Re: [VoiceOps] Phone auth for incoming calls?

2018-08-09 Thread Alex Balashov 
On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 10:57:36AM -0700, Calvin Ellison wrote:

> Alex, what has been your experience with tunnel based solutions? Our choice
> seems to be IPSec VPN on existing gear or spending some cash on an SRTP-RTP
> "transcoder".

I personally find IPSec way too complicated. My preference is to do
OpenVPN, because it's so, so much simpler. There is at least one handset
vendor - Snom - that supports it right in the handset. 

I've seen lots of tunnel-based approaches with hosted PBX. A lot of them
involve sending the customer a router to put on their network where the
tunnels can land and the traffic can be diverted into the tunnel. Others
involve putting it straight into the phones, or in the case of
softphones, packaging it with the UA. 

Whatever it is, it works better and is easier to set up and make behave
more consistently than SIP-TLS.

-- 
Alex Balashov | Principal | Evariste Systems LLC

Tel: +1-706-510-6800 / +1-800-250-5920 (toll-free) 
Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.csrpswitch.com/
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Re: [VoiceOps] Phone auth for incoming calls?

2018-08-09 Thread Paul Timmins 



> On Aug 9, 2018, at 9:47 PM, Brandon Martin  
> wrote:
> 
> On 08/09/2018 04:46 AM, Alex Balashov wrote:
>> Yes, but until and unless your upstream supply chain is doing TLS and
>> you can provide end-to-end security, it's a pointless waste of time.
> 
> There's also an argument to be made that I haven't seen brought up for 
> protecting SIP registration credentials either by providing transport 
> confidentiality for a conventional password/secret or by using TLS client 
> certificates.  If you're at all worried about an adversary observing your 
> actual comms, I'd be doubly worried about somebody stealing registration 
> credentials and abusing them.

TLS was never about end to end confidentiality. We have wiretap obligations 
after all. Until the last copper line is dead and gone there will always be a 
way for unencrypted calls to occur.

TLS is good when you don't want your local IT staff to know what the CEO is 
talking about, or to wiretap his coworkers (assuming hosted PBX). The likely 
attack surface for a customer's confidentiality will be somewhere between that 
handset and you, and you have a means to protect that.

-Paul
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Re: [VoiceOps] Phone auth for incoming calls?

2018-08-09 Thread Brandon Martin 

On 08/09/2018 04:46 AM, Alex Balashov wrote:

Yes, but until and unless your upstream supply chain is doing TLS and
you can provide end-to-end security, it's a pointless waste of time.


There's also an argument to be made that I haven't seen brought up for 
protecting SIP registration credentials either by providing transport 
confidentiality for a conventional password/secret or by using TLS 
client certificates.  If you're at all worried about an adversary 
observing your actual comms, I'd be doubly worried about somebody 
stealing registration credentials and abusing them.


--
Brandon Martin
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Re: [VoiceOps] Phone auth for incoming calls?

2018-08-09 Thread Ryan Delgrosso 

The "but look at them" argument never tasted good to me.

Someone has to break rank and do it right first or it never gets better.

There is also the point that intra-org communications can be end-to-end 
guarenteed. That resonates strongly.




On 8/9/2018 1:46 AM, Alex Balashov wrote:

Yes, but until and unless your upstream supply chain is doing TLS and
you can provide end-to-end security, it's a pointless waste of time.

My customers have numerous customers who "require" "encryption" and
"security", and this is provided to them on the "Last Mile" SIP trunk.
But as soon as it goes to the usual Bandwidths and friends all that TLS
is sheathed off.

As long as that is the case, and I expect it will be the case for quite
some time, this whole concept is a joke.

The second problem is how incredibly inconsistent/broken SIP-TLS is.
It's a trainwreck with way too many moving parts. My finding over the
years has been that when it comes to providing faux-"security", my
happiest customers are the ones that settled for a tunnel-based
approach.

-- Alex

On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 10:09:40PM -0700, Ryan Delgrosso wrote:


I used to follow the same logic but recently have shifted. I now
wholeheartedly follow the encrypt everywhere stance. Too many industries
have compliance regulations where VoIP got the exemption because of
grandfathered PSTN focused laws, but just because you CAN go plaintext
doesnt make it the best answer, and its always stronger to say "yes" to the
encryption question than "No but..."



On 8/8/2018 5:14 PM, Alex Balashov wrote:

Agree with everything Ryan said, with the caveat that TLS for TLS's sake is, in 
my own humble opinion, a terrible idea from a troubleshooting and general 
complexity perspective. Use where absolutely necessary and nowhere else.

On August 8, 2018 7:37:13 PM EDT, Ryan Delgrosso  
wrote:

OK so to expand on my previous smug-ness

Upsides:

   * No more signaling nat issues. Literally zero. If you want to be
 super-sneaky run your edge over TLS port 443 and most things wont
 touch you.
   * No retransmission's or registration avalanches. They simply cannot
 happen since you need a tcp session first.
* No packet fragmentation issues. Send massive bloated SDP's and never
 worry about pruning headers again. If you are doing sip SIMPLE send
 mime bodies in messages if you want. Its all good.
* Faster convergence (if you reset the TCP connections to your devices
 it will usually trigger an instantaneous proxy advance)
   * Real-HA on carrier grade SBC's works just fine and TCP state is
 maintained across pairs (Acme, Perimeta etc)
   * Never chase lost signaling


Downsides:

   * Conventional HA doesnt work so well. Your reg/subscription etc will
all be in the context of a single TCP session (with or without TLS).
 This means for that second when you restart your proxy the session
 is lost and MUST be re-establised by the client.
   * SIP Outbound support, which would basically be the answer here
 basically doesn't exist in a usable fashion for reliable dual-reg.
 Device support is partial and broken. Its not good. There are
 potential solutions but it involves real commitment to this right
 now and the gulf of experience between having and not isnt huge.
* Moderately more load since TCP state must be retained, but on modern
 hardware this is so trivial its almost not worth mentioning.
   * Need to re-learn KPI's for network. The entire signaling profile
 changes. Its just a different animal.
* Most of your sniffer-based diagnostic tools become useless (for tls)
 since packets wont be readable. This is dodged with an edge that
 will feed encrypted traffic to a collector.


Suggestions:

STRONGLY recommend terminating TCP/TLS at the edge and still running
core in straight UDP with jumbo frames. You dont want a cascde of tcp
session reestablishments

I have a growing SP network today doing this with great success and
also
advise my consulting clients to take this path.



On 8/8/2018 12:36 PM, Alex Balashov wrote:

On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 12:21:09PM -0700, Carlos Alvarez wrote:


So...who else on the list uses TCP and has any comments about it?

We are not an ITSP and are Polycom-only with a trivial number of
endpoints, but we do use it and it works just fine.

However, we have numerous customers, some of whom use TCP

predominantly

for thousands of endpoints. It works just fine.

In terms of downsides:

In addition to a historical lack of (RFC 3261-mandated) support,

there

are of course theoretical trade-offs involved in using TCP. There's
more overhead, and connection state to be maintained on the server

side,

which of course consumes resources — resources considered trivial
nowadays, but once upon a time, when RFC 3261 was ratified (2002),
perhaps not. As with all things TCP, it can also present a DoS vector

if

you don't limit the number of connections somewhere.

The congestion control/end-to-end

Re: [VoiceOps] Phone auth for incoming calls?

2018-08-09 Thread Carlos Alvarez 
On the security side...there's reality and there's perception.  I go
through HIPAA/PCI compliance docs all the time, and they ask things about
encryption or secure/dedicated connections.  I can say "no, but" or I
can just say "yes."  Our HIPPA-covered clients are all on MPLS to us so we
can answer yes.  When I say "no but" on other topics, there's always a
hassle.

There is a practical matter that there are probably more threats on the
last mile than anywhere else.  Someone at Level 3 is unlikely to be
sniffing on a large connection, but consumer ISP employees have much easier
access to the data.  Downstream from there, plenty of places where there is
little security.  So "secure to the first server" does have a certain value.

Either way, I don't intend to use TLS.  It was more of an academic question.


On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 1:48 AM Alex Balashov 
wrote:

> Yes, but until and unless your upstream supply chain is doing TLS and
> you can provide end-to-end security, it's a pointless waste of time.
>
> My customers have numerous customers who "require" "encryption" and
> "security", and this is provided to them on the "Last Mile" SIP trunk.
> But as soon as it goes to the usual Bandwidths and friends all that TLS
> is sheathed off.
>
> As long as that is the case, and I expect it will be the case for quite
> some time, this whole concept is a joke.
>
> The second problem is how incredibly inconsistent/broken SIP-TLS is.
> It's a trainwreck with way too many moving parts. My finding over the
> years has been that when it comes to providing faux-"security", my
> happiest customers are the ones that settled for a tunnel-based
> approach.
>
> -- Alex
>
> On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 10:09:40PM -0700, Ryan Delgrosso wrote:
>
> > I used to follow the same logic but recently have shifted. I now
> > wholeheartedly follow the encrypt everywhere stance. Too many industries
> > have compliance regulations where VoIP got the exemption because of
> > grandfathered PSTN focused laws, but just because you CAN go plaintext
> > doesnt make it the best answer, and its always stronger to say "yes" to
> the
> > encryption question than "No but..."
> >
> >
> >
> > On 8/8/2018 5:14 PM, Alex Balashov wrote:
> > > Agree with everything Ryan said, with the caveat that TLS for TLS's
> sake is, in my own humble opinion, a terrible idea from a troubleshooting
> and general complexity perspective. Use where absolutely necessary and
> nowhere else.
> > >
> > > On August 8, 2018 7:37:13 PM EDT, Ryan Delgrosso <
> ryandelgro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > OK so to expand on my previous smug-ness
> > > >
> > > > Upsides:
> > > >
> > > >   * No more signaling nat issues. Literally zero. If you want to be
> > > > super-sneaky run your edge over TLS port 443 and most things wont
> > > > touch you.
> > > >   * No retransmission's or registration avalanches. They simply
> cannot
> > > > happen since you need a tcp session first.
> > > > * No packet fragmentation issues. Send massive bloated SDP's and
> never
> > > > worry about pruning headers again. If you are doing sip SIMPLE
> send
> > > > mime bodies in messages if you want. Its all good.
> > > > * Faster convergence (if you reset the TCP connections to your
> devices
> > > > it will usually trigger an instantaneous proxy advance)
> > > >   * Real-HA on carrier grade SBC's works just fine and TCP state is
> > > > maintained across pairs (Acme, Perimeta etc)
> > > >   * Never chase lost signaling
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Downsides:
> > > >
> > > >   * Conventional HA doesnt work so well. Your reg/subscription etc
> will
> > > >all be in the context of a single TCP session (with or without
> TLS).
> > > > This means for that second when you restart your proxy the
> session
> > > > is lost and MUST be re-establised by the client.
> > > >   * SIP Outbound support, which would basically be the answer here
> > > > basically doesn't exist in a usable fashion for reliable
> dual-reg.
> > > > Device support is partial and broken. Its not good. There are
> > > > potential solutions but it involves real commitment to this right
> > > > now and the gulf of experience between having and not isnt huge.
> > > > * Moderately more load since TCP state must be retained, but on
> modern
> > > > hardware this is so trivial its almost not worth mentioning.
> > > >   * Need to re-learn KPI's for network. The entire signaling profile
> > > > changes. Its just a different animal.
> > > > * Most of your sniffer-based diagnostic tools become useless (for
> tls)
> > > > since packets wont be readable. This is dodged with an edge that
> > > > will feed encrypted traffic to a collector.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Suggestions:
> > > >
> > > > STRONGLY recommend terminating TCP/TLS at the edge and still running
> > > > core in straight UDP with jumbo frames. You dont want a cascde of tcp
> > > > session reestablishments
> > > >
> > > > I have a growing SP

Re: [VoiceOps] Phone auth for incoming calls?

2018-08-09 Thread Calvin Ellison 
Alex, what has been your experience with tunnel based solutions? Our choice
seems to be IPSec VPN on existing gear or spending some cash on an SRTP-RTP
"transcoder".



Regards,

*Calvin Ellison*
Voice Operations Engineer
calvin.elli...@voxox.com
+1 (213) 285-0555

---
*voxox.com  *
5825 Oberlin Drive, Suite 5
San Diego, CA 92121
[image: Voxox]

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 1:46 AM, Alex Balashov 
wrote:

> Yes, but until and unless your upstream supply chain is doing TLS and
> you can provide end-to-end security, it's a pointless waste of time.
>
> My customers have numerous customers who "require" "encryption" and
> "security", and this is provided to them on the "Last Mile" SIP trunk.
> But as soon as it goes to the usual Bandwidths and friends all that TLS
> is sheathed off.
>
> As long as that is the case, and I expect it will be the case for quite
> some time, this whole concept is a joke.
>
> The second problem is how incredibly inconsistent/broken SIP-TLS is.
> It's a trainwreck with way too many moving parts. My finding over the
> years has been that when it comes to providing faux-"security", my
> happiest customers are the ones that settled for a tunnel-based
> approach.
>
> -- Alex
>
> On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 10:09:40PM -0700, Ryan Delgrosso wrote:
>
> > I used to follow the same logic but recently have shifted. I now
> > wholeheartedly follow the encrypt everywhere stance. Too many industries
> > have compliance regulations where VoIP got the exemption because of
> > grandfathered PSTN focused laws, but just because you CAN go plaintext
> > doesnt make it the best answer, and its always stronger to say "yes" to
> the
> > encryption question than "No but..."
> >
> >
> >
> > On 8/8/2018 5:14 PM, Alex Balashov wrote:
> > > Agree with everything Ryan said, with the caveat that TLS for TLS's
> sake is, in my own humble opinion, a terrible idea from a troubleshooting
> and general complexity perspective. Use where absolutely necessary and
> nowhere else.
> > >
> > > On August 8, 2018 7:37:13 PM EDT, Ryan Delgrosso <
> ryandelgro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > OK so to expand on my previous smug-ness
> > > >
> > > > Upsides:
> > > >
> > > >   * No more signaling nat issues. Literally zero. If you want to be
> > > > super-sneaky run your edge over TLS port 443 and most things wont
> > > > touch you.
> > > >   * No retransmission's or registration avalanches. They simply
> cannot
> > > > happen since you need a tcp session first.
> > > > * No packet fragmentation issues. Send massive bloated SDP's and
> never
> > > > worry about pruning headers again. If you are doing sip SIMPLE
> send
> > > > mime bodies in messages if you want. Its all good.
> > > > * Faster convergence (if you reset the TCP connections to your
> devices
> > > > it will usually trigger an instantaneous proxy advance)
> > > >   * Real-HA on carrier grade SBC's works just fine and TCP state is
> > > > maintained across pairs (Acme, Perimeta etc)
> > > >   * Never chase lost signaling
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Downsides:
> > > >
> > > >   * Conventional HA doesnt work so well. Your reg/subscription etc
> will
> > > >all be in the context of a single TCP session (with or without
> TLS).
> > > > This means for that second when you restart your proxy the
> session
> > > > is lost and MUST be re-establised by the client.
> > > >   * SIP Outbound support, which would basically be the answer here
> > > > basically doesn't exist in a usable fashion for reliable
> dual-reg.
> > > > Device support is partial and broken. Its not good. There are
> > > > potential solutions but it involves real commitment to this right
> > > > now and the gulf of experience between having and not isnt huge.
> > > > * Moderately more load since TCP state must be retained, but on
> modern
> > > > hardware this is so trivial its almost not worth mentioning.
> > > >   * Need to re-learn KPI's for network. The entire signaling profile
> > > > changes. Its just a different animal.
> > > > * Most of your sniffer-based diagnostic tools become useless (for
> tls)
> > > > since packets wont be readable. This is dodged with an edge that
> > > > will feed encrypted traffic to a collector.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Suggestions:
> > > >
> > > > STRONGLY recommend terminating TCP/TLS at the edge and still running
> > > > core in straight UDP with jumbo frames. You dont want a cascde of tcp
> > > > session reestablishments
> > > >
> > > > I have a growing SP network today doing this with great success and
> > > > also
> > > > advise my consulting clients to take this path.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On 8/8/2018 12:36 PM, Alex Balashov wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 12:21:09PM -0700, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > So...who else on the list uses TCP and has any comments about it?
> > > > > We are not an ITSP and are Polycom-only

[VoiceOps] SBCs - Ribbon and AudioCodes

2018-08-09 Thread Ryan Finnesey 
I am going to have to install a series of SBCs for a  voice offering  connected 
to Microsoft Teams.  We are going to pass the SIP traffic off to a large  
number of SIP providers.  I would like  to get some feedback from the group on 
SBCs from Ribbon and  AudioCodes . I am leaning towards a software based SBC 
over an appliance.


Would be helpful to get the other members feedback on Ribbon or AudioCodes 
deployments within their networks.

Cheers
Ryan
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Re: [VoiceOps] Phone auth for incoming calls?

2018-08-09 Thread Alex Balashov 
Yes, but until and unless your upstream supply chain is doing TLS and
you can provide end-to-end security, it's a pointless waste of time.

My customers have numerous customers who "require" "encryption" and
"security", and this is provided to them on the "Last Mile" SIP trunk.
But as soon as it goes to the usual Bandwidths and friends all that TLS
is sheathed off.

As long as that is the case, and I expect it will be the case for quite
some time, this whole concept is a joke.

The second problem is how incredibly inconsistent/broken SIP-TLS is.
It's a trainwreck with way too many moving parts. My finding over the
years has been that when it comes to providing faux-"security", my
happiest customers are the ones that settled for a tunnel-based
approach.

-- Alex

On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 10:09:40PM -0700, Ryan Delgrosso wrote:

> I used to follow the same logic but recently have shifted. I now
> wholeheartedly follow the encrypt everywhere stance. Too many industries
> have compliance regulations where VoIP got the exemption because of
> grandfathered PSTN focused laws, but just because you CAN go plaintext
> doesnt make it the best answer, and its always stronger to say "yes" to the
> encryption question than "No but..."
> 
> 
> 
> On 8/8/2018 5:14 PM, Alex Balashov wrote:
> > Agree with everything Ryan said, with the caveat that TLS for TLS's sake 
> > is, in my own humble opinion, a terrible idea from a troubleshooting and 
> > general complexity perspective. Use where absolutely necessary and nowhere 
> > else.
> > 
> > On August 8, 2018 7:37:13 PM EDT, Ryan Delgrosso  
> > wrote:
> > > OK so to expand on my previous smug-ness
> > > 
> > > Upsides:
> > > 
> > >   * No more signaling nat issues. Literally zero. If you want to be
> > > super-sneaky run your edge over TLS port 443 and most things wont
> > > touch you.
> > >   * No retransmission's or registration avalanches. They simply cannot
> > > happen since you need a tcp session first.
> > > * No packet fragmentation issues. Send massive bloated SDP's and never
> > > worry about pruning headers again. If you are doing sip SIMPLE send
> > > mime bodies in messages if you want. Its all good.
> > > * Faster convergence (if you reset the TCP connections to your devices
> > > it will usually trigger an instantaneous proxy advance)
> > >   * Real-HA on carrier grade SBC's works just fine and TCP state is
> > > maintained across pairs (Acme, Perimeta etc)
> > >   * Never chase lost signaling
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Downsides:
> > > 
> > >   * Conventional HA doesnt work so well. Your reg/subscription etc will
> > >all be in the context of a single TCP session (with or without TLS).
> > > This means for that second when you restart your proxy the session
> > > is lost and MUST be re-establised by the client.
> > >   * SIP Outbound support, which would basically be the answer here
> > > basically doesn't exist in a usable fashion for reliable dual-reg.
> > > Device support is partial and broken. Its not good. There are
> > > potential solutions but it involves real commitment to this right
> > > now and the gulf of experience between having and not isnt huge.
> > > * Moderately more load since TCP state must be retained, but on modern
> > > hardware this is so trivial its almost not worth mentioning.
> > >   * Need to re-learn KPI's for network. The entire signaling profile
> > > changes. Its just a different animal.
> > > * Most of your sniffer-based diagnostic tools become useless (for tls)
> > > since packets wont be readable. This is dodged with an edge that
> > > will feed encrypted traffic to a collector.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Suggestions:
> > > 
> > > STRONGLY recommend terminating TCP/TLS at the edge and still running
> > > core in straight UDP with jumbo frames. You dont want a cascde of tcp
> > > session reestablishments
> > > 
> > > I have a growing SP network today doing this with great success and
> > > also
> > > advise my consulting clients to take this path.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > On 8/8/2018 12:36 PM, Alex Balashov wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 12:21:09PM -0700, Carlos Alvarez wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > So...who else on the list uses TCP and has any comments about it?
> > > > We are not an ITSP and are Polycom-only with a trivial number of
> > > > endpoints, but we do use it and it works just fine.
> > > > 
> > > > However, we have numerous customers, some of whom use TCP
> > > predominantly
> > > > for thousands of endpoints. It works just fine.
> > > > 
> > > > In terms of downsides:
> > > > 
> > > > In addition to a historical lack of (RFC 3261-mandated) support,
> > > there
> > > > are of course theoretical trade-offs involved in using TCP. There's
> > > > more overhead, and connection state to be maintained on the server
> > > side,
> > > > which of course consumes resources — resources considered trivial
> > > > nowadays, but once upon a time, when RFC 3261