Skype to Address User-Identification Concerns

In an interestingly eerie parallel to a discussion that has recently cropped up on the VoIPSec forum regarding peer-entity authentication vs. data-origin authentication, Skype announced yesterday that it intends to address the issue of user-identification within their VoIP service.

Part of Skype’s “wish list” for further expansion into the business market is to enhance username authentication for business customers, the voice over Internet Protocol company said Wednesday.

Skype’s system currently automatically authenticates users itself, based on certificates from it’s own encrypted Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Because it does this automatically and transparently to the user, the users themselves have no way of authenticating the identity of the person they are communicating with.

“Skype is a public key infrastructure, which means nothing if you don’t know who you are identifying at the other end,” Sauer said.

You can read more detail at News.com.com.