Disruptive Telephony

(Originally posted at http://dyork.livejournal.com/256267.html)

I have to say that it's been rather fascinating to lurk in the "Skype English Blog Chat" public chatroom that was created as part of the beta of Skype 3.0. Many of the Skype employees familiar from the Skype blog pages have been in there, such as Jaanus Kase, and they are taking comments and questions from other Skype 3.0 beta users who have been trying out the beta and then giving the feedback directly in the chat room. Because it's a "persistent" chat room that you always stay in (regardless of whether you are online, offline, or even whether you have the Skype client running at all) until you actually press the "Leave" button, you can always go back in and read the chat history to see what's been going on and what people are saying. I'll give credit to Skype for showing how public chats can be part of an effective beta process. And it's been quite interesting to see the issues that have gone on, as well as the links that people have provided to different things as they have tried them out. I've really only checked into it maybe once a day, although I do have an alert notification set so that any time certain terms are mentioned (such as my name or "security") I get an audible notification and can check it then.

One of the benefits of being one of the 100 folks in the chat room is that you do get some nice advance notice... such as when I just checked the chat room this morning and saw this message:

[9:21:20 AM] Raul Liive says: 3.0 went to Gold just. Get it from www.skype.com

So Skype 3.0 is officially out there... (and I have naturally downloaded a copy). Now we'll see if it works better than the beta where I was having some wacky problem with people's presence not actually showing correctly.

Technorati Tags: skype, voip

(Originally posted to http://dyork.livejournal.com/254735.html)

Just confirmed late last week that I'll definitely be speaking at O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony Conference (aka "ETel") this coming February 27 - March 1, 2007 in San Francisco. The topic I will be speaking on will, of course, be VoIP security. Two sessions, actually... one a 15-minute plenary session providing an overall view of VoIP security and then the second a 90-minute workshop going into much more detail, providing info about security tools, best practices and much more. Both, of course, will be later put out as part of Blue Box. Should be a lot of fun, and given that it's in the SF area, I'll probably be able to pull Jonathan Zar in as well, which would be cool. Now I just need to put up a picture, bio and session abstracts...

As I've said to a number of folks, ETel 2006 was one of the very best out of all the conferences that I attended all year. No real trade show... just conference sessions full of the "alpha geeks" that O'Reilly conferences tend to attract. People really on the bleeding edge of trying out new and different things with telephony. They had a "fair" at one point that showcased startups that were doing really wacky things... it was all great stuff. Definitely a place to meet the people pushing the true leading edge of IP telephony. Here's a brief part of the promotional material:

ETel captures and telegraphs the excitement around ahead-of-the-curve telephony technologies, bringing together all layers of the telephony community to compare and contrast web telephony technology, business, and culture in a collaborative, spirited environment. ETel highlights the people, projects, and activities pushing the boundaries of what's possible with IP telephony. ETel provides a map of the evolving telephony horizon and gives you the charts you need to navigate the new communication opportunities ahead.

Technorati Tags: etel, oreilly, security, voip, voip security, voipsa, voipsecurity

(Originally posted at http://dyork.livejournal.com/255317.html)

Martyn Davies (martyndavies) provides a photo of yours truly over on his blog (click the photo to see the larger version) from the Blue Box dinner that we had last Thursday. It was a great time... Martyn, myself, Dean Elwood, Andy Millar and, for a brief time, a gent whose name I only know as "Sarb". Lots of great conversation, food, beer... much fun and we'll definitely have to do it again in another city. Many thanks to Martyn for doing the local organization. I took a range of photos as well that I'll post at some point.

Technorati Tags: blue box, bluebox

(Originally posted at http://dyork.livejournal.com/253120.html)

If you look at the front cover of "Hacking Exposed VoIP" (either click on the small image to the right or follow this link), you will see a review quote from a certain someone:

If you are a security professional charged with protecting a network infrastructure that includes VoIP, you definitely must read this book! Failure to do so will seriously put your VoIP systems - and your network - at risk!"
-Dan York, Producer and Co-Host, Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast

McGraw-Hill left out the first part of what I sent them, namely "This is a dangerous book.". (UPDATE: The full quote is on the first page inside the book.) It is a dangerous book, really, because Dave and Mark have brought into one book an amazing amount of information that previously was only found through diligent searching of many places. I stand by my quote - security professionals responsible for the security of VoIP systems really do need to read this book!

On a different note, I have to wonder if this is the first time a review quote from a podcaster has appeared on a published book that does not have anything to do with social media. Quotes from podcasters have been on books about podcasting... and perhaps books on blogging (I don't know, but I could see them there). But I wonder how many review quotes from podcasters have been on books in other fields. There is no way to easily find this info, of course, so I have no clue. Perhaps this book is among the first to feature a podcaster (maybe even the first)... perhaps not. The only reason I mention it is that it really becomes just one more sign of the rise in the recoginition of podcasting and podcasters. Cool to see.

Meanwhile, if you are dealing with VoIP security, you really should buy the book. (And no, I don't receive any income or a kickback for promoting the book. I just think it is an extremely good book.)

Technorati Tags: security, hacking voip, voip, voip security, voipsa, voipsecurity

(Originally posted to http://dyork.livejournal.com/251845.html)

I do not know precisely why, but the Australian VoIP media seems to pick up a lot of good news items about VoIP security, if you take a look at any Blue Box episode, you'll often see that many of the news items we talk about come from Down Under. I don't know why, but they seem to have security as a partial focus. It's great to see and they are a very good source of news. One site there, VoIP News, is also the only one I've really seen to write a post about the VOIPSA Best Practices Project. We weren't really expecting people to write about it on news sites... the launch is really more low-key and we didn't do any active PR beyond blog posting and sending to email lists. Now, when we have the finished product that will be a different story.

Of course, to finish one must first start.. hopefully later today... just in time for me to start travelling for a week!

In the meantime, it's great to see this VoIP News site writing about us... I've seen several subscriptions already today from Australia.

Technorati Tags: security, voip, voip security, voipsa, voipsecurity