Repeat After Me

Thanks to Tech Field Day, I fly a lot. As Southwest is my airline of choice and I have status, I tend to find myself sitting the slightly more comfortable exit row seating. One of the things that any air passenger sitting in the exit row knows by heart is the exit row briefing. You must listen to the flight attendant brief you on the exit door operation and the evacuation plan. You are also required to answer with a verbal acknowledgment.

I know that verbal acknowledgment is a federal law. I’ve also seen some people blatantly disregard the need to verbal accept responsibility for their seating choice, leading to some hilarious stories. But it also made me think about why making people talk to you is the best way to make them understand what you’re saying

Sotto Voce

Today’s society full of distractions from auto-play videos on Facebook to Pokemon Go parks at midnight is designed to capture the attention span of a human for a few fleeting seconds. Even playing a mini-trailer before a movie trailer is designed to capture someone’s attention for a moment. That’s fine in a world where distraction is assumed and people try Continue reading

How Lyft gets a lift from Amazon’s cloud

Back in 2012, two engineers built the first prototype of ride-hailing app Lyft over the course of three weeks. They hosted it on three virtual machines in Amazon Web Services’ cloud and on May 31 of that year the first-ever Lyft ride was processed.Today, Lyft provides nearly 14 million rides per month and the company continues to run its infrastructure operations from AWS’s cloud, according to CTO Chris Lambert. “The only difference now… We’re taking advantage of many more Amazon technologies,” said Lambert, at a recent AWS Summit in New York, describing the company’s timeline of using the cloud. (See video of Lambert's AWS Summit talk below.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Tracking the hackers

The e-mail from Google arrived at 4:09 AM on March 22 and contained an ominous alert for its recipient, William Rinehart, a staffer with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “Someone has your password,” the e-mail’s subject line declared. “Someone just used your password to try to sign in to your Google Account,” warned the message, which reported that the incursion attempt came from an IP address in Ukraine. —the smoking gun

The post Worth Reading: Tracking the hackers appeared first on 'net work.

Expect iPhone 7, not iPhone 7 Pro this time around

Apple watchers at Japan's Mac Otokara website affirm based on "reliable sources," that Apple indeed will call its upcoming smartphones the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, passing on a possible iPhone 7 Pro. There have been rumors that Apple would deliver three new phones in September, with the iPhone 7 Pro featuring a dual-lens camera. It appears now that Apple will stick with two new phones, including the dual-lens camera in the iPhone 7 Plus. MORE: Best iPhone 7 Design Concepts of 2016To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco to Lay Off Up to 14,000 Employees

August is a rough month to be a Cisco employee.

IDG Contributor Network: Traffic flows better with Digi IoT-based traffic management

What would you do to avoid getting stuck in traffic? Some commuters leave at dawn to beat rush-hour traffic. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. Literally. Congestion costs every U.S. household $1,700 annually, according to a recent study by The Economist. These costs result from the time wasted by drivers and the fuel burned by idling cars while stuck in traffic jams. IoT traffic management systems provide relief by remotely adjusting traffic lights to speed traffic flows.  Architecting the solution The traffic management solution design follows a proven IoT design model.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

More on operationalizing threat intelligence

Coming out of Black Hat a few weeks ago, it’s pretty frightening what’s going on with cyber threats. Overall malware volume is down, but the number of variants has gone up precipitously. In fact, according to the Webroot threat report, about 97 percent of all malware variants are seen only one time. In other words, they are designed to target and attack specific organizations.Yes, enterprise organizations are bolstering defenses with anti-malware gateways and next-generation endpoint security tools, but they are also doubling down on threat intelligence. According to ESG research, 27 percent of enterprise organizations plan to spend significantly more on their threat intelligence programs over the next 12 to 18 months, while another 45 percent say they will spend somewhat more on their threat intelligence programs during this same timeframe.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

More on Operationalizing Threat Intelligence

Coming out of Black Hat a few weeks ago, it’s pretty frightening what’s going on with cyber-threats.  Overall malware volume is down but the number of variants has gone up precipitously.  In fact, according to the Webroot threat report, about 97% of all malware variants are seen only one time.  In other words, they are designed to target and attack specific organizations.Yes, enterprise organizations are bolstering defenses with anti-malware gateways and next-generation endpoint security tools but they are also doubling down on threat intelligence.  According to ESG research, 27% of enterprise organizations plan to spend significantly more on their threat intelligence programs over the next 12 to 18 months while another 45% say they will spend somewhat more on their threat intelligence programs during this same timeframe (note: I am an ESG employee).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

More on Operationalizing Threat Intelligence

Coming out of Black Hat a few weeks ago, it’s pretty frightening what’s going on with cyber-threats.  Overall malware volume is down but the number of variants has gone up precipitously.  In fact, according to the Webroot threat report, about 97% of all malware variants are seen only one time.  In other words, they are designed to target and attack specific organizations.Yes, enterprise organizations are bolstering defenses with anti-malware gateways and next-generation endpoint security tools but they are also doubling down on threat intelligence.  According to ESG research, 27% of enterprise organizations plan to spend significantly more on their threat intelligence programs over the next 12 to 18 months while another 45% say they will spend somewhat more on their threat intelligence programs during this same timeframe (note: I am an ESG employee).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware NSX Technology Partner Ecosystem Session Guide #VMworld 2016

Looking to learn more about how VMware is collaborating with industry leaders and emerging startups to solve customer problems around a range of strategic initiatives and use cases? We have sessions covering strategic initiatives like security, automation, and application continuity, as well as more tactical use cases like micro-segmentation, IT automating IT, disaster recovery, and more. Our rich partner ecosystem is continuing to grow, and our partners will highlight the benefits of their integrated offerings.

Browse the list of the partner sessions below, and then check out the schedule builder on VMworld.com to organize your week. We’re looking forward to seeing you at VMworld US 2016.

Monday, August 29

VMware NSX Customer Session Guide – #VMworld 2016

Considering rounding out your adoption of the three pillars of the Software-Defined Data Center with network virtualization? Want to see how others have done it? We have more than three dozen unique customers eager to share their experiences about how VMware NSX gave them the power to virtualize their networks and take their operations and businesses to new heights.

We have a range of engaging session formats, from short quick talks to customer discussion panels to customer breakout sessions, to help you see and hear how a wide variety of organizations have put VMware NSX to work for them.

So take a look at the list of the customer sessions below, and then check out the schedule builder on VMworld.com to organize your week. We’re looking forward to seeing you at VMworld US 2016.

Sunday, August 28

$39 for 54 Hours of Training with the Linux Essentials Bundle – Deal Alert

These 5 courses will take you from newbie to Linux pro. Complete with two classes designed for Linux beginners, the Linux Essentials Bundle is the first step to a system administrator career, or to making a lateral move to your IT department.The classes in your bundle include: Fundamentals of Unix & Linux System Administration Learn Docker from Scratch Linux Shell Programming for BeginnersTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: Chef 12 fires up devops

Two of the most important tasks in a datacenter are server provisioning and configuration management. At one time, administrators spent a significant amount of time physically deploying servers and network infrastructure, followed by even more minutes and hours manually configuring hundreds or even thousands of nodes. Then they spent an additional chunk of the day troubleshooting and fixing the errors they introduced by configuring all of these systems with their fat fingers.Chef clients are generally installed on Windows machines using the MSI package. Today, a number of resources specific to Windows come with Chef out-of-the-box. For example:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Review: Chef 12 fires up devops

Two of the most important tasks in a datacenter are server provisioning and configuration management. At one time, administrators spent a significant amount of time physically deploying servers and network infrastructure, followed by even more minutes and hours manually configuring hundreds or even thousands of nodes. Then they spent an additional chunk of the day troubleshooting and fixing the errors they introduced by configuring all of these systems with their fat fingers.Chef clients are generally installed on Windows machines using the MSI package. Today, a number of resources specific to Windows come with Chef out-of-the-box. For example:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

HyTrust Updates Its CloudControl and DataControl

The original version of HyTrust CloudControl was released in late 2009 and has undergone 10 major updates since.

US says transfer of internet governance will go ahead on Oct. 1

The U.S. will go ahead with its plan to hand over oversight of the internet's domain name system functions to a multistakeholder body on Oct. 1, despite fierce opposition from some lawmakers and advocacy groups.The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers operates under contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions that enable the efficient operation of the internet domain name system (DNS). These include responsibility for the coordination of the DNS root, IP addressing, and other internet protocol resources.The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency located in the Department of Commerce, said in March 2014 that it planned to let its contract with ICANN expire on Sept. 30, 2015, passing the oversight of the functions to a global governance model. NTIA made it clear that it would not accept a plan from internet stakeholders that would replace its role by that of a government-led or intergovernmental organization or would in any way compromise the openness of the internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FCC urged to crack down on Baltimore police for using phone trackers

Three civil rights groups have filed a formal complaint against Baltimore City police for using cell site simulator technology to investigate potential crimes, calling the process racially biased and unauthorized.The groups called the use of Stingray phone tracker technology "racially discriminatory," and even a disruption of emergency calling services, according to the complaint filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) early today.The 37-page complaint by the Center for Media Justice, Color Of Change and the Open Technology Institute at New America calls on the FCC to enforce two sections of the Communications Act. That act requires the police to obtain a federal license to operate cell site (CS) simulator equipment on frequency bands that are exclusively licensed to cellular phone carriers in Baltimore, according to the complaint.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft to end decades-old pick-a-patch practice in Windows 7

Microsoft yesterday announced that beginning in October it will offer only cumulative security updates for Windows 7 and 8.1, ending the decades-old practice of letting customers choose which patches they apply."Historically, we have released individual patches ... which allowed you to be selective with the updates you deployed," wrote Nathan Mercer, a senior product marketing manager, in a post to a company blog. "[But] this resulted in fragmentation where different PCs could have a different set of updates installed leading to multiple potential problems."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intel’s new computer can serve as the brains of robots

A compact computer called Euclid from Intel should make the development of robots much easier.Euclid looks much like the Kinect camera for Xbox consoles, but it's a self-contained PC that can be the guts of a robot.It's possible to install the Euclid computer where the "eyes" of a human-like robot would be typically placed. Intel demonstrated the Euclid computer in a robot moving on stage during CEO Brian Krzanich's keynote at the Intel Developer Forum on Tuesday.Euclid has a 3D RealSense camera that can serve as the eyes in a robot, capturing images in real-time. It has motion and position sensors that can help the robot move around both indoors and outdoors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft to end decades-old pick-a-patch practice in Windows 7

Microsoft yesterday announced that beginning in October it will offer only cumulative security updates for Windows 7 and 8.1, ending the decades-old practice of letting customers choose which patches they apply."Historically, we have released individual patches ... which allowed you to be selective with the updates you deployed," wrote Nathan Mercer, a senior product marketing manager, in a post to a company blog. "[But] this resulted in fragmentation where different PCs could have a different set of updates installed leading to multiple potential problems."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here