How safe is Skype?

Kato

I recently tried out Skype for the first time. My wife had to do it for an online class and after I tried it with her, I turned out to like it. This led me to talk to my brother and ask him if he had ever used skype. He quickly said that it was too dangerous and he would't touch it. I had to ask him why. I went through all the privacy settings and set them the way I wanted them. He said that anyone can get access to your computer by sending something disguised as a Skype packet in the header.

Anyone heard of something like that? I can't image something that is as widley used as Skype would be that unsecure. Any truth to this? I don't always believe everything he says.

ZackSchilling

I think maybe someone could call your computer or try to act as a transmit node for your communications to listen in, but probably not "get access" to your files or anything on your machine. (Unless there's an unpatched security flaw, but I haven't heard of anything recently.) Your brother sounds like one of those people who hears about insecure wireless access points and thinks that people parked on the street can thumb through his porn collection.

Nimble Cat

You'll be fine. Just don't accept calls or screen sharing requests from people you don't know and you should be fine.

JAEF

Eh no one's going to hack all over your shit but the Skype creators have programmed in a back door for various governments to listen into your calls if they feel like it. So there's that.

Edit: Just as a caveat, since I can't find any lengthy documentation with a quick google, reportedly that is there.

Cokebotle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype#Privacy ?

King Lemming

I've never had an issue with it myself. Assuming you're reasonably competent with a computer and don't go downloading random files from places you don't know, etc...

No worries at all. It's actually quite convenient, though if everyone you know has it, then maybe Ventrilo is also an option.

PatboyX

The closest thing to an issue I've had is getting a call from some French woman asking if I was REALNAMEHERE and if I had ever lived in London, particularly during the years x-x. (Which I had.)
It was kind of scary-comical but it didn't amount to anything.

Älphämönkëy

JAEF wrote: »

Eh no one's going to hack all over your shit but the Skype creators have programmed in a back door for various governments to listen into your calls if they feel like it. So there's that.

Edit: Just as a caveat, since I can't find any lengthy documentation with a quick google, reportedly that is there.

I read an article that seemed to indicate that the Skype guys were not playing ball. I've also read that their network protocol is very difficult to reverse engineer given the volume of encrypted traffic that flows through it.

ZackSchilling wrote:

people parked on the street can thumb through his porn collection

Legitimately, most houses that don't secure their wireless network also do not keep their machines secure.