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July 17, 2012

Skype's Embarrassing 'Glitch'

By Julie Griffin, Contributing Writer

The Weiner Twitter Scandal comes to mind as the most embarrassing outcome that can come with the recent Skype (News - Alert) “glitch.” According to sources, Skype users have witnessed IM messages sent out to unintended receivers randomly pulled from contact lists. Spokespersons for the VoIP service have assured users that the problem will be corrected shortly.



As expected, many users are concerned over serious breaches in privacy. What makes this situation different from other recent major privacy breaches, such as the one with Yahoo, is that the host has not been hacked into. Instead, insiders are claiming that a rare “bug” is responsible for the glitch in Skype’s system.

The Skype forum is insightful as to users concerns regarding this issue. The forum is filled with related comments such as this one by “stryle”: “Messages sent by one contact (two lines out of a hundred or so) were sent to another contact of mine. These two contacts are not connected on Skype. The two IMs appeared to be sent by me, so the other contact asked me if I sent them by mistake. That is the only reason I know it happened. Question is why and how often does it happen?”

The Inquirer, a source that is following this situation, has questioned people from Skype about how they intended to fix this problem. They have received this response from Skype, stating, “We are rolling out a fix for this issue in the next few days and will notify our users to download an updated version of Skype.”

Although Weiner’s mistake was due to his own failure to securely send messages to his intended targets via Twitter (News - Alert), his bad judgment could have ended his career and led to negative publicity that never seems to die – as seen with Donald Trump’s recent tweet that describes the former U.S. Representative as a “sexual pervert.”



Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO click here.

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Edited by Brooke Neuman
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