VoIP Tech Chat

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.)

Whoops. My bad.

LifeLock promises to “take control” of your identity — they just don’t tell you who gets to take control. Patrick and I chatted a while back about Todd Davis, the CEO of LifeLock, and how his ads promoting the ability of his company to protect identity, actually helped with the theft of his own. Back in 2007, a gentleman in Texas had used Davis’ identity to obtain a $500.00 without Davis’ knowledge. In fact, Davis only had learned about it after the unpaid loan was sold to a debt collection agency — but that’s old news.

Today, thanks to the Phoenix News Times, we learn that Davis had his identity stolen a grand total of 13 times. Or, at least 13 times that we know of.

With attention grabbing ads that published Davis’ Social Security Number, LifeLock caught the attention of many customers; as well as the FTC — who accused the company of running a scam operation and fined them $12 million dollars.

Additional Reading

• Cracking LifeLock: Even After a $12 Million Penalty for Deceptive Advertising, the Tempe Company Can’t Be Honest About Its Identity-Theft-Protection Service (Phoenix New Times)
• Lifelock Dinged $12 Million for Deceptive Business Practices (wired.com)

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).

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Our Hero

Early humans found hollowed out rocks to turn into homes, originating the term “Cave men”. ¹ This constraint made community difficult, so humans advanced to creating homes from natural materials, such as wood. Primitive homes were modeled on the cave, with nothing but some closed walls and an uncovered opening. Thousands of years of evolution lead us to create doors that open, close, and lock, and windows that allow us to see out and in, then glass to keep what’s out out and what’s in in, then curtains to cover what’s both out and in. In the end, we have the same caves we had before, with our darkness and privacy. Read the rest of this entry »