Skype query

[Winged Isis]

Lately when I have gone to Skype a mobile, I have been getting the following pop up:

Skype wants to use your confidential information stored in "skype" in your keychain.
Do you want to allow access to this item?
Always Allow Deny Allow

There is a ? (i.e. Help) When I click on this it eventually says it cannot find what I want.

So far I have always clicked Deny. It pops back instantly at least once more.

Any ideas? It doesn't happen on my Acer notebook. Could it be because I am on a Mac? I can still call, but it is annoying. What is my "keychain"?

I recently left Telstra (our version of BT) after a 5 months battle, as they refused to believe I had made two payments, despite one having been made over the phone by their operator, and presenting paper proof from my bank for both. They eventually found the mistakes were theirs, but I'd had enough of their rudeness and indifference. I moved to Optus, but despite there being a tower near my village, I couldn't get enough coverage, so had to return to Telstra. :mad2:

This pop-up problem has started since my return, so could that be the issue, because I used another carrier, and should I therefore allow access, do you think? Also, prior to all this, I had always Skyped via my Acer notebook with headphones, as my husband was having trouble hearing me through his mobile when I was talking through the Mac laptop without head phones.

[Horus]

Oh the joys of owning an Apple Mac, basically Keychain is Apple’s password management system in the Mac Operating system. It stores all the various passwords you may have in one place and then makes them accessible by using just one master password or pass phrase, so if an application needs to access a password it will ask you to ‘unlock’ the Keychain thereby allowing it access to the Skype data stored there. It may well be that you have recently updated your Skype program or received a recent update via the program itself.

I have done some research for you and it does seem to be a problem that is affecting a lot of Mac users at the moment and causing some concern. The general consensus of opinion is that if you click the ‘deny’ button a couple of times it allows you in, although the annoying pop up request still returns. It may just be that it wants to store or access the Skype password in your Keychain and is asking permission to do so, in that case it would not be a problem. However as I don’t use a Mac myself I cannot honestly advise you to allow this access as I don’t know if it is a genuine request from Skype or not, if it were malicious in any way you could be giving it access to sensitive information (even pin numbers may be stored in there) so if it is still working OK after you deny the access, then until you know better then I would keep denying the request. If enough people using Skype have this problem they will eventually start to realise it and maybe take some sort of action to clear things up, but at the moment many people like yourself are confused about it so don’t worry. I have it on reasonable authority that if your machine is using Linux then the request is probably legitimate and you can allow the request.

[Winged Isis]

Ah, H, I guessed you'd be the one to sort this! What a genius!

Well that's why I asked on here, as I was wondering if it was just me, I was wondering if it was to do with having a Mac, or if other Skypers were getting it too. Yes, I had forgotten I'd recently had a Skype update (I hadn't used the Mac for the two months I was in Egypt recently).

I have no idea if my machine is using Linux (whatever that is; you know me, the total non-techxpert!). Any idea how I can find out? I don't know if this helps: I have a Macbook Pro, Mac OS X, Version 10.7.4

My policy is always, when in doubt, deny, deny, deny, so I have and I will! Thanks again. My hero!

[Horus]

WI, if your laptop is quite new then it probably has the 32 or 64 bit version installed. One way to make your laptop show you the information is to
Open APPLICATIONS
Choose > ACCESSORIES
Then Choose > TERMINAL

In the terminal window type this in uname –m and hit the enter key.
You should then see some information being displayed, it wont make much sense, but you should see one of the following numbers amongst the information:
i686, if you see this you have a 32-bit version of Linux.
Or x86_64, if you see this you have a 64-bit version of Linux
if you get some other value like i386, you almost certainly have a 32-bit version of Linux.

You can also get a bit more information by following the first few steps, but type in uname –a instead and this should show more data including something like i686 GNU/Linux

Hope this helps.

[Horus]

I just noticed that you have posted my reply to you over on L4U and as usual it gets some sort of negative comment.

“Though, reading it, I'm not sure now it's a problem for Mac people ... just Apple protecting its users?”

So perhaps I should elaborate a little, I used the word ‘problem’ in a general sense i.e. Keychain is part of the Apple OS used on Apple Mac computers, ergo, it can only affect an Apple Mac user and therefore your Skype ‘problem’ would not arise with a non Apple Mac user who's system did not have Keychain.

The inference at the end is that it may just be “protecting the user” fine if you wish to believe that, but let me ask you a question, “How many sites and forums do you log onto without a password being requested?” “does your computer boot up without asking for a password every time?” if the answer to any of those is ‘Yes’ then your Keychain is giving out that information without even asking you. So the nub of this is don’t be too concerned about it as most Macs and PC’s will behave in a similar manner the instant you click something like ‘Remember Password’

It is quite common for Mac users to have some strange belief that their machines are somehow invulnerable to virus attacks or are very security protected. The only reason that Macs get less viruses is that people don’t write viruses for them to the same degree because they are not as common, if Macs were the commonest PC’s then the viruses would be written to attack Macs, it’s a simple as that. I am not saying that the OS is bad, it is far less cluttered and innovative than Windows in many ways, but for me it lacks a lot of decent programs. Finally on the security front, if one of those Mac users were to put his machine next to myself and I had another Mac machine, I would be bypassing his Keychain protection and using his machine as just another slave drive within minutes, so secure? …….. er no!
It is interesting how often genuine advice intended to be helpful, just falls on deaf ears.

[Ruby Slippers]

Horus, I have to ask - have you trained and/or worked in IT, or have you worked it all out for yourself? :rx:

[Kiya]

RS I once asked him the same thing

[Ruby Slippers]

Whatever the answer is, Kiya, - I'm awfully glad he's around!

[Horus]

Ruby S, there is no short answer to your question that I can give you, some people may think that my IT knowledge is very good, but if I compare myself to a friend of mine who is the top IT guy for a global company then it is quite limited. I often ask him questions if I get stuck or do not understand something IT related and he either tells me the answer, or on some occasions he will actually say to me “why are you asking me about that? you know more about that than I do!” We can have a few beers together and he could tell you all about quantum mechanics, electronics, and a host of other very technical subjects, but if we do the pub quiz together he never gets any answers right and when I do he usually says to me “how do you keep all that $hit in your head?”

I do not work in IT, but have many IT qualifications, some that would allow me to teach them. I have used PC’s in my work for many ……………… many …………….. yawn …………… years, often as a just a pastime in the early years, but more as a tool in the later ones. I tend to use sophisticated programs rather than to doing the actual IT work of the sort you may be thinking of, although I would happily rip a PC apart and rebuild it with all it’s peripherals if I needed to do so and I do try to keep myself fairly well up in the PC technology field where I can.

So there you have it, no I don’t actually work in IT Bet you are now wondering what it is I actually do or did.

[Winged Isis]

"I just noticed that you have posted my reply to you over on L4U and as usual it gets some sort of negative comment." Horus, I think you're being a little sensitive; I took it that he was just musing after reading, and he did say thank you, so must have appreciated your efforts!

"It is quite common for Mac users to have some strange belief that their machines are somehow invulnerable to virus attacks or are very security protected. " I sure don't, as I don't have enough (read any) knowledge on that stuff!

So go on, tell us; what???

[Horus]

I think that the thanks were directed more at you for posting it WI rather than to me for making the information available, as compliments are usually far between in my experience of the forums.