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October 22, 2004

Overheard @ VON: Cisco can now tag Skype Packets!

While walking in the hallways of Fall 2004 VON late in the day yesterday, I overheard a conversation that Cisco has been able to identify and in fact "tag" a Skype packet.

If this in fact turns out to be true, then it will be just a matter of time before corporations will be able to block Skype traffic by changing their firewall and network security policies in the event they want to better manage the real-time communication streams taking advantage of their sacred network resources.

I wonder if Linksys and others will eventually provide an option to block Skype traffic on home firewalls.

Until now, Skype has been able to navigate just about all NATs and Firewalls without the consent of anyone.

It will be interesting to see if the Cisco tagging of the Skype packet will in turn result in Skype changing their fingerprint in subsequent product releases.

Posted by jeff on October 22, 2004 03:53 PM | Permalink

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Comments

I just checked for the latest NBAR PDLMs, and didn't see Skype (which isn't to say they can't match it, it just doesn't seem to be there for the common customer).

Just as another thought, the ability to classify the flow also means that a provider could remark its priority. One could drop it entirely, or mark it up/down as need be.

Sean

Posted by: Sean at October 23, 2004 03:21 PM