We just heard from Skype with an official comment on what caused the service interruption today and what they’re doing to fix it.

“Apologies for the delay, but we can now update you on the Skype sign-on issue. As we continue to work hard at resolving the problem, we wanted to dispel some of the concerns that you may have. The Skype system has not crashed or been victim of a cyber attack. We love our customers too much to let that happen. This problem occurred because of a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software. This controls the interaction between the user’s own Skype client and the rest of the Skype network. Rest assured that everyone at Skype is working around the clock — from Tallinn to Luxembourg to San Jose — to resume normal service as quickly as possible.”

Oddly enough, one of our nicknames for John is “deficient algorithm.” If you want to keep up on the the repair process, you can check the company’s blog.