We hate Skype (and glowing Sony Vaio review)

Hello? It's IT Blogwatch, in which the Skype backlash begins. Not to mention a "glowing review" of the latest Sony Vaio...

Peter Sayer just called to say he loves us:

Skype Ltd. is working to make its Internet telephony service more enterprise-friendly and expects to introduce a beta version of its software with support for enterprise management functions within weeks. The update will allow systems administrators to use standard Windows management tools to set how the Skype software connects to the Internet, or to disable any of half a dozen functions, including file transfers.
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Use of Skype in business is widespread: Of Skype's 113 million registered users, 30% say they use it for business ... The proprietary and hard-to-block connection protocols used by Skype's peer-to-peer communications system have raised concerns about security in some businesses.

Jerri Ledford is curious:

The article is about how Intel convinced Skype to fix a problem the company was experiencing with the software...namely, the ability to track who was using it. Now, before you scream, I know that wasn't the purpose of the fix.  Intel wanted to ensure that it was a patched programs if employees insisted on using it, and that's a VERY good move on their part.  But the end result of that security fix was that now Intel can tell who is using Skype and what version it is.
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Not a large problem in the scheme of things.  Intel can track that information if that's what they want to do, and then use what they learn to see how much money a VoIP system like Skype or some other VoIP provider's service might improve the bottom line.  But here's my question in all of this...why are the employees using Skype?

But Ars's Ryan Paul notes that universities are "Banning Skype":

In a move that has sparked protest from both students and professors, San Jose State University has become the latest California school to ban Skype from most of its campus. Citing concerns regarding security and consumption of bandwidth, school administrators feel that the service is an unnecessary and potentially illegal waste of resources. The University of California--Santa Barbara and California State University--Dominguez Hills have also recently banned the popular VoIP service.
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The chief problem comes when a Skype client acts as a "supernode" and makes itself available to relay calls made by other users. Having numerous supernodes on a school network increases bandwidth consumption and has a detrimental impact on connectivity, according to the memo. Anecdotal reports from individual Skype users reveal that bandwidth consumption can increase by as much as an entire gigabyte per month for a single Skype client when it acts as a supernode.
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Skype ... plans to send representatives to meet with school administrators ... [if it] can provide the school with a simple mechanism that can consistently prevent all computers on its local network from becoming supernodes, there is no reason that the ban need be perpetuated. One wonders why the school didn't consider asking the tech company for a solution in the first place, rather than enacting a policy guaranteed to vex students.

Tim Lee is puzzled:

The school administrators ... [are] describing it as a "potentially illegal waste of resources," without explaining what might be illegal about it. Perhaps they've somehow gotten the erroneous impression that there's something inherently illicit about "grid-computing-like" network applications.
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Aside from legal concerns, the other issue seems to be bandwidth ... If my math is right, 1 gigabyte per month is roughly 3 kilobits per second, a trivial amount of bandwidth on a modern campus network. Even if the bandwidth is concentrated in shorter bursts--say, if the whole gigabyte is transmitted in a single hour--that's still a rate of only 2.2 megabits per second--roughly the bandwidth of a typical DSL line. This is not a particularly abusive use of the network.

Paul Kedrosky is sympathetic, but says:

The rationale from San Jose State University (and others) for newly banning Skype should be scary to vendors of peer-to-peer technology ... [it] describes pretty much every peer-to-peer app extant, so we may be about to see some major sea-changes.

San Jose State U.'s Steve Sloan has this say about the ban:

this will result in our being at a competitive (not to mention technological) disadvantage compared to other institutions of higher learning ... I urge this to be considered with an open mind and extreme care. We need to be sure that the action we take is in the best interest of our university's educational mission.
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In my class I have been planning to use Skype to bring authors of the textbook we use together to discuss their book with my students from various locations around the globe. Since I started using Skype daily in my work I have been contacted by educators from Europe, Asia and Australia. Educators have contacted me via Skype to collaborate on teaching and learning methods.
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Banning Skype, in my opinion, would be like banning the web ten years ago.

Digg denizens discuss:

wildgift: I bet the telephone companies are pushing this policy, behind the scenes. The universities should not only allow Skype -- they should be working together on large scale Asterisk deployments.

irieKEN: I call BS, and offer that any universities banning/blocking Skype are doing so for political reasons.

Alphabet: exactly, the reason why they're banning skype is because universities make a [shedload] of money from telephone lines. Of course, most people have cell phones, so they're already losing [shedload] of money with their old telephone networks.

Buffer overflow:

Around the Net

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• Christopher Koch: CIOs Reporting to CFOs: A Conflict of Interest
• Techdirt: Why Trademark Law Needs To Be Re-Visited By A Moron In A Hurry
• Locutus: Spaced out storage
• Om Malik: Ring in the GrandCentral

Around Computerworld

• David DeJean: What is it about ITIL that's so irritating? The possibility that it's right?
• Mitch Betts: HP: A leader in telephone privacy?
• Lucas Mearian: Free download of USB partitioning and encryption software
• Sound Off: Greatest GUI Gaffes
• Robin Harris: Cool Stuff @ Datacenter Ventures
• Preston Gralla: Beware! "Trusted" sites often host spyware and scams
• Shark Tank: It's All About U, Isn't It?
• Martin McKeay: Google, Cryptome, ATM machines and default passwords 

And finally... Idiot Toys has a "glowing review" of the Sony VAIO VGN-SZ2VP geddit? [you're fired -ed.]

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk.