Category Archives: Blue Box

Blue Box #73: SIP security issues at IETF 70, Skype security, vulnerabilities in Cisco and Nokia phones, Vietnam’s cyberdissidents, VoIP security news, listener comments and more…

Synopsis: Blue Box #73: SIP security issues at IETF 70, Skype security, vulnerabilities in Cisco and Nokia phones, Vietnam’s cyberdissidents, VoIP security news, listener comments and more…


Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #73, a 44-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 20MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

NOTE: This show was recorded on December 11, 2007.

Show Content:

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to blueboxpodcast@gmail.com.  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 ‘bluebox@voipuser.org‘ to leave a comment there. 

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

Blue Box SE#022 – SIP NAT Traversal discussion with Jonathan Rosenberg

Synopsis: Interview about SIP NAT Traversal with Dr. Jonathan Rosenberg, Cisco Fellow and author of many RFCs and Internet-Drafts related to SIP for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).


Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast Special Edition #20, a 25-minute interview with Dr. Jonathan Rosenberg about SIP and NAT Traversal.  Recorded at Interop New York in October 2007.

Download the show here (MP3, 13MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically.

You may also listen to this podcast right now:


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In this Special Edition, I sat down with Dr. Jonathan Roseberg at Interop New York in October 2007 to talk about SIP NAT Traversal. Jonathan, a Cisco Fellow, has authored many RFCs related to SIP for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and in fact was a co-author of RFC 3261, the original specification for the SIP protocol.  He is also the author of "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to SIP", a document that aims to help people find their way through all the many documents that today make up what we call "SIP".

For the past few years, Jonathan has been extremely involved in the whole issue of SIP and NAT traversal and has authored several of the major Internet-Drafts on the issue.  In this interview, we discuss:

  • What the issue is with SIP and NAT traversal
  • How ALGs and SBCs attempt to solve the problem
  • Methods that have been developed by the IETF, specifically:
    • STUN
    • TURN
    • ICE
  • The role of ICE going forward, who is supporting it, etc.

I believe you will find it a very educational session and very helpful in understanding this major issue with regard to SIP.  We thank Jonathan Rosenberg for his time.

If you enjoy this show, we would also suggest you go back and listen to Blue Box Special Edition #20, our interview with Cullen Jennings about SIP security.  The two shows complement each other extremely well and provide a solid understanding of the current state of SIP security.

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to blueboxpodcast@gmail.com.  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 ‘bluebox@voipuser.org‘ to leave a comment there.

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

Blue Box #72: Asterisk security vulnerabilities, Skype and the German government, VoIP security news, listener comments and more

Synopsis: Blue Box #72: Asterisk security vulnerabilities, Skype and the German government, VoIP security news, listener comments and more


Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #72, a 25-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 11MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

NOTE: This show was recorded on November 30, 2007.

Show Content:

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to blueboxpodcast@gmail.com.  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 +1-206-350-7280 +1-415-830-5439 or via SIP to ‘bluebox@voipuser.org‘ to leave a comment there. 

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

Blue Box #71: VLAN Hopping, SIP Digest vulnerability, VoIP security hype, Skype security, Google’s latest moves, listener comments and much more…

Synopsis: Blue Box #71: VLAN Hopping, SIP Digest vulnerability, VoIP security hype, Skype security, Google’s latest moves, listener comments and much more…


Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #71, a 51-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 21MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

NOTE: This show was recorded on November 8, 2007.

Show Content:

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to blueboxpodcast@gmail.com.  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 +1-206-350-7280 or via SIP to ‘bluebox@voipuser.org‘ to leave a comment there. 

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

Blue Box #70: 2-yr Anniversary show, VoIP security vulnerabilities, Vonage, Comcast, phishing, listener comments and much, much more…

Synopsis:Blue Box #70: 2-yr Anniversary show, VoIP security vulnerabilities, Vonage, Comcast, phishing, listener comments and much, much more…


Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #70, a 51-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 21MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

NOTE: This show was recorded on October 25, 2007.

Show Content:

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to blueboxpodcast@gmail.com.  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 +1-206-350-7280 or via SIP to ‘bluebox@voipuser.org‘ to leave a comment there. 

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

Blue Box podcast #70 successfully recorded… on *conference WiFi*!

I’m delighted to report that Jonathan and I successfully recorded Blue Box #70 this morning. It was a bit surreal, actually. There I was at the Javits Center in a vacant room on conference WiFi and Jonathan’s audio quality was outstanding! In fact, when I listened to the recording afterward his audio sounded far better than my audio that was recorded off of my local USB headset! Of course, in contrast to the stats I showed yesterday, here’s how our call looked today:

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0.0% packet loss on receiving Jonathan’s signal! Very cool! And a 94ms round trip sure beats a 200-300ms round trip, eh?

To get this good quality on a conference WiFi really speaks to the efforts of the Interop NOC team to deliver this kind of network. Kudos to them!

For those curious, I recorded the show locally on my MacBook Pro using WireTap Studio from Ambrosia Software. Given that our recording levels were quite different, I’m probably going to need to run the recording through the Levelator in order to bring the levels in line.

It should be posted probably some time early tomorrow. I’m at Interop all day today and so the post-production will probably be done during my time out at JFK and flying home later today.

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Two years ago today, Blue Box podcast #1 was launched

It seems rather amazing to me that it was two years ago today – October 24, 2005 – when we launched this show with Blue Box Podcast #1 (I remember because 10/24 is just a great number for a geek!). It’s been a long, strange trip since then… we’ve learned a lot… about podcasting, about building a community… and, of course, about VoIP security. We’ve put out 69 main shows and 21 special editions – a total of 90 shows… with more in the queue. It’s truly been a remarkable experience and we greatly appreciate all the contributions and support we’ve had from all of you over the years. Thank you for all of your support!

Sadly, despite our best efforts, Blue Box #70 , our 2-year anniversary show, did NOT make it out today on our actual anniversary. With my schedule, we wound up trying to record tonight and unfortunately the hotel WiFi at the hotel I am staying at in New York City just wasn’t up to giving us the quality recording that we wanted to have via Skype. Here’s a taste of what we were experiencing:

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If I read that right, we were getting a 32% packet loss… even if it was really 9%, it was still a lot. The roundtrip was much higher sometimes… up near 300 or more milliseconds. You just can’t get a good recording in those circumstances. Skype was working fine earlier in the night, so I don’t know if we just hit a time when more people were back at the hotel using the network. Whatever the reason, we eventually just had to give up. I thought about trying Yahoo!Voice or Gizmo, but generally if Skype is having problems the other ones will as well.

It’s disappointing, primarily because I really wanted to get the show out today. We’ve recorded shows from hotels in the past (even using hotel WiFi) and this is the first time in two years that we’ve actually had to cancel a recording because of poor connectivity!

We’re going to try again tomorrow from the Interop show where I did find I got great connectivity in some areas. We’ll see. If not it may need to wait until Friday when I’m back in my home studio.

In the meantime, thanks again to all of you who have made this show a joy to produce and do each week!

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Blue Box SE#021: Interview with ZFone and ZRTP creator Phil Zimmermann by Brenno de Winter

Synopsis: Interview with ZFone and ZRTP creator Phil Zimmermann by Brenno de Winter.


Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast Special Edition #21, a 44-minute interview between Phil Zimmermann and Brenno de Winter in August 2007.

Download the show here (MP3, 20MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically.

You may also listen to this podcast right now:


Show Content:

Brenno de Winter produces a Dutch podcast about information technology news called “ICT Roddels” (http://ictroddels.nl/) and back in early August he sat down with ZFone and ZRTP creator Phil Zimmermann to discuss (in English) what ZFone and ZRTP are all about. Brenno released the interview on his show and then offered it to us to run as a Blue Box show. In the 40-minute interview, Brenno and Phil spend the first 20 or so minutes talking about ZFone, ZRTP and VoIP security and then spend the remainder of the show talking about security in general, Phil’s background and other topics.

While we have interviewed Phil in the past ourselves, it’s been about a year since we last spoke with him and so we thought this might be an interesting update for you to hear. We thank Brenno for making the interview available to us.

I also have to say a word of thanks to long-time contributor Martyn Davies who stepped in at the last moment to provide the intro/outro to this interview. I unfortunately lost my voice after a presentation yesterday (bad news for a podcaster!) and Jonathan is currently traveling – and our goal this year is to make sure we get shows out on Wednesdays.

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to blueboxpodcast@gmail.com.  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 +1-206-350-7280 or via SIP to ‘bluebox@voipuser.org‘ to leave a comment there.

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

Blue Box #69: Linksys SPA-941 vulnerability, SIP DDoS, New release of SIPVicious, Asterisk security roadmap, other VoIP security news, listener comments and more

Synopsis:Blue Box #69: Linksys SPA-941 vulnerability, SIP DDoS, New release of SIPVicious, Asterisk security roadmap, other VoIP security news, listener comments and more


Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #69, a 46-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 21MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

Show Content:

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Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to blueboxpodcast@gmail.com.  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 +1-206-350-7280 or via SIP to ‘bluebox@voipuser.org‘ to leave a comment there. 

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

Blue Box #68: Top 14 VoIP Vulnerabilities, Asterisk security, VoIP hacker, IMS, P2P, Skype, industry moves, VoIP security news, listener comments and more…

Synopsis:Blue Box #68: Top 14 VoIP Vulnerabilities, Asterisk security, VoIP hacker, IMS, P2P, Skype, industry moves, VoIP security news, listener comments and more…


Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #68, a 46-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 21MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

Show Content:

Show Content:

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to blueboxpodcast@gmail.com.  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 +1-206-350-7280 or via SIP to ‘bluebox@voipuser.org‘ to leave a comment there. 

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