Paul McNamara
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This seems rather extreme
A “Top News” tweet from TechCrunch, pictured above, informs me that Alaska Airlines is killing off Virgin America … and Richard Branson?Clicking through reveals a less gruesome reality. TechCrunch If you’re interested in Alaska Airlines’ reasoning, which does not threaten Richard Branson, here is a company blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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FCC clears path for carriers to block more robocalls
The FCC this morning voted 3-0 to give carriers new regulatory cover to combat annoying and oftentimes fraudulent robocalls. The decision backs an ongoing effort begun last year with the establishment of a special government/industry task force.FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called today’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking “an important first step in ending the scourge of robocalls.”Specifically, the new rules would assure carriers that they are allowed to block calls originating from unassigned numbers and other obvious attempts at fraud such as numbers using 411 or 911 as an area code.In October the FCC reported that a trial of one such anti-spoofing measure cut IRS scam robocalls by 90 percent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Know your encryption workarounds: a paper
As The 21st Century Encryption Wars continue with no end in sight, security experts Bruce Schneier and Orin Kerr have collaborated on a paper that seeks to establish a common understanding of one aspect of the clash: encryption workarounds. The authors consciously avoid policy recommendations, but rather hope to better the understanding of those who will do so in our political and law enforcement arenas.From the paper’s abstract: The widespread use of encryption has triggered a new step in many criminal investigations: the encryption workaround. We define an encryption workaround as any lawful government effort to reveal an unencrypted version of a target's data that has been concealed by encryption. This essay provides an overview of encryption workarounds. It begins with a taxonomy of the different ways investigators might try to bypass encryption schemes. We classify six kinds of workarounds: find the key, guess the key, compel the key, exploit a flaw in the encryption software, access plaintext while the device is in use, and locate another plaintext copy. For each approach, we consider the practical, technological, and legal hurdles raised by its use.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Know your encryption workarounds: a paper
As The 21st Century Encryption Wars continue with no end in sight, security experts Bruce Schneier and Orin Kerr have collaborated on a paper that seeks to establish a common understanding of one aspect of the clash: encryption workarounds. The authors consciously avoid policy recommendations, but rather hope to better the understanding of those who will do so in our political and law enforcement arenas.From the paper’s abstract: The widespread use of encryption has triggered a new step in many criminal investigations: the encryption workaround. We define an encryption workaround as any lawful government effort to reveal an unencrypted version of a target's data that has been concealed by encryption. This essay provides an overview of encryption workarounds. It begins with a taxonomy of the different ways investigators might try to bypass encryption schemes. We classify six kinds of workarounds: find the key, guess the key, compel the key, exploit a flaw in the encryption software, access plaintext while the device is in use, and locate another plaintext copy. For each approach, we consider the practical, technological, and legal hurdles raised by its use.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google News: Brady jerseys more important than Trump/Russia or Supreme Court
Whether strictly the creation of an algorithm run amok or an inexplicable human error, Google News right now is demonstrating the kind of news judgment that has made it one of the company’s weakest products … and may well speak to the state of our celebrity-worshipping society.As Congress simultaneously holds hearings on Russian interference in last year’s presidential election and the pending confirmation of a justice to the United States Supreme Court, topping both stories in terms of importance, at least according to Google News, is the recovery of Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl jerseys. Google News I’ve been a Patriots fan longer than I’ve been a journalist and I’ve been both for longer than I’d like to admit. This is nuts. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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‘Don’t be this guy’
No wonder people from Massachusetts get called that name we all find kind of amusing but I still shouldn’t print on this website for networking professionals. The Massachusetts State Police posted the above photo to Facebook a few hours ago, along with this admonishment: Soooo..... this just happened. Trooper Paul Copponi just stopped this vehicle on the Massachusetts Turnpike in Weston. How little regard do you have to have for the lives and safety of your fellow citizens, not to mention your own life and safety, to do this?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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‘Don’t be this guy’
No wonder people from Massachusetts get called that name we all find kind of amusing but I still shouldn’t print on this website for networking professionals. The Massachusetts State Police posted the above photo to Facebook a few hours ago, along with this admonishment: Soooo..... this just happened. Trooper Paul Copponi just stopped this vehicle on the Massachusetts Turnpike in Weston. How little regard do you have to have for the lives and safety of your fellow citizens, not to mention your own life and safety, to do this?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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‘Don’t be this guy’
No wonder people from Massachusetts get called that name we all find kind of amusing but I still shouldn’t print on this website for networking professionals. The Massachusetts State Police posted the above photo to Facebook a few hours ago, along with this admonishment: Soooo..... this just happened. Trooper Paul Copponi just stopped this vehicle on the Massachusetts Turnpike in Weston. How little regard do you have to have for the lives and safety of your fellow citizens, not to mention your own life and safety, to do this?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Appeals court rules Americans have no legal recourse if hacked by foreign governments
Put aside the matter of Russian interference in our presidential election to instead consider this scenario: If Vladimir Putin ordered his government-employed hackers to plant spyware on your personal computer – stealing all your data and even recording your Skype calls – you would have no access to any legal remedy in the U.S. court system. Preposterous, you say? That’s the law, according to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which yesterday upheld a lower court decision denying even a day in court to an American citizen who moved here from Ethiopia 30 years ago and was victimized by that country’s government in the exact fashion described above.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Appeals court rules Americans have no legal recourse if hacked by foreign governments
Put aside the matter of Russian interference in our presidential election to instead consider this scenario: If Vladimir Putin ordered his government-employed hackers to plant spyware on your personal computer – stealing all your data and even recording your Skype calls – you would have no access to any legal remedy in the U.S. court system. Preposterous, you say? That’s the law, according to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which yesterday upheld a lower court decision denying even a day in court to an American citizen who moved here from Ethiopia 30 years ago and was victimized by that country’s government in the exact fashion described above.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Too lazy to fill out a March Madness bracket? Technology has you covered
Let’s say you can’t be bothered to fill out one of those basketball forms you’ll see floating around the office this week. You couldn’t care less but want to look like you care. Well, ESPN the website has just the feature for you: “Autofill a bracket.”Just don’t expect to win anything.Autofill comes in four different flavors, each guaranteed to produce a filled-in bracket form with one click, and each guaranteed to look nothing like the form filled out by your future office pool winner.The first option is called “chalk,” which is sports slang for picking the higher-seeded team. You don’t really need any technology to fill out a chalk bracket; just go with the higher seeded team in every single game until you’re done. You could do that with a pen, or pencil if pen seems intimidating. But we’ve already established that you’re lazy, so click chalk. (Spoiler alert: Villanova will be your winner because Villanova is the tournament’s top-seeded team.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IBM pledge: Not only does Notes/Domino live, there’s no end in sight
Having begun my time here covering the late 1990s email/collaboration battles between Lotus Notes/Domino, Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, and, yes, Novell GroupWise, it’s interesting to see IBM, which bought Lotus in 1995, pledging to support Domino and Notes for, well, an open-ended long period of time.Not surprising, though. In a blog post published yesterday, Ed Brill, vice president of product management and design for IBM Collaboration Solutions, laid out the company’s current thinking: “Notes/Domino 9.0 shipped in 2013, and IBM’s normal five-year support model meant that mainstream support could have ended in 2018. However, we know how important these products are to your business, and we are continuing to invest in new functionality. For IBM Notes/Domino 9.0, we have announced that product support will be extended through at least 2021, and extended support through at least 2024. There is no end of life planned for Notes and Domino, and we will continue to update the timeline for support as appropriate based on future releases and market requirements.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IBM pledge: Not only does Notes/Domino live, there’s no end in sight
Having begun my time here covering the late 1990s email/collaboration battles between Lotus Notes/Domino, Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, and, yes, Novell GroupWise, it’s interesting to see IBM, which bought Lotus in 1995, pledging to support Domino and Notes for, well, an open-ended long period of time.Not surprising, though. In a blog post published yesterday, Ed Brill, vice president of product management and design for IBM Collaboration Solutions, laid out the company’s current thinking: “Notes/Domino 9.0 shipped in 2013, and IBM’s normal five-year support model meant that mainstream support could have ended in 2018. However, we know how important these products are to your business, and we are continuing to invest in new functionality. For IBM Notes/Domino 9.0, we have announced that product support will be extended through at least 2021, and extended support through at least 2024. There is no end of life planned for Notes and Domino, and we will continue to update the timeline for support as appropriate based on future releases and market requirements.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Q&A site Stack Overflow has answer to nagging question … about Stack Overflow
A systems administrator was showering the other day (maybe not literally) when he had this thought: “I’ve never actually seen Stack Overflow’s front page. I wonder what percentage of their traffic requests are to simply http://stackoverflow.com.”As with any knowledge market – and news sites such as this one – most of the traffic to Stack Overflow would be assumed to arrive at addresses other than its homepage. The wondering here was about details. And no one need wonder any longer, as stepping up to the plate is Nick Craver, Stack Overflow Architecture Lead: Someone poked me for an answer here so here's some data:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Q&A site Stack Overflow has answer to nagging question … about Stack Overflow
A systems administrator was showering the other day (maybe not literally) when he had this thought: “I’ve never actually seen Stack Overflow’s front page. I wonder what percentage of their traffic requests are to simply http://stackoverflow.com.”As with any knowledge market – and news sites such as this one – most of the traffic to Stack Overflow would be assumed to arrive at addresses other than its homepage. The wondering here was about details. And no one need wonder any longer, as stepping up to the plate is Nick Craver, Stack Overflow Architecture Lead: Someone poked me for an answer here so here's some data:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Q&A site Stack Overflow has answer to nagging question … about Stack Overflow
A systems administrator was showering the other day (maybe not literally) when he had this thought: “I’ve never actually seen Stack Overflow’s front page. I wonder what percentage of their traffic requests are to simply http://stackoverflow.com.”As with any knowledge market – and news sites such as this one – most of the traffic to Stack Overflow would be assumed to arrive at addresses other than its homepage. The wondering here was about details. And no one need wonder any longer, as stepping up to the plate is Nick Craver, Stack Overflow Architecture Lead: Someone poked me for an answer here so here's some data:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Trump broke his H-1B promise. Now what?
On the campaign trail, candidate Donald Trump was so determined to present himself as the solution to H-1B visa abuse – the kind that has American IT workers training their foreign replacements -- that he promised to launch an investigation of the program on day one of his administration. Not in due time, on day one. Today is day 43. No investigation has been launched. No changes have been made to the H-1B program. And it’s not clear when or if any will be forthcoming. That no one should be surprised does not mean no one has taken notice. From a Computerworld story:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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‘Paging Dr. VT320, paging Dr. VT320’
Writes a contributor to Reddit’s section devoted to all things “mildly interesting:”“This is the computer (pictured above) which controls the paging system at the hospital where I work.”The audience found this much more than mildly interesting, as the post attracted more than 500 comments and 13,000 up-votes.The comments were split between those who see a disaster in the making:“You may find it funny, but aging hardware and obsolete systems plague medical facilities, and when those critical old pieces fail, it costs the facility many times more capital and labor power to restore critical systems, and risks patient health and safety.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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‘Paging Dr. VT320, paging Dr. VT320’
Writes a contributor to Reddit’s section devoted to all things “mildly interesting:”“This is the computer (pictured above) which controls the paging system at the hospital where I work.”The audience found this much more than mildly interesting, as the post attracted more than 500 comments and 13,000 up-votes.The comments were split between those who see a disaster in the making:“You may find it funny, but aging hardware and obsolete systems plague medical facilities, and when those critical old pieces fail, it costs the facility many times more capital and labor power to restore critical systems, and risks patient health and safety.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Border agents go all Monty Python on visa-holding software engineer
There have been more egregious episodes of U.S. border agents hassling and/or needlessly detaining citizens and valid visa-holders since the White House changed hands, but perhaps none has been more bizarre – or even darkly comical – than this one.Celestine Omin, a 28-year-old software engineer from Lagos, Nigeria, was traveling to the U.S. on Sunday as part of his job with Andela, a startup backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. Upon arrival at JFK Airport, he was questioned by one border agent, waited for an hour, and then was brought to a different room to be questioned by a second agent. From a LinkedIn story:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here