Did Russian Hackers Crash Skype?

An anonymous reader sends us to the www.xakep.ru forum where a poster claims that the worldwide Skype crash was caused by Russian hackers (in Russian). The claim is that they found a local buffer overflow vulnerability caused by sending a long string to the Skype authorization server. You can try Google's beta Russian-to-English translation, but the interesting part is the exploit code, and that's more readable in the original. The Washington Post reports that Skype has denied this rumor.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[r00b]

In America you crash when using the phone.

Re:The code snippet seems to be wrong

[tftp]

It actually executes, I tried the loop just now.

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Arthur Grumbine]

And the long string was... "In Soviet Russia we are tired of all the mindless obligatory comments about the beloved Motherland."

It's OK folks!

[goldspider]

They were just expressing their frustration with the expanding influence of capitalism. In the future, we should try to react to protests like this with a little understanding.

it was Yetis!

[ILuvRamen]

Sunspot activity caused yetis to go crazy and attack several servers and that did it. Seriously, I saw it on a blog written in Swedish so it must be true! Seriously, lots of Russians are egotistical liars, keep it real, people. There's one thing they're good at and that's making fake documentation for stuff.

Re:They hired DoS specialists against their own us

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I won't be awake at 0100 UTC on that date. Maybe a different time?

Another Soviet Russia comment

[kylehase]

In Soviet Russia we crash Skype. Wait... that doesn't seem right.

Re:The code snippet seems to be wrong

[svallarian]

It's obviously a typo. Since it was Russian code, it was supposed to be xCCCP

Re:They hired DoS specialists against their own us

[Smauler]

I bet Slashdot wouldn't be prepared for all of its users connecting at the same time, either. But it needs not to. It is never going to happen (why should it?)

I believe you are discounting the possibility of the actuality of Natalie Portman and Hot Grits.

Re:Russians ? They don't have good education

[LanceUppercut]

LOL. "American school system". What is it, an oxymoron contest? :)

Re:The code snippet seems to be wrong

[Daimanta]

It actually executes, I tried the loop just now.

Re:The code snippet seems to be wrong

[ultranova]

Well, this is very very very old Russian hacker tradition: introduce flaw in the crack/exploit to prevent it from being (ab)used by idiots.

In Soviet Russia idiots abuse you !