Party Line, Excellent
Try reading it in the style of Bill & Ted...
I've been busy getting Call Center Village and Party Line ready for DEF CON 33 but wanted to break from my silence over the last several weeks to give some much needed project updates – and then beg you for money.
Here's what's in store if you trudge through the whole thing:
- Starbase crashes and burns with 5.7
- Crystal Report differences visualized
- Telescan documentation is coming
- Sponsor Party Line at DEFCON 33?
Starbase Crashes & Burns
I finally got my hands on a production version of Amtelco's Intelligent Series 5.7 database to work with and things did not go well. There are a variety of database and reporting updates that need accounted for.
At least one of those changes appears to completely break Starbases's reporting output and compatibility with built-in Crystal Reports. I've only had minimal success working around those changes in the short term.
Instead of trying to vibe code my way to fixing it fast, I'm going to continue to trudge through the changes systematically to ensure these new statistic multipliers from Amtelco's feature-set either live in tandem with or don't break from Starbase integration.
This is one of those times I wish Amtelco had a partner/vendor program that I could join so these changes aren't such a surprise when they happen.
Expect the next Starbase update in mid-August after DEFCON.
Diffing Crystal Reports
As part analyzing the 5.7 changes discussed above, we're going to provide our first-ever "diff" of every Crystal Report between versions 5.6 and 5.7, so customers will be able to see the exact query/parameter changes made to every Amtelco crystal report during the update.
We talked about this last year and will finally have something to show for it!
As a reminder, you can already view and search every 5.6 Crystal Report in excruciating detail on the Call Theory learning portal (customers only.) The 5.7 changes will be versioned in so they can be independently viewed without losing the previous 5.6 reports.
Crystal Report Searchable Library
Expect this update in tandem with the 5.7 Starbase analysis.
Telescan Documentation
We've been spending most of our time lately deep-diving into Telescan systems to learn the configuration, setup, infrastructure, and nuances of Spectrum agent and Prism ecosystem.
We've got a lot of (generic) documentation to share about how things work, including some custom database queries, funeral web, transmit scripts, AMR data, and more. Things you might need to know when converting Telescan accounts into other systems.
We've also got a handy explainer so those in the Intelligent Series ecosystem can better understand and map concepts between the systems.
Look for these updates over the next several weeks.
Sponsor Party Line?
You probably heard me mention that we're running our call-center based security challenge at DEFCON 33 this year - but we're also throwing a party!
The party is to celebrate the human operators of our industry who work the front-lines day-after-day in an often mentally demanding role.
Support a DEFCON 33 attendee (a hacker in need is a friend indeed) by sponsoring drink tickets. We've already got 67 ticket donations (over $1,000) and we'll throw Corporate donations a logo and link on the party website and individual contributors shout-out (if desired.)
This is the pitch I gave my family & friends: https://www.labbett.net/im-throwing-a-party/
The link below contains more information, including the direct link to purchase drink tickets.
Thanks in advance - even $15 for a free alcoholic/non-alcoholic drink will make someone smile. Hackers are generally broke (the nice ones anyway) and Las Vegas prices aren't compatible with that lifestyle.
I can only buy so many myself, so I'm looking for some network effect to help out.
As always, thank you so much for making it this far.