Who still uses Skype??

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Lakados

[H]F Junkie
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https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/28/23848823/skype-vulnerability-ip-address-microsoft

The vulnerability allows the attacker to see the users IP address and location, simply by opening the message containing the link, clicking the link is not required.

The IP address reported back is the local one regardless of any VPN connections in use.

Microsoft doesn’t seem too bothered by it and says they will get a patch out there for it soon.

But who TF still uses Skype? I thought it died.
 
Who TF ever used Skype?

I installed it once about a decade ago to video chat with a landlord at their request before signing a lease, then I immediately removed it.

Edit:

But yeah, to your point, I thought Teams replaced it. I didn't even know Skype servers were still up and running.
 
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Lots of companies used to use it for mass communication since it was bundled with the Office suite. They've been pushing Teams instead since 2019'ish, though. Pretty sure there are definitely some straggler companies. Places that don't ever change anything just to save their IT teams the headache of support calls. On the personal side, I never really liked it or used it. Especially once smartphone apps (and their web-based cousins) came along.
 
I thought I remembered seeing literally years ago in the Office 365 admin portal that it was being killed for Teams.

I guess in typical Microsoft fashion, they stalled because they're scared of the companies that are still drowning in tech debt and stuck in it.

I remember they delayed some email change for a hilariously long time because these places can't fix their shit with a year and a half heads up.
 
Back in the olden days before I left the industry I remember having to deal with clients that were using 20 year old storage, that was 20 years ago. I'd bet that some of them are still using at least some of it. I'm not talking about companies that use tech a little, I mean companies that should absolutely have their shit together to stay up to date.

I saw punch cards in 2001.

Punch. Cards. 2001.

They were scrambling to upgrade because they had mouse problems.

Input device.jpg

^ Those mice.
 
I assume that this is in the consumer version of the product, not the Skype for Business version that is bundled with Office 365. In traditional confusing Microsoft fashion, they have continued to promote two separate versions of the same software with one being the consumer version and the other being what used to be Microsoft Lync I believe, with a Skype-branded skin.
 
Exposing your IP address was a problem with Skype when it was new too. Gaming houses and streamers would get DDOS'd all the time because of it.
 
Domingo said:
Lots of companies used to use it for mass communication since it was bundled with the Office suite. They've been pushing Teams instead since 2019'ish, though. Pretty sure there are definitely some straggler companies. Places that don't ever change anything just to save their IT teams the headache of support calls. On the personal side, I never really liked it or used it. Especially once smartphone apps (and their web-based cousins) came along.
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Yeah, my former company used Lync, which was later rolled into Skype for Business, 2013 or so I think, but back then we were all in the office so no one ever used the chat or meetibg features in it. We just booked conference rooms in Outlook and went to them in person.

So we had Lync, and later Skype all set up, but no one ever really used them.
 
What are people using for video calls with family, as an alternative for something like Skype? Grandma isn't going to use Discord.
 
I thought Skype migrated to some other Microsoft name or was rebranded?
I used skype before microsoft acquired it and it was fantastic for about a week. Then MS got their hands on it and broke it. Spam bots galore.
 
GSDragoon said:
What are people using for video calls with family, as an alternative for something like Skype? Grandma isn't going to use Discord.
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Facetime, Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp in most cases. Old people are more likely to have a cell phone than to know how to use anything on a large format PC.
 
we used skype in 2018, it was replaced with teams in 2019....

GSDragoon said:
What are people using for video calls with family, as an alternative for something like Skype? Grandma isn't going to use Discord.
Click to expand...
as mentioned above, we use whats built in to cellphones.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Back in the olden days before I left the industry I remember having to deal with clients that were using 20 year old storage, that was 20 years ago. I'd bet that some of them are still using at least some of it. I'm not talking about companies that use tech a little, I mean companies that should absolutely have their shit together to stay up to date.

I saw punch cards in 2001.

Punch. Cards. 2001.
Click to expand...

Hard to believe. What kind of company or industry. What applications? What systems to read these cards? it boggles the mind. I haven't seen a punch card in like almost 50 years, except in a museum.
Twisted Kidney said:
They were scrambling to upgrade because they had mouse problems.

View attachment 594373
^ Those mice.
Click to expand...
Bring in some cats. :)
 
pendragon1 said:
we used skype in 2018, it was replaced with teams in 2019....


as mentioned above, we use whats built in to cellphones.
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I tried out Teams about a year ago,becuase a friend was using it. But I could never get it configured right. It seemed oriented to corporate usage, not personal usage. I use Zoom for most video calls, but I have a cousin who still like Skype, so that's what we use.
 
philb2 said:
Hard to believe. What kind of company or industry. What applications? What systems to read these cards? it boggles the mind. I haven't seen a punch card in like almost 50 years, except in a museum.

Bring in some cats. :)
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I mean I laugh but I am literally installing Windows XP Sp3 right now because to interface with a particular piece of hardware I need a functional IE 6-8 version that can run Java no newer than v8-211 32-bit, and it requires Adobe Flash so...

$750,000 boiler system installed in 2018, can't be accessed with anything newer than it...


Pain in the ass!
 
philb2 said:
I tried out Teams about a year ago,becuase a friend was using it. But I could never get it configured right. It seemed oriented to corporate usage, not personal usage.
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maybe. we're using o365 and it just works, no configuring involved.
 
Lakados said:
$750,000 boiler system installed in 2018, can't be accessed with anything newer than it...
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id be wtfing at the boiler company, that(OS) should have been replaced years ago. all ours work fine on 7/10/11.....
 
philb2 said:
Hard to believe. What kind of company or industry. What applications? What systems to read these cards? it boggles the mind. I haven't seen a punch card in like almost 50 years, except in a museum.

Bring in some cats. :)
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Banks. Some accounts going back a century and more. "Updated" to cards moons ago and then... nothing.

Almost all of the data the mice didn't eat was just fine, those cards are fucking hardcore. Best of all, nearly all of the data was useless, bank employees that worked with clients had updated pretty much all of the records as they dealt with clients and those that hadn't been updated were nearly all abandoned, closed, or lost accounts. They had no idea what data was there.
 
I'd imagine a lot of people may end up using it, especially has it has been rolled into so many 'default' Windows products (though they differ, like the aforementioned Skype For Business). Prior to that, it was for awhile "the" VOIP service for the common user, but then again I don't know if since the COVID19 pandemic Zoom has supplanted that or not?

Skype was a strange hybrid of its era - it was right at the end of the "instant messaging" days and to the emerging, easy to use VOIP tech. It offered VOIP numbers and phone calls to mobile/landlines for cheap by comparison to most other services at the time, as well as free voice and video call to each other. Its notable that before its buyout by MS it was a more decentralized setup capable of peer to peer direct connections, but was soon brought to heel under MS' centralization and accounts; some at the time wondered if this was caused by Patriot Act and similar suitability for moitoring. Still , for a time its SILK (I think) codec was a better quality than most mobile phones or many other VOIP tech and its multi-user rooms became desirable even for some gamers - an easier, less technical alternative vs the Gaming VOIP user-owned servers of Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, and personal favorite Mumble back in the day. Compared to older IM tech that added VOIP much less video, Skype had better quality and was easy to use. XMPP was great, but was a patchwork of standards and clients where you needed proper compatibility of clients and servers with certan features enabled etc... Skype had none of that to negotiate.

When the era of mobile focused messengers , "apps", and social networks arrived Skype was outmoded piecemeal, but I still imagine many users stuck around using it as they always did. Microsoft as predictable as ever would mess up that stability with the attempt to chase different fads and make Skype fit into the new world, but it was already primarily dominated by new players not the least of which the Slack and Discord types, the universal centralized chat, messaging, VOIP, video platforms. On the other side were the mobile focused types (WhatsApp, telegram, wechat, qq, kakao, LINE and the like) or major social media linked (Facebook messenger etc), and more but it goes without saying that MS needs to deal with this issue on Skype even if its no longer a "flagship" product if for no other reason that those still on it are most likely to be those vulnerable to not just this exploit, but all thoseit may set up. Some older non technical person who used Skype for a decade to talk to their kids and grandkids is going to be exactly the one who's running an older OS more easily exploited one that, after their IP leaks, cam be connected easily with some unpatched vulnerability for identity theft or the like.

People may scoff at Skype now, but looking at the often centralized, proprietary walled gardens in which people communicate and the evolution of the way people interact online, all the ads/trackers etc.. that's not a great picture from the privacy, anonymity, and other user-centric viewpoints. There are a few bright spots in terms of FOSS/libre platforms, often e2e encrypted, and some of which have become user friendly enough for those who aren't heavily tech-literate can utilize them, but on the whole there's a lot that draws concern.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Back in the olden days before I left the industry I remember having to deal with clients that were using 20 year old storage, that was 20 years ago. I'd bet that some of them are still using at least some of it. I'm not talking about companies that use tech a little, I mean companies that should absolutely have their shit together to stay up to date.

I saw punch cards in 2001.

Punch. Cards. 2001.

They were scrambling to upgrade because they had mouse problems.

View attachment 594373
^ Those mice.
Click to expand...
Priceless. I bet mice aren't very good programmers
 
punch cards ? wtf.....

I went to upgrade the computers in a seriously old-school business several years ago that was still using punch cards.... not sure for what, but as soon as I saw them, I told the owner that if they didn't get rid of them, like, yesterday, that I would go around the office & literally start "punching" his staff in their faces until they or the cards were all gone......

And even though I had NO idea whatsoever how to get the data off of them and into something from this century, apparently someone there did, so after that was all done, they called me back to actually start doing the upgrades....

Turns out most of their towers were AGP/ATA/Pentium based, so needless to say, they had to allocate some additional funds for new machines, cause I wasn't gonna waste my time or theirs by fiddling with those antiques, and then be stuck with having to go back there every 3-6 weeks forever just to keep them functioning.. :)
 
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Lakados said:
I mean I laugh but I am literally installing Windows XP Sp3 right now because to interface with a particular piece of hardware I need a functional IE 6-8 version that can run Java no newer than v8-211 32-bit, and it requires Adobe Flash so...

$750,000 boiler system installed in 2018, can't be accessed with anything newer than it...


Pain in the ass!
Click to expand...
Dealt with this very same thing until recently on a number of five-figure HVAC systems that the manufacturers and providers refused to update.
They finally updated the modules to support newer Java versions, browsers, and without the requirement of Adobe Flash.

It is amazing how such expensive equipment is paired with such ludicrously outdated embedded management hardware.
 
pendragon1 said:
id be wtfing at the boiler company, that(OS) should have been replaced years ago. all ours work fine on 7/10/11.....
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Oh trust me we are, went to hook the interface up on the system they just installed last year and it’s not working. Check the model numbers and the one in the building does not match the one in the quote or on the signed engineering documents.

Lawyering up because it needs to go, it’s not compatible with the rest of the system.

The reason I have to get into it is because they have been unable to provide the requested documentation on what they have installed here over the last decade and if it was done to spec.
 
I used Skype as a text messenger after MSN was shut down. Also for work during the height of lockdowns in 2020 to communicate with co-workers and clients. But not in the past 2 years.
 
Lakados said:
Oh trust me we are, went to hook the interface up on the system they just installed last year and it’s not working. Check the model numbers and the one in the building does not match the one in the quote or on the signed engineering documents.

Lawyering up because it needs to go, it’s not compatible with the rest of the system.

The reason I have to get into it is because they have been unable to provide the requested documentation on what they have installed here over the last decade and if it was done to spec.
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mfers... good luck!
 
I have/had an account, never used it, the last time I checked it someone with the same name as me in Europe took it somehow, so I reclaimed it.
I might check it again now after how many years IDK last logged into it.....
 
Haven't used it in a decade at least. I use Google Voice for all my international calling/VoIP needs. I'm gonna be pissed when Google invariably kills it like they do most of their other usable services.
 
Are you kidding? I use Skype all the time to video chat with family. I'm not talking about Skype for Business. Skype gets its usage from individuals, not companies.

Teams is a business app, mostly. It really sucks compared to Skype when it comes to UI. I use Teams at work, and it's fine, but Skype is so simple in comparison.

Also, I have a Skype number that I use for making / receiving telephone calls. I don't think Teams has that...

Zoom has always been weird. Why would you use that over Skype? I use Zoom for some board meetings, but when you want to do direct video chat, I love Skype.

Anyways, I feel like each product has found its own niche.
 
GSDragoon said:
What are people using for video calls with family, as an alternative for something like Skype? Grandma isn't going to use Discord.
Click to expand...

Uh. I just don't

I don't see any value in video as a media for communication.

I do voice calls with friends and family. I've never once done a video call. Not even during the height of the pandemic.

When I'm in a Teams meeting for work and some moron has their video camera enabled (I never do, I don't even have one on my computer), I just disable all incoming video. It is too bothersome to have to look at others faces.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Uh. I just don't
[snip]
It is too bothersome to have to look at others faces.
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I'm sure your parents/family love to hear that :p . Personally I use Skype to talk to my elderly mother, she lives in a different country from me and it helps her feel more connected if we can see each other, and Skype is still simple enough for her to use - trying to teach her anything new at this stage in her life would be a waste of time
 
1_rick said:
So you threw away a potential gold mine of a recurring revenue stream?
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No, I just don't like dealing with techno-deficient desperados who insist that most of their computers have either 110, 115 or 120 volts worth of ram, and that the sounds that dial-up modems make are just "security circuits starting up" to prevent "slackers" from accessing their systems at the same time as they are, while trying to get on the internet with AOL & Netscraper....

But anyways, since I finally convinced the CEO that the new rigs I will build for them will be better, faster, and stronger, my revenue stream will be intact for quite a while....

His main question was "hey, you aren't gonna try to make us into bionic men & women, are you ?"...cause I doubt we can't afford that !
 
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