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LONDON: Soon, you won’t have to go through the painstaking and irritating task of searching for your missing car keys, thanks to “Smart Goggle”, whi
ch can track down any misplaced item. A team of Japanese scientists, led by Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Tokyo University School of Information Science and Technology, has come up with a secretive artificial intelligence project codenamed Smart Goggle, which they claim can help search anything from a remote control, to mobile phone or iPod. According to the scientists, one just needs to tell the glasses what he or she is searching for. Following the voice command, the Smart Goggle plays into their eye a video of the last few seconds they saw that missing item. A small camera rests on the glasses making constant record of everything the wearer sees. The tiny display inside the glasses spots what is being checked and a small readout immediately announces what the computer thinks the object most likely is. Professor Kuniyoshi said that the extraordinary property of the glasses doesn’t lie in its hardware, but the computer algorithm that allows the goggles to know instantly what they are seeing. He said that if the wearer roams around the house for about an hour telling the goggles the name of everything from a coathanger to the kitchen sink, they would retain the information. And if at some point in the future, the wearer asks them where they last saw a particular item, they will play the suitable footage, reports Times Online . Kuniyoshi describes his goggles as the ultimate link between the real world and the cyber world and maintains that his invention could finally be loaded with vast quantities of data from the internet. With the huge database installed, the glasses might actually know much more about what the wearer is seeing than the wearer himself - species of animal, technical specifications of vehicles and electronics, or even the identity of people. In a demonstration, the professor showed how the user might, for example, gaze at a selection of unknown flowers and the glasses would say which were begonias, which were ferns and which were pansies. Although the experimental model is still too bulky for daily use, the team at the Tokyo University School of Information Science and Technology are confident that it can soon be miniaturised. It could even, they suggest, be small enough to look little different from a normal pair of glasses. But unfortunately, of course, there is one irritating question they would not be able to answer: “Now where did I put my glasses?”
The basic protocol for sending data over the Internet and many other computer networks is the Internet Protocol ("IP"). The header of each IP packet contains, among other things, the numerical source and destination address of the packet. The source address is normally the address that the packet was sent from. By forging the header so it contains a different address, an attacker can make it appear that the packet was sent by a different machine. The machine that receives spoofed packets will send response back to the forged source address, which means that this technique is mainly used when the attacker does not care about response or the attacker has some way of guessing the response.
In certain cases, it might be possible for the attacker to see or redirect the response to his own machine. The most usual case is when the attacker is spoofing an address on the same LAN or WAN.
IP spoofing is most frequently used in denial-of-service attacks. In such attacks, the goal is to flood the victim with overwhelming amounts of traffic, and the attacker does not care about receiving responses to his attack packets. Packets with spoofed addresses are thus suitable for such attacks. They have additional advantages for this purpose - they are more difficult to filter since each spoofed packet appears to come from a different address, and they hide the true source of the attack. Denial of service attacks that use spoofing typically randomly choose addresses from the entire IP address space, though more sophisticated spoofing mechanisms might avoid unroutable addresses or unused portions of the IP address space. The proliferation of large botnets makes spoofing less important in denial of service attacks, but attackers typically have spoofing available as a tool, if they want to use it, so defenses against denial-of-service attacks that rely on the validity of the source IP address in attack packets might have trouble with spoofed packets. Backscatter, a technique used to observe denial-of-service attack activity in the Internet, relies on attackers' use of IP spoofing for its effectiveness.
IP spoofing can also be a method of attack used by network intruders to defeat network security measures, such as authentication based on IP addresses. This method of attack on a remote system can be extremely difficult, as it involves modifying thousands of packets at a time. This type of attack is most effective where trust relationships exist between machines. For example, it is common on some corporate networks to have internal systems trust each other, so that a user can log in without a username or password provided he is connecting from another machine on the internal network (and so must already be logged in). By spoofing a connection from a trusted machine, an attacker may be able to access the target machine without authenticating.
Configuration and services that are vulnerable to IP spoofing :
RPC (Remote Procedure Call services)
Any service that uses IP address authentication
The X Window system
The R services suite (rlogin, rsh, etc.)
Defense against spoofing
Packet filtering is one defense against IP spoofing attacks. The gateway to a network usually performs ingress filtering, which is blocking of packets from outside the network with a source address inside the network. This prevents an outside attacker spoofing the address of an internal machine. Ideally the gateway would also perform egress filtering on outgoing packets, which is blocking of packets from inside the network with a source address that is not inside. This prevents an attacker within the network performing filtering from launching IP spoofing attacks against external machines.
It is also recommended to design network protocols and services so that they do not rely on the IP source address for authentication
Upper layers
Some upper layer protocols provide their own defense against IP spoofing. For example, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) uses sequence numbers negotiated with the remote machine to ensure that arriving packets are part of an established connection. Since the attacker normally can't see any reply packets, he has to guess the sequence number in order to hijack the connection. The poor implementation in many older operating systems and network devices, however, means that TCP sequence numbers can be predicted
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IP blocking prevents the connection between a computer or network and certain IP addresses or ranges of addresses. IP blocking effectively bans undesired connections from those computers to a website, mail server, or other Internet server.
IP banning is commonly used on computer servers to protect against brute force attacks. Both companies and schools offering remote user access, and people wanting to access their home computers from remote locations, use Linux programs such as BlockHosts, DenyHosts or Fail2ban for protection from unauthorized access while allowing permitted remote access.
It is also used for censorship. One example is the July 2003 decision by techfocus.org to ban the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) from its website for various abuses by those two organisations of the content on it.
On an Internet forum or Web site an IP ban is often used as a last resort to prevent a disruptive member from access, though a warning and/or account ban may be used first. Dynamic allocation of IP addresses can complicate incoming IP blocking, rendering it difficult to block a specific user without blocking a larger number of IP addresses, thereby risking collateral damage caused by ISPs sharing IP addresses of multiple internet users.
IP Blocking of the Showtime website for non-US origins
IP banning is also used to limit the syndication of content to a specific region. To achieve this IP-addresses are mapped to the countries they have been assigned to.
Proxy servers can be used to bypass an IP ban unless the site being accessed has an effective anti-proxy script.
IP Addresses
In order for systems to locate each other in a distributed environment, nodes are given explicit addresses that uniquely identify the particular network the system is on and uniquely identify the system to that particular network. When these two identifiers are combined, the result is a globally-unique address.
This address, known as “IP address”, as “IP number”, or merely as “IP” is a code made up of numbers separated by three dots that identifies a particular computer on the Internet. These addresses are actually 32-bit binary numbers, consisting of the two subaddresses (identifiers) mentioned above which, respectively, identify the network and the host to the network, with an imaginary boundary separating the two. An IP address is, as such, generally shown as 4 octets of numbers from 0-255 represented in decimal form instead of binary form.
For example, the address 168.212.226.204 represents the 32-bit binary number 10101000.11010100.11100010.11001100.
The binary number is important because that will determine which class of network the IP address belongs to. The Class of the address determines which part belongs to the network address and which part belongs to the node address (see IP address Classes further on).
The location of the boundary between the network and host portions of an IP address is determined through the use of a subnet mask. This is another 32-bit binary number which acts like a filter when it is applied to the 32-bit IP address. By comparing a subnet mask with an IP address, systems can determine which portion of the IP address relates to the network and which portion relates to the host. Anywhere the subnet mask has a bit set to “1”, the underlying bit in the IP address is part of the network address. Anywhere the subnet mask is set to “0”, the related bit in the IP address is part of the host address.
The size of a network is a function of the number of bits used to identify the host portion of the address. If a subnet mask shows that 8 bits are used for the host portion of the address block, a maximum of 256 host addresses are available for that specific network. If a subnet mask shows that 16 bits are used for the host portion of the address block, a maximum of 65,536 possible host addresses are available for use on that network.
An Internet Service Provider (ISP) will generally assign either a static IP address (always the same) or a dynamic address (changes every time one logs on).
ISPs and organizations usually apply to the InterNIC for a range of IP addresses so that all clients have similar addresses.
There are about 4.3 billion IP addresses. The class-based, legacy addressing scheme places heavy restrictions on the distribution of these addresses.
TCP/IP networks are inherently router-based, and it takes much less overhead to keep track of a few networks than millions of them.
IP Classes
Class A addresses always have the first bit of their IP addresses set to “0”. Since Class A networks have an 8-bit network mask, the use of a leading zero leaves only 7 bits for the network portion of the address, allowing for a maximum of 128 possible network numbers, ranging from 0.0.0.0 – 127.0.0.0. Number 127.x.x.x is reserved for loopback, used for internal testing on the local machine.
Class B addresses always have the first bit set to “1” and their second bit set to “0”. Since Class B addresses have a 16-bit network mask, the use of a leading “10” bit-pattern leaves 14 bits for the network portion of the address, allowing for a maximum of 16,384 networks, ranging from 128.0.0.0 – 181.255.0.0.
Class C addresses have their first two bits set to “1” and their third bit set to “0”. Since Class C addresses have a 24-bit network mask, this leaves 21 bits for the network portion of the address, allowing for a maximum of 2,097,152 network addresses, ranging from 192.0.0.0 – 223.255.255.0.
Class D addresses are used for multicasting applications. Class D addresses have their first three bits set to “1” and their fourth bit set to “0”. Class D addresses are 32-bit network addresses, meaning that all the values within the range of 224.0.0.0 – 239.255.255.255 are used to uniquely identify multicast groups. There are no host addresses within the Class D address space, since all the hosts within a group share the group’s IP address for receiver purposes.
Class E addresses are defined as experimental and are reserved for future testing purposes. They have never been documented or utilized in a standard way.
IP VERSIONS
The Internet Protocol (IP) has two versions currently in use (see IP version history for details). Each version has its own definition of an IP address. Because of its prevalence, "IP address" typically refers to those defined by IPv4.
IPv4 uses 32-bit (4-byte) addresses, which limits the address space to 4,294,967,296 (232) possible unique addresses. However, IPv4 reserves some addresses for special purposes such as private networks (~18 million addresses) or multicast addresses (~270 million addresses). This reduces the number of addresses that can be allocated as public Internet addresses, and as the number of addresses available is consumed, an IPv4 address shortage appears to be inevitable in the long run. This limitation has helped stimulate the push towards IPv6, which is currently in the early stages of deployment and is currently the only contender to replace IPv4.
IPv4 addresses are usually represented in dotted-decimal notation (four numbers, each ranging from 0 to 255, separated by dots, e.g. 147.132.42.18). Each part represents 8 bits of the address, and is therefore called an octet. It is possible, although less common, to write IPv4 addresses in binary or hexadecimal. When converting, each octet is treated as a separate number. (So 255.255.0.0 in dot-decimal would be FF.FF.00.00 in hexadecimal.)
IPv4 address networks
In the early stages of development of the Internet protocol,network administrators interpreted IP addresses as structures of network numbers and host numbers, with the highest order octet (first eight bits) of an IP address designating the "network number", and the rest of the bits (called the "rest" field) used for host numbering within a network. This method soon proved inadequate as local area networks developed that were not part of the larger networks already designated by a network number. In 1981 IP protocol specification was revised with the introduction of the classful network architecture.
Classful network design allowed for a larger number of individual allocations. The first three bits of the most significant octet of an IP address came to imply the "class" of the address instead of just the network number and, depending on the class derived, the network designation was based on octet boundary segments of the entire address. The following table gives an overview of this system.
When someone manually configures a computer to use the same IP address each time it powers up, this is known as a Static IP address. In contrast, in situations when the computer's IP address is assigned automatically, it is known as a Dynamic IP address.
Method of assignment
Static IP addresses get manually assigned to a computer by an administrator. The exact procedure varies according to platform. This contrasts with dynamic IP addresses, which are assigned either randomly (by the computer itself, as in Zeroconf), or assigned by a server using Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Even though IP addresses assigned using DHCP may stay the same for long periods of time, they can generally change. In some cases, a network administrator may implement dynamically assigned static IP addresses. In this case, a DHCP server is used, but it is specifically configured to always assign the same IP address to a particular computer, and never to assign that IP address to another computer. This allows static IP addresses to be configured in one place, without having to specifically configure each computer on the network in a different way.
In the absence of both an administrator (to assign a static IP address) and a DHCP server, the operating system may assign itself an IP address using state-less autoconfiguration methods, such as Zeroconf. These IP addresses, known as link-local addresses, default to the 169.254.0.0/16 address range in IPv4.
Uses of dynamic addressing
Dynamic IP addresses are most frequently assigned on LANs and broadband networks by Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers. They are used because it avoids the administrative burden of assigning specific static addresses to each device on a network. It also allows many devices to share limited address space on a network if only some of them will be online at a particular time. In most current desktop operating systems, dynamic IP configuration is enabled by default so that a user does not need to manually enter any settings to connect to a network with a DHCP server. DHCP is not the only technology used to assigning dynamic IP addresses. Dialup and some broadband networks use dynamic address features of the Point-to-Point Protocol.
Uses of static addressing
Some infrastructure situations have to use static addressing, such as when finding the Domain Name Service directory host that will translate domain names to IP addresses. Static addresses are also convenient, but not absolutely necessary, to locate servers inside an enterprise. An address obtained from a DNS server comes with a time to live, or caching time, after which it should be looked up to confirm that it has not changed. Even static IP addresses do change as a result of network administration.
is only for education purpose.So who ever try this is at his risk.I am not sure that this will work 100 %.But yes will work almost 70 percent of the times.But before that you need to know some few things of yahoo chat protocolleave a comment here after u see the post lemme know if it does works or not or u havin a problem post hereFollowing are the features : -1) When we chat on yahoo every thing goes through the server.Only when we chat thats messages.2) When we send files yahoo has 2 optionsa) Either it upload the file and then the other client has to down load it.
b) Either it connects to the client directly and gets the files3) When we use video or audio:-a) It either goes thru the server
b) Or it has client to client connectionAnd when we have client to client connection the opponents IP is revealed.On the 5051 port.So how do we exploit the Chat user when he gets a direct connection. And how do we go about it.Remeber i am here to hack a system with out using a TOOL only by simple net commands and yahoo chat techniques.Thats what makes a difference between a real hacker and newbies.
1) Its impossible to get a Attackers IP address when you only chat.
2) There are 50 % chances of getting a IP address when you send files
3) Again 50 % chances of getting IP when you use video or audio.So why to wait lets exploit those 50 % chances.
steps
1) Go to dos type ->netstat -n You will get the following output.Just do not care and be coolActive ConnectionsProto Local Address Foreign Address StateTCP 194.30.209.15:1631 194.30.209.20:5900 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:2736 216.136.224.214:5050 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:2750 64.4.13.85:1863 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:2864 64.4.12.200:1863 ESTABLISHEDActive ConnectionsProto Local Address Foreign Address StateTCP 194.30.209.15:1631 194.30.209.20:5900 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:2736 216.136.224.214:5050 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:2750 64.4.13.85:1863 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:2864 64.4.12.200:1863 ESTABLISHEDJust i will explain what the out put is in general.In left hand side is your IP address.And in right hand side is the IP address of the foreign machine.And the port to which is connected.Ok now so what next ->2) Try sending a file to the Target .if the files comes from server.Thats the file is uploaded leave itYou will not get the ip.But if a direct connection is establishedHMMMM then the first attacker first phase is overThis is the output in your netstat.The 5101 number port is where the Attacker is connected.Active ConnectionsProto Local Address Foreign Address StateTCP 194.30.209.15:1631 194.30.209.20:5900 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:2736 216.136.224.214:5050 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:2750 64.4.13.85:1863 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:2864 64.4.12.200:1863 ESTABLISHEDTCP 194.30.209.15:5101 194.30.209.14:3290 ESTABLISHEDThats what is highlighted in RED. So what next
3) Ok so make a DOS attack nowGo to dos prompt andJust donbtstat -A Attackers IPaddress.Can happen that if system is not protected then you can see the whole network.C:\>nbtstat -A 194.30.209.14Local Area Connection:Node IpAddress: [194.30.209.15] Scope Id: []NetBIOS Remote Machine Name TableName Type Status---------------------------------------------EDP12 <00> UNIQUE RegisteredSHIV <00> GROUP RegisteredSHIV <20> UNIQUE RegisteredSHIVCOMP1 <1e> GROUP RegisteredMAC Address = 00-C0-W0-D5-EF-9AOk so you will ask now what next.No you find what you can do with this network than me explaining everything.So the conclusion is never exchange files , video or audio till you know that the user with whom you are chatting is not going to harm you.
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Niklas Zennestrom
Skype is software that allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet. Calls to other users of the service and to free-of-charge numbers are free, while calls to other landlines and mobile phones can be made for a prescribed fee. Additional features include instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing. It was created by entrepreneurs Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis, and a team of software developers based in Tallinn, Estonia.The Skype Group has its headquarters in Luxembourg, with offices in London, Tallinn, Tartu, Stockholm, Prague,and San Jose. Skype has experienced rapid growth in popular usage since the launch of its services. It was acquired by eBay in September 2005 for $2.6 billion
SkypeInSkypeIn allows Skype users to receive calls on their computers dialed by regular phone subscribers to a local Skype phone number; local numbers are available for Australia, Brazil, Chile,[4] Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand,Poland, Romania, South Korea, India, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and the United States. A Skype user can have local numbers in any of these countries, with calls to the number charged at the same rate as calls to fixed lines in the country. Some jurisdictions, including France and Norway, forbid the registration of their telephone numbers to anyone without a physical presence or citizenship in the country.
VideoconferencingVideoconferencing was introduced in January 2006 for the Windows and Mac OS X platform clients. Skype 2.0 for Linux, which was released on March 13, 2008, also features support for videoconferencing.Skype for Windows, starting with version 3.6.0.216, supports “High Quality Video" with quality and features (e.g. full-screen and screen-in-screen modes) similar to that of mid-range videoconferencing systems.
[edit] Skype on mobile devicesOn April 24, 2008, Skype announced that they offer Skype on around 50 mobile phones.On October 29, 2007, Skype launched its own mobile phone under the brand name 3 Skypephone, which runs a BREW OS.[8]Skype is available for the N800 and N810 Internet Tablets.Skype is available on both the Sony Mylo COM-1 and newer COM-2 models.Skype is available for the PSP (PlayStation Portable) Slim and Lite with firmware version 3.90 or higher, but you need to purchase one of three microphone input peripherals. The first is the Skype headset kit, which comes with a headset with a boom microphone and the PSP remote, but in the colour black instead of the standard silver. The other two which plug in to the proprietary USB accessory connector at the top being the dedicated microphone peripheral or the PSP camera which also has a built in microphone.The Upcoming PSP-3000 has a built in microphone which allows communication without the Skype peripheral [9]Skype is available on mobile devices running Windows Mobile.The official Symbian version is currently under development.Official Skype support is available on Symbian and Java as part of X-Series together with mobile operator 3.Other companies produce dedicated Skype phones which connect via WiFi. Third party developers, such as Nimbuzz and Fring, have allowed Skype to run in parallel with several other competing VoIP/IM networks in any Symbian or Java environment. Nimbuzz have made Skype available to BlackBerry users.
Security featuresMain article: Skype securitySecure communication is a feature of Skype; encryption cannot be disabled, and is invisible to the user. Skype reportedly uses non-proprietary, widely trusted encryption techniques: RSA for key negotiation and the Advanced Encryption Standard to encrypt conversations.Skype provides an uncontrolled registration system for users with absolutely no proof of identity. This permits users to use the system without revealing their identity to other users. It is trivial, of course, for anybody to set up an account using any name; the displayed caller's name is no guarantee of authenticity.
Issues
Security concerns
SkypeInSkypeIn allows Skype users to receive calls on their computers dialed by regular phone subscribers to a local Skype phone number; local numbers are available for Australia, Brazil, Chile,[4] Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand,Poland, Romania, South Korea, India, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and the United States. A Skype user can have local numbers in any of these countries, with calls to the number charged at the same rate as calls to fixed lines in the country. Some jurisdictions, including France and Norway, forbid the registration of their telephone numbers to anyone without a physical presence or citizenship in the country.
VideoconferencingVideoconferencing was introduced in January 2006 for the Windows and Mac OS X platform clients. Skype 2.0 for Linux, which was released on March 13, 2008, also features support for videoconferencing.Skype for Windows, starting with version 3.6.0.216, supports “High Quality Video" with quality and features (e.g. full-screen and screen-in-screen modes) similar to that of mid-range videoconferencing systems.
[edit] Skype on mobile devicesOn April 24, 2008, Skype announced that they offer Skype on around 50 mobile phones.On October 29, 2007, Skype launched its own mobile phone under the brand name 3 Skypephone, which runs a BREW OS.[8]Skype is available for the N800 and N810 Internet Tablets.Skype is available on both the Sony Mylo COM-1 and newer COM-2 models.Skype is available for the PSP (PlayStation Portable) Slim and Lite with firmware version 3.90 or higher, but you need to purchase one of three microphone input peripherals. The first is the Skype headset kit, which comes with a headset with a boom microphone and the PSP remote, but in the colour black instead of the standard silver. The other two which plug in to the proprietary USB accessory connector at the top being the dedicated microphone peripheral or the PSP camera which also has a built in microphone.The Upcoming PSP-3000 has a built in microphone which allows communication without the Skype peripheral [9]Skype is available on mobile devices running Windows Mobile.The official Symbian version is currently under development.Official Skype support is available on Symbian and Java as part of X-Series together with mobile operator 3.Other companies produce dedicated Skype phones which connect via WiFi. Third party developers, such as Nimbuzz and Fring, have allowed Skype to run in parallel with several other competing VoIP/IM networks in any Symbian or Java environment. Nimbuzz have made Skype available to BlackBerry users.
Security featuresMain article: Skype securitySecure communication is a feature of Skype; encryption cannot be disabled, and is invisible to the user. Skype reportedly uses non-proprietary, widely trusted encryption techniques: RSA for key negotiation and the Advanced Encryption Standard to encrypt conversations.Skype provides an uncontrolled registration system for users with absolutely no proof of identity. This permits users to use the system without revealing their identity to other users. It is trivial, of course, for anybody to set up an account using any name; the displayed caller's name is no guarantee of authenticity.
Issues
Security concerns
A third party paper analyzing the security and methodology of Skype was presented at Black Hat Europe 2006. It analysed Skype and made these observations:Skype keeps chatting on the network, even when idle (even for non-supernodes. May be used for NAT traversal)Assumes a 'blind trust' of anything else speaking SkypeAbility to build a parallel Skype networkSkype makes it hard to enforce a (corporate) security policyNo way to know if there is or will be a 'backdoor'In February 2007 it became known that Skype creates a file called 1.com in the temp directory which is capable to read all BIOS data[14] from a PC. According to Skype this is used to identify individual computers and provide DRM protection for plug-ins.Skype is owned by eBay, whose privacy policy is perhaps the least protective of customers of any large corporation. eBay claims it goes above and beyond what it is required to do by law, seeking out and giving police all the information it stores about users excluding some financial data, for which they require a subpoena.The security and protection of privacy of traffic through Skype is controversial. Although Skype offers an encryption for the direct communcation between users, a spokesperson of Skype did not want to deny the ability to intercept the communiction.On the question of whether Skype could listen in on their user's communication, Kurt Sauer, head of the security division of Skype, replied evasively: "We provide a secure means of communication. I will not say if we are listening in or not." The implementation of a text filter in China suggests that Skype makes use of its eavesdropping capabilities if necessary, or whenever it is in their economic interest. It is also well known that the owner of Skype, eBay, is a close and reliable partner of US author when it comes to divulging private information of their users.Skype service issuesThere have been a multitude of complaints about Skype's poor customer support.As of September 2008, Skype did not provide a way to contact customer support, offering indirect assistance through its web portal only. There have also been criticisms of Skype blocking and disabling customer accounts from using the SkypeOut service.[23]While available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (i386 platform) operating systems, there is no Skype version for the Palm OS, used in mobile devices like the Treo 700p smartphone.Skype has been criticized for bugs and delays in its Linux version, which is relatively undeveloped compared to the Mac and Windows versions and many features included in the other versions are not found in the Linux client.SkypeOut does not support storing or (automatically) calling numbers with extensions.Instead, a user must call the number (without the extension), wait for the call to connect and then manually enter the extension. This means that many business customers in practice need a separate contact list that includes extensions, causing the built-in contact list to be of little use. This is by many customers considered a fairly basic feature, and other phone services typically support it by allowing numbers to contain a symbol to represent a pause, as in "1-800-123-4567 x54321" or "1-800-123-4567,,,54321" where 54321 is the extension.
Compliance with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement ActIn the United States, the FCC has interpreted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act as requiring digital phone networks to allow wiretapping in the presence of an FBI warrant, in the same way as traditional phone service. Skype is not yet compliant with the act and has, so far, stated that it does not plan to comply.
German wiretappingIt has been reported that German authorities have been wiretapping Skype conversations using a trojan horse. A number of individuals involved in publicly disclosing this information have been placed under investigation.
Censorship in ChinaSkype is one of many companies (others include AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco) which has cooperated with the Chinese government in implementing a system of Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China. Niklas Zennström, chief executive to Skype, told reporters that its joint venture partner in China is operating in compliance with domestic law. "TOM Online had implemented a text filter, which is what everyone else in that market is doing," said Zennström. "Those are the regulations," he said. "I may like or not like the laws and regulations to operate businesses in the UK or Germany or the US, but if I do business there I choose to comply with those laws and regulations. I can try to lobby to change them, but I need to comply with them. China in that way is not different.Since late September, users in China trying to download the Skype software are redirected to the TOM site from which a modified Chinese version can be downloaded. Activists in China are warned about the possibility that TOM's versions have or will have more trojan capability.
Company timeline of events: September 2002:
investment from Draper Investment Company.
April 2003: Skype.com and Skype.net domain names registered.
August 2003: First public beta version released.
September 2005: SkypeOut banned in South China.
October 2005: eBay purchased Skype (Oct 14).
December 2005:
videotelephony introduced.
April 2006: Number of registered users reaches 100 million.
October 2006: Skype 2.0 for Mac is released, the first full release of Skype with video for Macintosh.
December 2006: Skype announces a new pricing structure as of January 18, 2007, with connection fees for all SkypeOut calls. Skype 3.0 for Windows is released.
March 2007: Skype 3.1 is released, adding some new features, including Skype Find and Skype Prime. Skype also released a 3.2 beta with a new feature called Send Money which allows users to send money via PayPal from one Skype user to another.
August 2007: Skype 3.5 for Windows released with additions such as video in mood, inclusion of video content in chat, call transfer to another person or a group, auto-redial.
August 15, 2007: Skype 2.7.0.49 (beta) for Mac OS X released adding availability of contacts in the Mac Address Book to the Skype contact list, auto redial, contact groups, public chat creation, and an in-window volume slider to the call window.
August 16 / August 17, 2007: Skype users unable to connect to full Skype network in many countries. Skype reports the system-wide crash was the result of exceptional number of logins after a Windows patch reboot ("Patch Tuesday").
November 2007: Skype users are set to lose their 020 7 numbers after 20 December 2007.
January 30, 2008: Skype released for the Sony PSP hand-held gaming system.
March 13, 2008: Skype 2.0 for Linux released with support for videoconferencing.July 09, 2008: Skype 4.0 Beta is released, changing Skype into a full screen application.September 1, 2008: Skype discontinues its SkypeCast service, citing difficulties in moderating chat rooms.
September 8, 2008: As of December 31, 2007 Skype had 276 million user accounts. Users may have more than one account, and it is not possible to identify users with multiple accounts.It was reported that 13,230,315 concurrent Skype users were online as of September 17, 2008.The volume of international traffic routed via Skype is significant, though small compared to total global switched and VoIP traffic. Computer-to-computer traffic between Skype users in 2005 was 2.9% of international carrier traffic in 2005 and about 4.4% of the total international traffic of 264 billion minutes in 2006.Skype incorporates some features which tend to hide its traffic, but it is not specifically designed to thwart traffic analysis and therefore does not provide anonymous communication. Some researchers have been able to watermark the traffic so that it is identifiable even after passing through an anonymizing network.
Skype protocolMain article: Skype ProtocolSkype uses a proprietary Internet telephony (VoIP) network. The protocol has not been made publicly available by Skype and official applications using the protocol are proprietary and closed-source. The main difference between Skype and standard VoIP clients is that Skype operates on a peer-to-peer model (originally based on the Kazaa software) rather than the more usual client-server model. The Skype user directory is entirely decentralized and distributed among the nodes of the network—i.e., users' computers—which allows the network to scale very easily to large sizes (currently about 240 million users) without a complex centralized infrastructure costly to the Skype Group.Skype Protocol DetectionMany Networking and security companies claim to detect and control Skype's protocol for enterprise and carrier applications. While the specific detection methods used by these companies are often proprietary, Pearson's Chi-Square Test and stochastic characterization with Naive Bayesian Classifiers are two approaches that were publicly published in 2007.
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Skype protocolMain article: Skype ProtocolSkype uses a proprietary Internet telephony (VoIP) network. The protocol has not been made publicly available by Skype and official applications using the protocol are proprietary and closed-source. The main difference between Skype and standard VoIP clients is that Skype operates on a peer-to-peer model (originally based on the Kazaa software) rather than the more usual client-server model. The Skype user directory is entirely decentralized and distributed among the nodes of the network—i.e., users' computers—which allows the network to scale very easily to large sizes (currently about 240 million users) without a complex centralized infrastructure costly to the Skype Group.Skype Protocol DetectionMany Networking and security companies claim to detect and control Skype's protocol for enterprise and carrier applications. While the specific detection methods used by these companies are often proprietary, Pearson's Chi-Square Test and stochastic characterization with Naive Bayesian Classifiers are two approaches that were publicly published in 2007.
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Incident in LHC sector 34
Geneva, 20 September 2008. During commissioning (without beam) of the final LHC sector (sector 34) at high current for operation at 5 TeV, an incident occurred at mid-day on Friday 19 September resulting in a large helium leak into the tunnel. Preliminary investigations indicate that the most likely cause of the problem was a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, which probably melted at high current leading to mechanical failure. CERN ’s strict safety regulations ensured that at no time was there any risk to people.
A full investigation is underway, but it is already clear that the sector will have to be warmed up for repairs to take place. This implies a minimum of two months down time for LHC operation. For the same fault, not uncommon in a normally conducting machine, the repair time would be a matter of days.
Further details will be made available as soon as they are known.
1 CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.
