Beware! Skype could take over your computer

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 13 November 2005 09:42

Business IT - Technology

According to European research company, Butler Group, enterprises need to be very wary of letting employees install Skype, because it works by making use of the resources of client computers.

According to Butler Group lead analyst, Richard Edward, "Skype (the company) has very few physical assets, and that's because they leverage the power of the devices connected to the network. The reason why Skype works as well as it does is because of ...computers called Super Nodes...Any computer running Skype with a clear-line-of-site to the Internet, plenty of bandwidth, and plenty of resources (memory, CPU) can become a Super Node, and this could result in this machine and its network segment becoming overwhelmed by Skype traffic."

He suggests that enterprises because they generally have more resources and better Internet access that Skype's primary target market of residential users are more likely to have their computer co-opted into Skype's global processing network as 'Super Nodes'.