Erdos Had The Number First

Getting Skittish About Skype

CAMPUS PARIAH
Some organizations are clamping down. Pharmaceutical giant Novartis (NVS ) in Basel, Switzerland, doesn’t let employees use Skype. Neither do Goldman Sachs (GS ) and German chemicals giant Degussa. A growing number of schools ban the technology, including Oxford University, the University of Texas, and the University of Minnesota. In September the French government recommended research personnel at universities and government labs avoid using Skype.

Ok, first pharma is a paranoid monster. They don’t let their employees use many of the instant messaging tools available.

Goldman, thanks to rule 17-4a (SEC) can’t let them use it either, because they can’t record it and store it on WORM drives for 7 years.

The fact that the French and Schools have banned skype has everything to do with economics and NOTHING to do with Skype. France Telecom has always been terrified of VOIP because they will lose their precious (and profitable) monopoly on phone services. The same with schools. Universities in the US
have a long tradition of making a boat-load of money on Long distance charging. Now, thanks to cell phones and VOIP, their cash cow is pretty lean. They’re not going to take that loss of revenue lying down.

Basically, this article is pretty much a shill for Cisco, Avaya, and SBC. “oooohh skype is insecure, don’t use it or someone could intercept it. No kidding? The same is true of ALL electronic communication. Risk is a continuum, just try to understand that Business Week.