[VOIPSEC] Soft Phone Vulnerabilities

[Craig Southeren]

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:42:55 +0800
Simon Horne <s.horne at packetizer.com> wrote:

> At 07:00 AM 13/06/2006, Craig Southeren wrote:
> ....
> >I have no problem recommending or using Skype as a VoIP service. I use
> >it myself when I am on the road, as it has a good record of penetrating
> >hotel firewalls and I can always use SkypeOut for making PSTN calls if I
> >need to.
> 
> With respect, this is a large statement from the co-founder and a fellow 
> open-source developer on the OpenH323/Opal project but this will probably 
> change once we have implemented H460.18/19... :)

Give me a decent PSTN termination provider in Australia that implements
either H.323 or SIP, and I'll drop Skype like a bucket of bricks. Until
then, I'm sort of stuck
 
> To me is was rather disturbing to sit in a room full of some of the 
> greatest minds in the VoIP open source development community at a recent 
> conference in Germany and be the only one (i know of) not using SKYPE to 
> keep in contact with colleagues and home.

I use Skype whenever I am on the road (away from my home office that has 
all manner of good stuff) and I need the combination of arbitrary
firewall penetration and good PSTN termination to third-world countries
(like Australia). In Germany was one of those situations.

> Sorry, Henry Sinnreich has a point. Maybe we all should just give up, go 
> flip burgers and use SKYPE.
> However workable solutions for NAT and security for standard based 
> protocols are out there which only goes to prove "VoIP does not equal SKYPE"

Perhaps the emphasis in my posting was wrong.

I use standards compliant software whenever I can. But I'm not going to
refuse to call my family when I can use something that will work. And
using Skype is better (and much cheaper) than paying global roaming cell
phone charges.

Horses for courses.

   Craig

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Craig Southeren          Post Increment – VoIP Consulting and Software
 craigs at postincrement.com.au                   www.postincrement.com.au

 Phone:  +61 243654666      ICQ: #86852844
 Fax:    +61 243656905      MSN: craig_southeren at hotmail.com
 Mobile: +61 417231046      

 "It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile.
  Be yourself, no matter what they say."   Sting