I was curious about the break-in of my account because I always used good security practices, having a unique password for Skype, always logging in over https or the Skype client. Also I use a Linux distribution (Arch) so the chances of being infected by a virus of having a key-logger installed are pretty low. I found out that tools to expose any Skype accounts password were readily available online, so my security practices were pretty irrelevant.

Given that Skype's security is non-existent, I since assume that whatever info I put in my account is public and that there is no protection or security of my data whatsoever.

Since then, I revoked their access to my PayPal and my credit card. They are not trustworthy of my money, and I keep hearing from time to time about new huge security holes in their accounts. I do not recommend that anybody authorize any payment with them.

Oldest trick in the book. They must be a bit desperate.

You can immediately cancel the subscription:

"You've cancelled your Unlimited World subscription. You can continue to make calls until it expires on December 15, 2012. No further payments will be taken unless you reactivate this subscription."

https://secure.skype.com/account/call-phones/settings/free?p...

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/prices/pay-monthly/

The US is included (both landlines and mobile phones)

As so often, unlimited actually means some unspecified "fair usage" policy that can be interpreted by them at will.

voice is of course just super low bitrate data with a legacy last mile that (sometimes) requires a DA converter. tricky? not at all. at least in the us and places with a similar regulatory environment it's awesome - actually way easier and cheaper than pushing pure bits, at least when you're up at a tier 1/tier 2 level. imagine if the government mandated free open access peering for local ip traffic - already tiny ip traffic costs would probably drop almost as much as the fiber glut caused. yet that's basically what you can do with voice in these markets, with some exceptions.

every all you can eat voip provider offers 30 days or more free, usually with a lot more features, inbound, no calling restrictions, etc. why not when it will probably cost them way less than a dollar (at least for outbound only) and whatever keywords they are buying on google probably cost several dollars (informed wild ass guess) and aren't anywhere near as qualified.

for comparison's sake if you want cheap US/CA outbound calls it is easy to find deals like 5000 minutes that don't expire for $5.00 and doesn't require any recurring billing.

Now obviously it doesn't matter too much since even overpriced anyone's voip is still a small fraction of an hours work, i just find it funny that people think a free month is some kind of deal yet wouldn't in a million years vote up a story about netflix offeraing a free month of streaming, something that probably costs them a couple of orders of magnitude more.

[1] some rounding errors may apply

   Trial must be redeemed by 15/11/2012. Offer available only to existing Skype users who have been registered with Skype more than 29 days. To qualify for the offer, you must provide valid payment details. After the first month, your subscription will automatically continue and payments will be taken monthly unless you cancel within 27 days of the start date. Only one free Unlimited World subscription can be claimed per customer. Offer not available in China, Korea, Russia or Taiwan.

Is VoIP bandwidth so low by todays standards, that they can scale without problems if they have to?

Skype quality is usually attrocious. But yesterday I had my first crystal clear call in over two years. It only cost about $72 to finally get that!

Have they changed their mind or they won't offer it to anyone that uses skype manager...?

Is that some sort of joke ?