Asterisk VoIP News

Phreakers take over FEMA phones – thousands lost to overseas calls

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:01:28 -0700

The Associated Press is reporting that calls made overseas from a hijacked FEMA phone system racked up a $12,000 USD bill. The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed the FEMA phone system was cracked, and the calls all took place over the previous weekend.

Intel cuts power cords with wireless power system

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:01:28 -0700

Note: Very interesting technology but I do not even want to think about possible health effects. If they can light a bulb (Most likely LED Light Bulb) across the room then I would want to see what effect that could have on me and you with those waves passing through us. We already have cell, wi-fi, wimax, microwave, bluetooth. Even with that it is very cool to think about.

Intel on Thursday showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets. Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the California firm's annual developers forum in San Francisco.

Bank of Beijing Adopting VoIP On Its Trading Floor

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:43:09 -0700

IPC Systems, a provider of communications solutions to financial services firms, announced today that Bank of Beijing has chosen the IQ/MAX, IPC's voice over IP-enabled desktop tool, for its trading floor.

With its main focus on transitioning to VoIP technology in order to support a technologically modern trading floor over the long-term, Bank of Beijing evaluated numerous vendors after formerly relying on PBX phones. Features of the IQ/MAX turret include call logs and caller ID.

Coweta (GA) 911 now instantly maps cell phone calls

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:43:07 -0700

Most Cowetans who call 911 from their cell phones don't have to worry about location errors such as the one that may have contributed to the recent death of a woman in north Fulton County.

When a call comes in to Coweta's 911 center, the location instantly pops up on a map of the county on the operator's screen. Landline calls additionally show the address where the phone call originated.

Cisco retires Linksys reseller program, reseller must become Registered Channel Partner

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:05:48 -0700

Note: Looks like the integration is complete. Good thing Cisco makes good hardware.

Cisco appears to be nudging ever closer to dropping the Linksys brand. Today it announces that it has combined the engineering teams for all its SMB products, forming a single group to develop products for the Cisco and Linksys brands. It has also retired the

Linksys reseller initiaive and is urging Linksys' 20,000-strong reseller community to sign up for the Cisco Channel Partner Program.

Lawsuit takes on Canadian 911 wireless fees

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:05:47 -0700

An Ontario woman is trying to obtain class action status on a lawsuit against Rogers Wireless, alleging that the cell phone provider is pocketing more than its due in 911 service fees.

Patricia Robson’s suit alleges no more than 10 cents of the monthly 50-cent fees usually charged to subscribers is actually required by regulators to pay for the necessary telecommunications infrastructure.

Can You Believe We Put A Redneck In The White House? [Digg]

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:05:39 -0700

Here is the new limo that is being delivered to President Bush.

General Dynamics Awarded NSA Contract to Add Switched Network Compatibility to the Sectera vIPer Universal Secure Phone

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:07:38 -0700

General Dynamics C4 Systems has been awarded a $2.8 million contract by the National Security Agency (NSA) to add a new Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) feature to the Sectera vIPer Universal Secure Phone.

The new feature, called "PSTN Connect," will enable the vIPer Phone to connect with traditional telephone networks, enabling users of secure desktop phones to use one secure phone on either PSTN or VoIP networks. The vIPer Phone currently operates on Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

Digium Offers Cepstral "Allison Voice" Text-to-Speech Software for Asterisk

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:08:15 -0700

Digium, creators and primary corporate sponsors of the popular Asterisk open source telephony platform, and Cepstral, a speech technology company, today announced that Digium now offers "Allison voice" text-to-speech software.

The Asterisk-based interactive voice response (IVR) application, created by Cepstral through its longstanding partnership with Digium, allows customers to use the world's most widely recognized telephone system voice, that of Allison Smith, to customize messages and to mix dynamic information--that which cannot be pre-recorded--with recorded prompts in the same high-quality, user-friendly voice.

Polycom Offers Royalty-Free HD Wideband Codec

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:08:15 -0700

Polycom has made its wideband Siren 7 codec for HD voice available without a licensing fee in an effort to accelerate HD voice adoption and demonstrate the company's commitment to open standards.

The royalty-free licensing offer is an extension of the one Polycom offered for its Siren 14 code. The newer 7-kHz version helps improve comprehension, allowing businesses to communicate more effectively and efficiently, says the company.

Digium Announces Keynote Speakers for Expanded AstriCon ‘08

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:08:14 -0700

Digium, the Asterisk Company, recently announced that Brian Aker from Sun Microsystems/MySQL and Stefan Öberg from Skype are slated as keynote speakers for AstriCon ‘08. AstriCon, the world's largest, most informative gathering of expert developers and users of the popular Asterisk telephony platform, also announces expanded track sessions to this year’s conference.

libpri versions 1.2.8 and 1.4.7, and libss7 version 1.0.1 released

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:09:19 -0700

The Asterisk development team has released new versions of three libraries used with Asterisk. They are:

libpri-1.2.8:
This release contains a number of bugfixes that had been unreleased for months, along with clarification of the licensing of the source code. The change log is here:

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/libpri/ChangeLog-1.2.8

libpri-1.4.7:
This release contains primarily only clarification of the licensing of the source code and some minor build system fixes. There is no need for users of version 1.4.6 to upgrade.
The change log is here:

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/libpri/ChangeLog-1.4.7

libss7-1.0.1:
This release contains a number of bugfixes, along with clarification of the licensing of the source code.
The change log is here:

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/libss7/ChangeLog-1.0.1

Thanks for using Asterisk!

Toshiba Strata CIX1200 PBX Supports up to 1,000+ ports

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:07:07 -0700

Toshiba today announced the launch of its new Strata CIX™1200 VoIP business communication system, bringing Toshiba quality, reliability and affordability to medium-to-large companies. Supporting up to 1,152 ports, the Strata CIX1200 is designed for 200 to 1,000 users and delivers networked applications for as many as 128 sites.

Polycom Soundstation 7000 review

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:06:04 -0700

Polycom is a name synonymous with audio and video conferencing solutions and it’s a fairly safe bet that if you look in the board room of any large company you stand a good chance of seeing one of their products.

Their analogue products had a great reputation for quality and as the move to IP based telephony continues it’s great to see Polycom aren’t being left behind!

The Polycom Soundstation 7000 is Polycom’s latest VoIP conference phone. It is a full duplex device that both looks nice and also performs extremely well.

TOP 10 Things Men Don’t Want Their Women To Do [Digg]

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:05:41 -0700

Things have been going pretty well so I guess it’s time to piss off the ladies and make them call me names and accuse me of being a chauvenist while I express my opinion about the TOP 10 Things Men Don’t Want Their Women To Do.

Kaplan Launche Online CISCO Certification Programs

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:48:02 -0700

Kaplan announced the launch of three new online Cisco certification programs designed to provide students with the knowledge to seek employment in the high-demand Information Technology field. "According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Information Technology is the fastest growing sector in the economy, with an expected growth rate of 68 percent through 2012," said Lisa Rosenzweig, the Executive Director at Kaplan Continuing Education.

Speculation over back door in Skype

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:48:01 -0700

Editor's Note: Here are a couple thoughts I have about this. First, you should always assume that every major application out there mostly likely have some sort of remote access for governmental agencies to monitor criminals. This is not paranoia, but if the application has encryption then you know the NSA has keys if it is distributed in the U.S. Second, you really should not be doing anything illegal but you happen to find yourself astray of the law then you should not be using any of the high technology to conduct yourself in these ways. I am in no way supporting any illegal acts, I am just giving helpful advice to my audience. Lastly, this does not surprise me being the amount of users they have, it would be quite odd of our defense agencies could not monitor this type of communication.

According to reports, there may be a back door built into Skype, which allows connections to be bugged. The company has declined to expressly deny the allegations. At a meeting with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception of IP based services held on 25th June, high-ranking officials at the Austrian interior ministry revealed that it is not a problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations.

Asterisk 1.4.21.2 and 1.2.30 Released

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:47:24 -0700

The Asterisk.org development team has released Asterisk versions 1.4.21.2 and 1.2.30.

Both of these releases include fixes for two security issues. Both of these issues affect users of the IAX2 channel driver. For more details on these vulnerabilities, see the published security advisories, AST-2008-010 and AST-2008-011.

AST-2008-010: Asterisk IAX 'POKE' resource exhaustion
- http://downloads.digium.com/pub/security/AST-2008-010.html

AST-2008-011: Traffic amplification in IAX2 firmware provisioning system
- http://downloads.digium.com/pub/security/AST-2008-011.html

Thank you for your continued support of Asterisk!

Announcing AstriDevCon 2008

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:47:49 -0700

On September 26-28 in Glendale, Arizona, a group of Asterisk developers will be getting together for three days of hacking, coding, testing, designing and otherwise beating on the Asterisk code base.

The event will be hosted at the Renaissance Glendale Hotel and Spa immediately following AstriCon 2008 and will be low-key and open only to serious developers and contributors. We are expecting to keep the attendance to 50 people or less, including many members of the Digium Asterisk development team (currently around 15 people).

AT&T spending reduction hitting Cisco

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:53:08 -0700

Talk of AT&T cutting back on its capital expenditures for this year have hit Cisco's stock as well as the prospects for other telecom equipment vendors. Credit Suisse this week downgraded Cisco to neutral from outperform on reports that AT&T will cut back on its 2008 capex budget. Credit Suisse estimates that AT&T spends between $500 million and $1 billion annually with Cisco, or almost 2.5% of Cisco's annual revenue.

Massive DNS security problem endangers the internet

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:47:35 -0700

US-CERT and other security experts have warned of a critical design problem affecting all DNS implementations. The Domain Name Service is responsible for converting readable names like www.heise-online.co.uk into the IP addresses that computers can handle, such as 193.99.144.85. DNS is thus the internet equivalent to a phonebook and without it, nothing works. Anyone who takes control of it can control the internet.