The frequenter of Reddit’s section devoted to networking had an unusual question for his professional peers:“Anyone ever had to rack a switch upside down? Our data center uses these garbage PDUs that are blocking the QSFP ports on a 1U 9k switch. Any reason besides it’s f*****g stupid that I shouldn't rack it upside down? Like something technical?”Cue the wise guys:
“Be careful, the packets might fall out!”“The real problem comes from managed switches that have any sort of security setups. A managed switch puts unwanted frames in the bit bucket for disposal, but if it's upside down the bits will spill out of the bucket and clog the switch's cooling fans.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google this week has been awarded a patent for “a voting user interface” that some are speculating may eventually lead to the United States conducting presidential elections online.Call me skeptical.From a Computerworld story on our site:
The new technology easily could go beyond entertainment-oriented online campaigns, though. Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, said the new online election technology would set up Google to handle both fun campaigns and serious political campaigns.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Regular readers may recall that a year or so ago I took a moment away from this blog’s typical fare to note that it was minus 8 degrees outside, also known as “pretty nippy for these parts.”This morning, as you can see in the picture above, it’s minus 10.And I did the math after my fingers thawed out.Now obvious caveats: Minus 10 isn’t considered all that cold in some places. Where you live, for example, I’ve heard tell that at minus 10 water doesn’t even bother to freeze.In Massachusetts, however, minus 10 is wicked cold, as in I’ve lived here for more than half a century and can’t recall ever being outside when the thermometer was reading double-digits below zero.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While antivirus software pioneer John McAfee garners media attention here for his long-shot Libertarian presidential run, law enforcement authorities in Belize are reportedly continuing to investigate the 2012 murder of McAfee’s American neighbor. That probe prompted McAfee to flee Belize and eventually land back in the United States.McAfee has unequivocally denied any participation in or knowledge of the murder and has maintained that he left Belize because he feared authorities there would imprison or kill him anyway.From a report in The San Pedro Sun: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Yes, you and I are waaaaay too savvy to fall for the old “I’m calling from the government and you had better pay up” trick.Unfortunately, others are not, especially among the elderly.So the Federal Trade Commission is once again asking for help getting the word out:
We’re hearing from our colleagues that those pesky government imposters are at it again, using the FTC’s name to try to con people into paying them for something. Whether it’s to clean up your credit report, give you a prize, resolve a complaint against you, or pay off a debt you owe, they’re all lies. The message may be a call or an email, but it isn’t from the Federal Trade Commission, or any other federal agency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
My father, Burke McNamara, passed away back in December at age 89 after a long period of declining health.As I continue to deal with the closing of his financial affairs, I’d like to offer this bit advice to all of you: If you're ever in the unfortunate position of having to close accounts, such as a VISA account, for a family member who has died, do not under any circumstances approach the task in an honest and straightforward manner.Lie to them.Call the help desk and assume the identity of the loved one who has passed. Cancel the account. Simple, done. Otherwise, if you tell them the truth, stupid-ass companies, such as VISA, will tell you that they require you to send them a copy of the (expletive deleted) death certificate.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Ultimate hideawayImage by ReutersYou say you’ll need an escape route should the presidential candidate of your nightmares prevail come November? Perhaps a spacious and lavishly equipped nuclear fallout bunker will do the trick, provided you’re OK with a move to Northern Ireland and can pony up the quite reasonable $840,000 asking price. Built in 1987 at the end of the Cold War, the bunker sleeps 235, and while its technological trimmings may be in need of modernization, such will be the least of your worries once President Nightmare has a finger on the button. The Guardian has details and a Reuters photographer shows the place off here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Back in 1991There was quite a collection of new technology and plain-old interesting geeky stuff in 1991. Included were the public debut of the World Wide Web, the introduction of Linux and the discovery of Otzi the Iceman. There was the lithium-ion battery, PGP encryption, Apple’s PowerBook, Terminator 2 and more. When through, if you’d like to catch up on the first nine installments of this series, check out 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Brian Krebs, author of the Krebs on Security blog, has made a name for himself by exposing some of the most dangerous characters in the cybercrime underworld. And he has paid a price for doing so, including being the target of a SWAT attack.Several years ago, Krebs also incurred the wrath of a Ukrainian hacker, Sergey Vovnenko, who responded to the unwanted publicity Krebs provided him by trying to frame the journalist for heroin possession.
Krebs writes on his blog:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Not that much is expected of your garden-variety thieves, but stealing a 500-pound snow plow blade from a fire department in the dead of winter requires an elevated level of disregard for the wellbeing of your fellow citizens.Such a brazen theft in this era of ubiquitous surveillance also requires a surprisingly common breed of cluelessness, as the act violates the first rule of security cameras: They are everywhere.I note this particular case of reckless stupidity in part because the occupants of the pickup pictured above victimized the fire department and residents of North Attleboro, Mass., my hometown, when they attached the blade to their truck and drove off. Friends and former neighbors were put at risk.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Oh, the stories it might tell. But since even the tower’s days of facilitating talk are behind it, a writer for The Atlantic has taken up the task of telling its story … or at least piecing one together as best as possible. From that account, which has better pictures:
We were somewhere in Kansas when we found the second microwave tower. We’d found the ruins of one somewhere else in Kansas earlier during that day. This other one still had its pyramidal horn-reflector antennae intact. One abandoned microwave tower is a coincidence; two is probably an omen. Especially when that second one has AT&T Long Lines signage out front.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Let’s say for the sake of discussion that the guy – anyone think it’s a woman? – did not place the 10 tubes of black powder in his checked luggage as part of a terrorist plot or amateur sting operation against TSA screeners. The TSA mentions neither in its blog post that notes the incident.Instead, this adult human being awakened one morning recently, began packing for a trip, realized he needed to transport 10 tubes of an explosive from his home in Utah through Salt Lake City International Airport, and decided the best way to do that would be to place the tubes in his suitcase alongside his shaving kit and underwear.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security vendor Kasperky Lab yesterday issued this reminder as part of its “fact or fiction” series: No matter what you may have read on Facebook, entering your bank PIN in reverse will not summon the police.From the Kaspersky post:
This urban legend is over a decade old and consistently makes it’s rounds on the Internet. Surprisingly, a lot of social media users care so much about this topic that they continually share this old tale with their friends, urging them to READ IT RIGHT AWAY!As it goes with all urban legends, there is a grain of truth in this myth. The idea of ’emergency code’ for ATMs had been hatched some time ago and is obviously where the myth originated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Northeast blackout of 1965, which occurred 50 years ago today, was one of those “Where were you?” historical events that those who lived through it will never forget.I was at home in North Attleboro, Mass., and while only eight years old, remember the blackout vividly. About 30 million people living in Ontario, New York, New Jersey and the New England states sparing Maine were plunged into darkness for up to 13 hours.This clip from NBC News captures both the drama of evening – Cold War fears were in full force – and the primitiveness of reporting under such conditions 50 years ago.
What caused the outage? From Wikipedia:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
They are inescapable on the Internet. Most are awful. A few are not, so we have started publishing a selection of memes that amuse me. One every week. Here’s the archive.Pool Wi-FiImage by ImgurTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Happy 30thThe MIT Media Lab will celebrate its 30th anniversary on Oct. 30 with an invitation-only symposium hosted by Penn & Teller, a choice which seems more than fitting given how much of the center’s work over the years has appeared magical before being woven into our everyday lives. What follows is a representative sample of the lab’s better known accomplishments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Dell CEO and Chairman Michael Dell is a few pen strokes away from buying a house in the city of Boston, Fortune reports, which may help assuage concerns here in Massachusetts that his company’s recent $67 billion purchase of EMC will result in the storage powerhouse and its some 9,500 local employees moving to Texas.Dell from the moment the deal was announced has said he plans to keep EMC right where it is, but nothing says “We’re sticking around” quite like ponying up for a local abode (Dell has other homes in Texas and Hawaii). And, local jobs aside, I have an even more parochial concern about Dell’s intentions: I live and pay taxes in the town of Hopkinton, which is the longtime home of EMC. There must be a second-largest employer/taxpayer, but I couldn’t tell you who that might be.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Consummating a deal that was rumored for much of last week, Dell this morning confirmed that it is acquiring search giant EMC and its myriad businesses for $67 billion, a record amount for the technology industry.EMC’s most valuable piece, virtualization leader VMware, will continue as a publicly traded company, according to Dell.From a Dell press release:
The combination of Dell and EMC will create the world’s largest privately-controlled, integrated technology company. The company will be a leader in the extremely attractive high-growth areas of the $2 trillion information technology market with complementary product portfolios, sales teams and R&D investment strategies. The transaction combines two of the world’s greatest technology franchises with leadership positions in servers, storage, virtualization and PCs and it brings together strong capabilities in the fastest growing areas of the industry, including digital transformation, software-defined data center, hybrid cloud, converged infrastructure, mobile and security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sexting among today’s teenagers was the subject of an email string this morning that eventually took a turn down memory lane, courtesy of a long-time friend who wouldn’t make up stuff like this:
“Which reminds me of a story from 9th grade (1969 or ‘70). I was outside the high school with a couple of friends one morning before homeroom when we noticed some kind of small piece of paper falling from a second-story window. We went over and picked it up, and it wasn’t a piece of paper after all! Rather, it was a still-developing Polaroid of a kid’s (penis) with the handwritten caption, ‘(Not-to-be-named-here kid’s penis.)’ Technology really has come a long way.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Redditor submitted this picture to the section of that site that is devoted to networking.
“I think this is more of a network cabling thing,” he writes. “I mean the installation isn’t that old to find something like this but ... personally speechless to find this in a modern building.” Here’s the full picture: Reddit user riahc3 via Imgur
What is it?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Paul McNamara