February 28, 2013 archive

Feb 28

Is The “VoIP” in “VoIP Security” Still The Right Term?

VoipqShould we still be talking about “VoIP security”? Or should we be using some other language?

Back when we started VOIPSA in 2005, “voice over IP (VoIP)” was the term we all were using, but as we look at what kind of activities come next, we’re starting to wonder if we should be talking about “communications security” a bit differently.

For starters, in the past 8 years we’ve moved far beyond simply “voice” into video over IP, text messaging over IP, data sharing over IP… all within a single communications session. Is that still “VoIP”?

Beyond that, we’ve seen a range of other terms coming into usage, including:

  • unified communications (UC)
  • real-time communications (RTC)
  • cloud communications
  • IP communications

and many more. Plus new technologies are out that have pushed “VoIP” beyond its traditional proprietary protocols and the open standard of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). We’ve seen the strong emergence of XMPP (Jabber) and its related “Jingle” protocol. We’ve seen the explosion of interest in the WebRTC / RTCWEB protocols and tools.

Are all of those “VoIP”? Or are they something more?

Should we be talking about…

  • UC security?
  • real-time communications security?
  • IP communications security?

Or perhaps just plain old “communications security”? (or is that too generic?) I’ve seen some people talking about “SIP security”, but now that is specific to a single protocol.

Or is “VoIP security” still an okay term to use?

What do you think? What do you use? What do you hear vendors and others using? How should we be talking about securing all these many ways we have to communicate now over IP networks?

Please do let us know either as comments here or out on social networks. (Thanks!)

Feb 28

The International Space Station’s Canadian Music Video Collaboration – and Google+ Hangout (Featured Blog)

More...

Feb 28

Video: WCVB’s "Chronicle" Shows Petersham Curling Club

Wcvb curlingHere's a fun little video piece about curling... Boston's WCVB TV station as part of their "Chronicle" show did a segment where Petersham, Mass., was their "mystery town". In the third segment they show the Petersham Curling Club where I curl on Tuesday nights in the Men's League and coach the "Little Rockers" on Saturday mornings. The curling portion is after the part about the monastery (which I've always wondered about since I drive right by it to get to the curling club) and a piece about a local B&B.

Very cool to see and I hope some folks in the region will come on over to the PCC to try out curling!

P.S. Curling also got a brief view in the fourth segment where the "mystery town" was revealed to be Petersham. (Pronounced "Peter's ham".)

Feb 28

Use Google+? Join the Github and Git Communities

Github community on Google+Are you a Google+ use who is also interested in the git version control system and the Github hosting service?  If so, there are two of the new “communities” in Google+ that you may find of interest:

In the short time communities have been around on Google+, I’ve already found both of these communities to have very useful information and links in them related to Git and Github.  Well worth checking out and joining if you are a regular Google+ user.

And if you are a Google+ user, why not connect with me there?

P.S. We can also connect on Github.

Feb 28

"Catching Up With Dan York" On The VUC Call Tomorrow At Noon US Eastern – Please Join Us!

VucWant to learn more about what I'm doing these days? Both with my work with the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme as well as other various projects? And what any of that has to do with VoIP and real-time communications these days?

If so, join us tomorrow, Friday, March 1, at 12 noon US Eastern on the "VoIP Users Conference (VUC)". You can join a Google+ Hangout, or call in via:

  • sip:200901@login.zipdx.com
  • +1 (646) 475-2098
  • Skype:vuc.me

There's also an IRC backchannel where links are shared, questions are answered and other comments occur.

As long time readers know, I've been a huge fan of - and participant in, when I've been able to - the VUC calls and community that Randy Resnick has been spearheading since March 2007.

I don't remember when precisely I first started joining in... maybe sometime in 2007 or 2008. In those early days (and still today) it was a great place to discuss open source telephony solutions like Asterisk, Freeswitch and others. The VUC became a place where many of us gathered weekly to learn about the latest technologies from various projects or vendors... and just to chat about various topics relating to VoIP, Unified Communications, SIP and whatever else. We'd get down in the weeds in really geeky discussions about wideband audio... and then get into higher level discussions about trends in VoIP and UC.

When I was at Voxeo for four years, the VUC calls were a way to connect with the telephony developer community - and in fact there were several VUC sessions related to various Voxeo Labs products and services. There were also a couple of VUC sessions relating to IPv6 and several relating to security in which I was a participant (including discussion of my UC security book at one point). It's been a great community and several good friendships have evolved out of meeting people within the VUC world.

When I joined the Internet Society back in September 2011, my attention shifted rather dramatically away from VoIP as I focused more on IPv6, DNSSEC and now routing resiliency/security (and the drop-off in posts here at Disruptive Telephony was also apparent), but VoIP has always been a strong interest and I continued to dip into VUC episodes now and then.

For the last, oh, 6 or 7 months (or maybe 9 or 10!) Randy's been repeatedly asking me if I would be the guest on a VUC episode to talk about all the various stuff I've been up to. His persistence finally wore me down and I agreed to a date... hence the show tomorrow. :-)

Given the conversational nature of the VUC shows, I suspect we'll probably travel all over various topics. There's an abstract up that says this:

Dan York has been a member of the VUC community for many years now but he’s been away for a bit and in this episode we’ll learn about what he’s doing now and how it relates to VoIP and UC. We’ll talk about his work with the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme related to IPv6, DNSSEC and routing resiliency (and touch on what exactly the Internet Society is all about) as well as his views on WebRTC and some of the other standards relating to real-time communications being developed within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). We’ll also cover Dan’s favorite topic of VoIP security and some of the changes that are being seen there. We’ll probably also talk about some of Dan’s other activities and interests related to podcasting and social media.

How much of that we actually discuss will be an open question.

You're welcome to join us... we always do take questions from people calling in to the show and also via the IRC channel. This time there will also be a Google+ Hangout so people will get to see my smiling face! ;-)

And yes, for better or worse it will be archived for posterity for later listening/viewing...

P.S. If you'd like to join the VUC "community" yourself, a great way beyond attending the calls is to join the "IP Communications & VoIP" Community on Google+, as a lot of good interaction happens there.

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