Disruptive Telephony

How completely BROKEN is the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) be?

Here are the two steps ANY consumer can take to COMPLETELY bypass the DNS filtering proposed in SOPA:

1. Find The Computer's DNS Settings

On a Mac, go into System Preferences, then Network, select the network connection being used (typically "Wi-Fi" or "Ethernet") and then click on the "Advanced..." button in the lower right corner. On the resulting screen, click on the "DNS" tab to see a screen like this one:

On a Windows computer, go into the Control Panel and look for "Network and Sharing Center", find the adapter being used, right-click it and choose "Properties". Next click on "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)" (or IPv6 should you use that) and press the "Properties" button. Microsoft provides step-by-step instructions on their website for changing these properties.

On mobile devices, tablets, etc, the same kind of screen can generally be found in a "preferences" or "settings" area. Linux systems likewise may have a graphical control panel/settings area or may requiring editing of a file.

2. Enter In Addresses for Public DNS Servers OUTSIDE The USA

All someone has to do is search for "list of public DNS servers outside us" in Google or other search engines. They can look at the OpenNIC list of public DNS servers or any of a zillion other web pages.

Choose one or more DNS servers outside the United States and enter them into the computer's DNS settings.

Apply those settings and... ta da... the consumer is no longer subject to any DNS filtering that is proposed as part of SOPA. (Because they are no longer using DNS servers that are subject to US law.)

That's it!

IS IT REALLY THAT SIMPLE?

Could the entertainment industry seriously be lobbying for a filtering solution that can be defeated so easily?

Yes, it is... and yes, they are.

BUT HAVEN'T THEY BEEN TOLD IT'S SO SIMPLE?

YES! Pretty much everyone who knows anything about the Internet has explained to SOPA proponents that this proposed mechanism will not work.

White papers have been issued, statements have been received from organizations charged with cybersecurity, a group of 83 prominent Internet inventors and engineers sent a letter to Congress...

WHY DO THE SOPA PROPONENTS PERSIST?

Good question. Ask them. Perhaps they think US consumers are too dumb to follow simple steps like these above. I don't know.

Beyond simply not working, consumer's bypassing normal DNS settings from their ISP can potentially make the Internet LESS secure because consumers could be using DNS servers set up my malicious entities (and then promoted to people looking for pirated content) who could then send people to sites that download malware, engage in phishing, etc.

This is just one more reason why SOPA should NOT become a law!

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Please note that this blog post represents my personal opinion and has no connection whatsoever to any employers or other organizations, either past or present.

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Today, December 14, 2011, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding the second of two workshops on the transition of the PSTN to new technologies, as I described last week. The workshop will be streamed live today starting at 9:30am US Eastern at:

http://www.fcc.gov/live

The FCC's note about the workshops mentions that people watching live can send in questions to panelists using either of two methods:

• by e-mailing [email protected]
• tweeting on Twitter using the hashtag #FCCLIVE

Today's sessions look to be quite interesting and contain quite a range of participants. The full schedule and list of participants is available on the FCC's web site (click on "Expand" in the lower right corner of the page), but here is the brief list:

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9:30 a.m. – 9:40 a.m.
Welcome Remarks
by Zachary Katz, Chief Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor, Office of the Chairman, FCC

9:40 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Impact of the Transition on the Technology and Economics of the PSTN
Participants include: University of Colorado, Carnegie Mellon, George Washington University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Gillan Associates, SIP Forum

10:45 a.m. – 11:45 p.m.
Policies of the PSTN (e.g., accessibility, reliability, affordability, and public safety)
Participants include: Tufts University, Consumer Federation of America, University of Wisconsin, Neustar

1:00 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Implementing the Transition to New Networks
Participants include: Verizon, Comcast, Carnegie Mellon, National Telecommunications and Information Association (NTIA), XO Communications

2:10 p.m. – 3:20 p.m.
Syncing Expectations, Emerging Technologies and the Public Good
Participants include: Georgetown University, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania – Wharton, Acme Packet, Panasonic Systems Networks

3:20 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Economic Rationales for PSTN Transition
Participants include: Queens College, Indiana University, Syracuse University, Sanford Bernstein, University of Auckland, NZ

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Yesterday the Internet Society formally joined the opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (a.k.a. "SOPA" - background info available) with a statement from the Internet Society Board of Trustees:

http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=4932

The statement says in part:

The Internet Society Board of Trustees has expressed concern with a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs to protect the interests of copyright holders. While the Internet Society agrees that combating illicit online activity is an important public policy objective, these critical issues must be addressed in ways that do not undermine the viability of the Internet as a platform for innovation across all industries by compromising its global architecture. The Internet Society Board of Trustees does not believe that the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are consistent with these basic principles.

Specifically, the Internet Society is concerned with provisions in both bills regarding Domain Name System (DNS) filtering. DNS filtering is often proposed as a way to block illegal content consumption by end users. Yet policies to mandate DNS filtering will be ineffective for that purpose and will interfere with cross-border data flows and services undermining innovation and social development across the globe.

The statement goes on in further detail to outline the organization's concerns.

The opposition of the Internet Society to SOPA is not a surprise given that the organization issued a white paper on the perils of DNS Filtering back in the spring of 2011 in response to the U.S. Senate's version of the bill, the Protect-IP Act (a.k.a. "PIPA"). Still, a formal statement of opposition is very welcome to add to the many other voices indicating that SOPA and PIPA specify the wrong solutions to the problem.

Great to see!

[Full Disclosure: I am employed by the Internet Society but NOT in the public policy section and so all opinions expressed here are entirely my own and do not necessarily represent the views of the organization.]

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Brilliant Dilbert comic on December 8th:

Well said... in this era of so many different communications and collaboration tools, the need to fly somewhere for a "quick meeting" should hopefully be reduced. I fully understand the need for face-to-face meetings... and find them to be extremely effective when done well. But the kind of travel for a "quick meeting" that used to be routine really shouldn't need to happen so much today.

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Today I'm driving about 2 hours southeast into downtown Boston to attend the USENIX Large Installation System Administration (LISA) conference. As I wrote about on an ISOC blog, the head of my team within the Internet Society, Richard Jimmerson, will be speaking today at 2pm Eastern on the topic of:

IPv6, DNSSEC, RPKI, etc.: What’s the Holdup and How Can We Help?

You’re busy. We get it. This industry moves fast and you’ve got your hands full keeping your networks updated and secure from the threat of the day. But why is it taking so long to deploy IPv6, DNSSEC, and other standards coming out of the IETF? These standards are the future of the Internet, but deployment to date has been slow.

He'll be outlining the new ISOC project of which I am a part that aims to help speed up the deployment of these standards - and asking for feedback and help. I will be there along with another team member, Megan Kruse, to talk with folks about the project and interact with people involved with IPv6, DNSSEC and other technologies.

It's been a good number of years since I last attended a USENIX conference but I'm very much looking forward to getting back with the crowd. Looks like some excellent technical talks so I'm looking forward to learning a good bit.

If you are down at LISA, please do feel free to drop me a note - or find me on Twitter. I expect I'll be tweeting out of the event and probably posting some thoughts and comments.

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What is the future of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)? As we transition away from traditional telecom technologies to a world based on IP communications, what are the policy, technical and economic implications?

As I recently wrote over on CircleID, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding two workshops on this topic of what comes next for the PSTN.

The first workshop, tomorrow, December 6, 2012, will cover "what obstacles and opportunities the transition may create regarding public safety, accessibility, and ubiquitous service".

The second workshop on December 14, 2012, will cover "a wide array of economic, technological, and policy issues that need to be addressed as consumers choose to subscribe to, and rely on, new technologies and services."

The FCC's Public Notice about these PSTN Transition Workshops contains information about how to attend, both in person and via the FCC's live stream at http://www.fcc.gov/live.

The meeting tomorrow will begin at 9:00 am US Eastern time.

If you are in the Washington, DC, area and able to get to these workshops, it may be a great opportunity to join with others in expressing to the FCC a vision for what we want for the post-PSTN communications infrastructure.

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For those interested in telecommunications security, today's (Dec 2, 2011) VoIP Users Conference (VUC) call at 12 noon US Eastern will cover the recent arrests of 4 Philippine men who defrauded AT&T of close to $2 million and were employed by an alleged terrorist organization who was using the proceeds of the scam to fund their activities.

Eric Klein of Humbug Labs will be the guest on the VUC call discussing this and other fraud issues. It should be an interesting discussion.

You can join the live call via SIP, Skype or the regular old PSTN. There is also an IRC backchannel that gets heavy usage during the call. It will be recorded so you can always listen later.

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Fascinating move by Google today... Google+ now allows you to add voice-only phone calls into a "Hangout", allowing you to create conference calls of both video and voice participants. Announced by Googler Jarkko Oikarinen, it is available inside of "Hangout with extras" and allows voice calls out to US and Canadian numbers for free.

When I launched a Hangout (with extras) and then chose the link to invite others, I was presented with an extremely simple screen to add a voice call:

Once the participant had joined, they showed up in the hangout screen above the video participants (only me in this trial case):

No word that I've seen yet on a maximum number of people that can be conferenced into a Google+ Hangout, but I'm sure someone will try that out shortly and we'll have an answer.

Calls are limited to the US and Canada, although TechCrunch is reporting that Google recommends Google Voice for low rates on international calls.

Now, mixing voice and video calls together is not something dramatically new. Skype has done this for quite some time now within their Group Video Calling service. Still, it's a cool step forward for Google+ and may provide an way to get more people using the Hangouts service.

At the very least, it may provide a way for some of the folks using Hangouts as a way of hosting regular video podcasts to include guests or callers who are not able to establish a video connection or use Hangouts directly. I'm thinking particularly of people who may be mobile or in places with low bandwidth. Or just simply a guest who doesn't want to use video or isn't a user of Google+.

Free conference calls?

I suspect some folks may certainly use this as a way to create free conference calls. As I proved in my own testing, only the originator of the Hangout needs to use the Hangouts feature of Google+. He or she can then simply call everyone else and bring them into the conference call.

However, given that

1. you can't yet choose from a list of contacts and have to instead enter each phone number individually; and
   
   
2. people can't call in to the hangout; and
   
   
3. per the update above, each participant can only conference in 2 PSTN callers.

I don't expect people to instantly stop using the zillion conference calling services out there. However, it certainly shows a sign of Google's direction and given the rate of change within Google+ I wouldn't be surprised to see enhancements to, for instance, at least store phone numbers coming at some point soon.

It would be very cool if there was a way to start a Hangout with a Circle... and have Google+ automagically connect out everyone in the circle via either video or phone... but who knows, that may come, too!

P.S. And if you are on Google+, why not add me to a circle if you haven't already done so?

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In the ongoing debate around the controversial "Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)" bill in the US Congress (that I have covered previously here and here), there are four updates worth reading:

• First, Matt Cutts provided a comprehensive SOPA update last week talking about all the online activism and support against the bill. Great collections of links, and I loved this part at the end:

  I thought we’d have to wait 20-25 years before a critical mass of people would defend the net. But SOPA has brought that day a lot closer. SOPA galvanized the tech community, from start-ups to venture capitalists to the largest web companies. SOPA was an unexpected shock and a wake-up call. Well, guess what? Now the internet is awake. And I don’t think it’s going back to sleep any time soon. We might need to rally again in the near future, but we can do that. The internet learns fast.

• Sandia National Laboratories responded to a request from Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren with a letter outlining why SOPA wouldn't work and would decrease our cybersecurity.
  
  
• The European Parliament adopted a resolution that included among its many clauses, one (#25) that spoke specifically to SOPA/Protect-IP issues:

  Stresses the need to protect the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication by refraining from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names;

• Finally, the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represents many of the largest tech companies and had been promoted as supporting SOPA, clarified their position and indicated that the law as written is too broad and could have unintended consequences.

All in all a much better situation than was the case two weeks ago...

Image credit: jasonippolito on Flickr

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Please note that this blog post represents my personal opinion and has no connection whatsoever to any employers or other organizations, either past or present.

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It turns out that the Skype 5.x Beta releases for Mac OS X have a hidden feature. In my last Skype-related post about the simultaneous release of 5.7 Beta for Windows and 5.4 Beta for Mac OS X, I mentioned that the release notes for the 5.7 Beta for Windows included a "Push To Talk" feature that was not in the Mac OS X version. From those Windows release notes:

Push to Talk

We have introduced a Push to Talk feature in Skype. Many people who are playing multiplayer games have requested this from us.

With this feature you can set a hotkey which will toggle microphone muting on Skype call.

You can set the Push to Talk up on the hotkey's selection under tools > options > advanced > hotkeys.

In my post, I mentioned that while I personally wasn't sure I saw the need for this feature, it was an example of the continued missing parity between the two products (Skype for Windows, Skype for Mac OS X).

This morning I received a nice note from Skype's product manager for the Skype for Mac product letting me know that this "Push To Talk" feature actually is included in the Skype for Mac 5.x Beta releases, albeit as a hidden feature.  To use "Push To Talk" during a Skype call, you need to press (ready for this?):

Control + Option + Command + Up Arrow

Yep... three keys with your left hand and then the up-arrow with your right hand. (or yes, you could press the command and option keys on the right side, but you still need the control key on the left side.)

It does work.  I tried it on a call and found that once I pressed the key combination the call was in "Push To Talk" mode and I had to hold down that key combination to speak.  I was also able to just click on the icon of the muted microphone in my Skype window to leave this "PTT" mode and go back to regular microphone usage.

Unfortunately, unlike the Windows version, there does not seem to be any way, yet, to configure the key combination. I don't regularly play multiplayer online games so I don't know whether this particular key combination is a problem. It just seems to me to be inefficient in that it requires both hands.  It would be great if Skype would allow the configuration of this key combo as the 5.x release for Mac OS X leaves beta.

Anyway... for those of you using the Skype 5 Beta for Mac OS X, you, too, can now use "Push To Talk"...