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College student could get 5 years for Hacking VoIP system & changing grades

July 28, 2008

We all thought it was pretty cool when Matthew Broderick changed his high school grades in War Games, right? Harmless prank after all and even if he got caught, the worst he'd have to suffer is a few nights of detention - certainly not jail time.

Well, a 19-year-old college student & computer science major, Christopher Fowler was accused of stealing his professor's identity to change his grades and was put behind bars according to FOX 5 Atlanta.

Even more interesting than changing grades & the identity theft, was that investigators said the student also hacked into a VoIP phone system to listen to telephone conversations. The article says Fowler could get five years for an unlawful eavesdropping charge. I'd be interested to know which VoIP phone system he hacked into and if it's a major vulnerability.

"Hacked in their Voice over Internet Protocol system where it uses internet to make telephone phone calls and intercepted telephone conversations," said John Bankhead of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Posted in Skype, TMCnet, VoIP

Skype Backdoor?

July 25, 2008

According to The Register, "Off the cuff remarks by Austrian government officials suggest that Skype conversations might be intercepted" via a backdoor or through the encryption keys. The comments were made at a recent meeting on lawful interception between ISPs and Austrian regulators. The off the cuff comment was from an unnamed "high-ranking" official at Austria's interior ministry who said that listening into a conversation over Skype "presented no particular problems"

Contrast that with German police who recently expressed frustration about their inability to decipher the encryption used by Skype in order to tap into the VoIP calls of suspected terrorists.

According to the article, security experts Philippe Biondi and Fabrice Desclaux voiced concerns that Skype has the keys to decrypt calls or sessions, a claim which Skype denies.

I can definitely answer whether or not Skype phone conversations can be eavesdropped by law enforcement officials. The answer is definitely "yes".

Posted in Skype, TMCnet, VoIP

fring Enhances Mobile IM Client with fringAdd-ons

July 1, 2008

fring claims that since they opened their API last Monday that hundreds of apps were submitted "proving that there's an insatiable appetite in the U.S. for new mobile widgets and add-ons." In the past week, fring has approved four of these submitted apps/widgets which will be announced tomorrow.

Today, fring announces new fringAdd-on applications for social networking, video streaming and email notification specifically for Facebook, Google's social networking site Orkut, VTap and Gmail. Essentially any web developer can develop a fringAdd-on just by heading on over to developers.fring.com. Only basic knowledge of PHP & XML is required.

Posted in Apple, Asterisk, SIP, Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

Microsoft Drops VoIP from Windows Live Messenger

June 26, 2008

Just saw this article that reiterates Microsoft's decision last year that the existing VoIP partnership with Verizon would be terminating in 2008. (See 2006 launch of Windows Live Messenger w/ Verizon deal) As of today you can use Windows Live Messenger users to make regular landline and mobile phone calls, but this functionality is set to expire on July 15th 2008 in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and the USA on August 31st 2008.

Once again, Microsoft's consumer-play VoIP offerings seems very incoherent with many stops & starts. They're on again off again... First, they added SIP to Windows Messenger and it worked with 3rd party SIP ITSPs such as Net2Phone.

Posted in Home Entertainment, Microsoft, SIP, Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

Dell Video Chat Launches

June 26, 2008

Today, Dell will launch Dell Video Chat powered by SightSpeed, which will be pre-bundled on all consumer Dell PCs. Landing Dell is a major win for SightSpeed, a competitor to Skype, Microsoft Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and others.

I spoke with Eric Quanstrom, Vice President of Marketing for Sightspeed about this major annoucement. I also installed Dell Video Chat to check it out for myself, so I'll include some screenshots along the way.

Eric said, "We've been bundled with camera manufactureres before but we've never been resident on OEM PC hardware.

Posted in Reviews, SIP, Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP, p2p

Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro webcam for Mac

June 24, 2008

Logitech today unveiled its first Mac-compatible webcam with premium autofocus technology and Carl Zeiss optics - the Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro webcam for Mac. The new Logitech webcam of course works with iChat and Skype and features a 2-megapixel camera sensor.

The new Logitech webcam uses a voice coil motor for its autofocus system, instead of a stepper motor. According to the news, "Focusing is fast and fluid - crisp even in extreme close-ups only 10 cm from the camera lens. Logitech's autofocus system compensates for changes in image-edge sharpness and refocuses images in less than three seconds"

What I don't get is why Logitech chooses to make operating system specfic webcams. Isn't USB supposed to be an industry standard?

Posted in Apple, Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Linux, Microsoft, Skype, Video Conferencing, Video Hardware & Software

SightSpeed Business Upgrade Adds 9-way Video

June 23, 2008

Today, SightSpeed will announce a significant upgrade to SightSpeed Business, which was launched last fall. The new version offers simultaneous 9-way video and text chat. I'm a huge fan of SightSpeed, which doesn't get nearly the amount of attention that Skype gets yet has some features Skype lacks. Check out my 2006 review of SightSpeed 5.0.

Posted in Reviews, SIP, Skype, TMCnet, Video Conferencing, VoIP

Skype 4.0 beta New Look, New Features...

June 19, 2008

Skype announced Skype 4.0 beta yesterday. I was supposed to be on the briefing conference call, but was tied up with finishing up the Movable Type 4.2 migration. But I wanted to bring information about this major 'point' release to your attention. Better late than never I guess.

First, below are three videos provided by Skype.

Posted in Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP, p2p

Jangl & TalkPlus Spell VoIP Troubles Ahead?

May 8, 2008

Om over at GigaOm writes that Jangl was looking to sell itself earlier this week and is "headed towards an ignominious end" and adds that Talkplus "is going nowhere fast". I wrote a detailed write-up on TalkPlus, interviewing TalkPlus CEO Jeff Black at ITEXPO and my biggest fascination was how the supposedly reverse engineered Skype. I wrote, "One final interesting thing we talked about at ITEXPO is that TalkPlus has built their own Skype gateway. In fact, when pressed further, Jeff mentioned they actually reverse engineered Skype's protocol.

Posted in ITEXPO, Skype, TMCnet, VoIP

Telcos Join Forces to Battle Skype?

May 6, 2008

According to analysts at ThinkAnton (ThinkPanmure), AT&T and other international incumbents plan on launching a global Skype competitor.

"We believe that AT&T, in conjunction with perhaps 10-15 other incumbent operators such as British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, and NTT, is preparing to launch, in 2009, a competitor of sorts to Skype. We believe that the motivation to do this would be to keep subscribers from completely disappearing, reducing win-back marketing costs."

Their key points the analysts stress is how "incumbent telephone operators have been losing wired access lines for a few years, to a variety of destinations: cellular, cable TV operators, competitive wireline carriers and, in a sense, also to IP telephony operators such as Skype."

They claim that the incumbent operators have been able to make up for these losses by entering new businesses such as cellular, DSL/fiber, and television.

Here's the rest of the analyst report "teaser":

However, the loss of the long-time telephone number often means that the incumbent phone operator loses the relationship with the customer entirely. Why? Because the consumer can buy access for his VoIP service such as Skype from another source, such as cable modem, 3G cellular, WiMax, or a competitive DSL/fiber carrier.

Posted in Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

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