Why Skype Skipped
The way I understand it, it was basically because of a reboot after a Windows Update that put a crimp in Skype when all of these computers came back up and started to log back into Skype.
Of course I blame Microsoft first. After all Microsoft is the root of all evil. Evil at it’s root is Microsoft.
On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update.
The high number of restarts affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact.
Fricken Microsoft.