Martyn Williams, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

Martyn Williams

Author Archives: Martyn Williams

Software update caused NYSE suspension

An incompatibility with a software update and subsequent attempt to fix it were the root cause of glitch that forced a nearly four hour long suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.The exchange traced the problems back to an update applied to a single system on Tuesday evening. The new software was related to an upcoming industry-wide test of a new timestamp procedure for communications.On Wednesday morning as customers began connecting to the system, communications issues arose because of an incompatibility between the new software and configurations in customer systems. The software in the customer systems was updated prior to the market open at 9:30 a.m. EDT, but that update caused additional issues, the NYSE said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US Defense Secretary to renew call for cooperation with tech industry

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will renew his appeal to businesses to work more closely with the military on Thursday when he speaks to an audience of top executives at the Sun Valley conference in Idaho.The event is put on by investment bank Allen & Co. and usually attended by a host of big-name CEOs. Among the executives expected this year are Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk.Carter’s appearance at the secretive conference will be closed to media, but the DOD said he will speak about “the importance of a strong partnership between private sector innovators and government.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Glitch brings major disruption to NYSE trading

The New York Stock Exchange suffered its biggest outage in more than 10 years on Wednesday when an unspecified technical glitch forced a 3.5-hour long suspension of trading.The cause of the problem was not immediately disclosed, but the exchange quickly ruled out a cyberattack.Problems began during the morning and at 11:32am EDT the NYSE halted all trading to prevent the effects of the “internal technical issue” from affecting the overall market.“NYSE has temporarily suspended trading in all symbols,” the market said in a message to traders. “All open orders will be cancelled.”Updates for the public were few and far between during the duration of the outage, although the NYSE was said to be in constant contact with the Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google’s driverless car fleet to double as it prepares for new tests

Google’s autonomous car fleet is undergoing a major expansion. In the last month, the number of cars it is permitted to drive on public streets has more than doubled, and Google now accounts for more than half of the driverless cars that are legal in California.As of Wednesday, the company has been issued 48 permits for driverless vehicles, according to records at California’s Department of Motor Vehicles. About a month earlier, on May 15, Google held just 23 permits.The additional 25 permits are for a new fleet of prototype cars that are undergoing testing on private roads, the company said. The cars, tiny two-seaters, are designed for neighborhood driving and have a top speed of 25 miles per hour. They’ll be hitting public streets some time over the summer near Google’s headquarters in Mountain View.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FCC plans to fine AT&T $100 million over ‘unlimited’ data plans

The Federal Communications Commission plans to fine AT&T $100 million for misleading customers by throttling speeds on the lines of millions of customers who had "unlimited" data plans.The FCC alleges that AT&T did not adequately disclose to its customers on "unlimited" data plans that their speed would slow drastically after they had reached a monthly data allowance of 5GBs. The policy began in 2011.Data speeds were significantly slowed to 512kbps from the advertised 5Gbps to 12Gbps under something AT&T called its maximum bit rate policy. That very name is clearly at odds with an unlimited plan, a senior FCC official told reporters on a conference call.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FBI investigates St Louis Cardinals over Houston Astros hacking

Federal law enforcement officers are investigating whether the St. Louis Cardinals, one of the biggest teams in U.S. Major League Baseball, sought to gain advantage over rival Houston Astros by hacking into its computer network and accessing a key database.If the hacking is confirmed, would be the first known example of a major U.S. professional sports team hacking into the systems of a rival.The investigation centers on the baseball operations database which is said to contain statistics, video and other vital information about players.The federal investigation was confirmed by both Major League Baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals in brief statements.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US fears second major breach exposed more employee data

A second major cyber breach that might reveal far more personal and damaging information appears to have hit the U.S. government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM).The breach was apparently carried out by hackers with connections to China and targeted a database containing copies of the government’s Standard Form 86, according to news reports citing unnamed government officials. The form, available online, is a 120-page questionnaire that’s answered by people seeking a national security clearance.Those filling out the form are asked to provide highly personal details about their lives that go far beyond their birth dates and social security or passport numbers. Among the questions asked are details of former residences, names and addresses of neighbors and detailed information about family members.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hacked data on millions of US gov’t workers was unencrypted, union says

A union representing U.S. government workers says it believes detailed personal information on millions of current and former federal employees that was stolen by hackers was not encrypted.The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) said the attack on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) resulted in the theft of all personnel data for every federal employee.In a letter sent Thursday to Katherine Archuleta, director of the OPM, from David Cox, president of the AFGE, the union says it believes hackers targeted the government’s Central Personnel Data File, an expansive database with information on government workers except those in the military or intelligence fields.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Two years on, Google’s Project Loon drifts into focus

It’s been two years since Google first disclosed Project Loon, and while the company continues to keep most details of the project secret, the technology and challenges behind it are slowly coming into focus.Loon is an ambitious attempt to bring the Internet to the roughly 5 billion people on the planet who are out of range of existing networks. The project involves suspending cellular access points under high-altitude balloons to provide Internet access to those on the ground, an idea that sounds elegantly simple but was anything but.A series of recent presentations and talks by Google X employees have revealed some of the technical and commercial challenges the company faced in realizing Loon, and in nearing its target cost of $10,000 per balloon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Two years on, Google’s Project Loon drifts into focus

North Korea threatens cyber attacks on US

North Korea has responded to a report that it was the target of an unsuccessful Stuxnet-style cyber attack by threatening a cyber attack of its own against the U.S.In an article published in the country’s largest daily newspaper on Tuesday, North Korea said it would wage a cyber war against the U.S. to hasten its ruin. Such bellicose threats are fairly common in North Korean media and aren’t always followed by action, but when it comes to cyber attacks, the country has been blamed for several large attacks in the past.Most have been against South Korea, but the country was also publicly accused by the U.S. government of being behind last year’s devastating attack against Sony Pictures.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CSC to split in two, spin off US public sector work

IT services vendor Computer Sciences Corp. plans to separate its $4.1 billion U.S. public sector business to form a new company, it said Tuesday.The move is the latest step in a restructuring that began three years ago and will see CSC’s mission divided between U.S. government clients and all others.The U.S. public sector business, expected to be operational by October, will target federal, state and defense customers and employ 14,000 people. That business generated $4.1 billion in revenue last year.CSC’s remaining 51,000 employees will focus on commercial customers, and public sector organizations outside the U.S. That business recorded revenue of $8.1 billion last year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

China’s a fast-growing gold mine for Apple

Designed by Apple in California—that nod to its home state has appeared on Apple products for years, but increasingly, Apple’s gadgets are being sold far from its Cupertino headquarters.In the first three months of this year, iPhone sales in China surpassed those in the U.S. for the first time. Also for the first time, China jumped ahead of Europe as Apple’s biggest overall market after the Americas.Can the day be far off when Apple sells more in China than it does at home? The idea isn’t as far fetched as you might think.Thanks to the dominant role the iPhone plays in Apple’s revenue and the considerable untapped demand among China’s burgeoning middle class, sales aren’t showing any signs of stopping.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

China’s a fast-growing gold mine for Apple

RSA president questions government’s role in cybersecurity

The president of one of the world’s biggest computer security vendors says he is skeptical that a stronger government role in cyberdefense will abate the growing number of attacks.In an interview with IDG News Service, Amit Yoran, president of RSA, also rejected calls by U.S. intelligence chiefs for industry to tread carefully in deploying more encryption in case it cuts off their ability to eavesdrop on communications by suspected criminals.“The government is not the answer here,” he said, when asked about White House proposals for sharing of cybersecurity information. Despite the growing severity of attacks and a feeling that the government should “do something,” the issue is best left to private companies, because they are the ones developing networks and the technology that defends them, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung profits drop as it faces the iPhone 6

Samsung Electronics registered its sixth straight quarterly decline in profits in the first three months of this year as competition bit into its key smartphone and display businesses.The company said net profit during the January to March quarter fell 39 percent on the same period last year to 4.6 trillion won (US$4.3 billion). Revenue was 47 trillion won, down 12 percent, in line with guidance issued earlier in April.Samsung is under fierce pressure in the smartphone sector, where low-cost Chinese rivals are eroding sales at the low-end while Apple is winning customers at the high end.The company doesn’t disclose precise smartphone sales figures, but it said it sold 99 million phones of all types during the quarter. Of those, the share of smartphones was in the “mid 80s percent,” it said in a conference call with investors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung profits drop as it faces the iPhone 6

China, iPhone 6 help Apple to another record quarter

Apple achieved its second straight quarter of record results as demand for the new iPhone 6 surged and China became Apple’s second most important market after the U.S.The company sold 61.2 million units of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus during the the first three months of 2015, blasting past the 44 million [m] it shipped during the same quarter of last year when the iPhone 5S was still new on the market.Those sales helped Apple to a net profit of $13.6 billion [b], up by almost 33 percent, on revenue of $58 billion [b] for the quarter, up 27 percent. That’s above the $55 billion [b] Apple had said it was expecting and the $56 billion [b] consensus expectation from financial analysts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

China, iPhone 6 help Apple to another record quarter

Credit card terminals have used same password since 1990s, claim researchers

While retailers battle breaches that have resulted in tens of millions of credit card numbers stolen, word comes from the RSA Conference in San Francisco that a major vendor of payment terminals has been shipping devices for over two decades with the same default password.The vendor wasn’t named by the researchers, David Byrne and Charles Henderson, but they did disclose the password: 166816.A Google search reveals that’s the default password for several models of credit card terminal sold by Verifone, a Silicon Valley-based vendor that says it connects 27 million payment devices and has operations in 150 countries.Verifone didn’t immediately comment on the claim.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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