.:Computer Defense:.

Many of you are aware of the Skype problems last week, there was a major service disruption (Read more here) that left skype users with no access to the service (Cartoon via UserFriendly.org). Initial blame for the problem fell on a 'deficient networking algo' but now blame has been shifted to Microsoft and the reoccurring Windows Update. Others have a more interesting theory that it was indeed a DDoS, using the exploit code available from securitylab.ru. I'd be more inclined to accept that it was a DDoS and that Skype feels it would be bad press to acknowledge the fact so instead they are blaming Microsoft.

You have to ask a number of questions if you want to accept Skype's scapegoat:

1. Why didn't it fail last month, or the month before that, or the month before that, etc?
2. Why don't any of the other chat programs experience such failures... MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, GoogleTalk, etc.
3. Why don't any of the P2P file sharing programs experience these problems...
4. Why didn't it happen immediately following the installation of the updates?
5. Automatic Updates has a 'default time' set... Assuming the same time is used world-wide, updates would be downloaded following a common shift with the next time zone downloading and rebooting one hour after the previous time zone. Wouldn't this mitigate the problem?

There are plenty of unanswered questions and I think that Skype has really let down it's users in this case. I stopped using the software awhile ago. I find that even GoogleTalk provides higher quality voice chats, and my home VoIP provides lower rates. Perhaps this additional bad press would really harm the company and they're doing everything they can to down play the problem...