How Skype saved the day

greytrev · 11-22-06, 01:51 PM

the bus line here just changed their run times to the winter schedule, catching me unawares. it's normally a 40 minute bus ride home, once i get to the bus stop, but this time, i missed the bus. while i was on my cell with the transit company verifying the time of the next bus run home, my cell phone battery gave up the ghost. Curses. no change for the pay phone either.

I figured my wife would be worrying what the hell happened to me when i didn't show up until an hour late, and couldn't call me because my cell was dead. since the bus stop is a substantial walk from my office anyway, i just began to walk further into town along the bus line while waiting for the next bus to happen by. I suddenly remember Skype Out was free until the end of the year, soooo.....

I don't know about your area, but most of the people in this area have wifi routers. And the clever souls who lock theirs down only constitute about 20% of the routers. It didn't take me long to fire up the wifi on my axim, find an open router, and call home with Skype. She wasn't happy i was going to be late, but happier than if i never called at all.

Thanks Skype!

w3iner · 11-22-06, 01:56 PM

I am glad Skype is doing so much for humanity.

fjl307 · 11-22-06, 03:46 PM

I have a simular story. A few months ago I was being picked up at the Houston airport and the p son picking me up had a Mexico phone. Unfortunatly, I arrived late and my baggage claim was in another part of the airport. So I tried to call on my phone- couldn't- my phone is not eqquiped with international dialing. So I pulled out my axim and skyped his number. What was odd was that you had to pay for hotspots but they didn't have Skype's ports blocked.

11-22-06, 05:38 PM

Yea, I love skype, too but I have never had it save the day like some of you guys have :P

krhainos · 11-22-06, 05:52 PM

I'd also like to say that the world's largest Wi-Fi ISP, linksys (and it's competitors : default, wireless, and NETGEAR) has also saved me several times.

I don't know about you, but, linksys has great coverage and the speeds are pretty fast

Pocketbrain · 11-22-06, 05:54 PM

Originally Posted by fjl307

I have a simular story. A few months ago I was being picked up at the Houston airport and the p son picking me up had a Mexico phone. Unfortunatly, I arrived late and my baggage claim was in another part of the airport. So I tried to call on my phone- couldn't- my phone is not eqquiped with international dialing. So I pulled out my axim and skyped his number. What was odd was that you had to pay for hotspots but they didn't have Skype's ports blocked.

I have notice that they don't block all ports at pay hotspots, too. I have used AIM repeatedly with this. Not Skype yet, but nice to see that their socket is unblocked as well.

11-22-06, 06:13 PM

Moral of the story, don't lock your wireless router guys.. you might be saving somebody's life...

Disclaimer: If anything happens to your connection, don't come looking for me.

11-22-06, 07:06 PM

We have encryption on our router, 256 bit encryption, so go ahead and get through :D

11-23-06, 01:50 AM

Originally Posted by fjl307

...but they didn't have Skype's ports blocked.

Actually I just read an article, last week I think, in eWeek and it talked about the Skype protocol. The takeaway was how System Administrators can use it, or block for security reasons. Skype is virtually unblockable. That's the way the Skype engineers designed it. Link to article. Start at the fifth paragraph or so if you want the jist of what I'm talking about. Otherwise, it was a REALLY interesting article.

Correction: It was about a month ago. Man, time really flies.

el12 · 11-23-06, 02:43 AM

Originally Posted by Rice Lover

We have encryption on our router, 256 bit encryption, so go ahead and get through :D

I guess some have never heard of airsnort & wepcrack

11-23-06, 04:39 AM

Originally Posted by el12

I guess some have never heard of airsnort & wepcrack

Uh...Wepcrack? Wep is 128 Bit, he's on WPA or some such.

el12 · 11-23-06, 03:27 PM

Originally Posted by Cybrid

Uh...Wepcrack? Wep is 128 Bit, he's on WPA or some such.

Actually easier to crack WPA than it is to crack WEP

" .. WPA is an encryption algorithm that takes care of a lot of the vunerablities inherent in WEP. WEP is, by design, flawed. No matter how good or crappy, long or short, your WEP key is, it can be cracked. WPA is different. A WPA key can be made good enough to make cracking it unfeasible. WPA is also a little more cracker friendly. By capturing the right type of packets, you can do your cracking offline. This means you only have to be near the AP for a matter of seconds to get what you need. Advantages and disadvantages. ..."

P.S.

my wifi is open I only restrict access when and broadcast
I restrict access only when I need the full bandwidth

runnr548 · 11-23-06, 04:06 PM

Skype has helped me keep phone bills lower, but hasn't "yet" saved me. ;-)

11-23-06, 06:09 PM

Yes, I believe we have WPA, I'll have to check to confirm it, though.