-
/
My “Black Bag Security Review” hits IT Conversations’ Top 10 Downloads for March 2008…
Continue Reading: My “Black Bag Security Review” hits IT Conversations’ Top 10 Downloads for March 2008…I was rather surprised but pleased to see that my “Black Back Security Review” was on the list of the “Top Ten IT Conversations Shows for March 2008“. My “surprise” was mostly because that particular talk is over a year old and was given at the ETel 2007 show back at the end of February 2007.To be honest, I was not actually aware (or didn’t remember, anyway) that the IT Conversations Network had distributed my talk but I’m guessing they did so with a number of the ETel sessions.
Unfortunately, they don’t include the slides, which I put up in the Blue Box posting and also just generally made available on SlideShare. Without the slides, I suppose it works perfectly fine.. I’ve just never listened to it that way. It was still one of the most fun presentations I’ve ever given. Also took a ton of time to prepare. 243 slides in 14 minutes… 🙂 (I did write up some notes about the presentation and the style, etc.)
Anyway, it’s cool to see people discovering that session again. Nice surprise!
Technorati Tags: voip, voip security, dan york, etel
-
/
Skype 2.7 for the Mac publicly released (back in February)
Continue Reading: Skype 2.7 for the Mac publicly released (back in February)This is relatively old news, now, but if you didn’t know, Skype released version 2.7 for the Mac back in February. I’d been using the 2.7 beta for quite some time, but missed the announcement that the production version had been released. (Annoyingly the “Check for Updates” in the 2.7 beta never indicated that there was a newer version.) I just learned of the production version as a result of an amusing little bug that I’ll write about sometime. 🙂If you are a Mac user and haven’t upgraded to 2.7, I’ve been using version 2.7 for quite some time and have been quite pleased with it. The integration with the Mac’s native Address Book is quite nice to have.
-
/
Creating voice applications that interconnect with Skype and SIP
Continue Reading: Creating voice applications that interconnect with Skype and SIPGiven that I write on Voxeo’s blog site, I tend not to write much here about things we are doing at Voxeo.But I thought I’d mention here one specific post I put up recently called “Skype-ifying your voice applications” which talks about the intriguing ways in which you can use our hosted platform to make voice applications accessible through a number of different mechanisms.
As shown in the diagram to the left, an application that you write and is hosted on our platform can be called into over the PSTN, over a direct SIP connection or via Skype or FWD. Likewise calls can go out to PSTN numbers or to SIP endpoints.
This flexibility is one of the many things that intrigues me about the platform (of which I knew nothing about prior to joining the company in October).
Anyway, more information is in the full blog post. I just thought I’d mention it here. (By the way, if you’d like to try it out yourself, developer accounts are free.)
-
/
Skype releases new 3.8 beta for Windows
Continue Reading: Skype releases new 3.8 beta for WindowsIf you are on Windows, you can now download Skype 3.8 beta. As Raul Liive indicates, this beta release is primarily focused on quality improvements, including improved audio quality.I did find it interesting that Skype wrote their own UPnP implementation for this release and stopped using Microsoft’s UPnP code. UPnP (“Universal Plug and Play”) is one of those things you either love or hate. Consumers love it because it lets applications “just work” through their home firewall. Security folks like me usually loathe it because UPnP punches holes in firewalls (and lacks any kind of authentication whatsoever). However, it makes sense for Skype to attempt to use UPnP and, given what they wrote, it makes sense for them to write their own version and not be subject to the issues with Microsoft’s version.
I’ll be curious to hear what others think of the Skype 3.8 beta for Windows… given that I’m on a Mac these days, I won’t be giving it a try.
-
/
Nortel’s fascinating move into open source telephony… but NOT with Asterisk
Continue Reading: Nortel’s fascinating move into open source telephony… but NOT with AsteriskNortel and “open source telephony”? Huh?That was admittedly my thought when I received the list of who was going to be on the panel I moderated last week at VoiceCon on open source telephony. The other two panelists were obvious choices: Bill Miller was from Digium (makers of Asterisk) and Raza was from 3Com who have recently announced that they would be reselling a version of Digium’s Asterisk Business Edition. Both Bill and Raza made sense to me. But Tony Pereira of Nortel? Nortel does not leap out at me as a company working with open source telephony – what in the world are they doing with it, I wondered?
It turns out that the answer is… “quite a bit!”
As Tony Pereira outlined in our panel as well as in conversations afterwards, Nortel is in the process of launching their “Software Communications Server 500” (SCS 500) targeted at small businesses and built using open source telephony software!
Interestingly, though, it does NOT use Asterisk.
Instead Nortel is using the “other” major player in open source telephony, the “sipXecs” product from SIPfoundry.org. (Previously called “sipX” but renamed “sipXecs” about a year ago.) I’ve not written all that much…
-
/
Walking through VoiceCon in a fog…
Continue Reading: Walking through VoiceCon in a fog…It’s been a rough week for me down here in Orlando at VoiceCon. As you’ve noticed, I haven’t really posted any blog entries. In fact, there have been a number of “firsts” down here which I really would have preferred to avoid:- first conference ever where I haven’t gone out to dinner with anyone;
- first conference where I’ve not recorded any audio interviews (or video), despite carrying all my audio gear with me each and every day;
- first time I’ve gone back to my hotel room early each day to collapse;
- first conference in eons where I’ve felt like I’m walking around in a fog.
This is all very bizarre me. Being the extreme extrovert that I am, conferences are a time to have conversations, to meet new people, to go out to dinners and lunches, to “schmooze”… “network”… or whatever you want to call it. To learn of people’s stories and try to tell those stories through all these social media. I enjoy these events and am so completely in my element. I love it! There are just so many interesting people out there.
But it’s darn hard to do all that when you feel like a truck has run…
-
/
My presentations at VoiceCon this week…
Continue Reading: My presentations at VoiceCon this week…I’m down in Orlando this week for VoiceCon Orlando and will be part of three sessions. Tomorrow, I’m moderating a panel at 8am on VoIP security and on Thursday I’m moderating a panel on open source telephony. On Wednesday, I’ll be part of a keynote panel with Irwin Lazar on “Social networking and enterprise communication”, which should be quite fun. I’ll include below the full descriptions of the various sessions. If you are attending VoiceCon and want to connect, please do contact me.Session Title: Top VOIP Security Threats
Date: 3/18/2008
Time: 8:00 AM
Room: Osceola B
Session Description: There’s been a lot of concern about voice over IP security, but have there been many actual exploits? This session will inform you about the state of VOIP security. You’ll learn about generalized IP attacks that have affected IP telephony systems deployed on IP networks, and you’ll also find out what VOIP-specific attacks have actually been observed “in the wild”–and what to expect in the future.
KEY QUESTIONS: * What are the most serious voice-oriented attacks that are actually being carried out? What potential attacks haven’t occurred yet but probably will before long? * How do you protect your VOIP systems against… -
/
R.I.P., Russell Shaw, VoIP blogger for ZDnet
Continue Reading: R.I.P., Russell Shaw, VoIP blogger for ZDnetA little bit ago, Andy completely surprised me with a call via Skype (it was 8pm-ish on a Saturday night and I just happened to be at my computer printing out boarding passes for tomorrow’s flights) with some terrible news.As Andy relays in his blog post, fellow VoIP blogger Russell Shaw passed away suddenly in his hotel room in San Jose sometime over the past couple of days. Russell was out there to attend eComm 2008 and Andy said that several folks were wondering where he was as he never made it to the actual show.
I’ve enjoyed Russell’s writing on his IP Telephony blog at ZDNet and while I never really worked with him in any way, I would often run into him at the various VoIP conferences (and often at Andy’s famous dinners). He was “one of us”… those who choose for whatever reason to write about VoIP/IP Telephony/Unified Communications/whatever… and so it is definitely sad to learn of his passing.
My thoughts right now are certainly with his family, wherever they may be, as they come to grips with this very sudden change.
Rest In Peace, Russell… you will definitely be missed!
P.S. ZDNet’s Editor, Dan…
-
/
Down at IETF 71 in Philadelphia this week
Continue Reading: Down at IETF 71 in Philadelphia this weekThis week (March 10-14) finds me down in Philadelphia for IETF-71, the 71st meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (the people who write the standards for the Internet). I don’t honestly know how much I’ll be blogging here on this blog. I do hope to be writing some over at the “Speaking of Standards” blog on Voxeo’s site. We’ll see. These meetings tend to be rather intense.If you’d like to follow along with what’s happening here at IETF, I’ve written up some instructions about how to join in the audio streaming and IM group chats. I’ve also posted what I think will be my schedule, which will give you a sense of what the various VoIP-related sessions.
That’s the news…
Disruptive Telephony
Dan York on how Voice over IP is rewriting (almost) everything you thought you understood about telephony…