Dissecting Google Talk with packet sniffer

August 26, 2005

As I mentioned to James Seng in a comment I posted to his Google Talk post Google Talk isn't using SIP (yet). James confirmed my packet capture analysis of Google Talk with some sniffing of his own, which you can check out in his More About Google Talk blog post. He has some interesting discoveries, including Google appearing to install a STUN server on every Google Talk client to solve the VoIP NAT issues. James writes "In other words, like Skype, Google Talk turns every client into a possible server to help relay voice call between two users." Doesn't this sound eerily like Skype's super nodes that everyone gripes about?

James has echoes my sentiments when he writes, "Very smart thing to do technically speaking but let me go read the Google Talk UAT again. (Hmm...What happen to the 'Don't be Evil' plan?)"



Post a comment

See this page in TechnoratiTechnoratibook mark in del.icio.usDel.icio.usSlashdot.comSlashdotSubmit to Digg.comDigg

Tags: , , ,

Search Technorati: , , ,
Related Tags: , , ,

Listed below are links to sites that reference Dissecting Google Talk with packet sniffer:

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/mt3/t.fcgi/13767

» How Google Talk works from GoogleRumors
Geeks are busy dissecting exactly how Google Talk works by using packet sniffers to take a look at the i/o data. Google announced that Google Talk is Jabber XMPP compliant, but it wasn’t announced what is used to power the voice chat. That is u... [More]

Tracked on August 29, 2005 5:21 PM

Comments to Dissecting Google Talk with packet sniffer


  1. Eric Thayer :
    August 26, 2005 4:12 PM

    It could also be that the STUN server facilitates direct connection between clients so as to reduce the server-side cost of the service.


  1. Randell Jesup :
    August 30, 2005 11:26 AM

    A STUN server is very low overhead and doesn't get used for voice traffic. That's different than using you as a packet relay all the time like Skype does. Way different, orders of magnitude different.

    It does appear from the comment (no trace was posted) that the STUN server is used by 3rd parties to help set up calls. It's odd that Google isn't using their own STUN servers; stun isn't a heavy protocol and they certainly have the network/servers for it (though it may be a pain for some reason for them to install on their server farms).


  1. BeLeBored :
    September 6, 2005 2:34 AM

    Google would never archive VOIP conversations, convert them to text transcripts, store them forever, and pry further into your life or sell your information or that of your friends.


    nooooo, that would never happen.


    And nothing of the kind will happen with google IM


    What color is your sky?


  1. sanjai kumar :
    September 24, 2005 9:27 AM

    I have to need some guidline over VoIP dataconversition.


(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)