Will Smart Contact Lenses Be the Bluetooth Headsets of the Future?

BY Stuart KartenWed Apr 21, 2010

Imagine instant access to the latest market segment information at a meeting, or seeing the fourth quarter earnings for a company in (literally) the blink of an eye.

Although it might sound like something from a science fiction novel, scientists at the University of Washington are working on solar powered contact lenses with transparent LEDs embedded onto the lens. This technology could be applied in countless ways, from health monitoring to text translation right in front of the wearer's eyes.

In 2006, my team at SKD designed a very similar concept for our "Cautionary Visions" project. Analyzing current trends in technology and popular culture, from emerging demands for constant connection to the increasingly blurred boundaries between natural and artificial, my designers imagined the dark alleys down which these trends could take us.

One of the results was an "Assisted Living Contact Lens" that would project helpful information, such as the calorie count for a chocolate scone, or a GPS map overlay locating the nearest gyms.

Now it seems like our idea might become a reality. And the more I think about it, the more it seems like this concept could be the new Bluetooth headset. I still remember an article that ran in the Los Angeles Times: "Crazy? Or Cell Phone?" I used to ask myself the same question every time I saw a well-dressed man yelling and gesturing wildly to himself.

But I haven't asked that question in years. These days, the seeming psycho-social disconnect displayed by talking to oneself in public is rarely considered grounds for insanity. The small wireless headsets that were once novelties have now become the norm. This is the process that happens once a new technology proves its relevance in users' lives.

Bluetooth has been a massive benefit to the business world--the mobility allows constant communication with clients and its hands-free operation increases efficiency and allows for easier multi-tasking. And fortunately, most headsets have been implemented in ways that meet user needs for fit, comfort and functionality. Today, it's used ubiquitously by CEOs and soccer moms.

Relevance is the challenge that new technology developers face, and it’s an area where designers can add value. Relevance involves finding the right audience for a new product, then discovering the needs of this audience and building a product around the need. When developing Jabra's first line of Bluetooth headsets in 2000, my team at SKD looked at cultural factors and found that the increasingly blurred lines between work and personal life and the desire for constant connectivity made business professionals a great group of early adopters for Bluetooth Headsets. The capability of the technology solved an unmet need in their lives.

Which takes me back to the Smart Lens. Since the Assisted Living Contact Lens was conceived, a slough of new Smart Phones have engendered a populace absorbed in palm-sized screens and created a widespread desire for on-demand information. In today's context, a Smart Lens sounds more convenient than creepy. Personally, I have a terrible memory for names. I might appreciate a contact lens that could provide labels over people's heads when I walked into a room.

So if you see me gazing off into a distant world of information that only I can see, you may have fun wondering, "Crazy? Or contact lens?"...until you get your own.

source: FastCompany.com

Protect your Asterisk Server against Brute Force Attacks

As Internet accessible corporate Voice over IP servers continue to grow in number, so does the risk of rogue individuals gaining access to SIP extensions due to weak or poorly managed Asterisk passwords.

You can protect your Asterisk server using Fail2Ban. Fail2ban scans log files like /var/log/asterisk/full or /var/log/secure and bans IP addresses with to any password failures. It then updates firewall rules to reject the IP address permenantly or for a administrator defined period of time.

This article does NOT negate the need to set strong SIP extension passwords or change system default passwords, this is purely aimed at countering the most common way to hack SIP servers: Brute-forcing SIP passwords.

To install Fail2Ban for Asterisk -

SSH to your VoIP server and login as root , then type the following commands:

yum -y install jwhois
cd /usr/src/
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/fail2ban/files/fail2ban-stable/fail2ban-0.8.4/fail2ban-0.8.4.tar.bz2/download
tar -jxf fail2ban-0.8.4.tar.bz2
cd fail2ban-0.8.4
python setup.py install
cp /usr/src/fail2ban-0.8.4/files/redhat-initd /etc/init.d/fail2ban
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/fail2ban
cd /etc/fail2ban/filter.d
touch asterisk.conf

Copy these the following into a new configuration file: /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/asterisk.conf:

# /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/asterisk.conf
# Custom Fail2Ban Config for Asterisk
# August 31st 2010 m
#
# $Revision: 250 $
#

[INCLUDES]

# Read common prefixes. If any customizations available -- read them from
# common.local
#before = common.conf

[Definition]

#_daemon = asterisk

# Option:  failregex
# Notes.:  regex to match the password failures messages in the logfile. The
#          host must be matched by a group named "host". The tag "" can
#          be used for standard IP/hostname matching and is only an alias for
#          (?:::f{4,6}:)?(?P\S+)
# Values:  TEXT
#

failregex = NOTICE.* .*: Registration from '.*' failed for '' - Wrong password
NOTICE.* .*: Registration from '.*' failed for '' - No matching peer found
NOTICE.* .*: Registration from '.*' failed for '' - Username/auth name mismatch
NOTICE.* .*: Registration from '.*' failed for '' - Device does not match ACL
NOTICE.*  failed to authenticate as '.*'$
NOTICE.* .*: No registration for peer '.*' (from )
NOTICE.* .*: Host  failed MD5 authentication for '.*' (.*)
NOTICE.* .*: Failed to authenticate user .*@.*

# Option:  ignoreregex
# Notes.:  regex to ignore. If this regex matches, the line is ignored.
# Values:  TEXT
#
ignoreregex =
#

Modify the [default] ignoreip section and Add the [asterisk-iptables] section to your /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf file:

NOTE: You need to define your alert email address below.

# /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf

[DEFAULT]
ignoreip = 127.0.0.1 192.168.0.0/16 10.0.0.0/8 172.16.0.0/16

[asterisk-iptables]
enabled  = true
filter   = asterisk
action   = iptables-allports[name=ASTERISK, protocol=all]
sendmail-whois[name=ASTERISK, dest=you@company.com, sender=fail2ban@company.com]
logpath  = /var/log/asterisk/fail2ban
maxretry = 5
bantime = 600

Backup the logger.conf file to logger.conf~ and create a new configuration file:

# mv /etc/asterisk/logger.conf /etc/asterisk/logger.conf.bak
# touch /etc/asterisk/logger.conf

Copy the following into a new configuration file /etc/asterisk/logger.conf:

[general]
dateformat=%F %T
[logfiles]
full => notice,warning,error,debug,verbose
fail2ban => notice

Reload logger module in Asterisk:

# asterisk -rx "module reload logger"

Add Fail2ban to the list of startup services:

# chkconfig fail2ban on

Start Fail2ban:

# /etc/init.d/fail2ban start

Check if fail2ban is listed in IPTABLES:

# iptables -L -v

You should see "fail2ban-ASTERISK" in your iptables output.

With this configuration in place, anyone trying to brute force (hack) your SIP account passwords will now be banned after 5 failed login attempts for 600 seconds (10 minutes). If required, you can adjust these variables in /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf.

How to test -

Download a copy of X-Lite and try to connect to your Asterisk box using false credentials. Make sure you don't try this from an IP address that is on the "ignoreip" list ( 192.168.22.0/24 for instance ). If your client gets blocked after 5 attempts and you receive an email saying your IP has been blocked, then you can safely assume that your configuration is working correctly.

You can also test the filter regex expressions using:

$fail2ban-regex /var/log/asterisk/full /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/asterisk.conf

and

$fail2ban-regex /var/log/secure /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/sshd.conf

NOTE: The above rules test Asterisk and SSH rules against your log history.

source: MD3V

Intel discloses new Sandy Bridge technical details

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel revealed more technical specifics on its upcoming Sandy Bridge chip architecture during several technical sessions on Monday here at the Intel Developer Forum.

Sandy Bridge's claim to fame is graphics. It will integrate Intel's best graphics chip technology to date directly onto the central processing unit. Below are some slides that Intel released on Monday.

Thomas Piazza, an Intel fellow and director of graphics architecture for the Intel Architecture Group, said that Sandy Bridge-based chips in their current implementation will not support DirectX 11, a Microsoft technology for accelerating multimedia and games. Currently, Sandy Bridge supports DirectX 10.1 and OpenCL 1.1--the latter used on Apple's Mac operating systems, according to Piazza. Certain graphics chips from Advanced Micro Devices' ATI unit and Nvidia already support DirectX 11.

An overview of the Sandy Bridge architecture.

(Credit: Intel)

Sandy Bridge's graphics architecture.

(Credit: Intel)

Sandy Bridge makes strides in power efficiency compared to current Intel Core i series chips since the graphics function is integrated onto the CPU.

(Credit: Intel)

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20016302-64.html?tag=mncol;txt#ixzz0zYhHq5fV

source: News.Com

30+ Awesome Free and Open Source Audio Applications List

Open Source community has great Audio Applications. We had featured 20 Audio Editors. Here is a best of the Audio Applications list that has, Audio Editors, Audio Sequencers, Stream Rippers, CD Rippers and much more. This list is constantly updated and comments, additions are most welcome. Thanks for commenting and helping us to grow the list.

Amarok – Rediscover music

Amarok is a powerful music player for Linux and Unix, MacOS X and Windows with an intuitive interface. It makes playing the music you love and discovering new music easier than ever before - and it looks good doing it!

Ardour – Digital Audio Workstation

Record Audio, Mix, Edit and Collaborate. One of the Ultimate Audio Editing software for Mac OS X and Linux.

Audacity - The Free, Cross-Platform Sound Editor

Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

Banshee – Music Player

Play your music and videos. Stay entertained and up to date with podcasts and video podcasts.  Sync your G1 phone, iPod, and other devices. We think you’ll love the new Banshee! Banshee is written in C# on the Mono platform using GNOME technologies (Gtk#, GStreamer, etc).

CDEx – Audio CD Extractor

CDEx is a very popular Open Source Digital Audio CD Extractor with more than 38 million downloads.

Grip – CD Ripper/CD Player

Grip is a cd-player and cd-ripper for the Gnome desktop. It has the ripping capabilities of cdparanoia built-in, but can also use external rippers (such as cdda2wav). It also provides an automated frontend for MP3 (and other audio format) encoders, letting you take a disc and transform it easily straight into MP3s. Internet disc lookups are supported for retrieving track information from disc database servers.Grip works with DigitalDJ to provide a unified “computerized” version of your music collection.

Hydrogen – Advanced Drum Machine For GNU/Linux

Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It’s main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.

Jokosher – Multi-Track Audio Studio

Jokosher is a simple yet powerful multi-track studio. With it you can create and record music, podcasts and more, all from an integrated simple environment.

LMMS – Linux Multimedia Studio

LMMS is a free cross-platform alternative to commercial programs like FL Studio®, which allow you to produce music with your computer. This includes the creation of melodies and beats, the synthesis and mixing of sounds, and arranging of samples. You can have fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more; all in a user-friendly and modern interface.

MuseScore - Free music composition & notation software

MuseScore is a free cross platform WYSIWYG music notation program, licensed under GNU GPL.

   

MusikCube – Fast, Lightweight Music management

musikCube is an mp3 player for the modern generation. It helps you just listen to what you want to hear, while offering innovative features not seen elsewhere. For the
technical user, musikCube is based on an embedded SQL database engine known as sqlite. For the non technical user, that means its fast. Really fast. “Dynamic playlists” allow fully automatic, randomized playback of songs based on your observed listening habits. The more you listen, the smarter it gets. It also features browsable, user sortable playlists.

MusE – Audio Sequencer

MusE is a MIDI/Audio sequencer with recording and editing capabilities written originally by Werner Schweer now developed and maintained by the MusE development team. MusE aims to be a complete multitrack virtual studio for Linux, it is published under the GNU General Public License.

Rosegarden – Audio Sequencer

Rosegarden is a well-rounded audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment. Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application that runs on Linux, ideal for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments.

Songbird – Manage Your Music

Click, Download and Start listening to your music in an organized way. Very simple, useful Audio Player. It is an alternative to Apple’s iTunes.

SoundKonverter – KDE Sound Application

soundKonverter is a frontend to various audio converters. The key features are:
- Audio conversion
- Replay Gain calculation
- CD ripping

StreamRipper – Internet Radio Recorder

StreamRipper is an Open Source (GPL) application that lets you record streaming mp3 to your hard drive. There is an alternative Open Source Stream Recording software – StreamHijacker.

WinLAME – Audio Encoder (Windows)

winLAME is an encoder for several audio formats, including mp3 (MPEG Layer 3), Ogg Vorbis and more. winLAME lets you set up the encoding process with an easy-to-use wizard-style user interface.

 

Updated List

 

Breakage – Intelligent Drum Machine

Breakage is an intelligent drum machine designed to make it easy and fun to play complex, live breakbeat performances. A step-sequencer pattern editor and previewer, database, sample browser, neural network, pattern morphs, statistics and probabilistic pattern generator give you the tools to work with breaks on a higher level than ever before.

Bristol – Synthesiser Emulation On Linux

 

BpmDJ – DJ Tools For Linux

BpmDJ is a tool to do DJ on Linux, plays MP3s and Ogg’s.

DJPlay – DJ App for Linux

DJPlay aims to be a high class live DJing application for Linux.

Exaile – Play It, Enjoy It

Exaile is a music manager and player for GTK+ written in Python. It incorporates automatic fetching of album art, lyrics fetching, Last.fm scrobbling, support for many portable media players, internet radio such as shoutcast, and tabbed playlists.

FluidSynth – Real-Time Software Synthesizer

FluidSynth is a real-time software synthesizer based on the SoundFont 2 specifications.

Helix Player – Media Player For Linux

The Helix Player is an open source media player for Linux, Solaris, and Symbian based on the Helix DNA Client media engine. More operating system versions are currently in development.

Jack – Audio Connection kit

JACK is system for handling real-time, low latency audio (and MIDI). It runs on GNU/Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, OS X and Windows (and can be ported to other POSIX-conformant platforms). It can connect a number of different applications to an audio device, as well as allowing them to share audio between themselves. Its clients can run in their own processes (ie. as normal applications), or can they can run within the JACK server (ie. as a “plugin”). JACK also has support for distributing audio processing across a network, both fast & reliable LANs as well as slower, less reliable WANs.

JAMin – Professional Audio Mastering

JAMin is the JACK Audio Connection Kit (JACK) Audio Mastering interface. JAMin is an open source application designed to perform professional audio mastering of stereo input streams. It uses LADSPA for digital signal processing (DSP). JAMin is licensed under the GPL.

LilyPond – Music Notation For Everyone

LilyPond prints music in the best traditions of classical engraving with minimum fuss. Don’t waste time on tuning spacing, moving around symbols, or shaping slurs. Impress friends and colleagues with sharp sheet music!

LinuxSampler – Audio Sampler

LinuxSampler is a free, streaming capable open source pure software audio sampler with professional grade features, comparable to both hardware and commercial Windows/Mac software samplers and to introduce new features not yet available by any other sampler in the world.

Mixxx – Beatmix, better

Mixxx is free, open source DJ software that gives you everything you need to perform live mixes.

MPD – Server Side Application For Playing Music

Music Player Daemon (MPD) is a flexible, powerful, server-side application for playing music. Through plugins and libraries it can play a variety of sound files while being controlled by its network protocol. MPD has lots of clients such as Sonata, LnkMusic, MPCool, Ario etc. Check out Clients section here.

RhythmBox – Inspired By iTunes

Rhythmbox is an integrated music management application, originally inspired by Apple’s iTunes. It is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop, and based on the powerful GStreamer media framework.

Sonic Visualiser – Audio Visualiser

Sonic Visualiser is an application for viewing and analysing the contents of music audio files.

TerminatorX – Real-Time Audio Synthesizer

TerminatorX is a real-time audio synthesizer that allows you to “scratch” on digitally sampled audio data (*.wav, *.au, *.ogg, *.mp3, etc.) the way hiphop-DJs scratch on vinyl records. It features multiple turntables, real-time effects (built-in as well as LADSPA plug-in effects), a sequencer and MIDI interface - all accessible through an easy-to-use gtk+ GUI. This software is designed to run under Linux, FreeBSD and the like.

Ipod Touch 4G torn down, only 256MB RAM found

iFixit has finally gotten their hands on the new iPod Touch and did their customary “teardown” to take a look inside the device. A couple of interesting things were found, sort of letdown in my opinion.

When they got into the 1GHz A4 processor, they found that the model is identical to the one used on the iPad and not the iPhone 4. What this means it that just like the iPad, the new iPod Touch only has 256MB RAM and not 512MB as most people initially believed.

Another thing to point out is with regards to the Retina Display. The iPod Touch 4G has the same resolution as that of the iPhone 4. However, it lacks the In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology that’s available on the iPad and iPhone 4.

The IPS gives these devices a wide-viewing angle of up to 178 degrees and the new Touch doesn’t have it. This might result to less than stellar viewing on games requiring you to tilt the iPod.

These and the poor camera that you may have already heard about makes the iPod Touch 4G a bit of a letdown for me despite the initial hoopla. But it won’t stop me from getting one.

Check out the interesting step-by-step teardown did by iFixit. It’s really interesting.

source: PinoyTechBlog

Seven Steps to Better SIP Security with Asterisk

In case any of you were wondering why there has been a fairly notable upswing in the attacks happening on SIP endpoints, the answer is “script kiddies.”  In the last few months, a number of new tools have made it easy for knuckle-draggers to attack and defraud SIP endpoints, Asterisk-based systems included.  There are easily-available tools that scan networks looking for SIP hosts, and then scan hosts looking for valid extensions, and then scan valid extensions looking for passwords.  You can take steps, NOW, to eliminate many of these problems.  I think the community is interested in coming up with an integrated Asterisk-based solution that is much wider in scope for dynamic protection (community-shared blacklists is the current thinking) but that doesn’t mean you should wait for some new tool to defend your systems.  You can IMMEDIATELY take fairly common-sense measures to protect your Asterisk server from the bulk of the scans and attacks that are on the increase. The methods and tools for protection already exists – just apply them, and you’ll be able to sleep more soundly at night.
 

Seven Easy Steps to Better SIP Security on Asterisk:
 

1) Don’t accept SIP authentication requests from all IP addresses.  Use the “permit=” and “deny=” lines in sip.conf to only allow a reasonable subset of IP addresess to reach each listed extension/user in your sip.conf file.  Even if you accept inbound calls from “anywhere” (via [default]) don’t let those users reach authenticated elements!
 

2) Set “alwaysauthreject=yes” in your sip.conf file.  This option has been around for a while (since 1.2?) but the default is “no”, which allows extension information leakage.  Setting this to “yes” will reject bad authentication requests on valid usernames with the same rejection information as with invalid usernames, denying remote attackers the ability to detect existing extensions with brute-force guessing attacks.
 

3) Use STRONG passwords for SIP entities.  This is probably the most important step you can take.  Don’t just concatenate two words together and suffix it with “1″ – if you’ve seen how sophisticated the tools are that guess passwords, you’d understand that trivial obfuscation like that is a minor hinderance to a modern CPU.  Use symbols, numbers, and a mix of upper and lowercase letters at least 12 digits long.
 

4) Block your AMI manager ports.  Use “permit=” and “deny=” lines in manager.conf to reduce inbound connections to known hosts only.  Use strong passwords here, again at least 12 characters with a complex mix of symbols, numbers, and letters.
 

5) Allow only one or two calls at a time per SIP entity, where possible.  At the worst, limiting your exposure to toll fraud is a wise thing to do.  This also limits your exposure when legitimate password holders on your system lose control of their passphrase – writing it on the bottom of the SIP phone, for instance, which I’ve seen.
 

6) Make your SIP usernames different than your extensions.  While it is convenient to have extension “1234″ map to SIP entry “1234″ which is also SIP user “1234″, this is an easy target for attackers to guess SIP authentication names.  Use the MAC address of the device, or some sort of combination of a common phrase + extension MD5 hash (example: from a shell prompt, try “md5 -s ThePassword5000″)
 

7) Ensure your [default] context is secure.  Don’t allow unauthenticated callers to reach any contexts that allow toll calls.  Permit only a limited number of active calls through your default context (use the “GROUP” function as a counter.)  Prohibit unauthenticated calls entirely (if you don’t want them) by setting “allowguest=no” in the [general] part of sip.conf.
 

These 7 basics will protect most people, but there are certainly other steps you can take that are more complex and reactive.  Here is a fail2ban recipe which might allow you to ban endpoints based on volume of requests.  There is discussion on the asterisk-user and asterisk-dev mailing lists of incorporating this type of functionality into Asterisk – let’s hear your ideas!
 

If you’d like to see an example of the tools that you’re up against, see this demo video of an automated attack tool that does scan, guess, and crack methods via a click-and-drool interface.
 
In summary: basic security measures will protect you against the vast majority of SIP-based brute-force attacks.  Most of the SIP attackers are fools with tools – they are opportunists who see an easy way to defraud people who have not considered the costs of insecure methods.  Asterisk has some methods to prevent the most obvious attacks from succeeding at the network level, but the most effective method of protection are the administrative issues of password robustness and username obscurity. 

source: Digium