Skype plays down clone rumours

By Steve Malone

Posted on 17 Jul 2006 at 09:45

Skype has dismissed claims by a Chinese software company to have reverse-engineered the protocols that underlie the Internet telephony software used by millions. The news of a potential rival client able to use the Skype network was broken by VoIP blogger Charlie Paglee who posted a screenshot of the software on his site.

If true, this is serious news to Skype which will not only have a problem of a competitor using its network, but threatens to hurt the performance of the network at the same time. It is also unlikely to cause much joy in the eBay boardroom which made a multibillion dollar takeover of Skype.

It appears the Chinese code does not support Skype's SuperNode technology. Currently, every computer with Skype installed on it is press ganged into being used as a relay to carry data between two other computers when both of those computers are only allowed to make outgoing TCP calls. This could eventually damage the Skype network if large numbers of customers opt out of being a Skype Super Node and the network performance begins to degrade.

Skype has issued a statement pouring cold water on the report. 'Skype is aware of the claim made by a small group of Chinese engineers that they have reverse engineered Skype software. We have no evidence to suggest that this is true.' Of course, it is doubtful whether Skype will have approached the Chinese for 'evidence' even if the developers were of a mind to show their hand at this stage.

The Skype statement continues, 'Even if it was possible to do this, the software code would lack the feature set and reliability of Skype which is enjoyed by over 100 million users today.' However according to Paglee's sources the Chinese software house only support placing Skype peer-to-peer phone calls and they have not yet implemented presence. Apparently they plan to add presence, instant messaging, and a range of other features.

Finally Skype says that no amount of reverse engineering would threaten the system's cryptographic security or integrity.

A public demo of the Skype compatible client is promised before September.