Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast

Blue Box #86: An Update on Blue Box, One Year Later

Synopsis: Blue Box #86: Dan and Jonathan provide an update on what's happened in the year since Blue Box #85 and talk a bit about what's next

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Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #86, a 19-minute podcast from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.

Download the show here (MP3, 9 MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically.

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

Show Content:

• 00:20 - Intro to the show, contact information and how to provide comments.  Welcome to all the new listeners - and to all those listeners who have been here for so long!
• Dan and Jonathan discuss what has happened in the past year and why there have not been new shows.
• Discussion of what some of the main issues in VoIP security have been over the past year.
• Mention that fugitive Edwin Pena was extradited back to the US and arraigned in New Jersey court last Friday
• Mention of the recent traffic on the VOIPSEC public mailing list
  
• Wrap-up of the show
  
• 19:38 - End of show 

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post or via e-mail to [email protected]. Audio comments sent as attached MP3 files are definitely welcome and will be played in future shows. You may also call the listener comment line at either +1-415-830-5439 or via SIP to '[email protected]' to leave a comment there. 

Thank you for listening and please do let us know what you think of the show.

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If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either subscribing to the RSS feed or following BlueBox on Twitter.

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Blue Box is now on Twitter... and new shows *are* coming...

FYI, if you use Twitter, you can now find out when new shows are out and/or interact with Jonathan and I by following us at:

http://twitter.com/blueboxpodcast

And yes, new shows are on the way. I've been a wee bit busy with a recent job role change and Jonathan's had some crazy times on his end as well... but soon... real soon...

eComm 2009: Dan, Jonathan and Martyn together for the first time

Last week at the Emerging Communications Conference (eComm) 2009 in San Francisco, a remarkable event happened: Jonathan Zar, Martyn Davies, and I (Dan York) all wound up at the same place at the same time. Over the 3.5 years since we started Blue Box back in October 2005, Jonathan and I have met at events, Martyn and I have met and Jonathan and Martyn have met. But the three of us had never been together at the same place.

Now the particular place we met was a "Dev Dinner" hosted by (my employer) Voxeo after the end of eComm - and we had some great conversations along with the food. Martyn produced his camera and we did record the actual event:

Alas, it was too noisy there for us to do any actual recording, but it was great to have all three of us there. For those who may not recall the history, Martyn was one of our earliest listeners and is the person who provided both the image that we use for Blue Box (in iTunes, in the MP3 file, etc.) and also the music that we use for the intro and outro. He's also guest-hosted several times and contributed a couple of interviews over the years.

P.S. And yes, Jonathan and I will be getting some more shows out...

Technorati Tags: bluebox, blue box, danyork, dan york, jonathan zar, martyn davies, ecomm, ecomm09

Blue Box RSS feed dead - waiting for Feedburner to update its DNS

Ah, the joys of switching domain name providers. I transferred blueboxpodcast.com from one registrar to another last week shortly before the domain name was set to expire. Unfortunately, I made one serious mistake - I didn't check the DNS nameservers for the domain at the new registrar (GoDaddy) to ensure they were pointing to the new nameservers. They weren't... they will still pointing to the old nameservers. As a result, when the domain name expired at the end of the day on Friday, the web site was no longer available and had the message that the domain name had expired.

MANY THANKS to the couple of you who contacted me on Saturday to let me know about this!

So I fixed the web site yesterday morning so that "www.blueboxpodcast.com" pointed over to TypePad, where I host this site, and that all seems to be back in action. If you type in "blueboxpodcast.com" without the "www", it was going to a generic GoDaddy page but I've set up the forwarding now so that this should now redirect you to www.blueboxpodcast.com once the DNS propagation occurs.

What is still dead, though, is the RSS feed... which is rather annoying since that is what podcast subscription tools like iTunes use! In working through the issues this morning, it appears to be the issue that

Feedburner is not using the updated DNS information.

The Blue Box RSS feed, which is http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlueBox is somehow pointing over to the old page. Yet the base feed for this site, http://www.blueboxpodcast.com/atom.xml resolves perfectly fine and does have the RSS information. (Please don't switch to subscribe to that one... I do like the stats I get through Feedburner.)

So it appears that I'm waiting for FeedBurner to update its DNS. I've tried all sorts of options in the FeedBurner settings, including the "Resync Feed" but nothing works because it seems that it is unable to get to the new site (because of DNS).

I've filed a help request in the FeedBurner Google Group (which appears to be the only way to get help). Hopefully FeedBurner will age out its DNS info soon and the feed will be back in action.

What I find strange, though, is that I'm 99% sure that all the DNS records had a TTL of 1 hour (and I'm 100% positive the new ones do). So my question to FeedBurner is - if that is the case, why aren't they respected the TTL settings of the domains?

I'll update this post once I have more information.

Technorati Tags: feeds, rss, feedburner, google, dns, bluebox

Three years of Blue Box podcasts....

Today is a special day for me. It was three years ago on October 24, 2005, that Blue Box Podcast #1 was uploaded. It was an 11-minute episode where I talked about... Skype security, SIP security, IETF, VOIPSA and some other VoIP security news..... (Hmmm... sounds lot like our recent shows, too, eh?)

Jonathan Zar joined me a week later on Blue Box Podcast #2 and we've been going ever since. We've now produced over 112 episodes, had close to 245,000 downloads of our various shows, met some amazing people, learned a lot along the way... and hopefully helped you all learn a lot out there as well.

Thank you to all of you who have joined with us on this journey... whether you've listened to our show from the very beginning (and we know of a couple of you who have) or have only recently joined in... thank you!

And now... on to the next three years... :-)

Technorati Tags: blue box, bluebox, dan york, danyork, jonathan zar, security, voip, voip security, voipsa

Blue Box #85: Internet phone calls and terrorism, Georgia Tech report on Emerging Cyber Security Threats, phone jamming, 802.1X-REV, 802.1AE, VoIP security news and more

Synopsis: Blue Box #85: Internet phone calls and terrorism, Georgia Tech report on Emerging Cyber Security Threats, phone jamming, 802.1X-REV, 802.1AE, VoIP security news and more

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Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #85, a 32-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 15 MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

Show Content:

• 00:20 - Intro to the show, contact information and how to provide comments.  Welcome to all the new listeners - and to all those listeners who have been here for so long!
• Programming notes:
  • Three-year anniversary of Blue Box coming up on October 24th - any thoughts you'd like to share with us? (Please send them to us by October 23rd.)
• The Times: "Internet phone calls are crippling fight against terrorism" - and my response on the Voice of VOIPSA blog
• FierceVoIP: "UK crimefighting concern over VoIP calls, social networks" 
• BBC: Data powers behind the times 
  
• GA Tech Survey (PDF) (link about the GA conference )
• Dark Reading: Cellphone Botnets, Blackmailing VOIP & a Healthy Cybercrime Economy
• bMighty.com: Georgia Tech Security Report Scarier Than Its Football Team
• cNet: Botnets on cell phones in 2009?
• telecoms.com: Smartphone is a hotbed of security issues
  
• VNUnet: Security industry falling behind hackers
  
• AP: Phone Jamming in NH
  
• GigaOm: EEF Challenges Telco Immunity in Court 
  
• Information Week: New Protocols Secure Layer 2
• Voice of VOIPSA: Asking The Cisco Systems IPICS and JPS Raytheon ACU-2000 Experts: Questions 36-40
• Other Voice of VOIPSA articles
• snom technology AG: snom 820 combines mature VoIP technology with exclusive design
• IDC Finds Increasing Hype Around Unified Communications Is Affecting How Customers Select Telephony Systems and Services (interesting movement in the top vendors used  - Nortel out and IBM in)
• Peerless VoIP Peering
• Comment (IM) from Christian Wieser
• Review of the last week's traffic on the VOIPSEC public mailing list
  
• Wrap-up of the show
  
• 32:10 - End of show 

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to [email protected].  Audio comments sent as attached MP3 files are definitely welcome and will be played in future shows.  You may also call the listener comment line at either +1-415-830-5439 or via SIP to '[email protected]' to leave a comment there. 

Thank you for listening and please do let us know what you think of the show.

Blue Box's 3-year anniversary coming up on Friday...

It was three years ago Friday, on October 24, 2005, that I uploaded Blue Box Podcast #1, an 11-minute show where I introduced the show, talked about VoIP security news (To no surprise, I was talking about Skype security!), some projects of VOIPSA and some other podcasts people might find interesting. A week later, on Halloween 2005, Jonathan joined me in Blue Box Podcast #2 and we were off and running...

Three years later... 84 main Blue Box episodes (with one more recorded) .... 26 Special Editions (with about 10 in the queue)... almost 250,000 downloads... we're still here and, with an admitted bit of a rough patch this summer, are still going along creating shows and enjoying what we do.

Jonathan and I are planning to record a 3-year show on this coming Friday, October 24th, and if you have any comments you would like us to include in that show, please do get them to us by the end of the day on Thursday, October 23rd. You can send them to us via:

• Email to [email protected]
• Phone to +1-415-830-5439
• Phone via SIP to sip:[email protected]

The show started out 3 years ago as really an experiment in seeing whether or not podcasting could be used to reach out to very specific audiences... and it's been both fun, amazing and interesting to see how well it's done.

Thank you to all of you who have continued to listen and contribute over the years!

Technorati Tags: blue box, bluebox, voip, voip security, security, dan york, jonathan zar, voipsa

Blue Box #84: New Cisco, Avaya, Nortel VoIP security vulnerabilities from VoIPShield, Skype in China, UCSniff and other new tools, news and more

Synopsis:  Blue Box #84: New Cisco, Avaya, Nortel VoIP security vulnerabilities from VoIPShield, Skype in China, UCSniff and other new tools, news and more

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Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #84, a 30-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

Show Content:

• 00:20 - Intro to the show, contact information and how to provide comments.  Welcome to all the new listeners - and to all those listeners who have been here for so long!
• Programming notes:
  • Three-year anniversary of Blue Box coming up on October 24th - any thoughts you'd like to share with us? (Please send them to us by October 23rd.)
• VoIPShield announces new vulnerabilities and http://www.voipshield.com/research.php
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/30/voip_eavesdropping_tool/
• "Sipera Develops VoIP Spy Program - to Prove a Point" - http://www.voipplanet.com/trends/article.php/3776136
• SecureLogix Announces Free Availability of VoIP Security Tools
• NY Times: Surveillance of Skype Messages Found in China - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/technology/internet/02skype.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&pagewanted=print
• http://securitywatch.eweek.com/privacy/skypechina_breach_is_anyone_really_surprised.html
• http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/voip/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210605439
• Skype CEO's blog post about the issue: http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2008/10/answers_to_some_commonly_asked.html
• http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/top/?p=398
• http://www.voip-news.com/feature/google-phone-europe-growth-092408/
• http://www.itnewsafrica.com/?p=1269
• http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10052393-83.html
• http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/VoIP-Vulnerabilities-Being-Exposed-Today-98039
• http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/top/?p=402
• http://voipsa.org/blog/2008/10/07/5th-emergency-services-workshop-to-be-held-oct-21-23-in-vienna/
• http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20080924005342/en
• http://www.crn.com/security/210602442
• http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/41236-infoblox-unveils-dns-firewall-address-dns-vulnerability-concerns.htm
• http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2008/29/c9005.html
• No comments this week.
  
• Review of the last week's traffic on the VOIPSEC public mailing list
  
• Wrap-up of the show
  
• 30:26 - End of show 

NOTE: Long-time listeners will note that the show notes above are in a less descriptive form than usual. After almost three years of using one wiki for preparing for our shows, Jonathan and I switched to using a new system and are still working out some of the details that will speed the input into show notes.

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to [email protected].  Audio comments sent as attached MP3 files are definitely welcome and will be played in future shows.  You may also call the listener comment line at either +1-415-830-5439 or via SIP to '[email protected]' to leave a comment there. 

Thank you for listening and please do let us know what you think of the show.

Blue Box #83: SIP and Asterisk vulnerabilities, voice biometrics, P2PSIP, Aircell blocking Skype, VoIP security news and more…

Synopsis:  Blue Box #83: SIP and Asterisk vulnerabilities, voice biometrics, P2PSIP, Aircell blocking Skype, VoIP security news and more…

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Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #83, a 39-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 18MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

NOTE: This show was recorded on September 4, 2008.

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

Show Content:

• 00:20 - Intro to the show, contact information and how to provide comments.  Welcome to all the new listeners - and to all those listeners who have been here for so long!
• Programming notes:
  • Three-year anniversary of Blue Box coming up on October 24th - any thoughts you'd like to share with us? (Please send them to us by October 23rd.)
• Remote DoS in reSIProcate
• Remote root shell in Trixbox
• Second route of VoIPShield Cisco/Avaya/Nortel vulnerabilities
• AST-2008-010 – IAX2 ‘POKE’ Resource Exhaustion
• AST-2008-011 – IAX2 Firmware Provisioning System
• Saunderslog: Squawk Box – July 10, 2008: Voice biometrics and VoiceVerified.com
• Saunderslog: Squawk Box – July 9, 2008: P2PSIP
• IETF: P2PSIP Security Requirements
• Voice of VOIPSA: “Aircell blocking VoIP on a plane” – part 1 , part 2 and an update
• Voice of VOIPSA: Shawn Merdinger’s series on “Asking The Cisco IPICS Expert” – Questions 1-5 – 6-10 – 11-15 – 16-20 – 21-25
• Voice of VOIPSA: Asterisk ‘hack’ to show blocked Caller-ID points to larger trust issues with SIP (and SpeechTEK speech)
• NetworkWorld: Georgia student arrested for hacking grades, VoIP
• CRN: Analysis: Hacking VoIP as easy as 1-2-3
• Ari Takanen starts blogging at InfoWorld
• InfoWorld: Motivation for VoIP Fuzzing
• TMCnet: How to keep your tech career afloat
• New analyst report: Security Threats Loom Over Unified Communications pointing to Light Reading report and article
• VoIP Companies to Fight For Market Share
• IEEE approves 802.11r standard
• Google Chrome – upgrading the web to be application-centric
• Items on my DisruptiveTelephony blog… Skype 5th birthday, Asterisk future, Digium/Nortel
• No comments this week.
  
• Review of the last week's traffic on the VOIPSEC public mailing list
  
• Wrap-up of the show
  
• 39:08 - End of show 

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to [email protected].  Audio comments sent as attached MP3 files are definitely welcome and will be played in future shows.  You may also call the listener comment line at either +1-415-830-5439 or via SIP to '[email protected]' to leave a comment there. 

Thank you for listening and please do let us know what you think of the show.

Blue Box #81: iSkoot vulnerability, OFCOM legislation, VoIP security news and more

Synopsis:  Blue Box #81: iSkoot vulnerability, OFCOM legislation, VoIP security news and more

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Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #81, a 42-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 19MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

NOTE: This show was originally recorded on May 21, 2008.

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

Show Content:

• 00:20 - Intro to the show, contact information and how to provide comments.  Welcome to all the new listeners - and to all those listeners who have been here for so long!
• Programming notes:
  • Note about the hiatus
• Voice of VOIPSA: Are your Skype username and password completely exposed if you use iSkoot?
• Voice of VOIPSA: Chronology
• Voice of VOIPSA: iSkoot disclosure of Skype credentials resolved – new version by Wednesday
• Ofcom confirms VoIP providers must provide access to 999 and 112 – and Hannes Tschofenig points to 4th Emergency Services Coordination Workshop and presentation about the UK
• MarketingVOX: British Proposal May Force ISPs to Fork Over Online Activity, Emails, VOIP Calls pointing to Reuters article: Britain mulls plan to store all email and calls
• Enterprise VoIP Planet: VoIP Security: SIP-Versatile but Vulnerable


• IT Business Edge: Pay Attention to VoIP Security Before The Storm
• NetworkWorld: Business Guide to VoIP Security


• Pocket-lint: Fraudsters targeting VoIP Users based on report out of Newport Networks (reported in VoIP News) – also covered at Fierce VoIP: Newport Networks riles up VoIP Security Fears and Computeractive: Phreak-out over VoIP and TechHerald article


• Network World: Security and management considerations when deploying OCS


• LXer: Secure Calling Initiative Reaches Second Milestone pointing to Secure Calling Initiative



• [H]Enthusiast: Mobile Phones, VoIP Not Secure, Experts Warn=



• VoIP News: The Essential Guide to VoIP Privacy



• Voice of VOIPSA: Information Week interviews SecureLogix about VoIP security


• eWeek: VoIP Security through Responsible Software Development


• Microsoft gives back door keys to Vista to police


• Comment (blog) from Martyn Davies


• Comment (email) from Detlef


• Comment (email) from Dan McGinn-Combs


• Review of the last week's traffic on the VOIPSEC public mailing list 


• Wrap-up of the show


• 41:43 - End of show 

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to [email protected].  Audio comments sent as attached MP3 files are definitely welcome and will be played in future shows.  You may also call the listener comment line at either +1-415-830-5439 or via SIP to '[email protected]' to leave a comment there. 

Thank you for listening and please do let us know what you think of the show.