Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast

New comment line number - +1-206-350-2583

While K7.net provides a very nice voicemail service for free, one of the disadvantages of using the service is that if no one calls your number in 30 days, the number is made inactive and there is no way to start using it again.  In periods where we have had no audio comments for some time, I have tried to remember to just call it myself... unfortunately, I didn't do so recently and so we lost the number we have been using since October 2005.

The new comment number is +1-206-350-2583 ("2583" = "blue" - cute, eh?) Please do give us a call and let us know your thoughts on the show.

(And yes, in the recording of show 36 we still mention the old number - I unfortunately discovered the problem after uploading the already post-produced show 36.)

Blue Box #34 pushed to next week

Well, I gave it a valiant try, but the lesson of this week is that I have to either: 1) wipe and re-format my laptop; or 2) figure out another way to do post-production while travelling.  When trying this week to edit the recording Jonathan and I did right before I left for IETF, my laptop kept entering a state of doing an insane amount of disk swapping... and not letting me get the editing done.  So, I'm unfortunately going to have to delay it until I get back home and can use my normal system there.

The good news for you all is that you will wind up with two Blue Box podcasts next week.

BTW, the IETF meeting was excellent... if you haven't gone before, I'd definitely consider it for future meetings!

IMS security and IPv6 security shows coming soon...

FYI, we've now recorded interviews with people about IMS security and IPv6 security...  both of those shows will be posted soon.  Also, this week's podcast will be coming soon - either late tonight or tomorrow.  I'm up at IETF in Montreal and a wee bit challeged for production time. 

Podcast Awards nominations are open until July 15

The 2006 People's Choice Podcast Awards have opened up nominations through July 15th and if any listeners would care to nominate our show in the Technology/Science, Business or other categories, we would be deeply honored.  I'm not necessarily a huge fan of these type of contests, but in this case I believe Todd Cochrane and his crew do a very solid job with the overall process and it's one that I definitely support.  I've gone and nominated several of the shows I believe should be considered - and would encourage you to do the same.  (If you want to nominate several shows for the same category, you can vote again each calendar day - so nominate some today, then some more tomorrow, etc. )  Voting in the contest begins later in July, but the first step is to make it through the nomination process.    Thank you for your consideration.

Show #31 will be delayed until Monday

Unfortunately, it appears that some issue with low disk space on my laptop (I'm currently travelling) caused my edited audio file to become corrupted.  Luckily (because it was a great show) I have a copy of the unedited show, but I now have to re-do the post-production, which with current travel is not something I will probably be able to do until Sunday evening or Monday morning.  So look for the show then.   (And in the meantime I've freed up a large amount of diskspace to prevent the recurrence.) 

I'll briefly explain a bit more of what happened in show #32, which we are recording on Monday with the goal to have it out next Wednesday.  So you'll probably wind up with two shows next week.

Thanks, again, to all of you who contacted me to let me know what happened.

Problem with file for show #31 - stay tuned

Thanks to the several listeners who called/emailed to tell me that there was a problem with the MP3 file for show #31.  I have no idea what happened, but I've pulled down the file and weblog entry until I can figure it out.

UPDATE: It appears that my edited file was corrupted (potentially due to low disk space), so it looks like I  need to re-edit at least some portion of the file (good news is that I have the original recording)... so it will be a longer project that I'll have to do tonight.

FYI - shortened ID3 "name" field may affect sorting in your MP3 player

With show #30, I made a subtle change to the "Name" field of the ID3 tags associated with the show MP3 file.  Instead of "Blue Box Podcast #30: ...", it is now "Blue Box #30: ...".  I made the change after looking at a list of shows on my iPod and realizing that you couldn't see the number in the limited number of characters on the screen. There is no easy way to know which show was listed.  I figured having "Podcast" in the ID3 name was rather redundant, so I dropped it.

The only impact this may have on you is that if you use iTunes or another MP3 player that lets you sort by track name (or defaults to doing this), "Blue Box #30:..." will now be listed before the previous episodes whose names began "Blue Box Podcast #xx:...".   Note that there was no change to the file name - this was purely in the ID3 tags associated with the file.

FYI - Comments are now NOT moderated

As TypePad (where this site is hosted) has recently implemented a CAPTCHA system to prevent automated comment spam, I am now turning OFF comment moderation.  Assuming you type in the correct text shown in the CAPTCHA graphic, your comment will be posted as soon as you submit it.

So please feel free to comment away!

NOTE: If you are sending a Trackback ping from another weblog, I unfortunately have to keep those moderated (due to trackback spam!) as there is as yet no easy way to do some type of CAPTCHA for Trackbacks.

Blue Box Listener Survey - Please help us out!

We would like your help!  In order for us to get a better sense of who listens to our show, could you please take a couple of minutes to fill out our listener survey?  It is at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=495372074777

It should take only a few minutes and it will greatly help us.

Why are we asking these questions?  Well, mostly it is to understand better who is listening so that we can know better how to target our commentary, interviews, etc.  We are also always looking for feedback on the show and ways we can make it that much stronger.  Finally, we'd like to collect some demographic info so that when we are requesting interviews and are asked about who listens, we can provide some overall statistics to show the value of being interviewed on this show.

All individual responses will be kept strictly confidential but we will make overall summary data available here on the show website.  We greatly appreciate any and all responses you can give.

P.S. Yes, on show #25 I said the survey was 25 questions... after the recording I added 5 more... I hope you can still take the time to answer it. :-)

Our Frappr map of listeners continues to grow...

Our Frappr map of listeners continues to grow... 80 listeners at the time I write this. If you haven't checked it out yet, here's a preview... note that despite my best efforts to modify the code snippet according to Frappr's instructions, I still can't get the mini-map here to zoom out to show the entire world - so you probably want to click the "-" sign to zoom out and see the bigger picture.

I have noticed that it initially doesn't show all the entries - just the first 50 or so - so it looks like there is only one identified listener in South America until you zoom in a bit and find out that there are, in fact, two.  Africa, though, will remain empty because if we have listeners there in Africa, none of them have yet added themselves to the map.

If you are a listener and would like to add yourself to the map, there is a link at the top of the map to do so.  You also do have the option to upload a photo as some folks have done and/or to leave a message there for other listeners.

Note that if you are leery of providing personal information, when you add yourself you are required to enter a name and email address, but of course it can be any name - and bogus email addresses are always an option.  As far as I can see, providing an email address just gets you updates of when new people are added.  And if you still don't want to provide any information to an unknown startup, well, hey, we totally respect that.  Given that many/most of our listeners are in the security and privacy industries, we are pleased that so many have already added themselves.  It's fun to see where listeners are located.