If you're interested in Information Security, then you might be interested in what I'm doing here. Welcome to SecurityCast Radio, streaming security podcasts from around the web. All podcast content is owned by the original creators.
If the player above doesn't work for you, try the alternative one at the end of this page. The audio stream URL is here. It should work with
most media players that support MP3 streaming. iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp or
RealPlayer for example. You can follow live playlist updates on Twitter by following @securitycast.
Mobile devices are widely supported, and if you have an Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry or Palm device, try the streaming audio app Tunein Radio. Once installed, search for "securitycast" and hit the play button.
There's also a live RSS
feed.
An Icecast 2 server streams the audio, fed via a custom Liquid Soap script that builds the
audio source from various playlists. RSS generation and Twitter updating are done via
Perl scripts invoked from the Liquid Soap script.
These playlists are automatically generated from a single custom aggregated RSS feed
created by gathering the most recent entries in the published RSS feeds of the featured
podcasts (the Mother of all Perl scripts). The playlist is updated at least twice a
day, and content is downloaded locally before being streamed (Bash scripts and cron
jobs). Podcasts are broadcast in publication date order, with older content eventually
being cycled off the playlist.
I like the whole concept of Internet Radio. Many sites like Last.fm enable you to
"stream" audio, but it's not a live stream. It's your own on-demand content. Live
streaming is more akin to broadcasting, where everybody hears the same thing at (more
or less) the same time.
Also, because getting all the bits to work togther reliably with minimal human
intervention is an interesting challenge. Now and again, I like a challenge. Also, all
of the components of this system are constructed using Free and Open Source software.
None of this would be feasible (or even possible) without Free and Open Source software
like Icecast, Liquid Soap, Perl, the entire GNU Project, and so on.
SecurityCast Radio is a personal, non-commercial project. Feel free to tune in, but use
the audio stream at your own risk. I'm not responsible for the content. You have
been warned.
The current list of podcasts that are polled for content can be found in the OPML file here. It's a pretty sparse piece of XML, but all of the RSS sources are listed there, so you could import all of these podcasts in to your podcatcher of choice. As long as it supports OPML import.
Assuming that you like what you've heard on the stream, and would like to subscribe for off-line listening on your iPod or similar. This depends very much on the podcast listening software you use, and if it supports OPML import. iTunes supports OPML import (and export) and you can find details of how to import the OPML file above in this article. (You'll want to start reading from step 3)
At any time of the day or night, we have listeners from the UK, the USA, France, Spain, Germany, Israel, Australia, Taiwan and South Korea to name but a few. Mobile listeners are on the increase too, with a growing number of listeners emanating from 3G network providers.
Evidently. Feel free to take my rudimentary efforts and improve them. I'd love to
give you credit for it.
You can contact me, Simon Chapman, as follows: