VoIP Tech Chat

Dear Comcast,

Comcast...Cares?

I am leaving you this note on the fridge because I can’t bear to face you.  I can’t bear seeing the look in your eyes when I tell you that it’s over. This off again, on again blamefest has come to an end. I was always there to support you financially, but you never reciprocated with the kind of love, the kind of consistency I needed in my life.

This isn’t easy for me. As I close this chapter in the book that is yet to be finished, I know I will look back on our times together with some hints of fondness. I am sure we will cross paths again, someday. I hope that we can smile, exchange greetings, show each other a base level of respect and courtesy.

I have taken the liberty of leaving all of your things at your office, so, aside from this note, this is goodbye.

Or is it…

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The VoIP Users Conference provides an open-to-all weekly conference call where anyone can engage in discussions related to, well, VoIP. Sometimes the conversations discuss new technologies / products. Sometimes discussions center around implementation. And lately, conversations may focus on security.

Last week, Ward Mundy, Tim Panton, Karl Fife, Leif Madsen, Yours Truly, and many other regulars discussed a SIP Caller ID Injection Hack. As in all conversations, opinions differ. My position about where to best filter this injection differed than Ward Mundy’s thoughts… and, courtesy of the VoIP Users Conference, you can listen to the conversation and form your own opinions.

Although, next time… maybe you’d enjoy actively participating in our conversations rather than listening to the replay.

→ SIP Hacks: who should filter what, where? (VoIP Users Conference)

(The VoIP Users Conference provides weekly live discussion about VoIP, SIP, Asterisk and all kinds of telephony-related topics every Friday at 12pm EST. For more information, please visit http://vuc.me.)

Attacks from the cloud.

Just over a month ago, we reported that SIP attacks from the Amazon EC2 cloud were on the rise. While the attacks we received last month were limited to “extension only” registration attempts, one of the attacks we received this morning included what we assume was a standard dictionary attack.

The first attack came from 204.236.245.101. In less than 60 seconds, this IP attempted more than 11,500 registrations against our server. Most of these were 4 digit extensions (download the log (zipped) here). The second attack came from 184.73.4.183. In less than 90 seconds, this IP attempted more than 21,000 registrations against our server; including what we think is a standard dictionary attack complete with root, postmaster, pixadmin, etc. (download the log (zipped) here).

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I’ve said before that I’m a big (not a fat reference) fan of Michael Graves’ blog. Continuing his promotion of the wicked cool and useful†, Mr. Graves recently wrote about Schmooze Communications’ PBXact system.

It’s a GREAT read and I leave you with this: Magic Button. (read the article)

Related links:

• e4 Technologies
• Michael Graves on SOHO VoIP

†Yes… Wicked cool and useful. If it doesn’t meet the criteria for both, it doesn’t make his blog.

I do love their logo.

Ward Mundy, of Nerd Vittles / PBX in a Flash fame, warns of a FreePBX Security Vulnerability allowing a system to be compromised simply by displaying a CDR report in the FreePBX browser.

There is a very serious security vulnerability that needs to be patched by loading the very latest version of FreePBX Framework as soon as it becomes available for your version of FreePBX. Just displaying a CDR report in the FreePBX browser could compromise your system.

The 2.5 and 2.6 patches already have been released and probably 2.7 as well. Load this patch IMMEDIATELY!!!

Setup, Module Admin, Check for Updates on Line, Upgrade All

2.5.2.3: #4223 Security Vulnerability
2.6.0.2: #3805, #3707, #4188, #4223 Security Vulnerability

For more information, check out the PBX in a Flash Forum.

Last year, the Senate passed the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 (S. 30 passed unanimously) and this year, the House moved forward on their own version. Of course, moving at the speed of government, the House passed the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2010.

Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 – Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to make it unlawful for any person in the United States, in connection with any telecommunication service or VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) service, to cause any caller identification service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information (“spoofing”) with the intent to defraud or cause harm. Prohibits construing these provisions to prevent blocking caller identification or to authorize or prohibit law enforcement or U.S. intelligence agency activities.

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Attacks from the cloud.

Update #1: 12 APR 2010. Amazon NOC’s response.
Update #2: 12 APR 2010. Amazon Statement.
Update #3: 13 APR 2010. Amazon Response.

Complaints of rampant SIP Brute Force Attacks coming from servers with Amazon EC2 IP Addresses cause many admins to simply drop all Amazon EC2 traffic. Generally, SIP brute force attacks attempt to register various peer names to a system and/or attempt to guess passwords of known/guesses peers or endpoints.

The complaints mentioned this weekend show an excessive amount of traffic; with some providers claiming 6GB of traffic dedicated to such attacks. Since we ourselves received an attack from an Amazon hosted server, we also reported and complained to the Amazon NOC/Abuse depts. As of this posting, no response or acknowledgement has been received from Amazon. The response from Amazon is below. Read the rest of this entry »

Comcast fought the law, and the law lost. In a big win for Comcast and a big loss for net neutrality advocates, a Federal Appeals court ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to regulate how an internet provider handles network traffic. The case stemmed from an order in 2008 prohibiting Comcast from blocking bit-torrent traffic.

The 36 page ruling written by Judge Tatel (download here), cites many cases and regulations concerning both the FCC and their powers. While acknowledging that Congress gave the FCC broad powers to regulate rapidly changing technology, the Court stated that the FCC failed to tie it’s authority to regulate Comcast’s Internet service to any “statutorily mandated responsibility.”

Although I wished to have a stronger decision for Net Neutrality, I do welcome the reigning in of the FCC. It’s a lose/lose case (in my humble opinion). Either Comcast loses and the FCC grows stronger. Or Comcast wins and Net Neutrality grows weaker. Can’t say that the Average Joe would have won in the long run either way.

Additional Information:

• Download the Court ruling (VoIP Tech Chat)
• Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net Neutrality (cNet)
• US court rules against FCC on ‘net neutrality’ (AP via Yahoo!)

Comcast Outage?

We’ve been hearing complaints of Comcast service issues in both Nashville and Atlanta. Although the company’s network status page shows everything to be ok, reports from users indicate a severe problem affecting home, business, and voice service.

Frank Eliason posted through his @ComcastCares twitter feed the following message at 10:30am EST:

We are aware of internet and phone trouble in and around Nashville. Engineers are on it. more info soon

At this time there is no information from Comcast regarding the nature of the problem, the impacted services, or the expected resolution. As of 12:30pm the Comcast Network Health page still states “No Known Issues.” On the other hand, Comcast users report otherwise: Read the rest of this entry »

Every phone tree should follow Nestle’s lead.

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