MAJOR EDIT

As of now, Microsoft has patched Skype and this guide is no longer necessary. I’ll leave it here for posterity’s sake, but Skype has been tested by multiple, reputable sources via Wireshark and other IP grabbers and should no longer leak your IP address to people not on your friend list.

Foreword from the Author

April 26th, 2015

We’re smack in the middle of 2015 and e-sports as a whole is growing larger and larger. LCS 2014 for League saw 27,000,000 unique viewers, Dota 2’s TI 4 prize pool surged to almost $11,000,000, Hearthstone’s been released for Android and even CS:GO has made a come-back from nothing to become one of the most popular e-sport titles in the world. Along with the growth of e-sports and internet gaming, a sister industry has sprung up alongside it: live-streaming.

Every streamer on the internet who’s grown to any level of popularity has found themselves confronted with the infamous “DDoSer.”

Most people have simply created alternate Skype accounts with barcode names. Some have stopped using Skype altogether. A few others use commonly leaked Skype names, hoping they don’t get “hit offline” by a lurking opportunist. None of these options are necessary, however. A few years ago, I penned a DDoS prevention guide which I’ve been following since the day I published it. I’ve seen it posted across almost every gaming subreddit on Twitch, and I’ve seen a number of responses/criticisms/critiques posted of it as well.

My Skype ID, Steven.Bonnell.II, is known by most people in the communities I’m involved in. I do not hide from Skype while I am streaming. I do not change my IP address every day. I do not get DDoS’d while I stream. Instead, I use the method outlined in the following pages to protect myself from attackers. It is the most simple, elegant, reliable, and secure method to protect yourself. To this date, I have never seen another guide on the internet which will secure your Skype the way mine does. I have seen other guides which claim to accomplish the same for easier, such as the guide written by Fire from Twitch. None seem to accomplish this level of protection as perfectly as my method For more information about why Fire’s proxy guide in particular is a poor recommendation, see this critique I’ve posted here.

The next 4 pages contain information should you wish to understand more about the process of DDoSing. It’s not necessary you read it, but if your job is streaming you should be aware of at least the basics of how DDoSing works. It’s astounding how many professionals are still utterly clueless when it comes to DDoS protection.

If you simply want the walk-through on how to protect yourself, skip ahead to page 6.

At this point in time, it should be absolutely inexcusable to miss a tournament match due to DDoSing. Players who miss matches due to DDoSing should be immediately disqualified the same way someone who misses work because their car ran out of gas. There is no excuse anymore to be leaking your IP address to the wild lands of the internet. This is your job, treat it as such and you should remain safe.

I will continue to follow the methods outlined until I discover a superior method.

I will continue to stream, free from the threat of being DDoS’d while doing so.