Welcome to Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast #85, a 32-minute podcast  from Dan York and Jonathan Zar covering VoIP security news, comments and opinions.   

Download the show here (MP3, 15 MB) or subscribe to the RSS feed to download the show automatically. 

You may also listen to this podcast right now:

Show Content:

• 00:20 - Intro to the show, contact information and how to provide comments.  Welcome to all the new listeners - and to all those listeners who have been here for so long!
• Programming notes:
  • Three-year anniversary of Blue Box coming up on October 24th - any thoughts you'd like to share with us? (Please send them to us by October 23rd.)
• The Times: "Internet phone calls are crippling fight against terrorism" - and my response on the Voice of VOIPSA blog
• FierceVoIP: "UK crimefighting concern over VoIP calls, social networks" 
• BBC: Data powers behind the times 
  
• GA Tech Survey (PDF) (link about the GA conference )
• Dark Reading: Cellphone Botnets, Blackmailing VOIP & a Healthy Cybercrime Economy
• bMighty.com: Georgia Tech Security Report Scarier Than Its Football Team
• cNet: Botnets on cell phones in 2009?
• telecoms.com: Smartphone is a hotbed of security issues
  
• VNUnet: Security industry falling behind hackers
  
• AP: Phone Jamming in NH
  
• GigaOm: EEF Challenges Telco Immunity in Court 
  
• Information Week: New Protocols Secure Layer 2
• Voice of VOIPSA: Asking The Cisco Systems IPICS and JPS Raytheon ACU-2000 Experts: Questions 36-40
• Other Voice of VOIPSA articles
• snom technology AG: snom 820 combines mature VoIP technology with exclusive design
• IDC Finds Increasing Hype Around Unified Communications Is Affecting How Customers Select Telephony Systems and Services (interesting movement in the top vendors used  - Nortel out and IBM in)
• Peerless VoIP Peering
• Comment (IM) from Christian Wieser
• Review of the last week's traffic on the VOIPSEC public mailing list
  
• Wrap-up of the show
  
• 32:10 - End of show 

Comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome either as replies to this post  or via e-mail to blueboxpodcast@gmail.com.  Audio comments sent as attached MP3 files are definitely welcome and will be played in future shows.  You may also call the listener comment line at either +1-415-830-5439 or via SIP to 'bluebox@voipuser.org' to leave a comment there. 

Thank you for listening and please do let us know what you think of the show.

ScienceLogic: Mike, what’s your background working with network and management system tools?

Mike Lawson: Before joining Apptis, I worked for the Air Force, mainly in satellite communications for almost nine years. I’m probably most familiar with HP OpenView and BMC Remedy. I managed a team that used them but wasn’t involved in tool selection; like many other federal IT workers, we didn’t have a choice of tools because there were existing enterprise licenses and maintenance contracts.

I also saw a large systems integrator do a full Remedy/Crystal Systems/OpenView installation. It took 6 weeks to stand up and customize to meet just the basic monitoring requirements, and it cost something like half a million dollars. At the time, I thought that wasn’t bad and was a pretty typical experience.

ScienceLogic: Coming from where you did, what’s your take on EM7?

Mike Lawson: Honestly, I didn’t believe that EM7 could really do all that it claimed. In many ways, it was the complete opposite of what I had seen first-hand with other monitoring solutions. Could it really cover that much functionality? At relatively much lower cost to the customer and without the licensing nightmare?

That quickly changed when I needed to understand the system enough to run it at a customer’s site. I went back over the training docs I received during my initial training class and jumped in; now, 6 months later, I’m the EM7 expert and can tell you that it delivers on all those promises. (But I still need to show people to get them to believe it too)

I preach the “EM7 gospel” and when anyone wants to talk monitoring, I ask about the universal pain points: cost, maintenance contracts and licensing, and then I explain EM7. The cost difference is real; the solution is based on capacity, so there’s no licensing and it’s easy to use. They are shocked to learn that they can buy multiple EM7 appliances and years of maintenance for what they paid for most other tools.

ScienceLogic: Apptis won the contract for monitoring aboard the USNS Mercy. We love that you’re using EM7 for one of the Navy’s hospital ships. Can you tell us more?

Mike Lawson: The USNS Mercy is a Military Sealift Command hospital ship. Some stats:

• 849 feet long (nearly the size of a football field)
• 12 fully-equipped operating rooms, a 1,000 bed hospital facility, digital radiological services, a diagnostic and clinical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, a CAT scan and two oxygen producing plants
• Crew: 61 civilian mariners, 956 Naval medical staff, and 259 Naval support staff

The USNS recently departed on a five-month humanitarian mission in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia in support of Pacific Partnership 2008. The partnership provides international medical, dental and engineering teams this summer to provide humanitarian support and conduct joint, combined, and cooperative Civil-Military Operations in order to improve regional stability and build partner capacity to respond to natural disasters and pandemic.

For the most part, the ship’s network is self-contained, but can also use a landline when docked. The network covers 400 devices, including Windows/Exchange servers and VMware for server virtualization. Prior to using EM7, none of the monitoring was integrated; each system was independently monitored through individual vendor-specific consoles.

Out of the box, EM7 provided integrated systems, application and network management for all network gear, applications and virtual machines in one solution. We didn’t have to do a lot of customization – EM7 includes best-practice based thresholds, event and monitoring templates and this covered what USNS Mercy needed to monitor.

ScienceLogic: You’re a systems integrator with a very useful “customer point of view” when it comes to looking at tools. From that perspective, can you share what you think are the biggest benefits that EM7 provides?

Mike Lawson: First of all, EM7 stands up right away. We’re talking days, not weeks. In contrast to the lengthy installation of OpenView and Remedy I witnessed during my military career, I was able to configure, customize, and implement the EM7 solution for the USNS Mercy in three days.

Second, it’s easy to train people on and the support is outstanding. This judgment is from first-hand experience. Right before the USNS Mercy departed on its latest voyage, the system administrator I had trained on EM7 left, so I had all of a day to train some new EM7 admins. I prepared a seven-page “cheat sheet” and over a 3-hour conference call, we walked through the entire EM7 solution; I haven’t gotten a support call since.

And when a problem did crop up with a device being discovered incorrectly, ScienceLogic was very responsive. We contacted ScienceLogic support on a Saturday and they created and emailed us a video to help troubleshoot the same day. Within 30 seconds of watching the video, the problem was resolved.

Finally, EM7 helps us be good stewards of the government’s money. This is very important to me personally and to Apptis as a company. Because EM7 is cheaper and deploys so quickly and easily, you might think that it’s just the opposite of what a system integrator would want to use. But that’s short-term thinking. We believe in deliver the most value for customers every time. It’s what creates trust and long-term relationships with our customers. Instead of that half million spent on standing up the solution and basic setup, I’d much rather (and I know the customer would rather) spend that on fine-tuning or extending the solution to do much, much more.

As a former government employee, I know what it’s like to use a tool that doesn’t fit my needs. EM7 proves that the best solution can totally break the old model of costly, lengthy installations. EM7 has the right model: the right solution and the right price delivered as an appliance that is easy to deploy, train on and use.

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Image by goddam via Flickr

Ah, its almost August.  Football training camps are open and the Yankees and Red Sox are battling. Does it get any better?  For most of this year I thought the Yankees were going to be out of it this year and content to have a rebuilding year.  We have several veteran players who past their prime and whose contracts are up after this year.  We have a some great young talent that need to grow into their potential.  It looked like the Bosox and Tampa Rays were going to run away with the division and wild card this year.

But like inevitable turning of the seasons, sometime after July 4th and then the All Star break, the Yankees beginninng their drive. Those old bones warm up in the heat of the summer and the bats come alive. This year the pitching is carrying them too.  Old pros Andy Pettite and Mike Mussina are joined by Jobba Chamberlin.  Mariano Rivera is still the best closer in baseball.  Just like old times the Yanks went out and fleeced some 2nd division team for a bunch of minor leaguers and added a quality hitter and pitcher right before the trade deadline.  Look around and we are one game behind the Red Sox for the wild card slot and only three games behind the Rays for first place!

I still think Tampa is going to stumble and it will come down to the Sox and the Yanks. Just the way it is supposed to be. I am heading up to NY next Friday, taking my sons to the shrine that is Yankee Stadium to see it in person in its last year.  The rest of the baseball season is going to be very exciting.  Again, just the way it is supposed to be!

Image by goddam via Flickr

Ah, its almost August.  Football training camps are open and the Yankees and Red Sox are battling. Does it get any better?  For most of this year I thought the Yankees were going to be out of it this year and content to have a rebuilding year.  We have several veteran players who past their prime and whose contracts are up after this year.  We have a some great young talent that need to grow into their potential.  It looked like the Bosox and Tampa Rays were going to run away with the division and wild card this year.

But like inevitable turning of the seasons, sometime after July 4th and then the All Star break, the Yankees beginninng their drive. Those old bones warm up in the heat of the summer and the bats come alive. This year the pitching is carrying them too.  Old pros Andy Pettite and Mike Mussina are joined by Jobba Chamberlin.  Mariano Rivera is still the best closer in baseball.  Just like old times the Yanks went out and fleeced some 2nd division team for a bunch of minor leaguers and added a quality hitter and pitcher right before the trade deadline.  Look around and we are one game behind the Red Sox for the wild card slot and only three games behind the Rays for first place!

I still think Tampa is going to stumble and it will come down to the Sox and the Yanks. Just the way it is supposed to be. I am heading up to NY next Friday, taking my sons to the shrine that is Yankee Stadium to see it in person in its last year.  The rest of the baseball season is going to be very exciting.  Again, just the way it is supposed to be!