6 Comments

Universities banning Skype

September 24, 2006 by in Stupid,Tech with 6 Comments

This was somewhat disappointing to hear. According to Ars Technica, California Universities are beginning to ban any and all Skype usage citing an unnecessary waste of network resources.

In a memo seen by Ars Technica, the SJSU Office of Information Technology says that Skype and other applications which use “grid-computing-like” networking capabilities are to be banned, but VoIP applications such as Gizmo or Wengo are still permitted for use. The memo also states that Skype’s EULA is far too broad, requiring users to grant Skype general “usage rights” to the SJSU networkâ€â€?something that end users do not have the right to do, as it is not their network. OIT also says that the changes to the XP firewall “may probe to be an excellent vector for a worm.”

Dissapointing for sure if more universities adopt the idea that Skype is wasting valuable resources. I saw the university Wi-fi setting the perfect oppotunity to cut cellphone costs by utilizing Skype-only handsets like the Belkin Wi-fi phone.


  • Dylan

    Our school has a policy agianst, yep, you guessed it, UNEASYsilence. It isn’t given acess on the general student body acount, but Any student in the Technology Academy has acess to it.

  • http://www.uneasysilence.com Dan

    That sucks, what university is it – I’ll have to write a stern letter.

  • biga

    my high school blocks half the internet i think, including aim ( but not msn, gtalk, skype, jabber, icq or most any other) but for most anything i can get with tor. not sure if i could set skype up to use tor though, so that might be a problem. either way, that sucks. stupid collage

  • Viriiman

    It’s ovbious why their blocking. As much as they want to claim it’s all about network traffic (and it may partially be), it’s more about charging students out the ying-yang for old outdated telephone service in their doorms.

  • http://- french reader

    I am using a macintosh that tells me who wants to open which port when an application is first launched, and I must say that contrary to *all* other VOIP applications, Skype really shocked me in asking to open something like 90% of all ports in the firewall (thousands of them).

    I suppose this is the reason given in the original article (‘grid-like computing’) and honestly I tend to agree with it. All the more than all other VOIP means don’t behave like this, and remain allowed.

    Now, I sort of remember somewhere in the Skype help, they say that if you don’t want to open all and every port, there is a single one that you may use: I would recommend trying this…

  • http://skypejournal.com Phil Wolff

    Just a fact or two.

    SJSU hasn’t banned Skype, but they’re thinking about it. We’re covering this at Skype Journal and I’m speaking at a community forum to discuss it.

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