

Skype: What happened on August 16 - piers
http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2007/08/what_happened_on_august_16.html
&#60;quote&#62;receiving a routine software update&#60;/quote&#62;<p>Sounds like they're pointing the finger at microsoft to me.
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cperciva
This in my view confirms that the people who run Skype are either incompetent,
dishonest, or both. I'm leaning towards dishonest, since it's hard to imagine
how anyone could be so incompetent to both (a) roll out a network to millions
of nodes without simulating how the network responds to major disruptions, and
(b) build a large system which cannot be promptly "rebooted" into a clean
state if anything goes wrong.

The alternative explanation -- that Skype was the target of a deliberate
attack, and they're trying to keep quiet about this -- is to my paranoid mind
far easier to believe; Skype would hardly be the first multi-billion dollar
company to keep quiet about an attack out of fear that shareholders and/or
customers would react unfavourably.

~~~
palish
When is the last time someone launched a _massively_ successful attack like
the one on Skype without claiming credit for it?

Napoleon once said, "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by
incompetence."

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cperciva
What makes you think that whoever launched this attack against Skype (assuming
that it was an attack) hasn't taken credit for it? Denial of service extortion
(historically, most often against online gambling websites) is a thriving
business; but you don't need to take credit publicly to get paid. There's also
the possibility of profitting from Skype's outage without even taking credit
privately, simply by using the advance knowledge that an attack will take
place to make profitable trades on the stock market.

~~~
palish
I see. So the Skype PR team was sitting around, possibly even delaying the
relaunch...

\- _Harp plays, scene fades in_ -

"Neil, what's going on with the spin? _We need that spin!_ We've just finished
hiding the build numbers. Marketing has never been happier, so we can't afford
anyone to know that we've been attacked now!" yelled Niklas, his ears
flattening against his head. Being Supreme Skype Commander was hard work, and
it was _not_ made easier by this doofus from PR.

Neil glanced back, mildly annoyed. "I'm workin' on it, I'm workin' on it.
Okay, hey, guys, a meteor. No wait, _Velociraptors_. Damn, no.."

They were all huddled in the conference room. Management had commanded them to
stay late two days in a row now, until 6 PM. No one wanted to stay an hour
late another day.

Suddenly, Tamma burst in. "I've got it! _There was a windows update!_ It
happened to coincide with the attack. We're saved!"

Everyone cheered, picking Tamma up and carrying her high in the air. Neil
remained seated, slumped, head down.

"I still liked the Velociraptors.." he mumbled.

"Me TOO!" It came from behind him.

Neil had just enough time to turn around and scream in shock and horror before
the Velociraptor jumped on him.

\- _Harp plays again, scene fades out_ -

I'm thinking no.

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ashu
i dont understand why people are giving skype such a bad time. they have been
quite honest (technically) about what happened - a bug got exposed by some
really really extreme workload. Also, whoever thinks that they should have
"modeled" this has no idea how hard it is to develop distributed systems. It's
a fine ideal to have, but in practice it is ridiculously hard to achieve.
Especially as the code evolves. What you need is the same code base being able
to run on a real TCP/IP stack and in a simulated environment. This looks easy
in the abstract, but it's really tricky to do in practice.

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piers
<quote>receiving a routine software update</quote>

Sounds like they're pointing the finger at microsoft to me.

~~~
Goladus
Sometimes "a routine software update" means "not a routine software update."

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run4yourlives
This is going to serve as a lesson on how not to communicate a screw up to
your customers in the modern age.

What could have simply been, "we screwed up, we're sorry" is now going to be
talked about not only in terms of the event, but the poor communication
strategy.

tsk tsk skype.

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falsestprophet
In other news, Microsoft announces a new peer-to-peer telephone network!

