Target on its backThe giant Japanese electronics company dazzled us with its Walkman and Discman in the late 70s/early 80s, as well as with its TVs, cameras and game consoles over the years. But things took a bad turn in 2005…(SEE ALSO: Sony BMG Rootkit Scandal: 10 Years Later)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Technology-related concerns account for 3 of the top 5 biggest fears among Americans surveyed recently by Chapman University of Orange, Calif. -- and a couple of the other concerns on the top 10 list could be considered tech-related worries as well.Number 1 on the list, according to the online survey of more than 1,500 adults, is Corruption of Government Officials, while technology-related concerns ranked #2 (Cyber-terrorism), #3 (Corporate tracking of personal information) and #5 (Government tracking of personal information). Numbers 7 (Identity theft) and #10 (Credit card fraud) could also be classified as tech-related worries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Six feet deepGoogle is truly a company that has more technology and products than it can handle sometimes, and in 2015 the company with the recent name change shed a host of tools and products to enable it to focus on more pressing needs. Here’s a look back at what Google this year has offed or announced plans to off (To go back even further, check out 2014’s Google Graveyard.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Named Data Networking Project
Van Jacobson: "In vocabulary terms, IP is like a good middle school education. There’s a lot of things you can say and communicate in society but it’s not so great for writing a poetry volume or a thesis... The real goal of NDN was to get us into college."
Much of the Named Data Networking (NDN) project codebase is still at the Version zero-dot-something level. But things are nevertheless starting to get real for this content-centric architecture designed to blast past today’s host-based and point-to-point Internet scheme to one more suited for accessing applications across hugely scalable networks that are mobile and extend to all sorts of sensor-equipped things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While not as useless as PR pitches about technology companies cracking some other publication's Top 10 list, "independent" research reports commissioned by vendors are right up there.
Why last week we even got a pitch about two vendors that "revealed the findings of a joint independent study." Reminded me of this line from Hermey the dentist/elf in the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV classic:
I've lost count of how many times of late I've shot down pitches on such self-serving research, but in an attempt to try quantifying the scope of this issue I asked colleagues to forward me any such solicitations that they received last week, including for canned infographics. Some of my co-workers, unfortunately, had already jettisoned the pitches and emptied their trash before receiving my request, but the combined two dozen that they did send or that I received from publicity-hungry companies will at least give you a feel for this (I'm not including reports sent to us by research firms, not that I'm under any illusions of their work always being pure.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Department of Homeland Security's Science & Technology Directorate later this month will hold an hour-long Twitter chat to discuss the United States' plan to protect its networks against distributed denial-of-service attacks.The US, along with China, are the top targets for those who would disrupt networked machines and networks by bombarding them with traffic, according to security vendor Kaspersky Lab.You're invited to join @dhsscitech on Wednesday, Oct. 21 from noon to 1 p.m. EST for the conversation. Submit questions and comments about DDoS before, during or after the chat and use the #STTechTalk hashtag to engage in the discussion.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Even wireless LANs located many stories from the ground in skyscraper offices might not be safe from hackers -- if the hackers are armed with drones. So say researchers in Singapore, a country where skyscrapers are plentiful.In this video, researchers from iTrust, a Center for Research in Cyber Security at the Singapore University of Technology And Design, show how attackers could infiltrate a wireless printer using a personal drone and an Android phone outfitted with a special app.MORE: New super-precise drones could win over wireless carriersTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A University of Texas at Dallas researcher has come up with a way for virtual machines to have each others' backs in the name of better cloud network security.Dr. Zhiqiang Lin, an assistant professor of computer science at the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at UT Dallas, has earned a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award to support his efforts in the area of virtual machine introspection. The award includes $500,000 in funding for five years.MORE: Will containers kill virtual machines?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is awarding roughly $3.7 million for three pilot projects designed to make online transactions more private and secure.
This fourth round of recipients of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) grants will, respectively, pilot technologies designed to safeguard tax returns, secure medical information and protect online storage. The NSTIC, which unites the public and private sectors, launched in 2011.
The new grantees are:
MorphoTrust USA (Billerica, Mass., $1,005,168)MorphoTrust’s second NSTIC pilot grant will focus on preventing the theft of personal state tax refunds in multiple states. MorphoTrust will leverage trust created during the online driver licensing process, which includes biometrics and more, to build trustworthy electronic IDs. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
25 years oldEach year since 1991, Improbable Research has highlighted a handful of real researchers whose work might seem goofy on the surface, but often has serious implications. The Ig Nobel prizes are awarded annually at a ceremony at Harvard University shortly before the Nobel prizes are announced. Here’s a look at a winner from each of the past 24 years, with the 2015 prize winners being announced tonight.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
25 years oldEach year since 1991, Improbable Research has highlighted a handful of real researchers whose work might seem goofy on the surface, but often has serious implications. The Ig Nobel prizes are awarded annually at a ceremony at Harvard University shortly before the Nobel prizes are announced. Here’s a look at a winner from each of the past 24 years, with the 2015 prize winners being announced tonight.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Dave Newman
Amidst all the excitement about the possible benefits of the Internet of Things, a slew of warnings have been sounded by IT pros, vendors and analysts about looming security threats. Now you can add the FBI to that list of those cautioning enthusiasts.The Bureau this week issued a public service announcement regarding cybercrime opportunities posed by the connecting of all sorts of data-enabled devices, from medical gear to entertainment gadgets, to the Internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Following the FCC’s warning in January that it would no longer tolerate the Marriotts of the world blocking visitors’ WiFi hotspots, I set a reminder on my calendar to revisit the topic six months later. After all, the issue of WiFi blocking sparked strong reactions from IT pros, end users and vendors of wireless LAN products early in the year, and I figured it wasn’t over yet. So I started by making an inquiry directly to Marriott Global CIO Bruce Hoffmeister, who foisted me on to a company spokesman, who “respectfully declined” to connect me with anyone for an update on how Marriott is now dealing with perceived threats to its network. He simply directed me back to Marriott’s statement from January that it would behave itself, no doubt hoping the hotel chain could further distance itself from the $600K fine that the FCC hit it with, as well as the rest of the bad publicity. I also inquired at the FCC, which in Marriott-like fashion, referred me back to the agency’s last statement on the matter from January, and in a follow up, said it can’t comment on whether any new investigations are underway. Continue reading
Microsoft
Microsoft's Albert Greenberg
Last week was a big one for Microsoft's Albert Greenberg: The networking expert delivered the keynote address at SIGCOMM 2015 in London AND received the annual SIGCOMM Award, recognizing lifetime contribution to the field of communication networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Dr. John Halamka has taken to his "Life as a Healthcare CIO" blog to sound the alarm on medical device threats in the wake of the FDA late last week issuing its first cybersecurity warning about a specific medical device.The Food and Drug Administration urged healthcare facilities to stop using Hospira's Symbiq Infusion System, a common device for dispensing fluids/drugs to patients that the manufacturer says is being removed from the market. The warning spells out that the devices could be accessed via a hospital network and rejiggered to mess up a patient's dosage. The FDA said it's not aware of any hacking incidents involving the pumps, whose vulnerability was initially warned of on the US-CERT site in June and then the Industrial Control Systems CERT site in mid-July.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
And there I was, thinking I was making the most of my MacBook Air box by using it as a stand for my laptop rather than forking over the money for a fancier stand.But the IT department at George Fox University in Oregon easily has me beat with its human transport wheel, made from 36 trapezoid-shaped iMac boxes. They took out the computers and styrofoam, and built the 120-pound iWheel.According to the school's blog, sysadmin Mike Campadore had been plotting the iWheel for more than a year, initially estimating he'd need 38 boxes. He joined with colleague Rich Bass this past Friday (SysAdmin Day, as it turns out) and gave the wheel a big old spin across campus. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
And there I was, thinking I was making the most of my MacBook Air box by using it as a stand for my laptop rather than forking over the money for a fancier stand.
But the IT department at George Fox University in Oregon easily has me beat with its human transport wheel, made from 36 trapezoid-shaped iMac boxes. They took out the computers and styrofoam, and built the 120-pound iWheel.
According to the school's blog, sysadmin Mike Campadore had been plotting the iWheel for more than a year, initially estimating he'd need 38 boxes. He joined with colleague Rich Bass this past Friday (SysAdmin Day, as it turns out) and gave the taped-together box wheel a big old spin across campus. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Chief Information Security Officer Christian Hamer, who is responsible for policy and awareness across Harvard University and whose team handles security operations and incident response, took part on a panel last week at the Campus Technology conference in Boston (Campus Technology’s Rhea Kelly moderated; ESET researcher Lysa Myers was also an expert panelist). Here’s a selection of Hamer’s more notable observations:
Most important steps for protecting your network: We think all too often about IT security or information security [as being] about the bits and bytes, and what kind of widget we put on the network or somebody’s computer to protect it… But in general we have populations that want to do the right thing. They’re a lot more aware of the threats now because a lot of them have been in the media quite a bit recently. But they’re just not sure what to do or how to do it. And that’s probably the No. 1 thing that people could double down on. Does your community know what to do? Do they know how to do it? And do they know who to ask if they have trouble understanding that?
Mobile security: “There’s a great industry around mobile Continue reading
Sorry situationImage by ThinkstockDespite all the technology advances that have rolled out this year, it’s also been a sorry state of affairs among leading network and computing vendors, along with businesses that rely heavily on technology. Apple, Google, airlines and more have issued tech-related mea culpas in 2015…To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
John Curran, CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), told attendees at the Campus Technology conference in Boston on Wednesday that the IP address authority's pool of IPv4 addresses has dwindled to 90,000 and will be exhausted in about two weeks.
"This is a pretty dramatic issue," says Curran, who founded ARIN in 1997 and was once CTO of Internet pioneer BBN.
Curran’s revelation came during a talk during which he urged IT pros from educational institutions to upgrade their public facing websites to IPv6 as soon as possible. Not that the IPv4 address pool drying up will result in such websites being cut off from the Internet, but Curran did say moving to IPv6 will provide much more direct access to end users whose mobile and other devices increasingly have IPv6 rather than IPv4 addresses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bob Brown