asterisk users - Aug 2007 - [asterisk-biz] Skype Outage Leaves Millions Speechless

On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 18:22 +0200, Trixter aka Bret McDanel
wrote:
> On 8/17/07, Aleks Clark <aleks.clark at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Actually, the crazy p2p connections actually reinforce their algorithm
> > story. If their p2p algorithms have flaked out, it could cause all
sorts of
> > trouble. OTOH, I don't think they'd run logins over p2p....
> >
> 
> given the press from days past about how someone cracked the algorithm
> and could write their own client that ebay cant control, almost makes
> you wonder if it was an auto-update gone awry to try to change the
> algorithm.
> 
> I dont know what the default setting is, but do know that skype can be
> set to auto-update itself, which means that some may have been
> affected while others werent for that reason alone.
> 
> I am certain though that skype wouldnt admit if it was this, and its
> likely that any front line people at skype wouldnt know one way or the
> other for sure what is broke.
	Imagine if the world's largest online marketplace operated the world's
largest alternative (and one of the largest in general) telco and an
unregulated global online banking monopoly. And the telco suddenly went
down, unexplained, for hours or days.

	That sounds like a serious threat to global economy and security,
right?

	eBay is that marketplace, owns Skype, that telco, owns PayPal, that
bank. This outage should be screaming from the headlines. As those three
essential services become essential to more people around the world,
they need to become reliable. This outage is a serious warning for
future dependence on those connected services. If the media can't even
report it, how can we expect anyone to do anything to fix or mitigate
it?
-- 

(C) Matthew Rubenstein

On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 12:51:35PM -0400, Matthew Rubenstein
wrote:
> 	eBay is that marketplace, owns Skype, that telco, owns PayPal, that
> bank. This outage should be screaming from the headlines. As those three
> essential services become essential to more people around the world,
> they need to become reliable. This outage is a serious warning for
> future dependence on those connected services. If the media can't even
> report it, how can we expect anyone to do anything to fix or mitigate
> it?
And that, on top of eBay's latest... apparently they've provided
sellers some new way to block bids from buyers who haven't registered a
validated PayPal account with eBay... but I don't see any way to
*register* such an account, and *neither party notified me [a bidder]
about the new policy*.

Huh?

Cheers
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra at
baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com                    
'87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://photo.imageinc.us             +1 727 647 1274

Matthew Rubenstein wrote:
> 	Imagine if the world's largest online marketplace operated the
world's
> largest alternative (and one of the largest in general) telco and an
> unregulated global online banking monopoly. And the telco suddenly went
> down, unexplained, for hours or days.
> 
> 	That sounds like a serious threat to global economy and security,
> right?
If the global economy is depending on a free, unguaranteed third-party
VoIP service for critical communications, it deserves to go down in
flames. I don't use Skype for anything important. It's nothing more than
a "nice to have".

A tempest in a teapot. Embarrassing for Skype and eBay? Sure! A sign of
Armageddon? Hardly.

If anything, this is another warning against relying on Microsoft Windows.

-Stephen-