Merry Christmas!

‘net Work will be shut down next week so I can take a breather, spend some time with family, and get some of my todo list done…

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Worth Reading: Leaving it to the last second

Thanks to the moon, the earth’s rate of rotation is slowing down. It’s a subtle interaction and the modeling of planetary dynamics predicts that the earth’s rotation should be slowing down by an average of 2.3 milliseconds per century. But this is not quite so uniform, as the Economist reported in December on work of analyzing ancient records of solar eclipses… —CircleID

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Worth Reading: The year of silicon photonics

Computing historians may look back on 2016 as the Year of Silicon Photonics. Not because the technology has become ubiquitous – that may yet be years away – but because the long-awaited silicon photonics offerings are now commercially available in networking hardware. While the advancements in networking provided by silicon photonics are indisputable, the real game changer is in the CPU. —The Next Platform

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2016 Lessons Learned

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Worth Reading: The coming era of edge computing

Edge computing is a natural next step from cloud computing. The computer industry shifts back and forth from centralized computing, which has lots of power but is far away from the person or device using it, to local computing, which is close to the action but messy and hard for a user to harness all of its capacity. For instance, mainframes (centralized computing) gave rise to PCs and client/server (decentralized), which gave rise to the cloud (centralized). So decentralized is due next. This is the breathing in and out of the computer industry. —Business Insider

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Worth Reading: Driverless infrastructure

It turns out machines can deploy software much better than humans can. Why? Because software deployment is a set of mechanical procedures that can be driven by a declarative language. It is a process primed for a systematic approach done right, and reproducibly. This is especially important as patches and security fixes are applied to software — a ritual that should be repeatable and seamless. —The New Stack

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Cell Phone

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Worth Reading: The spillover effect

At the same time that default and end-to-end encryption enables dissidents to communicate, it also enables terrorists and other criminals to plot and plan without fear of detection. It means that even when a judge signs off on a warrant based on probable cause to believe that a particular device or account contains evidence of a crime that has been or is about to be committed, law enforcement cannot unlock the smartphone or obtain the relevant data in readable form. The concern is that criminals may go free, and dangerous plots may be left undetected. Comey and other law enforcement officials want US-based companies to provide sought-after data in readable form and to maintain the technological capacity to do so. But the approach is controversial; a powerful coalition of companies, civil liberties groups, and many others decries such efforts at mandated access as undercutting security for us all. —The Hoover Institution

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Worth Reading: Information paralysis

Modern Western man is suffering from an information overload. There are now over one million new books published each year in just the U.S., large newspapers publish anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 pieces of content per week, and it’s now reported that 3 million blog posts are written every day. The exponential amount of information produced today is no doubt impressive. But it’s also paralyzing. And it’s also harmful for a culture. —Intellectual Takeout

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Chalet Roof

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Worth Reading: Ransom by spreading the infection

Researchers say they have uncovered ransomware still under development that comes with a novel and nasty twist. Infected victims of the ransomware known as Popcorn Time, have the option to either pay up, or they can opt to infect two others using a referral link. If the two new ransomware targets pay the ransom, the original target receives a free key to unlock files on their PC. —threatpost

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Worth Reading: The canary

Using a canary is no longer a nice-to-have capability for internet companies—it’s a necessity. The traditional operational models of software system development, qualification, deployment, and operation simply cannot keep up with the velocity of change required for an internet-based company to thrive. Put simply, when the minimum required velocity for change is high enough, you have no option but to take intelligent risks. —LinkedIn Engineering Blog

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Exaggerating the End of NetEng

The argument around learning to code, it seems, always runs something like this:

We don’t need network engineers any longer, or we won’t in five years. Everything is going to be automated. All we’ll really need is coders who can write a python script to make it all work. Forget those expert level certifications. Just go to a coding boot camp, or get a good solid degree in coding, and you’ll be set for the rest of your life!

It certainly seems plausible on the surface. The market is pretty clearly splitting into definite camps—cloud, disaggregated, and hyperconverged—and this split is certainly going to drive a lot of change in what network engineers do every day. But is this idea of abandoning network engineering skills and replacing them wholesale with coding skills really viable?

To think this question through, it’s best to start with another one. Assume everyone in the world decides to become a coder tomorrow. Every automotive engineer and mechanic, every civil engineer and architect, every chef, and every grocer moves into coding. The question that should rise just at this moment is: what is it that’s being coded? Back end coders code database systems and business logic. Continue reading

Worth Reading: The economic model of Marai

Several media outlets have reported that a botnet based on the TR-064/TR-069 Mirai variant is being used to provide DDoS as a Service. These so-called Booter/Stresser or DDoS-for-hire services allow anyone willing to pay the price the ability to mount a DDoS attack against targets of their choice. Of course the fact that a botnet, Mirai-based or otherwise, is being used to make money should not come as a shock to anyone. Indeed, that is the whole purpose of this botnet. The economic model roughly mimics that of a mobile virtual network operator or MVNO. —Arbor

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Worth Reading: The bandwidth paradox

If consumers are always on, so is the data center. From mobile applications to wearables, the number of devices that are always connected continues to grow. Surprisingly, many consumers don’t understand that behind wicked-fast music downloads, YouTube video streaming or an instantaneous ride from Uber, data centers are at the forefront of this always-on movement. Without the compute capacity and agile power-management options, these services would simply be impossible. —Data Center Journal

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Green Doors

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Worth Reading: Broadcom’s two ASIC lines

Just like every kind of compute job cannot be handled by a single type of microprocessor, the diversity of networking tasks in the datacenters of the world require a variety of different switch and router ASICs to best manage those tasks. As the volume leader in the switching arena, Broadcom comes under intense competitive pressure and has to keep on its toes to provide enough variety in its switch chips to keep its rivals at bay. One way that Broadcom does this is by having two distinct switch ASIC lines. —The Next Platform

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Worth Reading: The new security normal

Today, the industry average time for finding an active attacker is about five months, reflecting the colossal failure of conventional security. The state of the union for federal security is that few if any non-defense agencies can find an active attacker on their network. Most cannot find a network intruder or a malicious insider, such as a rogue employee or contractor, working to steal or damage information or assets. Consider that the National Security Agency, the Office of Personnel Management and the FBI were breached along top security vendors and agencies. —MarketWatch

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Worth Reading: Sledgehammer DDoS

Monetization of DDoS attacks has been core to online crime way before the term cybercrime was ever coined. For the first half of the Internet’s life, DDoS was primarily a mechanism to extort money from targeted organizations. As with just about every Internet threat over time, it has evolved and broadened in scope and objectives. The new report by Forcepoint Security Labs covering their investigation of the Sledgehammer gamification of DDoS attacks is a beautiful example of that evolution. —CircleID

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Worth Reading: The private path to censorship

Governments have a legitimate objective in preventing the commission of terrorist acts, but security concerns can also motivate policies that jeopardize fundamental rights. Yesterday’s announcement comes after several years of demands from governments in the EU, the US, and around the world for these companies to do more to stop the spread of messages from terrorist organizations that seek to recruit individuals and inspire violent acts. Under this intense pressure, these companies have started a dangerous slide down the slippery slope to centralized censorship of speech online. —Center for Democracy and Technology

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