Stallman claims Skype isn't encrypted end-to-end and then suggests using "free" alternatives that are not in the least bit security concious or end-to-end encrypted.
Also the "long distance phone card" suggestion ignores that every major telephone company in the US was caught providing information without any legal obligation to do so.
Of course, in the free software world the only thing counting is if the software is under a free license. All other properties can only be used to attack non-free software
RMS is a legend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman. Every one would be living in a little bit of a different world and all the computer tech guys would be living in a completely different world with out RMS.
"Every one would be living in a little bit of a different world and all the computer tech guys would be living in a completely different world with out RMS."
Someone else would've likely done the same thing sooner or later.
Free software was not necessarily an inevitability, but efforts to accelerate that certainly pushed it forward.
The problem now is this rampant hostility towards all proprietary software of any form for any purpose. The FSF is still fighting the same pointless war against proprietary operating systems when the real threat is IoT junk, cars, and medical devices full of unauditable code.
free software and the web both happened at the right place and the right time. do you really think the web would be what it is today if you needed to buy a $10k webserver from IBM to host a site?
sure, someone else would likely have eventually come up with the concept of free software, but would it have missed the critical mass of the early web? the idea that free software didn't play a large part in the modern technology landscape is just wrong.
"but would it have missed the critical mass of the early web"
You should probably hold a slightly lower opinion of your fellow human. We're rather well-known to go after any possibility of free things, and critical mass was more along the lines of the days of Napster (when, hey, FREE MUSIC!)
He serves an important purpose. He lays forth a philosophical framework for software freedom, and makes predictions that people don't take seriously and gives advice that nobody would ever practically follow. He also has this annoying habit of being right in the end. He represents an ideal we'll never reach, but we should always aim back toward.
This. Very much echoes my thoughts when I first read Right to Read, which I believe was at a job I left early 2000, so sometime before that.
And then the scenario stated becoming, if not true, the a helluva lot closer. And the irony of Orwell books being removed remotely from Kindle's in 2009 [0]
was evident and tied into the dystopia feel of it all.
Stallman warned people in detail about the dangers of putting everything in "the cloud" years and years before everyone started putting their photos in the cloud, getting hacked, and celebrities' nude photos being leaked on the internet. If you think he's crazy about a topic just wait 5 years, you'll admit he's right.
We could make the same argument against cars and airplanes. Before those were invented exactly zero people died in auto or airplane accidents. The cloud as a concept isn't bad -- some implementations of it are.
> If you think he's crazy about a topic just wait 5 years, you'll admit he's right.
2012 → 2017 : yep after Snowden leaks in 2013 that confirmed Microsoft joined PRISM in 2007, the fear of eavesdropping in Skype does not seem unfunded anymore.
I wouldn't want to be the guy who arranges a Torvalds-Stallman meeting. These two are quite passionate and disagree about something that Stallman spent his life preaching. It wouldn't go well.
So if Coca Cola is the only thing available, he will just refuse. I personally prefer Coke, but I'm not going to walk off stage if I am offered Pepsi. A bit rock-starish if you ask me.
I think it's really too harsh to criticise him like that—He's obviously autistic, so people who deal with him should be more forgiving of this kind of behaviour.
If you read the riders of actual rock stars, you will find that RMS's rider isn't that extreme. He doesn't even require M&M's sorted by color[1].
Most hired performers have specific riders that detail exactly what will be provided by the venue/etc. Detailing your interactions as specifically as possible in an actual contract removes ambiguity and prevents mistakes and misunderstandings.
`A supply of tea with milk and sugar would be nice. If it is tea I
really like, I like it without milk and sugar. With milk and sugar,
any kind of tea is fine. I always bring tea bags with me, so if we
use my tea bags, I will certainly like that tea without milk or sugar.
If I am quite sleepy, I would like two cans or small bottles of
non-diet Pepsi. (I dislike the taste of coke, and of all diet soda;
also, there is an international boycott of the Coca Cola company for
killing union organizers in Colombia and Guatemala; see
killercoke.org.) However, if I am not very sleepy, I won't want
Pepsi, because it is better if I don't drink so much sugar.`
He's a software Luddite, he basically wants all computing to be like in the 70's, when he enjoyed hacking on ITS, and people would just share software freely. Everything beyond that is evil to him.
The problem with his first argument is that it is a logical fallacy (affirming a disjunct). Just because one does not say A, does not mean that it automatically must be B. He says "most likely", but even this is not certain. I agree, it feels that it must be true. But then again this is an inductive fallacy. Simply because most companies we know that have acted in such a way actually were eavesdropping on its customers, one cannot say with certainty that this is a general rule.
If Skype could not eavesdrop on calls, they would most certainly say so when ask —because not saying so would make them look bad. It's then a simple matter of probability theory to deduce that their silence most probably means it can eavesdrop on calls.
Affirming a disjunct is perfectly legitimate approximation in this case.
Big fancy words with zero content and a complete lack of arguments.
> He says "most likely", but even this is not certain.
That is the exact meaning of most likely.
> Simply because most companies we know that have acted in such a way actually were eavesdropping on its customers, one cannot say with certainty that this is a general rule.
It would be plain idiotic to not assume the worst until proven otherwise, especially after everything we learned in the past few years.
Riot can do audio and video calls, I've had good luck with it (currently gets used between my friendgroup instead of phonecalls). Check out http://matrix.org/ for the server implementation details and https://riot.im for the biggest client. Currently, it only supports 1-on-1 audiocalls/videocalls. No group calls yet.
Forewarning that while it supports end-to-end encryption for the chatting bits, the actual audio data is not encrypted. The call request/advertisement can be encrypted though!
Another reason not to use Skype is that their support is pretty poor.
They've deleted Skype numbers from my account without warning. Someone linked my and my wife's account because we used them on the same PC, and refuse to unlink Skype and Microsoft accounts.
I'd love to find an alternative, but given that everybody already has Skype accounts the lock-in is pretty significant.
Don't much like the alternatives Stallman proposes. Using long distance phone calls seems worse than Skype, phone companies have provided governments with even more access to user data than most tech companies.
Stallman won't like it but Facebook Messenger has voice calling built in now and it works very well. I was calling someone in SE Asia from rural Massachusetts recently and the quality was great with very low latency. It felt like a natural conversation given the connectivity challenges on both ends.
You don't need to be Facebook friends to complete a call but I can still see that expectation being an obstacle to establishing one. Is there a space for a very simple WebRTC call application? It seems like everyone is focused on video calling or more full-featured products.
I'd love it if the default was to use some very lightweight WebRTC app where you just created a new link for each conversation.
I don't think it's likely to happen any time soon unfortunately.
Regarding Facebook, it still feels weird, I'm not sure I can put my finger on exactly why. I just want to keep "friends" and "business" totally separate.
How was this service Mozilla once included in their browser called, something from Telefonica? Worked pretty well for me. Maybe they ditched it to early?
No as long as it is not supported by mobile safari, thereby cutting a large swath of situations where such an app would be useful. We've had WebRTC calls as "experimental" for years now in https://awwapp.com/ solely because of this limitation.
Once you invest more in working around this by having native clients, it makes sense for your product to do more.
We use Skype for Business at work, however when the boss isn't watching we switch to appear.in since it works much better and doesn't require craptastic software.
SfB is pants. Quality is always crap, UI is terrible, Mac client is constantly behind, there is no really-open interface for Linux and bots, etc etc.
But, the boss will see when you're "available" straight from Outlook, which is where he lives. It's not an IM tool, it's (yet another) instrument of workforce control.
Don't even get me started on the mac client... constantly drops calls, other end complains that sound quality is terrible despite high quality headphones, screen sharing stops suddenly mid presentation, can't see scheduled meeting directly in app, and overall horrible UX.
Also, despite the rigid security policy where I work, the mac client stores my password in the keychain.
the begin of the conversation is a bit lacking though, you need to wait few seconds and few "do you hear me?" tests.
I don't use it often but happened not hearing the other side in the middle of the conversation, need to investigate this further.
I too have been quite pleased with Facebook calling over a 3G connection from the Middle East to North America, though I still find that FaceTime voice calls sound better (pending both parties own apple devices)
Without an on-premise option you wouldn't be able to get in to most organisations that have Lync deployed. Feature wise it wouldn't be too hard to match, but you might go crazy trying to code Outlook/Exchange integrations.
> Without an on-premise option you wouldn't be able to get in to most organisations that have Lync deployed.
I used to think that, too, but with the rise of cloud offerings like Office 365, many orgs are starting to see that running your own servers for Sharepoint/Exchange/Unified Communication isn't worth it anymore.
Discord might be an alternative for team/friend based conversations. They have group calling (don't need to share a server) now. Problem is that it's marketed towards gamers and so might not be fit for purpose for business purposes
Mumble's requirements are fairly low, you could get by with a $3/month VPS or even a RasPi. Maintenance is down to keeping the OS updated, which is trivial on pretty much any VPS Linux install, as well as Raspbian.
If you're truly paranoid there's a Mumble port for OpenBSD, though that obviously wouldn't fit Stallman's definition of Free.
Last time I tried it, you had to do stuff like generate certificates and open ports and while it wasn't too much of a big deal and improved voice quality a lot, everyone wanted to stay on Skype.
Until we moved to Discord. Which has equally good sound quality, a fantastic chat and role system, and the ability for people to just jump into your voice call instead of having to be invited (which was what killed Skype for us, for any number of people over 3).
I'm part of a bunch of guilds for just hanging out and playing video games. But I also moderate two Discord guilds for programming, containing thousands of people.
Discord's pretty sweet, in a way that Skype and Mumble simply can't compare.
I used Discord for a while when I played Rust (post apocalyptic sandbox MMO) and was a member of a clan on there. It worked great, and the Windows client is fantastic. Basically, Slack+TeamSpeak.
Mumble server hosting is ridiculously cheap. No one has to run one unless they think they are going to discuss stuff that is so sensitive that it would be worth someone's time to subvert a hosting company and monitor the channel. ... and then you can pretty much pick the country you want to buy hosting in so as to make that unlikely.
Discord is working on full P2P video calling. Overall its not a replacement yet, but its very convenient.
There are a lot of games and software communities that use Discord quite productively, significantly better than what Mumble or Teamspeak have ever allowed for. Just having actual textual channels has made it so dev talk about modding, server administration and all things technical is just a few clicks away. Discords devs do impliment features that are useful for other developers, such as code markdown support. And unlike Skype, you can actually talk to the devs in the official Discord Devs server if you catch them. I'm not an important person at all, and have talked to the CEO and half the teams devs casually.
You can do:
```javascript
var x = "y";
```
and it'l syntax highlight. There is a clear roles permissions system, with support for multiple channels both textual and voice, full API support for building bots, and Discord uses their own service for development communication.
Of course its not a one-size fits all, Skype is more business oriented, so it looks more proffessional to use, but Discord is well on its way to be an actually better alternative from a technological standpoint. That sweet P2P video and audio will be great, and they've stated in the past they actually can't host that stuff through their servers, because even just proxying that much video data is way too costly.
Not to say its all perfect, some of the design decisions, such as making it so normal user accounts have the same access to the API as bots do (Though you'l be banned it 'caught'), makes it so users can easily just run a chat spammer. Its a fundamental issue because the program itself works in that manner. They also hate modding and plugin support, with some of the less experienced devs creating tirades against Javascript injection software like BetterDiscord, which allows you to add in custom CSS, and make your own javascript plugins to manipulate the DOM. Even though its incredibly useful, even basic things like changing font size of the program are only doable through that. They very much so have an Apple-esque idea that they know better, but it seems they've made a compromise (so far) that they haven't broken injection abilities yet.
Piggybacking the question to state a general info:
There are voip operators like the italian mtalk that give you free local national numbers, free calls between users of the same provider, but the call is not encrypted.
This have the good thing that anyone can choose the preferred provider, you can receive calls also from "traditional" phones.
A phone number is like a mailbox, it's clearly provider independent, but sadly it's often non free calling between different operators.
I prefer Matrix[0] since it has some nice features (encryption, message history, multiple devices, audio, video, files), supports most major platforms, can be self hosted and importantly, supports push notifications so your battery isn't destroyed like it is with Antox.
But alas, it sucks (no support at all!) at ipv6 (e.g.: On a ds-lite scenario), it is federated instead of decentralized, and its end-to-end encryption is optional.
- "federated instead of decentralized": I believe Matrix's federation implementation qualifies as decentralised. There's some centralisation (homeservers) but not much.
- "its end-to-end encryption is optional": I don't really see this as a problem. If you want it, you have it. If you don't, you don't. Sometimes end-to-end encryption isn't desirable, in a business environment where you need communications to be auditable for example.
It's terrible, and the reason I don't use matrix. While behind ds-lite, the only option I'd have is to run my node on an untrusted location (eg: a rented server).
> "its end-to-end encryption is optional": I don't really see this as a problem. If you want it, you have it. If you don't, you don't. Sometimes end-to-end encryption isn't desirable, in a business environment where you need communications to be auditable for example.
Sure, but in a post-snowden climate, I can't recommend a solution where end-to-end is optional to anybody. The problem is that when it is optional, people will readily downgrade to point-per-point encryption when they experience any issues. It's terrible to give less tech-literate people the option of insecure communication.
So your dead account doesn't get immediately compromised and you screw your friends over in the process as your account starts sending out malware-infested links.
glares at the seven or so users in his blocked list, users that jumped ship to Telegram and left their Skype accounts open to exploitation
Not much else has quality video chat at high resolutions/ Hangouts likes to drop out. It's one of the reasons Google Helpouts failed so hard, Hangouts utterly sucked as the video chat intermediary.
Is there any usable alternative for voice calls? Ring and Tox had problems setting up connection from android to debian linux last time I tried both of them.
I really want to replace Skype with something so I can stop using Google Play. Signal is not an option as it is only available via Google Play too.
I've found matrix[0] to work pretty well. Main downside is that the calls themselves are not end-to-end encrypted, but there is end-to-end encryption for the call setup. Riot[1] is available via f-droid[2]. You can host your own homeserver to prevent metadata leakage if you want, and run the TURN/STUN server to setup the calls if one of both parties are behind a NAT.
I also recommend Wire. I tried multiple alternatives for Skype and Wire was the only one which had good call quality and clients for all major platforms.
So I had a flick through the website, and I fail to understand how this service makes any money.
This automatically makes me suspicious that either they'll eventually start collecting data, or the service will disappear as soon as they are acquired.
Looks great, I was not aware they had open source client.
Given that they were forced to release their Axolotl (aka Signal protocol) under GPLv3+, they try to add some strange restrictions [2]:
"Additionally, if you choose to build an Open Source App, certain restrictions apply, as follows: a. You agree not to change the way the Open Source App connects and interacts with our servers ..."
As I understand I am free to ignore any additions to GPL.
It sucks - but as is always the case with free vs nonfree software - there are few alternatives.
Among the few alternatives available are Google (hangouts) and Facebook.
Stallman waves his hand and mentions Jitsi and Mumble which aren't comparable in features to Skype (Chat + Voice + video + desktop sharing on all platforms including mobile). Jitsi does look promising but not quite complete.
A chat/voice app is like a social network, it has a critical mass so I can't switch unless everyone else does or my alternative is interoperable.
Software being free as in speech is perhaps twice as important to me as it is for the average user, but that still means I'd rather have a polished proprietary app that spies on me, than an unpolished free alternative. Skype is exceptionally bad, so shouldn't be too hard to beat in terms of polish.
Skype is a horror show, so really like you say anything is better. If video isn't required, Signal is probably the best bet. Would be great actually if Signal supported video as well...
I've been using mumble for more than a decade now, and I've pushing it into 3 working places as a substitute to skype, asterix and lync (the microsoft voip solution).
It's not really oriented for 1-1 conversation, which is odd to use at first, but once people start to use channels and the built-in chat you hardly go back.
The latency and voice quality is stunning, even across lousy links. There's simply no match. The built-in mic wizard is also well designed. If people follow the setup correctly, you can have hour-long conversations across the globe with 10 people and it's absolutely fantastic. I work in research, and I've aggressively pushed to do long phone conferences over mumble for exactly this reason.
With some colleagues we even setup some channels that broadcast with PTT, and it's genuinely fun if you're spread across offices. You can decide if you want to participate by joining or not the right hierarchy. This is something is often done for lan parties, but turns out you can find other uses too ;)
Like I said, the main shortcoming is that mumble was never designed for 1-1 conversations as you would expect in skype. We hack it around by creating temporary channels. I've always meant to improve the UI in this regard, but we found that the temporary channel approach has advantages as well [you can invite other people in a call - for one].
With outdated hardware we still manage to hold >100 of conversations over a single server, as basically it's only network bound.
You have a point that mumble does only audio, but fortunately this is what I care the most. We (unfortunately) still have to use other software for desktop sharing, but generally still use mumble for audio.
I don't know if Mumble (or Ventrilo, or Teamspeak, or Discord) are really comparable.
They require you run your own server (although Discord abstracts that), that everyone know the server details, and that everyone be authenticated for your server in some manner.
They're great for playing video games, but Skype matches up a lot better with what a lot of people use it for – making phone calls.
True, but I'd like to mention that these are still valid options for companies and teams. Not to mention that latency will inevitably be superior with a local server.
I'm not sure there's a way around it. Skype is pretty much centralized now. Alternatives using NAT-piercing solutions never worked as reliably for me, and the ID still needs a central directory anyway.
What we ended up doing for flexibility is letting our mumble server open (passwordless access), but speaking is disabled in the root channel, so it's useless for strangers. Secondary channels are password protected, guests cannot join, but teams can set up their hierarchy as they see fit.
When we invite a guest, we just point him to the mumble installer and our server. When he pops up, we drag him into the right channel. No password necessary. It's a fairly smooth experience. Definitely not as fast as a skype group call the first time, but just as good after that. In fairness, this beats pretty much any dedicated conference system I had to use elsewhere.
The channel permissions in mumble are pretty flexible, so there are multiple workflows possible.
Nope - didn't try them after reading the spec list to see if they check the boxes. They didn't as far as I could see, or they made terrible marketing!
The problem with replacing Skype within an organization is that it can't just be better at some things, it needs to at least do all the things. We also already use other software for desktop sharing, and dont call to phones, so that's handled - but the biggest hurdle when evaluating alternatives is to get a good app for 1-1 chat, group chat, 1-1 calls and group calls, that handles persistent groups (e.g per project, recurrent meetings,..), persistent (server based) chats, and does all of this without requiring multiple contact lists for different tasks (e.g one for voice and one for chat would be a complete no-go)
Also, the fear of crap software in a large corporation is zero, and the switching cost would be nonzero, so the alternative would also have to save money through efficiency or provide some other very tangible benefit such as reduced risk of Trojans, otherwise there would never be a switch.
Hangouts is the best candidate I have found yet, but it's google, and not really better than Skype.
This is a "non computer business" so hosting anything would likely be out of the question, as would anything other than a "run this msi and install the app from AppStore on your phone" kind of setup for each client.
I understand your position, but I cannot see things change in your favor anytime soon. This leaves you only to web-based solutions, and most of those will invariably suck for a long time to come (if not forever).
> Among the few alternatives available are Google (hangouts) and Facebook.
I wouldn't want my communication go via exactly those two firms that suck all the data they can out of everything they can get hold of.
I'd consider Signal, Wire, and possibly Telegram more suitable alternatives (all free, and at least as polished as Skype, which isn't saying much... :-)
Thanks, will check those out (those all look more promising feature/polish than the RMS ones tbh). Reading reviews and comparisons it seems they are all still a bit rough or lacking some feature compared to Skype, but geting there. Even if none is a viable option now, one can at least hope one will be one soon.
Switching an organization from Skype I get one chance. It can't have one missing feature or 90% the audio quality or reliability of Skype, the alternative has to beat Skype if I'm to convince anyone to switch. I need to wait until then actually do.
Not a fan of Skype, but in one of Stallman's other articles he says:
"Public agencies exist for the people, not for themselves. When they do computing, they do it for the people. They have a duty to maintain full control over that computing so that they can assure it is done properly for the people. They must never allow control over the state's computing to fall into private hands."
This guy has a lot of faith in government and his treatise actually sounds rather Marxist. History is littered with public agencies that obstensiby exist for the "people," but in fact exist for no other reason than to enforce the power of the state. I don't trust government -- I endure it. Government is necessary in a way not dissimilar to the necessity of colonoscopies.
While I get your point, most traditional landline networks do encryption at the premises. Look at, for example, the Secure Terminal Equipment ISDN phone used by defense agencies. To state the obvious, the alternative of provider enabled encryption would be a bad option anyway; the track record of most telcos doesn't inspire a lot of faith in their ability to keep anything a secret.
It wouldn't be hard, and certainly not a capacity strain, to get some old modems and haul encrypted PCM in realtime across them. Or even to roll your own PSK/FSK standard to transport said PCM over. There's no packet format or anything you're necessarily limited to.
As for cell phones themselves, I can certainly see the threat. Even without going into Batman-esque theories of someone putting malicious software on your phone that activates the mic when it's idle, it's well known that the cellular networks make extensive use of GPS capabilities. With access to an operator's network, it would probably be relatively trivial to build a very detailed history of someone's whereabouts.
"Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire page are permitted provided this notice is preserved." - Stallman's blog is not giving me the freedom to distribute the blog as please. It is infringing on my freedom.
Why would that be ironic ? It's ensuring others receive the same freedom for the copy you make of the page, which is also the essence of the GPL license, and the whole philosophy of the FSF.
My issue is with the no-modification part. This is the exact argument he gives for not using some software - that users are not free to modify the software and hence it is malicious.
I can say the same argument about commercial software. They do not want you to modify their software for you to inject say malware in them. Just cos they don't want you to do that, it doesn't make their software not free.
Stallman is an advocate of copyleft, which that condition falls in line with. It's similar to the GPL license that has to be shipped verbatim with GPL code and places restrictions on how the project can be distributed (eg source must be available upon request).
What you're asking to do is akin to copyfree (eg BSD) which is a different type of "free".
From what I see, copyleft strictly allows for modification too, as long as the derived work also is licensed under the same terms. His clause prevents any modification.
He allows free copying with conditions. Those conditions don't see harsh given most sites don't even permit what RMS has allowed - even modifications aside.
It really sounds more like you have an axe to grind with RMS himself rather than with the terms of his website.
Surely you still have freedom to distribute it as you wish. He just wants it to make sure you attribute the source, which ethically you should anyway.
If the post were GNU Public Licensed, which additionally forces you to release any text that quotes his text under the same license, then I'd be inclined to agree with you.
"Skype requires the use of a client program that is not free software; in other words, the users don't control it — it controls them.
A nonfree program denies users freedom, which is unjust in itself. Making the ethical issue sharper, for you to use Skype is to encourage someone else to use Skype, which means you're pressuring someone else to surrender freedom as well. This is plenty of reason to refuse to use Skype, but there are more reasons."
How it pains to read such texts.
"Everything that's not open source is evil."
With all due respect, Stallman I think it would be reasonable to describe, as so many other famous technology people are, on the spectrum - as evidenced by his extreme dogmatic position on many things.
Beliefs so dogmatic and extreme that it's just impossible for me to even read what he has to say any more.
Frankly its the raving of a ..... well you choose the word.
I'm against Stallman's dogmatic positions as well but to dismiss his views by saying he's on the autism spectrum is an ad hominem attack. I've seen this argument used a lot against technologically sophisticated people but that only shows that the respondent can't rebut the arguments and hence resort to personal attacks.
179 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 213 ms ] threadWhats wrong with "Skype for Business?"
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
Someone else would've likely done the same thing sooner or later.
The problem now is this rampant hostility towards all proprietary software of any form for any purpose. The FSF is still fighting the same pointless war against proprietary operating systems when the real threat is IoT junk, cars, and medical devices full of unauditable code.
sure, someone else would likely have eventually come up with the concept of free software, but would it have missed the critical mass of the early web? the idea that free software didn't play a large part in the modern technology landscape is just wrong.
You should probably hold a slightly lower opinion of your fellow human. We're rather well-known to go after any possibility of free things, and critical mass was more along the lines of the days of Napster (when, hey, FREE MUSIC!)
I'm not familiar with his predictions, so can you give a few examples.
This seemed like a far-fetched dystopia when I first read it. Now, Kindle et al. are not far away from this.
I also remember reading some piece from Stallman on software patents, from the eighties or early nineties. Well before software patent trolls, etc.
And then the scenario stated becoming, if not true, the a helluva lot closer. And the irony of Orwell books being removed remotely from Kindle's in 2009 [0] was evident and tied into the dystopia feel of it all.
[0] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18...
Yeah, it wasn't a software patent, but. It's not hard to see something that's happened before and "predict" it could happen again.
> If you think he's crazy about a topic just wait 5 years, you'll admit he's right.
2012 → 2017 : yep after Snowden leaks in 2013 that confirmed Microsoft joined PRISM in 2007, the fear of eavesdropping in Skype does not seem unfunded anymore.
this must be why GNU/Linux is a perfect match. Have those guys actually met or do their egos not fit inside one room?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE
He lays out, reasonably, the conditions under which he will speak. He asks for tea, and Pepsi, not Coke.
Seems utterly reasonable to me.
If you read the riders of actual rock stars, you will find that RMS's rider isn't that extreme. He doesn't even require M&M's sorted by color[1].
Most hired performers have specific riders that detail exactly what will be provided by the venue/etc. Detailing your interactions as specifically as possible in an actual contract removes ambiguity and prevents mistakes and misunderstandings.
[1] http://brianlord.org/2014/08/21/the-surprising-reason-rock-b...
His objection to Coke is a moral one, not one based on taste.
If I am quite sleepy, I would like two cans or small bottles of non-diet Pepsi. (I dislike the taste of coke, and of all diet soda; also, there is an international boycott of the Coca Cola company for killing union organizers in Colombia and Guatemala; see killercoke.org.) However, if I am not very sleepy, I won't want Pepsi, because it is better if I don't drink so much sugar.`
Hmmmmm
If Skype could not eavesdrop on calls, they would most certainly say so when ask —because not saying so would make them look bad. It's then a simple matter of probability theory to deduce that their silence most probably means it can eavesdrop on calls.
Affirming a disjunct is perfectly legitimate approximation in this case.
> He says "most likely", but even this is not certain.
That is the exact meaning of most likely.
> Simply because most companies we know that have acted in such a way actually were eavesdropping on its customers, one cannot say with certainty that this is a general rule.
It would be plain idiotic to not assume the worst until proven otherwise, especially after everything we learned in the past few years.
I can only think of Excel as being the real survivor here. Others, like SoftImage, were a fleeting acquisition. Many more were buried alive.
They only finally disable cmd.exe in the latest update.
.bat files still run.
They didn't buy the company or talent, mind you, just the software.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sidekick_data_loss
Is it able to do at least audio calls?
Forewarning that while it supports end-to-end encryption for the chatting bits, the actual audio data is not encrypted. The call request/advertisement can be encrypted though!
They've deleted Skype numbers from my account without warning. Someone linked my and my wife's account because we used them on the same PC, and refuse to unlink Skype and Microsoft accounts.
I'd love to find an alternative, but given that everybody already has Skype accounts the lock-in is pretty significant.
Don't much like the alternatives Stallman proposes. Using long distance phone calls seems worse than Skype, phone companies have provided governments with even more access to user data than most tech companies.
I don't think it's likely to happen any time soon unfortunately.
Regarding Facebook, it still feels weird, I'm not sure I can put my finger on exactly why. I just want to keep "friends" and "business" totally separate.
Once you invest more in working around this by having native clients, it makes sense for your product to do more.
http://appear.in/some_words_doesnt_matter <- share with whoever, instant video call
But, the boss will see when you're "available" straight from Outlook, which is where he lives. It's not an IM tool, it's (yet another) instrument of workforce control.
Also, despite the rigid security policy where I work, the mac client stores my password in the keychain.
slack probably should be able to create a full replacement for lync, (skype for businnes).
I used to think that, too, but with the rise of cloud offerings like Office 365, many orgs are starting to see that running your own servers for Sharepoint/Exchange/Unified Communication isn't worth it anymore.
If your primary concern is open source then mumble/jabber is probably your solution
If you're truly paranoid there's a Mumble port for OpenBSD, though that obviously wouldn't fit Stallman's definition of Free.
Until we moved to Discord. Which has equally good sound quality, a fantastic chat and role system, and the ability for people to just jump into your voice call instead of having to be invited (which was what killed Skype for us, for any number of people over 3).
I'm part of a bunch of guilds for just hanging out and playing video games. But I also moderate two Discord guilds for programming, containing thousands of people.
Discord's pretty sweet, in a way that Skype and Mumble simply can't compare.
We tried Skype which is almost completely broken (used to work fine).
We tried multiple WebRTC solutions like appear.in which only work fine up to three people.
We tried Google hangouts, which worked fine but we didn't like the quality.
Mumble worked fine, but only if people use push-to-talk. Otherwise you get horrible noise. Every scratching goes over the line.
Skype Business supposedly works very well. We don't use it because we don't support Microsoft breaking the regular Skype.
We currently use the audio conferencing feature of (paid) slack. It works extremely well and has great noise reduction.
There are a lot of games and software communities that use Discord quite productively, significantly better than what Mumble or Teamspeak have ever allowed for. Just having actual textual channels has made it so dev talk about modding, server administration and all things technical is just a few clicks away. Discords devs do impliment features that are useful for other developers, such as code markdown support. And unlike Skype, you can actually talk to the devs in the official Discord Devs server if you catch them. I'm not an important person at all, and have talked to the CEO and half the teams devs casually.
You can do: ```javascript var x = "y"; ```
and it'l syntax highlight. There is a clear roles permissions system, with support for multiple channels both textual and voice, full API support for building bots, and Discord uses their own service for development communication.
Of course its not a one-size fits all, Skype is more business oriented, so it looks more proffessional to use, but Discord is well on its way to be an actually better alternative from a technological standpoint. That sweet P2P video and audio will be great, and they've stated in the past they actually can't host that stuff through their servers, because even just proxying that much video data is way too costly.
Not to say its all perfect, some of the design decisions, such as making it so normal user accounts have the same access to the API as bots do (Though you'l be banned it 'caught'), makes it so users can easily just run a chat spammer. Its a fundamental issue because the program itself works in that manner. They also hate modding and plugin support, with some of the less experienced devs creating tirades against Javascript injection software like BetterDiscord, which allows you to add in custom CSS, and make your own javascript plugins to manipulate the DOM. Even though its incredibly useful, even basic things like changing font size of the program are only doable through that. They very much so have an Apple-esque idea that they know better, but it seems they've made a compromise (so far) that they haven't broken injection abilities yet.
There are voip operators like the italian mtalk that give you free local national numbers, free calls between users of the same provider, but the call is not encrypted.
This have the good thing that anyone can choose the preferred provider, you can receive calls also from "traditional" phones.
A phone number is like a mailbox, it's clearly provider independent, but sadly it's often non free calling between different operators.
[0] https://tox.chat/
[0]: http://matrix.org
- "federated instead of decentralized": I believe Matrix's federation implementation qualifies as decentralised. There's some centralisation (homeservers) but not much.
- "its end-to-end encryption is optional": I don't really see this as a problem. If you want it, you have it. If you don't, you don't. Sometimes end-to-end encryption isn't desirable, in a business environment where you need communications to be auditable for example.
It's terrible, and the reason I don't use matrix. While behind ds-lite, the only option I'd have is to run my node on an untrusted location (eg: a rented server).
> "its end-to-end encryption is optional": I don't really see this as a problem. If you want it, you have it. If you don't, you don't. Sometimes end-to-end encryption isn't desirable, in a business environment where you need communications to be auditable for example.
Sure, but in a post-snowden climate, I can't recommend a solution where end-to-end is optional to anybody. The problem is that when it is optional, people will readily downgrade to point-per-point encryption when they experience any issues. It's terrible to give less tech-literate people the option of insecure communication.
So your dead account doesn't get immediately compromised and you screw your friends over in the process as your account starts sending out malware-infested links.
glares at the seven or so users in his blocked list, users that jumped ship to Telegram and left their Skype accounts open to exploitation
I really want to replace Skype with something so I can stop using Google Play. Signal is not an option as it is only available via Google Play too.
[0] https://ring.cx/ [1] https://tox.chat/
[0] http://matrix.org/
[1] http://riot.im
[2] https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/im.vector.alpha
This automatically makes me suspicious that either they'll eventually start collecting data, or the service will disappear as soon as they are acquired.
Also they promote Spotify
Given that they were forced to release their Axolotl (aka Signal protocol) under GPLv3+, they try to add some strange restrictions [2]:
"Additionally, if you choose to build an Open Source App, certain restrictions apply, as follows: a. You agree not to change the way the Open Source App connects and interacts with our servers ..."
As I understand I am free to ignore any additions to GPL.
[1] https://medium.com/@wireapp/axolotl-and-proteus-788519b186a7... [2] https://github.com/wireapp/wire
Among the few alternatives available are Google (hangouts) and Facebook.
Stallman waves his hand and mentions Jitsi and Mumble which aren't comparable in features to Skype (Chat + Voice + video + desktop sharing on all platforms including mobile). Jitsi does look promising but not quite complete.
A chat/voice app is like a social network, it has a critical mass so I can't switch unless everyone else does or my alternative is interoperable.
Software being free as in speech is perhaps twice as important to me as it is for the average user, but that still means I'd rather have a polished proprietary app that spies on me, than an unpolished free alternative. Skype is exceptionally bad, so shouldn't be too hard to beat in terms of polish.
https://www.bluejeans.com
Skype is a horror show, so really like you say anything is better. If video isn't required, Signal is probably the best bet. Would be great actually if Signal supported video as well...
I've been using mumble for more than a decade now, and I've pushing it into 3 working places as a substitute to skype, asterix and lync (the microsoft voip solution).
It's not really oriented for 1-1 conversation, which is odd to use at first, but once people start to use channels and the built-in chat you hardly go back.
The latency and voice quality is stunning, even across lousy links. There's simply no match. The built-in mic wizard is also well designed. If people follow the setup correctly, you can have hour-long conversations across the globe with 10 people and it's absolutely fantastic. I work in research, and I've aggressively pushed to do long phone conferences over mumble for exactly this reason.
With some colleagues we even setup some channels that broadcast with PTT, and it's genuinely fun if you're spread across offices. You can decide if you want to participate by joining or not the right hierarchy. This is something is often done for lan parties, but turns out you can find other uses too ;)
Like I said, the main shortcoming is that mumble was never designed for 1-1 conversations as you would expect in skype. We hack it around by creating temporary channels. I've always meant to improve the UI in this regard, but we found that the temporary channel approach has advantages as well [you can invite other people in a call - for one].
With outdated hardware we still manage to hold >100 of conversations over a single server, as basically it's only network bound.
You have a point that mumble does only audio, but fortunately this is what I care the most. We (unfortunately) still have to use other software for desktop sharing, but generally still use mumble for audio.
They require you run your own server (although Discord abstracts that), that everyone know the server details, and that everyone be authenticated for your server in some manner.
They're great for playing video games, but Skype matches up a lot better with what a lot of people use it for – making phone calls.
I'm not sure there's a way around it. Skype is pretty much centralized now. Alternatives using NAT-piercing solutions never worked as reliably for me, and the ID still needs a central directory anyway.
What we ended up doing for flexibility is letting our mumble server open (passwordless access), but speaking is disabled in the root channel, so it's useless for strangers. Secondary channels are password protected, guests cannot join, but teams can set up their hierarchy as they see fit.
When we invite a guest, we just point him to the mumble installer and our server. When he pops up, we drag him into the right channel. No password necessary. It's a fairly smooth experience. Definitely not as fast as a skype group call the first time, but just as good after that. In fairness, this beats pretty much any dedicated conference system I had to use elsewhere.
The channel permissions in mumble are pretty flexible, so there are multiple workflows possible.
The problem with replacing Skype within an organization is that it can't just be better at some things, it needs to at least do all the things. We also already use other software for desktop sharing, and dont call to phones, so that's handled - but the biggest hurdle when evaluating alternatives is to get a good app for 1-1 chat, group chat, 1-1 calls and group calls, that handles persistent groups (e.g per project, recurrent meetings,..), persistent (server based) chats, and does all of this without requiring multiple contact lists for different tasks (e.g one for voice and one for chat would be a complete no-go)
Also, the fear of crap software in a large corporation is zero, and the switching cost would be nonzero, so the alternative would also have to save money through efficiency or provide some other very tangible benefit such as reduced risk of Trojans, otherwise there would never be a switch.
Hangouts is the best candidate I have found yet, but it's google, and not really better than Skype.
This is a "non computer business" so hosting anything would likely be out of the question, as would anything other than a "run this msi and install the app from AppStore on your phone" kind of setup for each client.
I wouldn't want my communication go via exactly those two firms that suck all the data they can out of everything they can get hold of.
I'd consider Signal, Wire, and possibly Telegram more suitable alternatives (all free, and at least as polished as Skype, which isn't saying much... :-)
Switching an organization from Skype I get one chance. It can't have one missing feature or 90% the audio quality or reliability of Skype, the alternative has to beat Skype if I'm to convince anyone to switch. I need to wait until then actually do.
"Public agencies exist for the people, not for themselves. When they do computing, they do it for the people. They have a duty to maintain full control over that computing so that they can assure it is done properly for the people. They must never allow control over the state's computing to fall into private hands."
This guy has a lot of faith in government and his treatise actually sounds rather Marxist. History is littered with public agencies that obstensiby exist for the "people," but in fact exist for no other reason than to enforce the power of the state. I don't trust government -- I endure it. Government is necessary in a way not dissimilar to the necessity of colonoscopies.
Check out as a possible alternative:
1) riot.im 2) matrix.org
And assuming he is okay with landline, would Stallman call a cellphone? What if it was a free software cellphone?
It wouldn't be hard, and certainly not a capacity strain, to get some old modems and haul encrypted PCM in realtime across them. Or even to roll your own PSK/FSK standard to transport said PCM over. There's no packet format or anything you're necessarily limited to.
As for cell phones themselves, I can certainly see the threat. Even without going into Batman-esque theories of someone putting malicious software on your phone that activates the mic when it's idle, it's well known that the cellular networks make extensive use of GPS capabilities. With access to an operator's network, it would probably be relatively trivial to build a very detailed history of someone's whereabouts.
This is the worst reason to not use Skype.
The remaining reasons about surveillance etc. are reasonable reasons to not use Skype.
Anyone else find this ironic / hilarious?
What you're asking to do is akin to copyfree (eg BSD) which is a different type of "free".
It really sounds more like you have an axe to grind with RMS himself rather than with the terms of his website.
If the post were GNU Public Licensed, which additionally forces you to release any text that quotes his text under the same license, then I'd be inclined to agree with you.
It is amazing that Skype still has not been re-engineered and and open source lone released. http://www.oklabs.net/skype-reverse-engineering-the-long-jou...
A nonfree program denies users freedom, which is unjust in itself. Making the ethical issue sharper, for you to use Skype is to encourage someone else to use Skype, which means you're pressuring someone else to surrender freedom as well. This is plenty of reason to refuse to use Skype, but there are more reasons."
How it pains to read such texts. "Everything that's not open source is evil."
The only reasonable conclusion: Switch from Windows to Linux.
Beliefs so dogmatic and extreme that it's just impossible for me to even read what he has to say any more.
Frankly its the raving of a ..... well you choose the word.
The question is how far you are towards the extremities of the spectrum. Stallman is surely at the far end.
I've never heard of him wearing a tinfoil hat but he can't be far from that.