Eavesdropping On Google Voice and Skype 62
Simmons writes with news of research that demonstrated vulnerabilities in Skype and Google Voice that would have allowed attackers to eavesdrop on calls or place unauthorized calls of their own. "The attacks on Google Voice and Skype use different techniques, but essentially they both work because neither service requires a password to access its voicemail system. For the Skype attack to work, the victim would have to be tricked into visiting a malicious Web site within 30 minutes of being logged into Skype. In the Google Voice attack (PDF), the hacker would first need to know the victim's phone number, but Secure Science has devised a way to figure this out using Google Voice's Short Message Service (SMS). Google patched the bugs that enabled Secure Science's attack last week and has now added a password requirement to its voicemail system, the company said in a statement. ... The Skype flaws have not yet been patched, according to James." Reader EricTheGreen contributes related news that eBay may sell Skype back to its original founders.
Re:Unsurprising (Score:2, Informative)
So am I from time to time, though I usually prefer to let the phone just ring out. The person to whom you're talking is left with a much more favourable impression, and voicemail does the rest.
Re:Skype back to the founders? (Score:3, Informative)
There is a world outside of the US...
You are also thinking of fixed line phones, many people use cellphones for general voice calls these days too.
Here, i have 5 mobile operators to choose from with their own networks (and multiple resellers) and 2 fixed line providers (as well as countless resellers)... Because fixed lines cost more to roll out (ie a monopoly is pretty much unavoidable), the incumbent suppliers are heavily regulated to avoid gouging consumers.
If you want competitive voip, try finding a provider that supports SIP... You can call between sip providers for free as it's pure ip, calling non sip lines has a cost imposed by whatever telco they hand off to.
If you want to call from skype to someone using a different voip service, you're likely to pay termination charges as the call gets routed out via a telco network and back, there is no interoperability with skype.