Tuesday, July 5

VOIP may be hot, but I'm still not Peer to Peering

VOIP may be hot, but I'm still not Peer to Peering:

What's hot these days? Voice over Internet Protocol. But that doesn't mean I like the way that VOIP is offering up services in all instances. There are a couple of free [or near free] VOIP options that rely on the same technology as peer to peer technology...and well...let me just say that anythng that has the words 'peer to peer' ... I'd rather not have that technology in my network. Oh sure folks can say that they've run it with Snort and examined the packet flow across that and they didn't see any traffic inside their network...but I'll think I'll pass.

I don't understand this. Not at all. My response

With an attitude like that, just what are you doing on this here Intarweb?

P2P always has been the way that the Internet works. Talking about security risks just because something is peer to peer is just fearmongering. If you trully are that paranoid, you'd better disconnect that router and cancel that Internet connection!

We all know how to make computers completely secure. Unfortunately, following those steps also makes the computer totally useless.

You want us to ask the hard questions. I agree, as professionals, that's exactly what we are there for. As to issues about security and VOIP and P2P...

Is installing VOIP really like installing Kazaa? I really do not understand where this paranoia is coming from.

I won't get into the ridiculous captchas that are used. (evidently what I thought was a o was a 0 [alpha o versus the numeric digit 0]. I still think that captchas that go too far overboard (such as insisting on correct case!) and use a font that doesn't make any real difference between a 0 and a O don't prove shit.)

Update

Turns out that the issue was one of the EULA. OK, I can agree with that. The EULA for Skype doesn't read that bad, but it also legitimizes the fact that Skype will turn your computer into some sort of super node/proxy/whatever if you have a fast enough connection. No way to opt out, no way to throttle the connection. In my case all my up bandwidth was being sucked by Skype and therefore not much was left for my use, which I'm sorry, is there for my use, not for Skype to just suck on whenever it wants to. In this case, I have to say that it's a problem with the actual application, not just because it's peer to peer. I've seen the same thing happen with a file sharing program called Grouper. Again, once I saw what was happening, I turned it off. Permanently.

I'm leaving Skype installed because there is a chance that one of my sons will have a working computer and will eventually get Skype installed, and then we can have transcontinental conversations on the cheap. I just won't be running Skype 100% of the time.

I still don't see the point of painting all peer to peer with the same brush that says that they are evil. Lots of software could be considered evil with or without the fact that it's peer to peer. Activation schemes for operating systems and other software come to mind.