Packetizer NewsPacketizer News provides information of interest to the many people who frequent the Packetizer.com web site2020-02-03T03:00:00ZPacketizer Newshttps://www.packetizer.com/feeds/news.xmlCopyright (C) 2024 Packetizer, Inc.Packetizer News Feed Generatorhttps://www.packetizer.com/rss/images/packetizer.pngCelebrating 20 Yearshttps://www.packetizer.com/news/422020-02-03T03:00:00Z2020-02-03T03:00:00Z<p>
This month marks Packetizer’s 20th anniversary. It is hard to believe it has been that long since Packetizer first began publishing content on the <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/i/internet/">Internet</a>. With tens of thousands of visitors every month, it has been remarkable to see the site blossom and prove to be a valuable resource for people interested to learn more about <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/voip/">VoIP</a> and <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/vc/">videoconferencing</a> technologies.
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Over the years, the site has grown to offer various software products and other informational content that is useful to both developers of protocols and to those desiring to secure information. We also added some fun stuff that’s utterly useless beyond entertainment, like an implementation of <a href=" https://www.packetizer.com/labs/cs/sierpinski_triangle/">Sierpinski Triangle</a> and <a href=" https://www.packetizer.com/labs/cs/cambridge.html">Cambridge Obfuscator</a>.
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While we have seen amazing interest in tools like <a href=" https://www.aescrypt.com/">AES Crypt</a> and had a lot of fun with other technologies along the way, the primary motivation for creating Packetizer was to educate developers and users in the area of collaborative technologies and we remain focused on that. We value open standards and appreciate the fact that we have witnessed and been a part of a transition from legacy <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/p/pstn/">PSTN</a> technology to <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/i/ip/">IP</a>-based technologies. That said, we are saddened by the fact that open standards are not embraced as much today as they were before.
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Years ago, developers and consumers were interested in <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h323/">H.323</a> and <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/s/sip/">SIP</a> for voice and video communications. For a while, <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/x/xmpp/">XMPP</a> was hot for instant messaging and presence. As time progressed, though, we witnessed a regression in the industry to proprietary systems and protocols, with H.323 and SIP used only as bridging protocols between proprietary islands. In many ways, that’s disappointing.
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Nonetheless, Packetizer has been and will remain a resource for packet-switched conversational protocols. Perhaps with time, people will begin to realize again the importance of industry standards and we can see a renewed interest in and growth of technologies that work with each other. We would still love to see something like <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h325/">H.325</a> become a reality.
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Packetizer Now Supporting HTTPShttps://www.packetizer.com/news/412015-08-17T16:51:11Z2015-08-17T16:51:11Z<p>
Perhaps long overdue, but Packetizer is making the migration to use HTTPS to secure all communications between you and our servers. While there really isn’t much in terms of confidential information shared via Packetizer, using HTTPS is nonetheless a way to help further protect your privacy.
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The first move was to switch the primary web site (www.packetizer.com) to HTTPS. All URLs you might have on your sites, documentation, bookmarked, etc. will still work, as we redirect all HTTP queries to HTTPS. Even so, you might wish to update your links where it makes sense.
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The next step, which we will be undertaking over the coming months, is the support of HTTPS on all of our subdomains and secondary domains. We are going to take advantage of the free certificates that will be made available via the <a href="https://letsencrypt.org/">Let’s Encrypt</a> initiative. That’s an awesome move by the industry, just in case you have not heard about it.
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If you find any broken links on the site due to the move from HTTP to HTTPS, or if you get any browser warnings, please let us know about it. Since we operate several domains running a limited number of servers, we do utilize <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication">Server Name Identification</a> (SNI). Older browsers do not support that. However, if your browser is so old that it does not work today, you really need to just move to a new, secure browser.
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IETF Publishes WebFinger Specificationhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/392013-09-27T23:10:40Z2013-09-27T23:10:40Z<p>
<a href="https://www.techabulary.com/w/webfinger/">WebFinger</a> is a protocol that allows one to discover information about people or other entities on the Internet. It is possible, for example, to take one's email address (actually an "acct:" URI that looks like an email address) and discover information that that person wishes to share.
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For example, a user might share an avatar, various means to contact them, or even their <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org">Bitcoin</a> address to receive money.
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The specification was published today by the IETF as <a href="https://www.packetizer.com/rfc/rfc7033/">RFC 7033</a>, after several years of effort by a large number of interested people.
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You can learn more about WebFinger <a href="http://www.packetizer.com/webfinger/">here</a>.
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Packetizer Makes an Open Source WebFinger Server Availablehttps://www.packetizer.com/news/372013-03-30T01:01:39Z2013-03-30T01:01:39Z<p>
<a href="https://www.techabulary.com/w/webfinger/">WebFinger</a> is a new Internet protocol that allows people to find information about people and things on the Internet. For example, suppose you receive an email from somebody and would like to return a call to the person, but do not have the person in your contact list. If the person publishes his phone number via WebFinger, then your email client can quickly discover the phone number and provide it to you as a contact option. A person can publish nearly anything via WebFinger, including contact information, blog locations, social network identifiers, avatars, or nearly anything else.
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Technically, one does not actually publish information within the WebFinger protocol itself. Rather, one publishes this information somewhere else on the Internet; WebFinger just points to that information. WebFinger essentially returns a set of links of a various types. Clients looking for particular information, such as a picture or phone number, would make additional queries to links listed in the WebFinger response. Since each link is labeled with a clearly identifiable link relation type, the client can quickly find exactly what information it is seeking.
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WebFinger can simplify interaction with social networking sites, blogs, or other web sites wherein you might normally have an account and log in. When you visit a web site, you can simply provide your account identifier (e.g., your email address). The web site you are visiting can then query information about you, perhaps displaying the name and avatar you published via WebFinger. If the site allows you to post information about yourself, it might allow you to log into the site and WebFinger can help facilitate a seamless login experience using technologies like OpenID Connect.
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Packetizer created an open source implementation of a <a href="http://www.packetizer.com/webfinger/server.html">WebFinger server</a> that you are free to download and use on your web site. There are actually several WebFinger <a href="http://www.packetizer.com/webfinger/software.html">server and client implementations</a> already available from various developers.
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Introducing Pug, The Cloud File Archiverhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/362013-01-04T05:05:43Z2013-01-04T05:05:43Z<p>
Pug is automated backup software designed for use on Linux that allows one to copy files on a server to cloud storage, compressing and encrypting each file individually before uploading.
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Unlike other backup solutions that require use of external physical storage and backing up the same data over and over again, Pug works incrementally. As new files are created or as files change, Pug pushes them into the cloud. Only new or changed files are backed up and every version (or as many versions as you specify) is maintained in the cloud, any one of which may be immediately accessed. Further, Pug is smart enough to recognize that two files are identical and only archives a single copy of a file in cloud storage, thus reducing storage costs.
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Pug uses Amazon S3 for cloud storage, through the software is designed so that changes can easily be made to support other cloud storage services.
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To learn more about Pug, visit the <a href="http://pug.packetizer.com/">Pug</a> home page!
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Packetizer Enables DNSSEChttps://www.packetizer.com/news/352012-08-17T05:36:13Z2012-08-17T05:36:13Z<p>
People are well aware of the fact that there are many security vulnerabilities on the Internet. Perhaps one of the biggest that has largely gone unaddressed is security for the Domain Name System (DNS) that is used on the Internet to, among other things, map names to IP addresses and to identify mail servers. Virtually every domain on the Internet today is insecure in this respect. An attacker in a position to respond to DNS queries and provide bogus replies can intercept confidential corporate email messages, direct people to phishing sites, etc.
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The DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) were defined to address this serious vulnerability on the Internet. The extensions are documented in <a href="https://www.packetizer.com/rfc/rfc4033/">RFC 4033</a>, <a href="https://www.packetizer.com/rfc/rfc4034/">RFC 4034</a>, and <a href="https://www.packetizer.com/rfc/rfc4035/">RFC 4035</a>. They have been around for years now, but only recently has the Internet community taken forward steps to enable DNSSEC.
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A number of <a href="http://www.icann.org/en/news/in-focus/dnssec/deployment">registrars now support DNSSEC</a>, including Packetizer’s registrar. So, we decided to enable DNSSEC. At the moment, there are really very few domains that are protected with DNSSEC, but the number of sites is expected to increase significantly in the next year or two.
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Interested in setting up DNSSEC on your own site? Here’s a brief “<a href=" http://www.packetizer.com/people/paulej/blog/35">how to</a>”.
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Announcing Packetizer Open Community Specificationshttps://www.packetizer.com/news/322011-10-16T23:26:42Z2011-10-16T23:26:42Z<p>
Packetizer is pleased to announce the creation of a set of specifications referred to as the <a href="http://www.packetizer.com/pocs/">Packetizer Open Community Specifications</a> (POCS). These specifications are intended to document new protocols or extensions to existing protocols that are created by the public at large.
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The first specification published (<a href="https://hive.packetizer.com/users/packetizer/pocs/POCS-1.pdf">POCS-1</a>) is titled “Using OPTIONS to Query for Operational Status in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)” and is a document the authors tried to publish through the IETF. It failed to gain traction, not because equipment manufacturers are not implementing the procedures (they are, actually), but because trying to get consensus in the IETF is sometimes like herding a bunch of cats. Rather than expending significant effort trying to jump through hurdles, the authors decided to publish the specification so there is a permanent record, but outside the IETF.
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The second document published (<a href="https://hive.packetizer.com/users/packetizer/pocs/POCS-2.pdf">POCS-2</a>) is titled “Transmission of a Session Capacity Estimate (SCE) to Prevent Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Server Overload” and represents a valid and proven approach to preventing overload of SIP entities, particularly devices like <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/s/sbc/">Session Border Controllers</a>. In this case, the IETF opted to limit the scope of their work such that SBCs and similar devices could not benefit from the defined overload mechanism. Specifically, the scope of the work in the IETF was on stateless entities like stateless SIP proxies. In the real world, there are many SBCs and a better approach is needed.
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Packetizer would like to extend an invitation to the Packetizer community to publish new and different specifications as POCS documents. The type of documents that would be accepted include anything that might be of interest to the Packetizer community, including extensions to existing communication protocols, new web protocols, protocols for cloud computing support, etc.
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Electronic Meetings to Progress AMS to Resumehttps://www.packetizer.com/news/312010-10-01T03:39:57Z2010-10-01T03:39:57Z<p>
Earlier this year, work on <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h325/">AMS</a>, the ITU-T’s next-generation multimedia communication system, was conducted through electronic meetings held twice each month. As the SG16 meeting at the end of July 2010 approached, the meetings were suspended. It is now time to resume those meetings and a meeting schedule has been posted to the <a href="http://www.packetizer.com/calendar/">Packetizer Calendar</a> page.
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The electronic meetings are open to all who are interested in helping to progress the work on the revolutionary new multimedia system. Part of the time during the first meeting, to be held October 5, 2010, will be spent bringing participants up to speed on the work done so far, what work is currently being actively studied, and what needs to be done. Subsequent meetings will consider contributions submitted by participants as they are submitted.
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If you have any questions or wish to engage, visit the site <a href="http://www.h325.com/">www.h325.com</a> for more information, including subscription information to the mailing list.
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Understanding and Troubleshooting Videoconferencing Networks - UW Coursehttps://www.packetizer.com/news/302010-08-31T22:56:26Z2010-08-31T22:56:26Z<p>
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will offer its very popular course <a href="http://epdweb.engr.wisc.edu/courseL800">Understanding and Troubleshooting Videoconferencing Networks</a> on November 2-3, 2010. The course will be held on the University campus in Madison, WI and will also be available via live videoconferencing.
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By attending this course, you will master the <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h323/">H.323</a> standard and embedded protocols and then extend this understanding to SIP based and proprietary systems. Topics include:
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• H.323 standard: components and functions<br/>
• Call signal processing and audio/video data flow<br/>
• QOS: options, implementation issues<br/>
• How ITU H.323 relates to IETF SIP and MGCP/Megaco<br/>
• Options for handling firewalls in the network<br/>
• Addressing and directory services<br/>
• Performance characteristics of various audio and video codecs<br/>
• Network security and other advanced features<br/>
• High definition videoconferencing options and content display<br/>
• Troubleshooting and analysis tools and techniques<br/>
• Understanding audio and video compression technology
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Your course instructor, Gary Thom, is President of Delta Information Systems, a recognized expert in the field of videoconferencing, and the author of versions 1 & 2 of the H.323 standard.
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Reserve your space today!<br/>
Call toll-free 1-800-462-0876<br/>
Or online at <a href="http://epdweb.engr.wisc.edu/courseL800">http://epdweb.engr.wisc.edu/courseL800</a>
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Symantec is Blocking Ericsson and Othershttps://www.packetizer.com/news/282010-05-10T16:36:16Z2010-05-10T16:36:16Z<p>
We have reported several times about our email server being blocked by spam-fighting organizations. While most organizations are quick to respond, some refuse to address the issue and others refuse to even talk to us about the issue. What's most frustrating is that our mail server does not send spam.
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We are still blocked by SORBS, who told us without hesitation that, until Amazon pays them money, they're not going to unblock our address. The way they phrased their demands, it sounded like extortion to us. Apparently, they block all Amazon IP addresses and, since our mail server operates in the Amazon EC2 cloud, customers of SORBS are unable to participate on mailing lists we operate on Packetizer, specifically <a href="http://lists.packetizer.com">lists.packetizer.com</a>.
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More recently, Symantec has become a problem. Sadly, this is an organization that we could generally consider more reputable than others. Unfortunately, the company decided to block our mail server by assigning it a 'bad' reputation. This has affected Ericsson and perhaps other companies that would normally participate in ITU-T SG16 activities.
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We tried contacting Symantec and they told us that they will not correct the problem, since we are not their customer. We've tried to explain that their customers are entirely unaware of the fact that they are being blocked, but they did not care. We alerted Ericsson once we became aware of this issue, but we do not have any way of knowing if other companies are blocked due to use of Symantec's Brightmail or other spam blocking services or products offered by Symantec.
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If you attempt to join a mailing list on Packetizer and never get a response indicating that you successfully joined and your company uses Symantec products or services, then Symantec may be to blame.
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OpenID Gaining Widespread Supporthttps://www.packetizer.com/news/272010-03-27T20:25:13Z2010-03-27T20:25:13Z<p>
<a href="http://openid.net/">OpenID</a> is a web technology that allows a user have a single user identity and password that may be used to access any number of web sites, thus removing the age-old problem of having to maintain separate login and passwords for all of the various accounts on has on the Internet.
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It is now supported by many web sites, including Google, Slashdot, Blogger, Flickr, Yahoo, Orange, MySpace, WordPress, AOL, and Facebook. Some of those organizations are 'identity providers', while some are end-user sites that rely on the identity providers to allow users to gain access to site content.
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We produced an <a href="/security/openid/">OpenID identity server software</a> package for anybody who might be interested in running their own identity server. Perhaps equally important, though, is that we also added support to <a href="http://forums.packetizer.com/">Packetizer Forums</a> so that one may use OpenID to login, post questions, or reply to questions.
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We hope OpenID support proves to be a popular and valuable service to the Packetizer Community.
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H.325 Experts Progress Standard through Electronic Meetingshttps://www.packetizer.com/news/262009-11-30T01:07:03Z2009-11-30T01:07:03Z<p>
At the most recent meeting of ITU-T SG16, the H.325 experts decided to initiate a series of electronic meetings in order to help progress the work. For those interested in participating in the creation of this exciting new multimedia system, see the <a href="http://lists.packetizer.com/pipermail/h325-design/2009-November/000086.html">meeting notice</a> posted on the h325-design mailing list.
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IP Address Blacklisting Still an Issuehttps://www.packetizer.com/news/252009-11-22T00:30:51Z2009-11-22T00:30:51Z<p>
As we <a href="https://www.packetizer.com/news/23">reported earlier</a>, a number of spam-fighting organizations decided to block part or all of Amazon's EC2 service. This caused significant disruption to the mailing lists that we operate on Packetizer's mailing list server, including which provides list services for those working on ITU-T related work.
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This past month, Spamhaus decided to block all of Amazon, in spite of the fact that we had previously submitted our IP address for removal at Spamhaus. That resulted in about 30 people getting kicked off of various mailing lists. So, if anybody reading this is wondering why you have not received email in a while related to H.323, H.325 or other protocols, Spamhaus might be the reason.
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Fortunately, Spamhaus and Amazon quickly reached an agreement on how better coordinate in order to ensure that all of Amazon's EC2 IP addresses are not blocked again. To that end, Amazon now requests all mail servers to be registered with Amazon, which of course we did immediately. Amazon reviewed our request and granted authorization to use the server in order to transmit email.
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On or about the same time, unfortunately, Amazon was also listed in MAPS and SORBS, two other spam-fighting organizations. We visited the MAPS web site, provided our IP address, and were almost immediately removed from their list.
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SORBS, on the other hand, has been a real problem. The organization absolutely refuses to unblock Amazon EC2 or our individual address. We contacted SORBS and, while they were responsive, their reply was less than satisfactory. One of the more polite statements was:
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<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid #168620; background: #f2f2f2"><div style="border-left: 1em solid #f2f2f2; padding: 0.3em 0.5em 0.3em 0em;">You are not required to make a donation for delisting as the entry was not generated because of your actions, however the listing will not be removed until your service provider terminates the spammers or makes the required donation.</div></blockquote>
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That is perhaps the closest thing we have ever seen to extortion. Sadly, while we continued to have a friendly dialog, after 20 days our mail server is still blocked by SORBS. It would appear they have absolutely no intention of removing Amazon EC2 and we do not believe that Amazon has any intent to work with them either. We can only suggest that if your company is using SORBS, you consider using an alternative blacklisting service.
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IP Address Blacklisting Issueshttps://www.packetizer.com/news/232009-09-25T01:50:32Z2009-09-25T01:50:32Z<p>
Spam has been a problem for years and it seems almost impossible to address. Two years ago, Packetizer was receiving thousands of spam messages per day and we were forced to implement various spam blocking technologies, including blacklisting IP addresses. As much as we hated to do that, it became necessary, as it was otherwise impossible to find and read the legitimate email. We also began employing technologies like SPF and are also now using DKIM, digitally signing every message transmitted by our mail server.
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It was never our intention to block legitimate mail servers and as issues were brought to our attention, we took immediate steps to resolve the problems. Our servers would provide a response back to senders when they are blocked and we also provided a <a href="http://www.packetizer.net/spamcontrol/">tool</a> where anyone can query to see if their server is blocked.
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In the spring of 2009, our mail server was re-located and is now running inside Amazon's EC2 cloud service. We were assigned a static IP address and have been using that same IP address for all outbound mail since. Initially, we were somewhat disappointed to learn that our server was actually blacklisted on a few Internet blacklists. However, we were quickly able to resolve those issues with the more legitimate blacklisting organizations, such as <a href="http://www.spamhaus.org/">Spamhaus</a> and <a href="http://www.spamcop.net/">Spamcop</a>. Unfortunately, <a href="http://www.uceprotect.net/">UCE PROTECT</a> was not very willing to cooperate. After a month of negotiating, they finally agreed to remove us from their list.
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The reason our server was on their list is because we run mailing lists and some bots subscribe (or attempt to subscribe) to mailing lists using bogus addresses, to which our server politely responds with a welcome message, assuming the message passes the SPF test. (We are presently not enforcing DKIM, but will once this is generally practiced.) Unfortunately, UCE PROTECT treats those messages as spam messages and then places our server on the blacklist.
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Packetizer was not listed on UCE PROTECT's blacklist for several months, but it appears we are now listed again. We attempted to contact UCE PROTECT via email and were blocked. So, there appears to be little or nothing we can do: we cannot even discuss the issue.
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Unfortunately, many people on the <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h323/">H.323</a> Announce list and other mailing lists are not receiving messages and, in some cases, are being removed from mailing lists due to message rejections. Please note that this is not our fault and if you find yourself unsubscribed, definitely feel welcome to subscribe again. If your service provider or employer is using UCE PROTECT, you may wish to ask them to stop using the service.
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Announcing Packetizer Forumshttps://www.packetizer.com/news/222009-08-25T07:22:37Z2009-08-25T07:22:37Z<p>
With the increased focus on <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/vc/">videoconferencing</a> and <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/voip/">VoIP</a> communications, there has also been an increase in the number of questions people have about implementation, configuration, deployment, troubleshooting, etc. Some questions are rather straight-forward, while some really require the expertise of people who have been working in the area for a while.
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Packetizer is a community-driven web site that operates a number of different mailing lists and publishes a lot of material in an effort to try to help people build, design, and deploy multimedia communications technologies. On Packetizer, you will find high-level overviews about VoIP, frequently asked implementation questions and details, tutorials, and so forth. However, even with all of the resources already available, there seemed to be something more needed.
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After collaborating with a number of people in the community and taking a poll, it was decided that a new discussion forum would be useful. As a result, we created a new site called <a href="http://forums.packetizer.com/">Packetizer Forums</a>, which is open to everybody to ask questions, provide answers, and to learn. Oh, and having fun never hurts.
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We hope you enjoy the added service!
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H.323 and H.325 Moving Forwardhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/212009-06-19T03:30:12Z2009-06-19T03:30:12Z<p>
The increased focus on <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/vc/">videoconferencing</a> has brought with it a renewed interest in <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h323/">H.323</a>. While this is not entirely surprising, given that H.323 was specifically designed to enable video communications over packet-switched networks, it is nonetheless an indication that H.323 is still a major force in the market.
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Over the past several months, we have received an increased number of inquiries related to H.323 on topics related to tools, deployment, protocol questions, etc. Additionally, others in the videoconferencing community, including equipment vendors and stack vendors, have also reported an increase in activity, including sales, feature requests, and so forth.
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With all of this renewed focus on H.323, it was a surprise to receive one message that asked whether there was any work going on related to H.323 since it had been several years since H.323 was updated. Indeed, it has been a few years. Even so, there has definitely been work going on behind the scenes.
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In fact, the ITU is planning to approve H.323v7 in November. There are also several other H.323-related documents currently in development scheduled for approval in November. Some may be ready, but some may be delayed. The bottom line, though, is that there is definitely active progress. See the current documents in progress here: <a href="http://www.packetizer.com/ipmc/h323/doc_status.html">http://www.packetizer.com/ipmc/h323/doc_status.html</a>
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Equally important, though, is the fact that there is not as much progress as in previous years on H.323, simply because the standard is fairly mature. There are topics related to Telepresence that the ITU will likely explore, but H.323 is already well-suited for such applications: it is a very stable and mature protocol at this point.
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In parallel to the work on H.323, though, there is work on a very new multimedia system that has been slowly moving forward. The new system is called the Advanced Multimedia System (AMS), also known as <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h325/">H.325</a>. H.325 is still in the requirements gathering phase, but the road ahead is fairly clear. H.325 will be an application platform that will enable multimedia communications applications to work together in order to provide a rich communication experience. The objective is to enable users to use any number of devices together seamlessly in a communication session. Equally important, by decomposing the multimedia system into a control element and a set of applications, the system will truly be an open platform upon which application developers will be able to create and deliver new features and functionality without being dependent on any other vendor. It is truly going to be a revolutionary technology that is unparalleled by anything in the industry today.
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These are definitely some exciting times. Without a doubt, the ITU continues to lead the charge in delivering powerful multimedia communication systems for the 21st century. And, Packetizer is committed to sharing information with the world on the progress of those standards.
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Packetizer Deploys XMPP for Instant Messaginghttps://www.packetizer.com/news/202009-01-05T00:10:17Z2009-01-05T00:10:17Z<p>
With all of the emphasis on VoIP, one of the related technologies that we have not addressed as sufficiently as we should have is <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/i/im/">instant messaging</a>. During the holidays, Packetizer deployed an open source <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/x/xmpp/">XMPP</a> server called <a href="http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/">Openfire</a>. To our delight, it worked flawlessly and significantly better than we had expected. Within minutes, we had the server up and running and communicating with the Google Talk service. Read more about this standard that has become the <a href="https://www.dailypayload.com/permalink/3129">leader in enterprise instant messaging</a>.
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Packetizer Makes Improvements to Daily Payloadhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/192008-10-23T04:17:17Z2008-10-23T04:17:17Z<p>
We are continually working to improve the content offered on Packetizer. Most recently we made significant revisions to the look and feel of <a href="http://www.dailypayload.com">Daily Payload</a>. For those who are not familiar with Daily Payload, it is a site where we publish terse summaries and links to news headlines related to <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/voip/">VoIP</a>, <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/vc/">videoconferencing</a>, mobile communication, <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/w/wifi/">WiFi</a>, <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/w/wimax/">WiMax</a>, <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/i/im/">IM</a>, and other technologies related to multimedia communication.
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There are two obvious and significant changes that you can immediately see when you visit Daily Payload. The first is that we've changed the color scheme. We now have a light gray background on the sides and a black header across the top. The second and perhaps most substantial change is the logo. We now have a new logo that appears on all pages and the e-mail messages that get sent to subscribers of the Daily Payload news e-mail lists.
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One of the features that we added to Daily Payload some time ago is a view of the site designed specifically for mobile devices. If you use a mobile device, you might find that you are redirected to dailypayload.com/mobile. Or, perhaps you will not. We do not have the signatures for every possible mobile device out there, but Windows Mobile, iPhone, and a few other mobile devices are recognized and users are automatically redirected to the /mobile section.
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Another feature added a long time ago is an RSS feed. That probably needs little mention, since it is clear from the volume of traffic to the site that many people have discovered this one. But, in case you are not aware, we do syndicate the postings on Daily Payload via RSS.
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A new feature that we have added, but not immediately visible, is the ability to post complete articles on the site through the web browser. We plan to start publishing more original content and would invite people from the public to submit content, as well. If you are interested to write a news article, send it to us for review. We do not object to product promotions, as long as the article also contains useful and interesting information on voice, videoconferencing, or related technologies.
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Lastly, feel free to send us feedback on anything you like or don't like. We welcome the input to help improve the growing Packetizer community.
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Progress on the Advanced Multimedia Systemhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/182008-09-07T23:32:32Z2008-09-07T23:32:32Z<p>
ITU-T Q12/16 met the last week of August to make progress on the Advanced Multimedia System (AMS), the next-generation multimedia communication system that will enable users to communicate using a multiplicity of communication modes across any number of independent devices. The focus of this meeting was primarily on network architecture and requirements. Read the <a href="https://www.dailypayload.com/permalink/3064">full story here</a>.
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Advanced Multimedia System Takes Stepshttps://www.packetizer.com/news/172008-07-03T20:06:07Z2008-07-03T20:06:07Z<p>
Experts working on the next generation multimedia communication system known as AMS recently completed a meeting, reaching some important decisions on architecture, terminology, and protocol syntax used in the new system. The new system will be a decomposed system, allowing anyone to create new applications and will utilize <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/x/xml/">XML</a> as the basis for the signaling protocol. You can read the <a href="https://www.dailypayload.com/permalink/3034">full story here</a>.
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VoIP Bandwidth Calculator Now Multilingualhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/152008-02-21T23:07:37Z2008-02-21T23:07:37Z<p>
The Packetizer <a href="http://www.bandcalc.com">VoIP Bandwidth Calculator</a> was recently updated to include a Spanish translation! This is exciting since, although Packetizer's visitors come from nearly every country in the world, this is the first non-English web page published by Packetizer. While trying to make the entire Packetizer site multilingual would prove to be a nearly impossible task, certain content like the VoIP Bandwidth Calculator are definitely good candidates for translation since it is such a useful tool.
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We would like to reach out to the Packetizer Community and ask for your help: if you are a user of the VoIP Bandwidth Calculator and would be willing to provide us with a translation into a different language, do it! We will gladly put up any language version that is provided to us. All we would need is a translation of the text that appears on the page in your language in either a Word file or a UTF-8-encoded .txt file.
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Industry Makes Progress on AMShttps://www.packetizer.com/news/142008-01-28T18:41:27Z2008-01-28T18:41:27Z<p>
ITU-T SG16 Question 12 met last week in Seoul, South Korea to make progress on the requirements for the Advanced Multimedia System (AMS). A lot of progress was made, with requirements coming from several companies and integrated into a single document. While the requirements have largely focused on the terminal equipment thus far, it is very clear that AMS represents a significantly different kind of system than what was delivered with legacy systems like <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/s/sip/">SIP</a> and <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h323/">H.323</a>. The next SG16 meeting at the end of April 2008 will make more progress on requirements, but will also begin to seriously examine system architecture proposals.
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H.323 Plus Site Launchedhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/132007-10-25T18:56:00Z2007-10-25T18:56:00Z<p>
For those working on open source H.323 projects, you have undoubtedly had some difficulty accessing mailing lists, finding current code, or finding a person to whom you could ask questions. Further, the old OpenH323 site has not been updated for nearly four years. We found that terribly unfortunate since work is and has been actively ongoing, in spite of the OpenH323 site owner's reluctance to keep the site updated. So we worked with the open source developer community to launch a new open source H.323 web site and created new associated mailing lists. The new site is called <a href="http://www.h323plus.org">H.323 Plus</a> (or, as some prefer, "H323plus").
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SIP's Success is Dependent on Misinformationhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/122007-10-04T03:33:58Z2007-10-04T03:33:58Z<p>
We are repeatedly hearing that <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/s/sip/">SIP</a> is an "emerging" technology (for a decade now!) and that SIP is simpler than <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h323/">H.323</a>, etc. Well, most of the folks who frequent Packetizer know very well this is a lie. Today, I <a href="http://pr-gb.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26106&Itemid=9">read and article</a> that really took this to the extreme, saying that SIP had better "voice performance". SIP uses RTP. H.323 uses RTP. SIP uses the same codecs as H.323. <i>They have the <b>same</b> voice performance</i>. Is the success of SIP dependently entirely on ignorance and misinformation?
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The Death of VoIP and the Re-Birth of Multimedia Communicationshttps://www.packetizer.com/news/112007-10-02T15:33:04Z2007-10-02T15:33:04Z<p>
While <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/voip/">VoIP</a> is still considered to be a very young technology in the eyes of many, it has made a huge impact on the telecommunications business. But, VoIP was just a first step. What is about to come with AMS is another revolution in communication that will enable far more capability and functionality than the first generation VoIP networks of today. See <a href="https://www.dailypayload.com/permalink/2842">this article</a>.
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AMS Project Descriptionhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/102007-09-14T15:06:02Z2007-09-14T15:06:02Z<p>
The ITU completed work on the <a href="http://www.packetizer.com/voip/ams/papers/ams_project_description.pdf">AMS Project Description</a>. The Advanced Multimedia System (AMS) is viewed as a significant leap forward for multimedia systems, with capabilities that extend beyond the classic videoconferencing systems of today. With AMS, users would be able to use a multiplicity of devices and applications, seamlessly interconnected, in order to enable provide a significantly improved means of communicating than was ever possible before. This is very cool technology!
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ITU to Make Standards Available for Freehttps://www.packetizer.com/news/92007-09-05T17:37:26Z2007-09-05T17:37:26Z<p>
Back in December, there was news that the ITU would publish its standards <a href="https://www.dailypayload.com/permalink/2537">free of charge</a>. This was a temporary "trial" period, as it turned out. However, today we learned that the ITU has decided to make the standards available free of charge permanently.
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VoIP Jobs RSS News Feed is Hot (and Cold)https://www.packetizer.com/news/82007-08-07T03:59:32Z2007-08-07T03:59:32Z<p>
We re-introduced the <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/voip/">VoIP</a> jobs page about 10 months ago. Unfortunately, we've had very few job postings (in spite of the fact that listing is free). Thinking we ought to just get rid of the page, I checked the server statistics and discovered that the RSS news feed is viewed by a large number of people and pulls in more hits than any other single file on Packetizer! So, we'll keep it here a while longer. I sure do wish employers would take note and use the opportunity to reach a wide audience!
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8x8 Makes a Profit on Revenues of US$14.7Mhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/72007-08-02T19:51:15Z2007-08-02T19:51:15Z<p>
8x8, the company behind the Packet8 <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/v/voip/">VoIP</a> service, <a href="https://www.dailypayload.com/permalink/2783">reported a profit</a> of $508,000 on revenues of $14.7M, or a penny per share. Hats off to 8x8!
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New Technology: Advanced Multimedia Systemhttps://www.packetizer.com/news/62007-07-23T18:41:23Z2007-07-23T18:41:23Z<p>
The ITU-T SG16 <a href="http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/newslog/Third+Generation+Multimedia+System+Work+Accelerates.aspx">formally initiated work</a> on a new multimedia system called the Advanced Multimedia System (AMS). This new system will take a leap forward beyond the now decade-old <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/h/h323/">H.323</a> and <a href="https://www.techabulary.com/s/sip/">SIP</a> systems that are currently used in the industry. Check out the <a href="http://www.packetizer.com/voip/ams/papers/advanced_multimedia_system_concept.pdf">concept slides</a>.
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