Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast

Wow! The offers of production assistance have been wonderful...

WOW! I don't know that there is much else Jonathan and I can say after the incredible response we've had to our request for production assistance (also in SE#24). The offers started coming in within a few hours of SE#24 going live and I think we're up to 12 people now who have said that they'd help. THANK YOU! We're both overwhelmed and humbled by the many great folks who have offered to help... and also the words they sent our way saying how much the show mattered to them. Thank you! At this point, it would definitely look like we're all set for the moment, so it doesn't appear we need any further assistance. Now we just have to get set up to make use of all the offers that have come in! Stay tuned for more info - and more shows!

Technorati Tags: blue box, bluebox

Looking for a few good audio production assistants...

As we discuss in Blue Box Special Edition #24, we find ourselves in a bit of a dilemma. With each conference/show that we go to, we accumulate more great recordings of interviews that we do, panel sessions we record and other similar sessions. The goal is to turn these into "Special Edition" podcasts that we can make available in the podcast feed. We have two shows coming up this month, VoiceCon and VON, where we will record more sessions and interviews. Additionally, we do get requests to interview people that sometimes are quite interesting.

The problem we have is finding the time to do the post-production on the recordings to turn them into podcasts. We could, of course, just slap a generic intro and outro on a recording and throw it out there in the feed... but I think you all know that we don't want to waste your time! For instance, including the Q&A portion of a panel session where you can't hear the audience questions is pretty useless. Or including the part of the interview where announcements came over an intercom and you can't hear the interviewee is rather silly. So we want to take the time to go through a recording and see how we can "tighten it up". Remove breaks or big gaps of silence... speakers setting up laptops... interruptions to interviews etc. We don't remove every "um" or pause... we do want it to feel natural, after all, but we try to edit out the big gaps, errors, interruptions, etc.

The challenge of course is that to do this you have to listen all the way through a podcast, editing along the way. Sometimes you don't have to make many edits at all. Sometimes there a bunch of things to edit out. But it takes time... if the panel is 45 minutes you've got to have at least that much time (and probably double if you do much editing and keep stopping/starting). Unfortunately time is something neither Jonathan nor I are finding a whole lot of these days. I now have a queue of probably 10 or 12 recordings we've made over the past 6 months that are just sitting there waiting for me to get the cycles to turn them into Special Editions. Some are 20-minute interviews. Some are 45-minute or hour-long panels from conferences.

So therefore our request in show #24:

we're looking for a few good production assistants!

What we'd love to do is to find a couple of people who would be willing to work this way:

• I get to you the WAV file of the recording as well as the intro/outro.
• You edit the file in whatever audio tool you prefer: Audacity, Garage Band, SoundForge, whatever... (I use Audacity)
• When you are done, you export to a MP3 and get the MP3 to me.
• I do a final check, set the ID3 tags, etc. and upload the MP3 file, create the show notes, etc.

The good news about most of the recordings we make is that they are not overly time-sensitive. We want them up as soon as we can, but if it takes some time to do the post-production as you fit it in around other work, that's generally perfectly fine.

Obviously if you have experience with audio editing that's great. If it's something you've been interested to try your hand with, we're open to having you give it a try. (Please do realize that I'm a control-freak and audio quality stickler, so it's a new thing for me to even *consider* letting other people work on our files... but I've reached the point where I think it's more important to get the content *out*! So I'm willing to try it out... :-)

We can't offer you any money or anything like that (this is a labor of passion, not profit!) but we're certainly glad to give credit in show notes, Blue Box website, etc. You'll also be helping the greater community of security professionals interested in VoIP by getting more content out there in a more rapid manner. (i.e. faster than if we're waiting for me!) You may also gain skills in audio production (if you don't already have them) that may assist you in other endeavors.

Anyway, if you are interested, drop us an email with the subject line "Production assistance" and with a little bit of background about yourself. Sometime in the next week or two (probably after March 20th) we'll start seeing what we can do if there are people interested.

Thanks - and thanks for your patience, too.

Dan & Jonathan

New Audio comment line number - +1-415-830-5439 (and ditching K7.net)

Here is our new comment line number: +1-415-830-5439.

Here's the story...

To my immense annoyance, it seems that we have once again lost our K7.net call-in number for comments: +1-206-350-7280. That isn't the bad part, really... what annoys me most is that the number still appears to work! You can call it up and leave a message, but if it goes anywhere, it is not going to us! In the past, when we've lost our K7 number, the number has been inactive to some period of time, so callers just got a message saying that the number was no longer in use. Now it appears that the number has been reallocated already - or at least is accepting calls.

So please do not call that number!

I'm going to use this failure as an opportunity to completely drop our usage of K7.net. K7.net is a "unified messaging" service that is widely used by podcasters because it provides a very simple and easy - and free - service: Callers call in to a phone number, leave a message, and then you receive an email with the comment attached as a WAV file. It is great for a podcaster. Simple. Easy. Just works.

However, there is this wee minor little detail that is shown in the terms of service at the bottom of the sign-up page:

If a K7 number is inactive for 30 days (use is determined as a voice message or fax message to that number) , we may terminate the account for non-use.

This has been the bane of many podcaster's existence. If you don't get a call in 30 days, you lose your number. This impacts podcasters, especially, because our shows may live on out there on the Internet for an incredibly long time. You can still download Blue Box podcast #1 from two years ago which has the wrong comment line included (in fact, it is 2 or 3 numbers ago). So losing your number is really quite bad from a community-building point-of-view. If you put out frequent shows and get frequent comments, this usually isn't a problem. However, if you are a show like ours where we've been only doing maybe two shows a month it may be more of a challenge. I know that here in New England, the New England Podcasters group was instituting a "reminder day" where it was a monthly day to call your comment line to be sure you kept it. In any event, we seem to have lost our number.

Now, I can't really complain about the service because it is free and the K7 folks have always been very up front about the termination for non-use clause. All I can really do is find another alternative.

I have now done so. My new employer, Voxeo, has a website for developers called evolution.voxeo.com where you can create voice applications in several different XML variants (VoiceXML, CCXML or Voxeo's own CallXML). You can create a free developer account and with that you can create apps that have their own inbound phone number. For free. Anyone can do so. There is, at least currently, no expiration date or termination clause for non-use (although the terms of use do of course indicate that Voxeo can change or revoke the numbers at any time). So what's the catch? Well, Voxeo hopes that you like to develop apps on our platform so much that ultimately you'll need our hosting services for your applications.

So I've created my own little experiment in the form of a new comment line: +1-415-830-5439.

Right now it's just a computer-generated voice but I'll add in my own prompts soon. Interestingly, this number is also reachable via some other phone numbers:

• Skype: +99000936 9992002622
• FWD: **86919992002622
• SIP: sip:[email protected]

And while we are NOT going to switch from using our SIP "[email protected]" address, it's nice to know that it is available.

Since I know many of our listeners like to know the code underneath things, here is the full text of my "application" that does this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<callxml version="2.0"> 
<block> 
<text> Thank you for the calling the comment line for Blue Box, The Voice over IP Security Podcast.  Please leave your comment after the tone.  Thank you.</text> 
<recordaudio maxtime="3m" value="mailto:[email protected]?subject= 
Voicemail message - listener comment&fromname= 
Voxeo Messaging&fromaddress= 
[email protected]&body= 
Voicemail message&filename=comments.wav"/> 
</block> 
</callxml>

It uses Voxeo's own CallXML language which was developed before VoiceXML and CCXML (Call Control XML) were standardized. Why did I use CallXML versus VoiceXML and CCXML? Primarily because I wanted to learn CallXML - and also, frankly, because it seemed to have the easiest commands to do what I was trying to do. It basically says a piece of text and then records up to 3 minutes of audio and emails it to our standard comment line. Ta da... same thing as I was doing with K7.net, but without the annoying termination after 30 days of non-use.

Anyway, that's the new number and the story behind it. Hopefully I won't be changing it again anytime soon!

Technorati Tags: blue box, bluebox, k7.net, voxeo

Our Blue Box Frappr map has grown to 315 member!

We've pretty much ignored our Frappr map for probably most of the last year after Frappr went from AJAX-based Google maps to Flash-based Yahoo!Maps that took forever to load (and didn't show the world outside of North America). Today I randomly happened to look at it and found that Frappr's back to using Google Maps and that our map had grown to over 315 members! Very cool to see! If you haven't joined the map but are open to doing so, you can go to the map or click on the embedded map here:

NOTE: One of our listeners commented in the Blue Box Skype group chat that you do need to be careful about how you are signing into Frappr as it sometimes will add you with your email address versus your Frappr ID.

Technorati Tags: bluebox, frappr, blue box

Blue Box podcast #70 successfully recorded... on *conference WiFi*!

I'm delighted to report that Jonathan and I successfully recorded Blue Box #70 this morning. It was a bit surreal, actually. There I was at the Javits Center in a vacant room on conference WiFi and Jonathan's audio quality was outstanding! In fact, when I listened to the recording afterward his audio sounded far better than my audio that was recorded off of my local USB headset! Of course, in contrast to the stats I showed yesterday, here's how our call looked today:

0.0% packet loss on receiving Jonathan's signal! Very cool! And a 94ms round trip sure beats a 200-300ms round trip, eh?

To get this good quality on a conference WiFi really speaks to the efforts of the Interop NOC team to deliver this kind of network. Kudos to them!

For those curious, I recorded the show locally on my MacBook Pro using WireTap Studio from Ambrosia Software. Given that our recording levels were quite different, I'm probably going to need to run the recording through the Levelator in order to bring the levels in line.

It should be posted probably some time early tomorrow. I'm at Interop all day today and so the post-production will probably be done during my time out at JFK and flying home later today.

Technorati Tags: bluebox

Blue Box Comment Line number changed - now +1-206-350-7280

Unfortunately, the comment line for the podcast has had to be changed. The new number is:

+1-206-350-7280

We use a free service from K7.net and unfortunately if no one calls the service for 30 days, they terminate your user account. You have no way to get back the phone number that you previously had (which, okay, it's a free service, so I can't complain!) and you have to register a new one. I keep using it primarily because it's simple... people call and leave a voicemail - and a WAV file shows up in our inbox. Simple. Easy.

But it does have this 30-day rule. Given that we've had a stretch between shows, there haven't been people calling in. Usually I call it once a month just to make sure that we keep the number... but I've been a bit distracted lately and forgot to do so. So we lost the number, which is too bad because the old one spelled out "blue" with the last 4 digits.

Somewhere in here I'm going to set up a local Asterisk server with an inbound phone number and at that point I'll move the comment line over to it and stop using K7.net. However, until that time, we've just got to make sure that someone leaves an audio comment at least once a month!

(Disappointing that this happened just as I announced the call-in contest for the book for our anniversary show...)

Brief Break in Blue Box Schedule

Blue Box listeners - I'm on vacation this coming week and Jonathan has been travelling, so we're taking a brief break. We'll be back the week of June 25th with a regular show. We've also got some great Special Editions in the queue:

• Martin Davies has put together a great interview show about Session Border Controllers (SBCs). I think you'll definitely enjoy this one!
  
• New contributor Frank Leonhardt has an interview with some of the folks involved with Facetime about their new firewall that includes Skype management.
  
• Martyn Davies also received permission to run the audio of the panel on VoIP security that he moderated at VON Europe last week in Stockholm.

I think you should enjoy them all and I'm looking forward to making them available once I'm back from vacation.

Talk to you soon...

Facebook group for "Fans of Blue Box" now created...

If any listeners use the Facebook social networking site, I have now created a "Fans of Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast" group which you are welcome to join.  I have no idea, really, what we will do with the group and whether or not we'll even use it for anything at all.  Largely, I suppose, that depends upon how many people join the group.  It's all just part of our continued experimentation with "social media"... and anyone who wants to join in the experimentation is welcome to do so.

Technorati tags: blue box, facebook

Crossing the 100,000 download mark!

Sometime this morning between about 7 and 8am Eastern US time, this podcast crossed a major milestone.... the 100,000th download occurred!   

Now in the world of "mainstream" media this is a trival number that would hardly merit attention.  But in the new and emerging medium of podcasting, I, for one, will celebrate that milestone... especially for something that is admittedly as niche of a topic as "VoIP security"!

To look at it another way, we've put out 74 shows since we started about 1.5 years ago.  That works out to an average of 1,351 downloads per show... for a show that averages 45 minutes in length!   

That there are that many folks interested in our show and topic continues to be a very humbling fact.  It's an honor for us... and a responsibility that we don't take lightly.  We know that just as easily as you have subscribed and downloaded our show, you have an amazing amount of choices out there and you can just as easily go elsewhere. 

Both Jonathan and I THANK YOU for your continued support and participation!  We have been delighted by the community of listeners and contributors that has grown up around the show and we do look forward to the continued growth of that community and to reaching many more milestones in the months and years ahead.  Thank you all.

Read on if you have interest in statistics...

---

Continue reading "Crossing the 100,000 download mark!" »

If you downloaded Blue Box #56 and wound up with a PDF file, here's why - as I noted in an "UPDATE" section at the top of the show notes to Blue Box #56, I inadvertently deleted the "enclosure" link attribute that clues podcatchers in to which media file to download.   Without an enclosure link attribute, podcatchers seem to download the last "media" file.  Normally, this might not have been a problem as we usually just link to other web pages, but because we linked later to the SAGE Journal PDF file, that file was chosen as the one to download.  (Although it still boggles my mind a bit that podcatchers couldn't be designed to download only MP3 files or others from a range of audio/video formats.

I've fixed the link and podcatcher downloads are now working, but if you wound up with a PDF file instead, you'll unfortunately need to download the audio file directly from the Blue Box #56 show notes.

If you subscribe via RSS, you may need to re-download Blue Box #56

If you downloaded Blue Box #56 and wound up with a PDF file, here's why - as I noted in an "UPDATE" section at the top of the show notes to Blue Box #56, I inadvertently deleted the "enclosure" link attribute that clues podcatchers in to which media file to download.   Without an enclosure link attribute, podcatchers seem to download the last "media" file.  Normally, this might not have been a problem as we usually just link to other web pages, but because we linked later to the SAGE Journal PDF file, that file was chosen as the one to download.  (Although it still boggles my mind a bit that podcatchers couldn't be designed to download only MP3 files or others from a range of audio/video formats.

I've fixed the link and podcatcher downloads are now working, but if you wound up with a PDF file instead, you'll unfortunately need to download the audio file directly from the Blue Box #56 show notes.