Expert to Speak on Asterisk and Two-Factor Authentication at Astricon

August 18, 2008
By Greg Galitzine, Group Editorial Director

Established in 1992, Call One was the first telecommunications provider to be certified by the Illinois Commerce Commission as a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier and continues to be the largest reseller of AT&T (News - Alert) local and global network services. Clinton James, as chief information officer, is responsible for Call One’s technology direction and development. I had the chance to pose some questions to the Call One CIO in advance of Astricon, which is being held in Glendale, AZ, from September 23–25. James is presenting a session entitled Asterisk (News - Alert) and Two-Factor Authentication.
 
GG: You are on the schedule to speak at the upcoming Astricon. What can conference goers expect to hear in your session?
CJ: Username/passwords with additional fill-in-the-blank questions are only single-factor authentication. Using Asterisk to call a phone number to verify your customer’s Web access provides a second factor of authentication; one that can not be spoofed by someone watching your customer’s keystrokes. While this may be overkill for Web forums, financial transactions or customer privacy laws may make this an attractive feature.
 
I will provide an overview of the three authentication factors and provide a demonstration of a Web site using two-factor authentication. The source code will be provided.
 
GG: Where does your company fit in the current world of open source communications?
CJ: We provide open standards and open source solutions to our customers.
 
GG: What are the most important criteria organizations need consider when migrating to open source?
CJ: Willingness to train and allow technical employees to experiment and try multiple solutions. You need patience to work through problems rather than ranting at the provider. While open source will not cost you a license fee, you will be expending time to learn the system. You will be doing the same with a proprietary system anyway, so give yourself the freedom to explore and make the software fit your needs rather than define your needs by available software.
 
GG: How would you define the value of Asterisk-based solutions to those organizations that have yet to adopt it?
CJ: An Asterisk solution’s value is its flexibility. I can make the system fit me. If my needs change in a year, I don’t need to replace the system, just add the needed programming and cards.
 
GG: What do you think the biggest new trends in open source telephony will be in the next 12 months?
CJ: Tier 1 carriers providing SIP and hopefully IAX connectivity; also increased ability to determine errors from logs.
 
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Greg Galitzine (News - Alert) is editorial director of TMCnet. To read more of Greg’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
 
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Greg Galitzine is editorial director for TMC’s (News - Alert) IP Communications suite of products, including TMCnet.com. To read more of Greg’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

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