November 2014 archive

Nov 28

Today At Noon EST: Matrix.Org Distributed Communications On The VUC Call

Matrix 300What is the Matrix.org distributed communication system all about? What is an "open source federated signaling standard"? In about 30 minutes you'll be able to find out LIVE on today's VoIP Users Conference (VUC) where the guest will be Matthew Hodgson, one of the co-founders of Matrix.org. As the site says:

Matrix is a new open standard for interoperable Instant Messaging and VoIP, providing pragmatic HTTP APIs and open source reference implementations for creating and running your own real-time communication infrastructure.

Our hope is to make VoIP/IM as universal and interoperable as email.

You can watch it live on YouTube at:

Or join in on the Google+ event page. As noted in the #VUC show notes, the team is going to try a number of different ways to get people connected today.

It's probably best to also join the IRC backchannel where links are shared, questions are answered and other comments occur. You also can visit the Google+ event page for the VUC #517 session today where there may be additional links and info.

If you won't be at your computer, you can also call in via:

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

The session will of course be recorded so you can listen/watch later.

Given that I've long focused on the need for "distributed and decentralized" communication systems, I'm intrigued to learn more about what the Matrix.org team is intending to do. More links for background information can be found at:

I'm not going to be able to join live today due to the holiday here in the USA and some plans with our family... but I'm definitely looking forward to listening to/watching the archive of today's show and giving it a test myself!

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Nov 28

Disruptive Telephony… … disrupted?

Disconnected handsetIt's been a while since I've written here on Disruptive Telephony... too long. :-(

It's not for a lack of topics ... my queue of things I would like to write about continues to grow and grow!

It's easy to say that my day job has consumed much of my writing time... and there's definitely a great bit of truth to that.

There's also the fact that I have two young children and a wife whom I adore and want to spend time with... as well as other priorities in life that have taken me away from writing as much as I used to.

I do, though, want to get back to writing here, and indeed across all my sites, a bit more.

Stay tuned...
 

If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:

Nov 28

Are You Buying Home Electronics That Are Ready For IPv6?

US-RETAIL-BLACK FRIDAYAre you buying home electronics that are ready for IPv6?  At this time of year there are many sales both offline and online that offer dramatic discounts on home electronics and devices of all types.  Massive TVs, audio equipment, computers, home networking equipment… you name it… the opportunities are tempting!

As you consider whether that particular purchase is just too good to pass up, we would also suggest you ask:

  • Will it work with IPv6?

The truth is that the “Internet of Things” (IoT) is happening all around us and the “connected home” or “smart home” is becoming a reality.  As more and more connected devices get added to the home, there will be a need for more and more IP addresses… and ultimately homes will need to make the move to IPv6.

Hopefully when that happens all of your shiny home electronics equipment will work fine over IPv6!

To make sure you are prepared, we’d encourage you to do some research on any device that will be connected to a network and find out, if you can, whether it works with IPv6.

If you are going to be purchasing a new home wireless router, the UNH InterOperability Lab (IOL) has a helpful list of IPv6 Ready home routers that they have certified… but those may not be the latest and greatest releases that are on sale in the massive sales that are happening.

It may be hard to discover… but we would strongly encourage you to ask the question… and wherever you can make sure that the electronic devices that you bring in your home today will be able to work on the IPv6 networks that are already being deployed to homes all around the world!

And if you haven’t already started with IPv6, we’d encourage you to visit our Start Here page and learn how you can begin!

Image credit: diariocriticove on Flickr

Nov 27

Thank You For All Your Support And Help In 2014

IPv6 TurkeyIf you are reading this message, odds are pretty good that this is just another regular Thursday for you.  In fact, it might be a quieter Thursday than usual because you are receiving fewer email messages or articles from colleagues or people you know in the USA.  Maybe you’ll get a bit more done than other Thursdays!

For those of us in the USA, though, where 3/4 of our team is located, today is our Thanksgiving holiday and we’ll be spending the time with our friends and family, probably offline enjoying their company.

As we do that, though, we also want to give thanks to all of you out there who have helped us in so many ways.  Your feedback, suggestions and assistance have helped us grow this program in so many different ways.  We could not have done all that we have done over the past three years without your help.

Thank you!

As we gear up for what will be an incredibly busy year ahead of us in 2015, we will look forward to working with so many of you again to help accelerate the deployment of key technologies that will make the Internet work faster and be more secure and resilient.

In the meantime, those of us in the US will be enjoying a day off today and tomorrow.

P.S. If you are having a slow day… why not think about getting started with IPv6, DNSSEC, securing BGP, configuring anti-spoofing or using TLS in your applications? :-)

Nov 24

FIR #783 – 11/24/14 – For Immediate Release

Quick News: Confidence produces better results than reputation, Internet to hit 3 billion users next year, Mattel is in trouble again over Barbie, the post-PC CEO has no desk and no desktop; Ragan promo; News That Fits: is not allowing comments on your site a good idea?, Dan York's report, Uber's crisis, Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, listener comments, CIPR dumps PRWeek, the past week on the FIR Podcast Network, Igloo Software promo, what to do when the online mob hates your new logo; music from Robyn Hitchcock; and more.

Nov 21

7 Asterisk VoIP Security Advisories Issued

Asterisk logoThe Digium / Asterisk Security Team has obviously been extremely busy ensuring that Asterisk is as secure as possible given that yesterday they released 7 security advisories, although only one of them (AST2014-16) was rated as “Critical”.  The others are rated as “Moderate” or “Minor” – but still are good reasons to upgrade to the latest versions of Asterisk.  The list of advisories is:

The issues are all fixed in the latest versions of Asterisk:

  • Asterisk Open Source 1.8.32.1, 11.14.1, 12.7.1, 13.0.1
  • Certified Asterisk 1.8.28-cert3, 11.6-cert8

Kudos to the Digium/Asterisk Security Team for the work they do in keeping Asterisk secure – and also for their openness in reporting the issues publicly!

Nov 21

Beginning A Season Of Youth Curling Bonspiels

Chloe curling 520

Tonight begins a new era in our lives as parents as our 12-year-old daughter competes for the first time in a curling "bonspiel" (tournament) that will go all weekend (or, at least, we hope so!). Over the past three years that she has been involved with the Petersham Curling Club youth program in nearby Petersham, MA, she's been in the "Little Rocks" program where she has played in typically three or four one-day bonspiels around New England.

But now that she has reached the age of 12 she is in the "Juniors" program... and they play at a much more serious level and in events that take a much greater amount of time!

The event this weekend is the Broomstones Junior Bonspiel at the Broomstones Curling Club in Wayland, Massachusetts, about two hours away from where we live. She's on a team with three other youth with whom she has been playing for three years. For those who know curling teams she'll be playing the "second" position in the team. (It's the second person of four to throw stones for a team.)

The games are full 8-end games, which means they'll be on the ice for a full two hours! Their schedule right now is:

  • Friday, Nov 21:
    • 7:15pm
  • Saturday, Nov 22:
    • 8:30am
    • 1:00pm
    • 6:30pm

The bonspiel is arranged in a series of brackets with the outcome determining who will play in the playoffs and finals on Sunday. We're certainly hopeful that the team will do well enough to be in the games on Sunday.

I'm excited for her... and as a parent I'll be there on the sidelines cheering her team on! (I'll also be posting updates and a few photos to the Petersham Youth Curling Facebook page.)

And then, yes... we have probably 3 or 4 more of these all-weekend events coming up over the course of the winter, along with some one-day events, too.

Let the curling season begin! :-)

Nov 21

LinkedIn Joins The World IPv6 Launch Measurements Project

LinkedIn logoWe were very pleased to read that LinkedIn is joining the WorldIPv6 Launch measurements effort and providing data about what it is seeing in the way of IPv6 deployment among the many visitors coming to LinkedIn’s sites.  In that post to the World IPv6 Launch blog, our colleague Mat Ford also pointed that the November 2014 IPv6 measurements are now out and show the continued growth of IPv6.

LinkedIn is no stranger to IPv6. You may recall the LinkedIn IPv6 case study we published earlier this year where they outlined their work on using IPv6 for SMTP.  I can also personally attest to the fact that when I connect to LinkedIn’s web site I can see via the IPvFoo plugin for Chrome that I’m connecting over IPv6.

Kudos to LinkedIn for stepping forward to help out with IPv6 measurements!  We look forward to seeing the continued growth of IPv6 as we have for the past months.

Nov 20

TDYR 186 – Japanese Dining Customs and other Reflections On My Short Visit

Some thoughts on dining customs in Japan and other cultural differences...

Nov 20

Watch Live Today at 13:00 US EST – DNSSEC Root KSK Ceremony 19

IANA logoIf you are interested in understanding a bit more about how the overall DNSSEC infrastructure operates, you can watch the “Root DNSSEC KSK Ceremony 19″ live today, November 20, 2014, from a data center in Culpeper, Virginia, USA, starting at 1:00 pm US Eastern time, which is 18:00 UTC.  All the information and the link to the live stream can be found at:

https://www.iana.org/dnssec/ceremonies/19

The key ceremonies are part of the activities performed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) under its contract to operate the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). As explained on the overview page:

Ceremonies are usually conducted four times a year to perform operations using the Root Key Signing Key, and involving Trusted Community Representatives. In a typical ceremony, the KSK is used to sign a set of operational ZSKs that will be used for a three month period to sign the DNS root zone. Other operations that may occur during ceremonies include installing new cryptographic officers, replacing hardware, or generating or replacing a KSK.

This ceremony today is to use the “master” root Key Signing Key (KSK) to generate a set of Zone Signing Keys (ZSKs) that will then be used until the next key ceremony.

There is a complete script that outlines the overall process that is used by ICANN to perform this operation today.  In the interest of transparency there is also a live video stream that will show the entire process and that will be archived for later viewing.

The “root key” is at the top of the “global chain of trust” that is used to ensure the correct validation of DNSSEC signatures (for more info see “The Two Sides of DNSSEC“) and so it is critical that the security and integrity of this root key be maintained.  Ceremonies such as the one today are a part of that effort.  If you are interested in learning more, today is a bit of a peek behind the curtain about how all of this happens…

P.S. If you want to learn more about how to get started with DNSSEC, please visit our “Start Here” page to find resources focused on your type of role or organization.