Julian C. Dunn

I got bitten by this bug after upgrading to SpamAssassin 3.2.4 recently. It seems that the GnuPG key shipped with SA precludes the verification of signatures from updates downloaded using sa-update, due to some esoteric defect with the OpenPGP design. Anyway, the point is that attempting to download new signatures using sa-update results in the following error:

error: GPG validation failed!

The update downloaded successfully, but the GPG signature verification failed.

channel: GPG validation failed, channel failed

(How many times can one say the word “failed” before I get the message?)

Anyway, it looks like the SA folks have corrected the problem with their key but it’s only available in SVN trunk so you have to perform the following magic incantation:


$ sudo gpg --homedir /usr/local/etc/mail/spamassassin/sa-update-keys --delete-key 0x5244ec45
$ wget -O - http://cvs.apache.org/viewvc/spamassassin/trunk/rules/sa-update-pubkey.txt?revision=610699 | sudo gpg --homedir /usr/local/etc/mail/spamassassin/sa-update-keys --import -


That assumes you’re using FreeBSD — adjust your paths appropriately.

The bug is still open and will be fixed in the next version (boy, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that from vendors…)

I’ve been on training the past 2 days at an internal CBC course called “CBC Radio 101″ – it’s intended for those people who need to support CBC Radio staff in their daily jobs, so that we can get a better idea of their day-to-day workflow and process. It was a really interesting course and I really would love it if other IT folks were able to attend – seeing in-person how shows are put together gives a new meaning to the words “deadline” or “urgent”. Continue reading…

Faxing over IP networks does not work reliably. There are many technical reasons why; I won’t go into them here. This page provides a pretty detailed explanation about why trying to transmit analog modem signals over an IP network will not work — variable jitter, insufficient bandwidth, silence suppression and many other factors in VoIP call handling will work together to destroy your faxes. There are two main solutions in the FoIP (Fax over IP) space:

• T.37 (store-and-forward): Use e-mail as the IP transport medium. T.37 defines a protocol by which faxes are converted to an e-mail message and then delivered to a T.37 endpoint – whether that is someone’s email box, or a device capable of translating the attachment into a fax image and then sending it to the target fax machine using the PSTN.
• T.38 (real-time fax): Use either “Internet-capable” (T.38) fax machines, analog telephone adapters, or a combination of T.38 aware/compatible devices to transmit faxes using special UDP packets.

Neither of these mechanisms is particularly elegant. In fact, the adoption rate of T.38 is quite low among ATA makers, and many implementations are buggy. Also, the fact that T.38 must be implemented on both ends of a call is another nail in the coffin.

Let’s step back a moment here and reconsider what we want to do. Suppose I am a business owner considering (or having switched) to a VoIP network, but I still have my old (non-T.38 capable) fax machine. I want to send faxes to any other fax device in the world, and I don’t care whether the receiver’s equipment is T.38 capable or not. I am willing to invest in a T.38 ATA, and assume that I can do so without too much cost or effort, and that it will work reasonably well. What do I do? Continue reading…

Recently I started taking a basic course in Computer-Aided Design (CAD) at George Brown College – mostly for interest’s sake, although it’s partly because my day job at CBC is exposing me more and more to the engineering side of things, and I imagine it’ll only be a matter of time before I’ll have to start looking at technical drawings. The instructor recommended on day one that we all purchase USB memory keys to save our work, because there are no personal home directories on the George Brown network. Thus begins the sorry tale of how I managed to get a virus on my CBC-issued Windows laptop – thanks Microsoft! Continue reading…