Telecommunications companies who choose to ignore Asterisk do so at their peril. The flexibility it delivers creates possibilities that the best proprietary systems can scarcely dream of. This is because Asterisk is the ultimate hacker’s PBX.

If someone asks you not to use the term hacker, refuse. This term does not belong to the mass media. They stole it and corrupted it to mean “malicious cracker.” It’s time we took it back. Hackers built the networking engine that is the Internet. Hackers built the Apple Macintosh and the Unix operating system. Hackers are also building your next telecom system. Do not fear; these are the good guys, and they’ll be able to build a system that’s far more secure than anything that exists today. Rather than being constricted by the dubious and easily cracked security of closed systems, the hackers will be able to quickly respond to changing trends in security and fine-tune the telephone system in response to both corporate policy and industry best practices.

Like other open source systems, Asterisk will be able to evolve into a far more secure platform than any proprietary system, not in spite of its hacker roots, but rather because of them.