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Skype 5 beta (osx) security issue?

On 5 Nov, 2010 By With 4 Comments



I just downloaded the beta version of Skype 5.0 for mac.
My first impression was that it looks a bit like a doro phone, but online.
(you know, those phones with big buttons for “old people”)

They really dumbed it down a bit too much I think.

Then I went into my preference setting to check if there were any significant changes there, and I found that the function for automatically accepting files (from your contacts only) is removed. Now you can only select “Automatically accept incoming files”.

Is this a potential risk?
By selecting that you want to auto-accept files only from people on your contact list, I felt a bit safer.
It was a great setting that I would recommend everyone to activate, especially if you share files with friends frequently. (on the old version, that is)

This saves you from having to call your friend/colleague who’s asleep at the desk to tell him/her to press that damn button to accept the file you’re trying to send for urgent approval so you can continue working..

But now I’m not so sure..
I occasionally get skype messages from total strangers (why, I don’t know..), and I really don’t want just anyone to be able to send me anything at any time.
Hopefully this will be “fixed” by the time the final version arrives.

  • http://blogs.skype.com/ Peter Parkes (Skype)

    Thanks for the feedback – I’ll pass it on to the Mac team.

  • http://www.stefanleijon.com Stefan Leijon

    Hopefully it doesn’t let you auto-accept from strangers by default, but it would be nice to see this somewhere that you’re not open for anything that anyone wants to send.

    Thanks for acknowledging that my observation didn’t go unnoticed.

  • Johan Dahlfors

    You’re right about the feature – it’s a feature that is good to have in Skype.

    However, when it comes to Internet security, you should never really trust a friend either. You should always expect them to be compromised.

    Many are the times when I’ve gotten spam from compromised friends through ICQ & MSN. I still haven’t seen it on Skype, but I bet the day will come when some friends’ accounts have been compromised on Skype as well…

    This is the security measure that the majority of the open source world has been using since the 90s. This also happens to be the security measure that NSA is switching to now, in 2010…

    http://www.dailytech.com/NSA+Switches+to+Assuming+Security+Has+Always+Been+Compromised/article20424.htm

    Long time no see btw :)
    Cheers,

    dahlfors.net

  • http://www.stefanleijon.com/ Stefan Leijon

    True enough.. I’ve made the choice to allow my skype friends to send me stuff without me accepting first, of course this is not the case for non-friends. (I’m surprised that’s even an option).
    I could be a bit too naive or not paranoid enough. I guess being “in the know” so to speak, also can give you a false sense of security, feeling like you have that sense of what’s what online, thinking that you will sense when something’s not as it should..
    Naive? Perhaps..
    Paranoid? Not yet..

    Definitely long time Johan.. We’ll have to do something about that..