality/compression. The UX can be improved.
- rawfan 10y agoSkype Business maybe. Regular Skype is crap. We're currently using slack for our team which works great. Privately I user FaceTime and appear.in but that's not good for group calls.
- danellis 10y ago"The most obvious alternative is a long-distance phone card." What part of Stallman's position makes him fine with communicating and encouraging people to communicate using switches running proprietary software? For that matter, how does he justify using the Internet rather than anything other than community networks running open source routing software?
- edblarney 10y agoStallman doesn't really have a coherent ideology. If you start pulling at the thread of logic for a bit, it comes apart like a knit sweater. People make a name for themselves by taking a strong stand on something, no matter how unpragmatic or unrealistic (and therefore, in my view 'wrong'). I don't doubt that he is intelligent, principled and abides mostly by his dogma (or at least thinks he does), or that he is isn't sincere. Obviously he's made some good contributions as well and so has kind of earned the right to have an outsized opinion. Nor do I doubt that it's important to have a variety of voices on such matters, and that often points raised by these types of people are important for us to consider. BUT - it's best not to engage these types on ideas because it's really about dogma. It's best to grapple with the psychology of such people, why they chose to be who they are, the self-identity they derive out of having such positions etc.. In a way, these types often serve as good 'devil's advocates'. If they were even in charge of anything it would be mostly destructive, but they can contribute a lot by challenging accepted norms. You have to take these guys with a few grains of salt. In much the same way, in politics, you see some opposition antagonists with some good ideas, representing underserved groups. Though they would make terrible leaders, their opinions should be noted, I think. For example, I'm not worried about Skype at all - but I was not aware of some of those finer points, and they are worth knowing about.
- chmaynard 10y ago> What part of Stallman's position makes him fine with communicating and encouraging people to communicate using switches running proprietary software? Richard Stallman is probably a direct descendant of the Massachusetts Puritans, which explains everything. No one ever characterized the Puritans as having a logically consistent ideology. Seriously, we owe him a very large debt of gratitude for igniting the open source software movement. He is responsible for GCC and the GPL, and he attracted a group of very talented developers around him. Let's cut him some slack.
- janekm 10y agoReasons to use Skype: - you need to talk to someone, and by the time you've explained why you don't want to use Skype you could have already been done
- Mister_Y 10y agoWe're talking about the long term here :D One minute lost by saying you don't want to use Skype might give you the benefit of convincing another person to join you video conference platform choice!
- edpichler 10y agoI feel Skype is abandoned by Microsoft, but I do not have other option. Same with Google Voice.
- jjawssd 10y agoGoogle Voice is stagnant and I am scared about losing it. Are there any other comparable services I can jump ship to before I lose my number?
- falloutx 10y agoWhats up so many Stallman posts lately?
- faragon 10y agoAnd again, Stallman is right. Despite how much convenient, cheap, and easy Skype could be. P.S. Is today the "day against Stallman" in Hacker News? Come on.
- samkone 10y agoGood for you Richard. Still don't care
- hobarrera 10y agoI think the main reason not to use skype is the lack of network effect. Since so few people use skype, everybody else has little motivation to use skype, ad nauseum. Honestly, the only people I've seen that use skype are recruiters. Other than that it seems pretty much dead.
- yeukhon 10y agoAt my current work place, Skype and Lync (or Skype for Business) are what we used for team communication. It works great until we need to onboard/offboard people. I also need to set status to DO NOT DISTURB because I wanted to avoid the constant ding ding ding notification. At a previous workplace, Skype and IRC are used (IRC are for mass communication, whereas Skype is more for personal-level communication).
- whack 10y agoIt's hard to take this article seriously when it starts out with stuff like "A nonfree program denies users freedom, which is unjust in itself." If you don't want to use Skype, I can respect that. But to accuse the developers of moral failure just because they didn't make their software free... That is an absurd view of morality.
- uiri 10y agoThe author is Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. He has spent the last 30 years trying to rid the world of proprietary software; first by working on free alternatives in the form of GNU and later through his activism work. The Open Source movement grew out of a group of pro-Free Software people who felt that Stallman's morality-based arguments were ineffective at convincing businesses to switch to FOSS. Modern internet companies and countless startups would not exist were it not for Stallman's initial efforts over 30 years ago and his "absurd" view of morality.
- whack 10y agoYour entire comment is a reverse ad hominem. Just because Richard Stallman did a lot of great things doesn't make his view of morality any less absurd. There's nothing unjust about a Software company choosing to develop and market "non-free" Software.
- jjawssd 10y agoCould Skype have been be monetized effectively if it was open source?
- jimktrains2 10y agoYes? Telecom infrastructure can be costly. Many people use skype for international POTS calling.
- jimktrains2 10y ago> But to accuse the developers of moral failure just because they didn't make their software free... That is an absurd view of morality. Why? It's as reasonable as saying they have a moral failing when they've failed according to my moral view in any other case.
- Fnoord 10y agoSkype? Ah, 2012. We're now in 2017, and in this country Skype just isn't the standard (I'm not saying it isn't used anymore). What is the standard? Well on phones, people seem to be using WhatsApp, with a movement who swapped to Telegram. There's some people who use FaceTime, but they're Apple users. There's some people who advocate Signal, but I know nobody who uses that. Then for gaming there is Discord which I started using in 2016 which Just Works (tm), has a feature set and UI from this decennium, and doesn't require one to run their own server (unlike TS/Mumble/Ventrilo/..). Finally, in 2016 I swapped to a different phone plan; unlimited phone calls is part of my (very cheap) subscription for my phone. The disadvantage of the unlimited plan is GSM's 'bad' quality (I generally don't have an issue w/it), and it is 100% being logged by telcos & nation states. But so is Skype. To be fair, I don't think RMS would be happy with any of my choices. Discord is open source, but the servers aren't. WhatsApp is proprietary, and owned by Facebook (Skype is proprietary and owned by Microsoft). Signal is only distributed via GCM which is a proprietary platform (F-Droid is blocked).
- FabHK 10y agoDoes anyone have experience with Wire? It sounds good: * open source, code on github * e2e encryption (apparently derivative of Signal's Axolotl double ratchet) * chat/voice/video, and group chats (all encrypted always) * based in Switzerland * clients for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, Web * can sign up with phone number or email or username * reasonably responsive on twitter * yada yada yada I use it on iOS and quite like it, but not that many people on it yet :-/