Peter Sayer

Author Archives: Peter Sayer

Up next: Disposable IoT

What if every package shipped contained a $0.20 tracker chip that could report when and approximately where the package was opened?That's a service that internet-of-things wireless network operator Sigfox thinks its partners could offer over the next year.It demonstrated a prototype wireless module contained in a cardboard envelope at its partner meeting in Prague on Tuesday, triggering the sending of a text message when the envelope was opened.Ripping open the envelope, Sigfox scientific director Christophe Fourtet showed off what he described as "an ultra-thin battery, ultra-thin contacts, and an ultra-low cost module, a few tens of cents." Seconds later, his phone buzzed to report delivery of the package.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Up next: Disposable IoT

What if every package shipped contained a $0.20 tracker chip that could report when and approximately where the package was opened?That's a service that internet-of-things wireless network operator Sigfox thinks its partners could offer over the next year.It demonstrated a prototype wireless module contained in a cardboard envelope at its partner meeting in Prague on Tuesday, triggering the sending of a text message when the envelope was opened.Ripping open the envelope, Sigfox scientific director Christophe Fourtet showed off what he described as "an ultra-thin battery, ultra-thin contacts, and an ultra-low cost module, a few tens of cents." Seconds later, his phone buzzed to report delivery of the package.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google service promotes hybrid clouds

Google is offering enterprises a new way to build hybrid infrastructure, with a service that extends corporate networks into its cloud platform.Called Dedicated Interconnect, it allows companies to treat servers in Google's cloud as if they were part of their own private address space. This can be useful for businesses operating in financial services, video editing, or other industries that need to be able to scale up processing capabilities, but want to keep their data on a private network, according to product manager John Veizades.By buying multiple 10 Gbit/s connections, customers can boost the throughput of the interconnect between the cloud and their on-premises networks, or improve its availability, or both.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google service promotes hybrid clouds

Google is offering enterprises a new way to build hybrid infrastructure, with a service that extends corporate networks into its cloud platform.Called Dedicated Interconnect, it allows companies to treat servers in Google's cloud as if they were part of their own private address space. This can be useful for businesses operating in financial services, video editing, or other industries that need to be able to scale up processing capabilities, but want to keep their data on a private network, according to product manager John Veizades.By buying multiple 10 Gbit/s connections, customers can boost the throughput of the interconnect between the cloud and their on-premises networks, or improve its availability, or both.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IoT could benefit from mesh-networking capabilities in Bluetooth

Bluetooth is about to get some significant new mesh networking capabilities -- and the best bit is, you may not need new hardware to benefit from them.Mesh networking will make it simpler to connect sensors across industrial sites, or to create smart home or building automation networks. Rather than wasting energy shouting to be heard by a distant gateway, devices will be able to whisper to their neighbors, asking them to pass messages.It will offer a new way for devices to join the Internet of Things. Once a building has a mesh network to control lighting, say, other devices can use it as wireless infrastructure for other applications such as asset tracking and wayfinding, said Martin Woolley, technical program manager at Bluetooth SIG, the organization behind the Bluetooth standard.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IoT could benefit from mesh-networking capabilities in Bluetooth

Bluetooth is about to get some significant new mesh networking capabilities -- and the best bit is, you may not need new hardware to benefit from them.Mesh networking will make it simpler to connect sensors across industrial sites, or to create smart home or building automation networks. Rather than wasting energy shouting to be heard by a distant gateway, devices will be able to whisper to their neighbors, asking them to pass messages.It will offer a new way for devices to join the Internet of Things. Once a building has a mesh network to control lighting, say, other devices can use it as wireless infrastructure for other applications such as asset tracking and wayfinding, said Martin Woolley, technical program manager at Bluetooth SIG, the organization behind the Bluetooth standard.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM wants you to encrypt everything with its new mainframe

IBM wants businesses to use its new z14 mainframe to encrypt pretty much everything -- an approach to security it calls pervasive encryption.Encrypting everything, and restricting access to the keys, is one way to reduce the risk and impact of data breaches. It can reduce the threat surface by 92 percent, according to research commissioned by IBM.To make such pervasive encryption viable, the z14 has four times as much silicon devoted to cryptographic accelerators as its predecessor, the z13, giving it seven times the cryptographic performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM wants you to encrypt everything with its new mainframe

IBM wants businesses to use its new z14 mainframe to encrypt pretty much everything -- an approach to security it calls pervasive encryption.Encrypting everything, and restricting access to the keys, is one way to reduce the risk and impact of data breaches. It can reduce the threat surface by 92 percent, according to research commissioned by IBM.To make such pervasive encryption viable, the z14 has four times as much silicon devoted to cryptographic accelerators as its predecessor, the z13, giving it seven times the cryptographic performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM wants you to encrypt everything with its new mainframe

IBM wants businesses to use its new z14 mainframe to encrypt pretty much everything -- an approach to security it calls pervasive encryption.Encrypting everything, and restricting access to the keys, is one way to reduce the risk and impact of data breaches. It can reduce the threat surface by 92 percent, according to research commissioned by IBM.To make such pervasive encryption viable, the z14 has four times as much silicon devoted to cryptographic accelerators as its predecessor, the z13, giving it seven times the cryptographic performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM wants you to encrypt everything with its new mainframe

IBM wants businesses to use its new z14 mainframe to encrypt pretty much everything -- an approach to security it calls pervasive encryption.Encrypting everything, and restricting access to the keys, is one way to reduce the risk and impact of data breaches. It can reduce the threat surface by 92 percent, according to research commissioned by IBM.To make such pervasive encryption viable, the z14 has four times as much silicon devoted to cryptographic accelerators as its predecessor, the z13, giving it seven times the cryptographic performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to secure your CMS with out patching

In as little as four hours, the bad guys can reverse engineer a software patch for an open-source content management system (CMS) and build an exploit capable of turning millions of websites into spammers, malware hosts or DDoS attackers. "There's just not enough time for normal site owners to apply the updates," said David Jardin, a member of the German association CMS Garden, which promotes the use of open source CMS software including Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and others.To help ordinary users patch more quickly, CMS Garden is participating in a government-funded project, Secure Websites and Content Management Systems (Siwecos), to make the websites of SMEs more secure. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to secure your CMS without patching

In as little as four hours, the bad guys can reverse engineer a software patch for an open-source content management system (CMS) and build an exploit capable of turning millions of websites into spammers, malware hosts or DDoS attackers. "There's just not enough time for normal site owners to apply the updates," said David Jardin, a member of the German association CMS Garden, which promotes the use of open source CMS software including Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and others.To help ordinary users patch more quickly, CMS Garden is participating in a government-funded project, Secure Websites and Content Management Systems (Siwecos), to make the websites of SMEs more secure. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to secure your CMS without patching

In as little as four hours, the bad guys can reverse engineer a software patch for an open-source content management system (CMS) and build an exploit capable of turning millions of websites into spammers, malware hosts or DDoS attackers. "There's just not enough time for normal site owners to apply the updates," said David Jardin, a member of the German association CMS Garden, which promotes the use of open source CMS software including Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and others.To help ordinary users patch more quickly, CMS Garden is participating in a government-funded project, Secure Websites and Content Management Systems (Siwecos), to make the websites of SMEs more secure. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to secure your CMS without patching

In as little as four hours, the bad guys can reverse engineer a software patch for an open-source content management system (CMS) and build an exploit capable of turning millions of websites into spammers, malware hosts or DDoS attackers. "There's just not enough time for normal site owners to apply the updates," said David Jardin, a member of the German association CMS Garden, which promotes the use of open source CMS software including Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and others.To help ordinary users patch more quickly, CMS Garden is participating in a government-funded project, Secure Websites and Content Management Systems (Siwecos), to make the websites of SMEs more secure. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

It’s time to upgrade to TLS 1.3 already, says CDN engineer

Businesses dragging their heels over rolling out TLS 1.2 on their website might have an excuse to delay a little longer: Version 1.3 of the TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption protocol will be finalized later this year, and early deployments of it are already under way.TLS, the successor to SSL, is used to negotiate secure connections to web or mail servers, encrypting data on the move.Six years in the making, TLS 1.2 added new, stronger encryption options -- but retained all the older, weaker encryption schemes that had gone before in the name of backward compatibility. Unfortunately, this meant that someone able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack could often downgrade connections to a weaker encryption system without the user being aware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

It’s time to upgrade to TLS 1.3 already, says CDN engineer

Businesses dragging their heels over rolling out TLS 1.2 on their website might have an excuse to delay a little longer: Version 1.3 of the TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption protocol will be finalized later this year, and early deployments of it are already under way.TLS, the successor to SSL, is used to negotiate secure connections to web or mail servers, encrypting data on the move.Six years in the making, TLS 1.2 added new, stronger encryption options -- but retained all the older, weaker encryption schemes that had gone before in the name of backward compatibility. Unfortunately, this meant that someone able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack could often downgrade connections to a weaker encryption system without the user being aware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

It’s time to upgrade to TLS 1.3 already, says CDN engineer

Businesses dragging their heels over rolling out TLS 1.2 on their website might have an excuse to delay a little longer: Version 1.3 of the TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption protocol will be finalized later this year, and early deployments of it are already under way.TLS, the successor to SSL, is used to negotiate secure connections to web or mail servers, encrypting data on the move.Six years in the making, TLS 1.2 added new, stronger encryption options -- but retained all the older, weaker encryption schemes that had gone before in the name of backward compatibility. Unfortunately, this meant that someone able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack could often downgrade connections to a weaker encryption system without the user being aware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Uber CEO resigns, leaving company in search of a new strategy

Uber is now a driverless vehicle, after CEO Travis Kalanick stepped down Tuesday.Kalanick had already decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from the company, but now he's leaving for good. The move came at the request of the board of directors, The New York Times reported Wednesday.The company has already lost Kalanick's right-hand man, Senior Vice President of Business Emil Michael, following a number of gaffes including his suggestion that the company target a journalist who had been investigating the company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU wants to ease commercial drone use with future flight rules

The European Commission wants to make it easier for lightweight drones to fly autonomously in European airspace -- with logistics, inspection services and agricultural businesses set to benefit.Last Friday, the Commission unveiled a plan to improve the safety of drones flying at low altitude.It wants to introduce a consistent set of rules across the EU for flying drones in "U-space," its name for regulated airspace under 150 meters in altitude.Simpler regulations will be welcomed by multinational businesses such as gas giant Engie, which is developing drones for tasks such as pipeline or building inspection or for cleaning the insulators on high-voltage overhead power lines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU wants to ease commercial drone use with future flight rules

The European Commission wants to make it easier for lightweight drones to fly autonomously in European airspace -- with logistics, inspection services and agricultural businesses set to benefit.Last Friday, the Commission unveiled a plan to improve the safety of drones flying at low altitude.It wants to introduce a consistent set of rules across the EU for flying drones in "U-space," its name for regulated airspace under 150 meters in altitude.Simpler regulations will be welcomed by multinational businesses such as gas giant Engie, which is developing drones for tasks such as pipeline or building inspection or for cleaning the insulators on high-voltage overhead power lines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here