Chapter 12 Business Uses for Skype

Help Desks

Skype has many benefits for businesses calling between offices or calling clients. But another innovative use for Skype—the help desk—has been adopted. Using Skype, help desk technicians are already at their computers, ready to troubleshoot problems and conjure helpful information at a whim.

Here, we examine two major types of help desk support: internal corporate support and end-user/e-customer support. We also discuss some clever humanitarian uses for Skype.

Corporate Help Desks

One major challenge in help desk support systems is the same challenge that businesses often face: location, location, location. Generally, most companies that require more than a few phone lines use a private branch exchange (PBX) system. A PBX is basically a computer that handles incoming and outgoing calls and allows for calls to be transferred and made interoffice, as well as out to the public telephone system. But this setup usually requires employees to be at a station physically connected to the corporate phone network, linked by the copper wires in the walls or a special private point-to-point VPN connection. This is restrictive for employees who want to work from home or satellite offices not connected over a private point-to-point connection to the phone system. Although calls may be forwarded to employees’ mobile phones from their corporate extensions, they lose a lot of the special functionality the PBX provides.

But peer-to-peer Skype telephony solves this problem! An office in Mumbai, India, can provide the same support that someone at the corporate office in San Diego or an employee at home in Seattle receives. Company X can provide help desk Skype Me! links on the intranet homepage, and calls can be quickly routed for help tickets. The same is true for IT staff members who travel frequently from site to site. No matter where they are, as long as they have an Internet connection, these employees are able to provide reliable assistance.

Technicians can take advantage of Skype’s text-chat option to provide specific documentation or even case-sensitive shell commands to a user in dire straits. Also, a user can copy and paste error messages or logs that may provide essential information to the person dispatched to help. Skype’s file transfer capabilities provide a seamless means for technicians and users to exchange files such as software patches, help documentation, and off-site Web links that could offer solutions.

Educational institutions are already beginning to embrace the power of Skype on their help desks. LEARN NC in North Carolina is a K–12 program from the University of North Carolina, at the Chapel Hill Business School. Among many other online technical support resources, they offer Skype-based support. If a user has a question during off-hours or just prefers online contact, he or she can Skype the user learn.nc.help. The Web site is available at http://help.learnnc.org/.

Another company hot on the Skype-desk bandwagon is the Permaworld foundation, “a member-based not-for-profit organization (since 2001) and a trusted, reputable Web hosting provider.” Thirty percent of this firm’s income is given to environmental organizations. Smart and benevolent!

Ruhrpumpen, an industrial pump manufacturer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, started using Skype in the summer of 2005. The company found it the ideal solution to communicate with partners and co-workers all over the world. They regularly use it to call Central America, Asia, and Europe, which would ordinarily cost a small fortune!

And, of course, www.SkypeTips.com helps Skype users with issues and questions on recommendations for hardware and software solutions, and www.VideoCallTips.com assists users in setting up and using video with Skype to make a personal video call. In addition, InternetVisitation.org helps divorced families use Skype and video to keep children and their parents and grandparents better connected.

Virtual Help Desk

But Skype’s helpful attributes are not limited to intranet support! Skype is just as effective at Internet support. The folks at biz.konush.net have compiled a directory of businesses that use Skype. Registration is absolutely free, and hundreds of businesses from across the planet have already signed up. At the time of this writing, the listing included 348 entries, and more were being added daily.

A traditional call center or help desk has one or two main dial-in numbers that can ring many desks. Skype can do this, too! Skype supports the capability to have multiple clients on several computers log in to the same account. When an incoming call is received, it first rings every user who is logged in at the time, and the first user to accept the call takes the conversation. Combined with a SkypeIn phone number, this feature gives users and customers a plethora of options to receive support, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional phone system.

But Skype-based help desks need not always be about making money and customer support. In 2005, two major hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, struck the United States. Entire cities were devastated by the water and wind, knocking out traditional landline telephone networks. The networks that managed to stay online quickly became saturated as family members all over the world rushed to contact their loved ones in storm-affected areas.

Enter the hero! KatrinaHelp, a grassroots hurricane relief organization, partnered with Skype, Skypejournal, and Khaos labs (www.khaoslabs.com) to set up a virtual call center. Concerned parties need only Skype KatrinaHelp, and they were greeted by volunteers from shelters, emergency rooms, and other emergency services already deployed to the epicenter of the damage. For people who can’t or won’t use the Skype client, they also enabled a SkypeIn account as well, further lightening the burden on the public telephone network.

Dina Mehta, a researcher and ethnographer based in India, had this to say about her experience helping the victims as a volunteer for the KatrinaHelp Desk:

I have been taking turns manning the virtual call center we have set up using Skype linked to KatrinaHelp, to help cover 24 hours of the day. I am beginning to understand what it feels like to be a call-center operator.

What amazes me, though, is that I can volunteer my time, sitting in my living room at home in Mumbai, India, and be of use to help those seeking information about their loved ones who are missing on that other side of the world. This morning, I was on a shift for a couple of hours, and I received about eight calls on our SkypeIn number and made a few on SkypeOut. It was really rewarding to be able to point the callers to resources and hook them up with those offering help. And they were so grateful someone was listening to them and that they did not have to figure out how to navigate pages on Web sites and wikis.

Imagine how it would be to have a virtual Skype phone bank. One that is not just virtual, but ad hoc. Just-in-time emergency support. Always on when we have a bank of volunteers from all over the world, and at all hours. Our way of reaching out and helping those in distress.

So we can see that Skype is really beginning to take off in ways not thought of before. The future of Skype business telephony is bright, too! Several companies are currently developing software and hardware solutions to augment Skype’s capabilities into a full-fledged business-class telecommunication medium. These devices include hardware applications to simulate operator-based call routing that businesses traditionally use to manage their calls. For example, in a standard business-class PBX system, an operator is able to tell whether an agent is currently on the line assisting a caller or if that agent has been idle for some time, waiting for his or her phone to ring. An idle agent is more prepared to handle a new caller’s concerns than, say, an agent who is tied to a call already. Once development on these applications is completed, we can expect to see Skype take a firmer grasp of the help desk business model. See Chapters 7 and 8 for more information on different Skype-based software and hardware applications.

WiFi Phones

Until recently, when users wanted to Skype someone, they would make the call from their desktop computers using a headset or microphone/speaker combo, talking to a monitor. Although practical and cost-efficient, this approach leaves users tied to their desks, limiting mobility and productivity. And, yes, it can sometimes feel a little silly talking to a computer screen. Users demand freedom from microphone cables, liberation from monitors, and all the familiar comfortable benefits of their home telephones. Several different approaches to this dilemma have been devised, offering the ultimate in freedom of choice for Skyping without wires. Several vendors are coming out with WiFi Skype phones. You can read more about this in Chapter 15.

Bluetooth Headsets

The first solution we’ll look at is the Bluetooth headset. These headsets are usually designed specifically with telecommunications in mind and are a great, affordable option for cutting the chains that clamp users to their desks. To use Bluetooth with Skype, we need a headset (obviously), a Bluetooth adapter to connect the headset to the computer, and optional software to integrate the headset buttons into Skype.

Plantronics makes an expensive version called the CS50-USB. Retailing at about $299.99, it might be a little out of the price range of the average Skype user, but the superior sound quality it offers makes it an ideal choice for Skype in the office. With a professional Class 3 Bluetooth radio, Skypers are able to wander up to 200 feet away from the base station and still retain an excellence of voice quality. Combined with Plantronics’ PerSonoCall software, this device allows you to initiate and end calls at the push of a button. You can read more about the CS50-USB at www.plantronics.com/north_america/en_US/products/cat640035/cat5480033/prod5300004.

Understanding the Basics … Bluetooth 101

Bluetooth adapters can be purchased for as little as $20 at most computer hardware retailers, with prices dropping ever steadily. Software plug-ins often require the use of the Widcomm Bluetooth driver, so make sure to check before you buy one. The headsets themselves tend to cost a little more, with the lower-end models starting at about $30 and ranging all the way to the several-hundred-dollar mark for high-end headsets with advanced features.

This device uses wireless technology similar to traditional WiFi networks and gives a user a personal area network (PAN) with an average range of about 10 meters for a Class 3 Bluetooth device. Class 2 devices have a range of 20 meters, and a Class 1 Bluetooth device has a range of about 100 meters. Actual signal strength depends primarily on the manufacturer and model of both the headset and the adapter.

My headset of choice is the Motorola HS810, which works with both Skype and my Motorola mobile phone. I use a Targus Class 2 adapter that provides more than ample coverage for me to pace frantically around my desk as I chat with my Skype buddies and coworkers. Even when I’m not straying far from my desk, I prefer the headset to a traditional computer microphone/headset combo, because it frees me from my desk and allows me to use my computer as I talk. Of course, Motorola’s HS810 is not the only great model of Bluetooth headset. Other manufacturers and models include, but are not limited to, these:

• Jabra’s BT250, BT250v, BT350, BT500, and BT800
• Logitech’s Mobile Express, Mobile Freedom, Mobile Freedom, Mobile Traveller, and Mobile Pro
• Motorola’s HS801, HS805, HS820, HS830, HS850 for cars, and the combination headset/eyeglasses, the RAZRWIRE BT Eyewear
• Nokia’s HS-11W, HDW-3, and HS4W

Almost any Bluetooth headset that will work with your current Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone will work with Skype, provided that the necessary drivers have been installed.

SkypeHeadsets

To fully take advantage of a Bluetooth headset’s features, we’ll want to use the headset’s main button with Skype instead of manually intervening with our mouse every time we’d like to take or make a call. Kamal Munir and Stuart John are consultants based in London who specialize in mobile telecommunications. They developed a plug-in for Skype called SkypeHeadset, which changes a Bluetooth headset from an ordinary speaker-and-microphone combo into a complete Skype phone. SkypeHeadset adds many features, including the following:

• Integrated Pairing Wizard
• Quick-dial a contact
• Automatically change Skype status by connecting or disconnecting the headset
• Suspend and resume from the SkypeHeadset popup menu

SkypeHeadset has a few prerequisites to meet before we’ll be able to use it. It works with version 1.x, 1.2.0.x, 1.3.0.x, or 1.4.0.x. SkypeHeadset works only with Windows 2000 and Windows XP (SP1 or SP2). The software works only with Widcomm Bluetooth drivers and does not support the generic Windows XP Bluetooth drivers. At this time, SkypeHeadset is not available for Mac or Pocket PC users.

Smart Phones

For the user who is constantly in transit, it’s not always feasible to be in front of a computer to use Skype. However, many of the higher-end “smart phones” available today come with the Skype client included. A smart phone is one that combines the functionality of a cellular phone with a handheld computer. See Chapter 8 for more information on Smart Phones that work with Skype. Models known to work with Skype include:

• Audiovox SMT5600
• Samsung 1730, which can do either cell or WiFi, but not both at the same time
• Motorola MPX220
• iMate K-Jam, SP5 & SP5m

The mobile phone client is limited to text chat, since the processors in these phones don’t usually have the horsepower to use the voice feature and the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Internet on these handsets does not provide adequate bandwidth. The exception to this is the SPV M5000, by Orange, which uses the Pocket PC version of the software over 802.11 and is fully capable of voice calls.

Next-generation mobile broadband, such as Verizon’s VZAccess, now provides mobile users with access that is more than sufficient for Skype chatting using both voice and text.

VZAccess 3G Verizon uses high-speed Internet access that is fast enough. For more information, visit

www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/businessSolutions/mobileProfessional/index.jsp?cm_re=Home%20Page-_-Business%20Box-_-Mo%20Pro.

For a user on the road in need of a quick answer, smart phones are the perfect means to stay in touch with the office network. We need to be aware of a few considerations, though. Since Skype is based on peer-to-peer technology, there’s a lot of network traffic, even when we are not actively chatting. This is especially important to consider if you pay by the megabyte for your mobile wireless Internet. Skype Mobile edition also requires us to use Windows Mobile 2003.

Pocket PC

For some situations, text just isn’t good enough. Skype users on the road or roaming the office want to retain the voice capabilities of Skype’s advanced features. For those situations, the Pocket PC client is ideal. To use Skype for Pocket PC, you need to make sure that your device meets the minimum system requirements. See Chapter 8 for more information on Pocket PCs that work with Skype. The Pocket PC must be running the following:

• Microsoft Pocket PC 2003
• WiFi
• 400MHz or better processor

The Skype Pocket PC client enables all the same features we’ve grown to know and love from the proper client, like SkypeIn, SkypeOut, and as of beta 1.2, Skype Voicemail. The Pocket PC version can participate in Skype Conference calls, but as of this writing it cannot initiate them.

One concern many users voice about the Pocket PC client is the echo they sometimes experience. This echo is because the microphone of the Pocket PC is not designed for telephony use and does not properly damp noise received from the speaker, which creates feedback. Using a headset (wired or Bluetooth) will help to reduce this feedback and provide sound quality comparable with that of the PC client. Some Pocket PCs work well without headsets; some do not. It’s best to try out your Pocket PC of choice with Skype before purchasing, if you have that option.

TIP

Turning down the volume from the Max 1 setting reduces feedback. Only a few Pocket PC’s do well without a headset, so be sure to test. Also, many Pocket PCs use a 4C connector (see the list of articles in the preceding section) and not a regular headset. Many Pocket PCs do not have the Bluetooth headset profile.

Since Skype Pocket PC uses WiFi technology instead of GPRS, it retains all the features of its PC-based bigger brother. Skype Pocket PC can use public hot spots, turning a Pocket PC into a virtual mobile phone! Anywhere there is open WiFi access, we can place calls just as we would with a normal phone. Imagine reading your morning newspaper while sipping a latte at your favorite WiFi-enabled coffee shop. And when you’re wandering the halls of your office or home, you stay in touch with all your Skype contacts.

It’s important to remember that most modern Pocket PCs have just enough power to make a phone call and nothing else, so some undesirable side effects are inevitable. Many users complain of buzzing noises or weird clicks during calls; many business users will find these quirks unacceptable for calls of a professional nature.

The faster the Pocket PC, the better. A wired headset works best as Bluetooth contends for Pocket PC CPU cycles, which can affect call quality and drain Pocket PC battery life at a vastly increased rate.

Skype Phones

So far we’ve talked quite a bit about using Skype on the go to stay in touch with the office. But several options appeal to our coworkers who are a bit more static, who don’t need as much mobility. These users should consider a Skype USB phone. Many people might be apprehensive about embracing new technology, which might feel unfamiliar and intimidating. A Skype USB phone resembles a traditional landline or cordless phone in almost every way. The feel, weight, and operation are identical to those of a normal phone, offering comfort to users who might otherwise not use Skype. For more details on USB phones, see Chapter 8.

Linksys partnered with Skype to create the CIT200 Skype Phone. This phone is a cordless Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) 1.8GHz phone designed not to interfere with existing wireless networks, whereas traditional 2.4GHz cordless telephones can often cause problems. It has a backlit color display that allows us to place calls to other Skype users by selecting a name from the contact list. Of course, we can also use SkypeOut minutes to make a call to the public phone network and gain all the functionality of a regular phone. But the range is one feature that makes this a great solution; Linksys advertises a 300-meter outdoor range and a 50-meter indoor range. With the included belt clip and 2.5mm headset jack, this should be more than ample for most users to work all around the office and still maintain audio clarity. And those oh-so-important poolside meetings in the back yard won’t be a problem!

The CIT200 also supports up to four handsets from one USB base station. Each phone can have its own unique address book and extension, making phone-to-phone intercom calls possible. This is ideal for a small business, which can run an entire team of eight people on two USB base stations. And through Skype-to-Skype calls, many offices can stay connected for free. The addition of customizable ring tones allows offices to assign rings to individual departments or offices to distinguish the internal calls from regular inbound calls.

The one thing the CIT200 suffers from is the inability to work as both a Skype phone and a regular landline phone. For this we need a special device, a Skype Gateway or a USB Phone like the DualPhone that can handle both Skype calls and regular telephone lines. Fortunately, many such devices already exist and are relatively inexpensive, about $50 on average. For more information on these options see Chapter 8.

VoSky (Actiontec Skype products rebranded) makes an excellent device called the Internet Phone Wizard, which allows us to connect any regular phone (cordless or corded) and use it with Skype as well as landline calls. The built-in Call Waiting feature allows us to place landline callers on hold to answer a Skype call, and vice versa. One thing to keep in mind is that these Gateways do not provide the Skype Contacts list feature that the Linksys CIT200 or DualPhone offers.

Callto: Tricks

So now we can make and receive calls for free or next to nothing. The cost savings alone are enough to make your company’s finance department scream for joy. Now let’s look at some clever ways to utilize Skype’s Callto: feature to make phone calls even easier.

Point, Click, and Call

When Skype is installed, it creates a new Universal Resource Identifier (URI) in the operating system called callto://, which enables Skype to be launched at the click of a button. To use this function, simply make a link called callto:// with a Skype contact name after the URI. For example, we could put some code on the company intranet page for the help desk, which might look something like this:

This ordinary HTML code tells our computer to launch Skype and call the HelpDesk user when the link is clicked. Skype tells the operating system to pass all callto: requests to Skype, which in turn dials the user specified in the link. Suddenly a Web page can become an automated directory! These shortcuts can be saved on a Web page, in an e-mail, or even as a bookmark within the browser.

Understanding the Basics … Desktop Dialing

Using callto: we can create desktop shortcuts to call our favorite contacts. In Windows, right-click anywhere on the Desktop and then select New I Shortcut. In the dialog box, type callto://name, where name is the Skype name of the buddy you want to call. Create a name for this shortcut, such as Bobby’s Mobile or IT Help Desk. Then, when you want to call this contact, simply point and click!

The callto: URI is great when a Skype user has added a Skype Me! link on a Web site, but what about phone numbers on the Internet that don’t have a callto: link? If you’re a Firefox user, Greasemonkey comes to the rescue! Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that lets us take user-created scripts and change the behavior of a Web site. Mark Abiuso created a script called Skype Linkify that converts regular text phone numbers on a Web page to clickable Skype callto: links. Skype then fires up SkypeOut and places the call, and presto! Point-and-click pizza delivery calls! Combined with Google Local, Skype Linkify transforms your Web browser into a directory assistance switchboard!

To install Skype Linkify, we must first install Greasemonkey, available at http://grease-monkey.mozdev.org.

Remember, Greasemonkey works only with Firefox, not Internet Explorer. You can download the Skype Linkify script from www.questar.it/blog/developer/skypelinkify.user.js.

From the Tools menu in the browser, choose Install User Script and load Skype Linkify. Now any page listing a phone number will have a clickable SkypeOut link! Note that this script is configured for calls within the United States. If you are in another country, you’ll have to modify const defaultPrefix= ‘+1’; to the country prefix you want to use.

Other Uses

We’ve seen what Skype can do for us in the office and at work. But what are some other ways people have been getting Skype to work for them? After all, business is just the beginning!

Radio Call-In Shows

Radio shows are adopting online simulcasts with increasing frequency. The Internet makes it possible for users outside a radio station’s broadcast range to tune in and enjoy the program. Using Skype, radio programs can welcome participation from geographically scattered participants at no extra cost! By setting up a Skype account for the radio show, the show’s producers free up traditional analog-based telephone lines for local users to call in while enabling globally scattered callers to communicate with their favorite radio jockeys over the Internet. And because the radio station already runs off an Internet connection, no additional costs are incurred.

The Kingdom of Loathing is an online role-playing game where players take the form of stick-figure warriors who engage in adventures across the Internet. Boasting an impressive fan base with over 20,000 registered users, the Kingdom of Loathing has an Internet radio show that features Skype, allowing fans across the country to participate in the show and in contests. You can visit the Kingdom of Loathing site at http://kingdomofloathing.com.

Scriptschool.com is another online radio show featuring Skype. Scriptschool hosts lessons on programming for the Web, with features on coding in PHP, adding RSS to blogs, and a slew of other content appealing to budding Webmasters. Listeners can call in and request specific help on programming or participate in call-in radio contests by Skyping the radio show hosts such as Skype user TDavid.

Online Pubs?!

Did we hear that right? Online bars? Yes! Robbie O’Connell’s Pub (robbieoconnellspub.com) in Daytona Beach, Florida, offers Skype to its patrons, along with a Webcam, free WiFi, and even video game consoles! Skypers can see their favorite barflies on the Web cam and call them up to say hi using the Skype name robbieoconnellspub. People viewing the Web site are even able to buy pints of beer for the bargoers using a PayPal link on the site.

Cyber Sherpas!

At 18,500 feet on Mt. Everest, a Cisco AIRONET 350 crunches away happily, fed by an AAP-1 satellite provided by SES Americom. This setup provides connectivity between the base station Cybercafe, the Internet, and the sherpas at 128Kbps. David Hughes (Skype name: david.hughes) was the network architect who got Internet connectivity to the desolate remotes of Mt. Everest. He needed a voice solution but found that standard VoIP solutions just weren’t cutting it. He says:

So I examined Skype. And after getting it working well across the U.S., I told Tsering to download the code, install it, and try a call to me. He did, taking most of the 64Kbps hour to download the software and 20 minutes to get it up.

The call was excellent quality from the get-go: loud, clear on both ends, with only two burps in one hour. The only thing we have to do, as we did for the SIP phones, is pause as the bits travel 24,000 miles up, then down, then up again, then down again, delaying about a second and a half as it goes literally to the other side of the world.

And now he is going over to Thame to install Skype on their machine as soon as he gets a speaker phone from Katmandu (there’s no corner Radio Shack high in the Himalayas, believe me). As soon as that comes, Mingma will be calling up the kiddies in Thame and teaching both oral and written English, as originally planned.

Tsering will also set up a SkypeOut system, so the trekkers can make their phone calls to dialup phones wherever they are, if they need to. Otherwise, they will talk Skype to Skype.

Tsering will continue to make a living, the kids will learn English, the trekkers will call home after e-mailing their friends, and my investment in time, dollars, and climbing the slopes of Everest will have paid off. And I can put a notch in my Colorado gun belt for racking up another very remote village to the Internet.”

Mobile and Remote Users

Employees who travel often find themselves in hotels on the road, many of which offer broadband connections to the Internet as a perk integrated into the cost of the room or at an additional charge. By connecting to Skype, these travelers are within reach of coworkers, regardless of their physical proximity to the office. When the CTO visits the sister office in Singapore, he or she can still conduct business with offices in the United States as though he were making a local call. An employee at a Starbucks equipped with a WiFi Hotspot account or a “Skype Zones” account can make conference calls as though he or she were still at the office. Many airports offer free or low-cost broadband Internet connections that can be leveraged to make Skype and SkypeOut calls.

Users working from home have this same luxury. By virtualizing their telephone extensions, home users can be conferenced in to a call with other Skype users in the field or at the corporate office. This frees up physical stations connected to the phone network for other employees not working remotely. Using Skype could further reduce expenses incurred on cell phone plans that pay on a per-minute use basis or monthly plan and potentially reduce reimbursements for home office telephone bills. Companies must balance the cost of adding the required hardware, implementation, and support against the costs incurred for large cell phone minute plans and home office telephones, to create a communication strategy that both meets their calling requirements and which is also cost-effective and secure.

IP Phone Infrastructures

Many companies have already deployed an enterprise IP phone solution like those from Cisco, Lucent, and others. These systems allow companies to make free calls virtually anywhere in the world within their company network as they route their voice traffic internally over their complex data networks. So for these environments, adding Skype to call an employee internationally is of little value.

However, companies with this kind of infrastructure could use Skype to route a call in the United States to a help desk in India for free by adding one of the Skype PBX gateways that are being developed by several vendors that we discuss in Chapter 15. As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, mobile or remote users could set up one or more accounts connected to the Skype PBX gateway. These accounts would allow remote employees at any location in the world to make free calls to their offices from their hotels or homes. Another way would be to enable a regular telephone user to use Skype or SkypeOut via one of these Skype PBX gateways to make inexpensive local toll or long distance calls or to other Skype users that could be a distributor of a part they purchase for example. So there are ways small, medium-sized, and large companies could add Skype to supplement their existing telephone infrastructures.

A Word about Security

Many companies with an IT staff are or will ask, “Is Skype secure?” While writing this book, Skype released a Security White Paper by Tom Berson of Anagram Laboratories, a well-known cryptographer who outlines how Skype uses encryption. This paper may be found at http://www.skype.com/security/.

Companies that are security aware and have a good security posture will question whether any voice software, or softphone as this technology is often referred to, is secure enough to discuss anything from human resource issues, mergers and acquisitions to participating in conference calls. Berson’s paper should calm the fears of many security practitioners. However, many corporations will still wonder about the security of a softphone on a computer that is mobile or in a remote location, such as an employee’s home, hotel, or hotspot. For example, corporations will be concerned whether these mobile devices could get compromised with a recording device and record the voice calls and upload them to a Web site to be listened to by the masses or sold to the competition.

These concerns are valid for any company and might be even for the typical home user, but one of the guiding rules of security is to “classify your data.” Companies must (1.) decide what data, or in this case voice transmissions, needs to be protected; (2.) determine which devices to use and when to use them; and (3.) set rules or policies that the employees will follow. If you are one of these companies, you should consider developing a policy that sets the classification of voice calls and what the proper device or location should be used when making any voice calls that are “sensitive” in nature and educate your employees to strictly follow this communication policy. Points to consider in this policy include:

• The security of any mobile device capable of voice (cell, Pocket PC, laptop)
• What communication should occur on a landline (e.g. mergers)
• What communication can occur on a soft phone or Skype (e.g. conference calls)
• Where you should or should not be when having conversations on a cell phone or soft phone (airport)

I am amazed at how many people I have encountered in my travels whose companies still do not deploy a personal firewall or encryption on a laptop in today’s world of worms, theft, and malicious activity targeted at Microsoft Windows users. It is not Microsoft’s fault that these users are compromised; it is the fault of companies that are not practicing defense in depth and securing their assets. Many companies have a “Deny all unless explicitly allowed” policy. Under this policy, these companies do not allow Skype because they have not specifically approved Skype, and yet, they deploy thousands of laptops with very sensitive data without encryption. If I were interested in data about a company, I sure would not be trying to capture Skype traffic. I would go after a laptop, since many companies put asset labels on their laptops indicating the company name or users have business card tags on their laptop bags. Social Engineering 101: Users tell you a lot without saying a word.

Regarding sniffing or capturing a Skype call, only a few governments and companies could afford the amount of storage required to capture the sheer quantity of Skype traffic going through an ISP, for example. The weak point is the client that is the laptop or desktop. If proper security measures were taken to protect these devices and if these measures were assessed frequently, this risk should be minimal. Companies as a regular practice install and monitor antivirus and personal firewall software. Many companies also use an intrusion detection solution on the laptops they issue to employees to protect users from open networks they may connect to (e.g., a hotel or their homes with a DSL or cable broadband connection).

Personally, if I were an IT security manager who had read Tom Berson’s Security White Paper and was confident that my laptops were properly secured, I would approve the use of Skype in my corporation as long as I had a “communication policy” covering what I could and could not discuss over Skype or other communication devices. I have overheard some rather interesting cell phone conversations in airports, coffee shops, and airline lounges during which businesspeople discuss very sensitive information. To me, this practice is a greater risk than using Skype.

Besides, if an issue occurred or was discovered with Skype, I could always issue a “Stop using Skype immediately” memo or e-mail to all employees while the issue was under investigation and until the security was reconfirmed. I could also use a software distribution tool or script to disable Skype fairly quickly on all computers that had Skype loaded. A company with valid security concerns could use Skype to reduce its communication costs and enable its employees by adding Skype versus replacing any existing solution like cell phones or landlines. The goals of using Skype in these situations are to reduce the amount of costly cell minutes and lower home office or hotel telephone bill expenses. As long as a company does not replace the traditional way of communicating, Skype could be added with little risk when deployed with a good communication policy.