Verso – China Skype blocker
p2p news / p2pnet: Verso Technologies in Atlanta, Georgia, is well pleased. It’s hooked a contract to act as a virtual p2p censor for a carrier in Communist China.
Yesterday, it announced a “paid trial of Verso`s NetSpective M-Class Solution to filter Skype and other peer to peer (P2P) communications with a Tier-One carrier based in China” marking the “introduction of the NetSpective M-Class with Skype filtering technology, a first of its kind carrier-grade application filter for mobile operators offering a bandwidth optimization and content management tool specifically for the mobile carrier market”.
Company spokesman Yves Desmet says it’s a good deal for Verso and is, “representative of the significant opportunities for Verso`s products in the Chinese market, where VoIP is highly regulated and the use of Skype software has been deemed illegal.”
And, predicts (hopes?) Desmet, More and more countries are following China’s direction in evaluating the risks associated with the growing popularity of P2P communication such as Skype, due to intense security concerns with the use of this medium for unlawful purposes and its impact on carriers` revenues and the bottlenecks their networks are experiencing.”
And why not? China, land of oppression and repression, is full of golden opportunities for Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and hundreds, if not thousands, of other companies.
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See:-
Verso – Verso Announces SkypeTM Filtering Trial with Tier -One Carrier in China, November 7, 2005
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November 8th, 2005 at 3:22 am
If IBM is a model of comparison, Verso is hardly scandalous. Just more American capiterrorism:
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/excerpts.php
November 8th, 2005 at 7:10 am
I’m pretty sure it’d be possible to run skype “inside” a vpn session. I’d also imagine there are open source vpn clients out there you can grab for your OS of choice for free.
And they can’t ban vpn, because there are allegedly legit companies doing allegedly legit things with allegedly legit data that requires them to use vpn.
November 8th, 2005 at 7:33 pm
Bits is Bits. When arranged in a specific pattern at specific points in a data stream, you then have a protocol. So, Verso can detect Skype’s VOIP protocol signature and disrupt it. The enterprising will merely create their own private protocol and it will taken Verso weeks or months to understand it and do something about it. Most of the ‘hacking’ and ‘filtering’ can be implemented quickly because those attempting to implement restrictions have detailed documentation to work from (obtained legitimately or not.)
Multiply that by dozens of enterprising people developing private protocols for their ‘communities’ which they don’t care for outsiders snooping on. I wonder who will win that race?
Yes, Mr. Desmet, there are ‘intense security concerns.’ People communicating with one another can be a very, very dangerous activity, producing the undesirable result of truth and accurate information being disseminated to these criminals who dare communicate with one another in a fashion, manner, mode, time, and concerning subjects not approved by the central state authority.
I hope you sleep well at night with Mao’s Little Red Book tucked securely under your pillow in the luxurious capitalist squalor of your Buckhead estate.
–TurboGeek
November 8th, 2005 at 9:27 pm
I don’t think the fat lady has serenaded yet. I wonder what the US domestic legal implications are of a US company’s ( Verso ) unlawful (?) interference with another US company’s ( Skype – Ebay ) exercise of a legitimate business venture in a foreign market. Just wait till teh laywers get theor hands on this one.
November 9th, 2005 at 12:45 am
They need a freegate type of app for mobile networks.
November 9th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
wouldn’t this be considered treason?
November 10th, 2005 at 8:22 am
Nobody knew what was going on back then, or what complicaty meant. It wasn’t until years after the war that even the victims knew the full scale of things.
Stop bashing the IBM of today for the crimes of long dead men who ran a company that no longer exists in the same form.
November 10th, 2005 at 8:25 am
Yes, but there is some indication that the Skype blocking (at least in Shenzhen) was being done by detecting the tell tale high density traffic produced by VOIP rather than by detecting the protocols or ports used.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:31 pm
The people at IBM knew