As is probably fairly obvious to my long-time readers, I enjoy reading about and commenting on technology. I'm not always right, or terribly insightful, but I usually have some kind of opinion. However, I have recently found myself at a bit of a loss.
This all started on Charlie Paglee's blog. Charlie is the cofounder of Vozin Communications, who is apparently not a competitor to Skype. On Thursday, he says that he received a call from a friend in China via Skype, but his friend was not actually using Skype. Screenshots are posted as evidence, as well as Charlie's IP address being correctly reported to him by his friend. What is perhaps most interesting is that if the Skype technology has been reverse engineered, clients could be developed that did not use the standard Skype SuperNode architecture, and could be easily blocked. There are many companies (and governments) that would certainly like to be able to disable Skype usage on their network(s).
Since the announcement, there has been a flurry of news, speculation, and of course, doubt. Skype has issued a statement basically saying that they do not feel threatened by this. Some folks think it's a hoax, while others believe the next era of Skype is just beginning. And here is where I am unsure: I do not know what to think. While I don't want to think it was made up, the report could be exaggerated, or perhaps twisted in some way. For now, I'm just going to watch this developing story with an anxious eye and see what comes out in the days ahead.