Archive for September, 2007
As a follow-up to our story from last year, the VoIP hacker who made a million stealing VoIP service has an interview with InformationWeek:
Convicted hacker Robert Moore, who is set to go to federal prison this week, says breaking into 15 telecommunications companies and hundreds of businesses worldwide was incredibly easy because simple IT mistakes left gaping technical holes.
Moore, 23, of Spokane, Wash., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer fraud and is slated to begin his two-year sentence on Thursday for his part in a scheme to steal voice over IP services and sell them through a separate company. While prosecutors call co-conspirator Edwin Pena the mastermind of the operation, Moore acted as the hacker, admittedly scanning and breaking into telecom companies and other corporations around the world.
"It’s so easy. It’s so easy a caveman can do it," Moore told InformationWeek, laughing. "When you’ve got that many computers at your fingertips, you’d be surprised how many are insecure."
Saturday, September 29th, 2007 | Posted in WiFi VoIP | No Comments »
From PC World:
The British are bringing VOIP to your iPhone.
In a demonstration at this year’s DEMOfall07, British VOIP provider Truphone showed conventioneers how to use the iPhone’s built-in Wi-Fi capability to make calls over Truphone’s VOIP network. Truphone representatives demonstrated how a call can be initiated from a handset and then routed to Truphone’s server via Wi-Fi.
Truphone spokesman Tim Donnelly Smith emphasized that the event at DEMOfall07 was only a demonstration and was not intended to be a commercial launch. He also said that the program is a native application that is installed through third-party application installers, and does not require cracking the iPhone’s SIM card. This is significant in the wake of Apple’s declaration earlier this week that "many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet" could render the device "permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed." Several iPhone users have reported that installing Apple’s iPhone 1.1.1 update rendered their unlocked iPhones useless.
Bad news for Vonage , via the AP:
For the second time in two days, Internet phone company Vonage Holdings Corp. was hit with bad legal news Wednesday when a federal appeals court upheld a March jury verdict and injunction against it for patent infringement.
The company’s shares sank to 93 cents, their lowest level since Vonage went public in May 2006.
A Virginia jury awarded Verizon 
Communications Corp. $58 million in damages plus 5.5 percent royalties on future revenues after finding that Vonage violated three Verizon patents in building its Internet phone system.
On Tuesday, Vonage was ordered to pay Sprint Nextel $69.5 million in damages after a jury found that Vonage willfully infringed on six Sprint telecommunications patents.
Verizon spokesman Peter Thonis said Wednesday’s ruling ‘’speaks for itself.”
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 | Posted in VoIP News | No Comments »
Yet another free VoIP service provider on the block: Pudding Media, and once again, an interesting business model.
Pudding says that it will offer free VoIP calling (to any phone in North America) if users agree to allow the company’s voice recognition software listen in, serving up targeted advertisements on the user’s screen during the conversation.
While some are decrying "privacy concerns" with this plan, this claim is difficult to take seriously. Pudding is upfront about the fact that calls will be monitored; those who don’t like this policy can take their VoIP calls elsewhere. Besides, Pudding says that they’ll offer "fun, entertaining and valuable information" by monitoring calls. Who could be against that? Take this example from Pudding Media’s Web site:
It’s Saturday night. You plan to go to a movie with Ashley. But which movie should you see…? Time to call her and decide. You surf to ThePudding.com and call Ashley for free. As soon as you start talking about movies, a list of local movies, complete with reviews and show times appear on the screen. Now, what about dinner? Just talking about where to get dinner, and offers for local restaurants are displayed. Now you and Ashley have everything you need for dinner and a movie! Oh and just a few clicks and you’ve reserved the tickets and a table. Sweet!
All we can say is sign us up!! Or, perhaps not.
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 | Posted in VoIP News | No Comments »
Yet another free VoIP service provider on the block: Pudding Media, and once again, an interesting business model.
Pudding says that it will offer free VoIP calling (to any phone in North America) if users agree to allow the company’s voice recognition software listen in, serving up targeted advertisements on the user’s screen during the conversation.
While some are decrying "privacy concerns" with this plan, this claim is difficult to take seriously. Pudding is upfront about the fact that calls will be monitored; those who don’t like this policy can take their VoIP calls elsewhere. Besides, Pudding says that they’ll offer "fun, entertaining and valuable information" by monitoring calls. Who could be against that? Take this example from Pudding Media’s Web site:
It’s Saturday night. You plan to go to a movie with Ashley. But which movie should you see…? Time to call her and decide. You surf to ThePudding.com and call Ashley for free. As soon as you start talking about movies, a list of local movies, complete with reviews and show times appear on the screen. Now, what about dinner? Just talking about where to get dinner, and offers for local restaurants are displayed. Now you and Ashley have everything you need for dinner and a movie! Oh and just a few clicks and you’ve reserved the tickets and a table. Sweet!
All we can say is sign us up!! Or, perhaps not.
Friday, September 21st, 2007 | Posted in Hardware | No Comments »
There are two main types of computer monitors, the old, but extremely reliable CRT monitor and the newer flat panel monitors. If you have been computer shopping, you will immediately notice that the older monitors have all, but disappeared. You might be saying what gives? Well, for most computer users the flat panel monitor has definite advantages over the older CRT monitors. (more…)
Thursday, September 20th, 2007 | Posted in VoIP News | No Comments »
Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote Systems (Nasdaq: KEYN), today announced the top-line results of its newest study of voice quality including VoIP, packet cable and traditional phone service (PSTN). The new study reveals that while packet cable digital voice and Voice over IP offerings still lag in quality, they are proving to be highly competitive with traditional PSTN service providers. This finding is of great significance to VoIP providers who are under increasing market pressure to understand and prevent high rates of customer attrition and churn in a rapidly changing market.
In order to benchmark and rank the quality of consumer voice services, Keynote measured the relative performance of the leading voice providers in the New York and San Francisco markets, including digital cable voice services, adapter-based Voice over IP services, and PSTN service in those cities. Keynote then rated the leading voice service providers on critical performance factors that influence the end-user experience using Keynote’s commercially available Voice Perspective®, an on-demand voice quality test and measurement service.
More from Keynote Systems
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 | Posted in VoIP News | No Comments »
According to eWeek, Yahoo acquired open source software maker Zimbra for US$350 million in a bid to expand its presence in universities and businesses. Zimbra’s AJAX client bundles collaboration and messaging tools, including VoIP.
Saturday, September 15th, 2007 | Posted in Internet | No Comments »
An interesting Yahoo article explains why Google is now considered the heart of the Internet and the electronic center of human knowledge.
In these 10 years of life, Google has indexed billions of web pages, images, books and even videos from all over the Internet. This is definitely a must read.
In the past years Google has expanded at a breakneck pace, and currently has some 13,700 employees. The company thrives on a culture of innovation: the best example is that it asks employees to dedicate 20 percent of their time to develop ideas for the company.
Saturday, September 15th, 2007 | Posted in Apple | No Comments »
Uh, boss? There are some guys here… I’m not sure you really wanna know what they’re doing…
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