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s inability to access or use its software during a ransomware attack was outside the scope of its “businessowners” policy. Hedge 166: Oblivious DoH with Chris Wood
DNS over HTTPS, or DoH, is designed to protect the end user’s DNS queries from last mile providers—but recursive servers (or resolvers) also have full access to what a user is asking for. How can users preserve their privacy against data collection at recursive servers? ODoH provides one answer. Listen in as Tom Ammon, Chris Wood, and Russ White discuss how ODoH works, and what this means for user privacy.
Upcoming Course: How Routers Really Work
I’m teaching a course on router internals over at Safari Books Online on the 24th (in 10 days). From the descriptions:
A network device—such as a router, switch, or firewall—is often seen as a single “thing,” an abstract appliance that is purchased, deployed, managed, and removed from service as a single unit. While network devices do connect to other devices, receiving and forwarding packets and participating in a unified control plane, they are not seen as a “system” in themselves.
The course is three hours. I’m in the process of updating the slides … or rather, I need to get to updating the slides in the next couple of days.
Hedge 165: Low Earth Orbit with Dan York
Have you ever wondered about Starlink and similar Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite systems? How are they different from geosynchronous satellites? What about the delay of sending traffic through satellites? And the future of satellites? Join Tom Ammon, Dan York, and Russ White as we discuss the ins and outs of satellite technologies.
Hedge 164: Threat Modeling with Chris Romeo
For this week’s episode of the Hedge, Tom Ammon and Russ White are joined by Chris Romeo to talk about the importance of the human element in threat modeling. If you’ve ever wondered about the importance of threat modeling or how to get started in threat modeling, this episode will guide you on your way.
Hedge 163: Netops, Mapping, and Working Hard
It’s one of those episodes where Tom, Eyvonne, and Russ just sit around and talk about the news of the day. We cover three topics in this show. The first is Netops, automation, and where this is all going. The second is on the FCC mapping process and the reality of broadband in the US. The third—perhaps a little controversial—is about IT work habits, innovation, and adding value.
Hedge 162: Geoff Huston and Going Dark
Encrypt everything! Now! We don’t often do well with absolutes like this in the engineering world–we tend to focus on “get it down,” and not to think very much about the side effects or unintended consequences. What are the unintended consequences of encrypting all traffic all the time? Geoff Huston joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the problems with going dark.
Infrastructure Privacy Live Webinar
I’m teaching a three-hour webinar on infrastructure privacy this coming Friday. From the description—
Privacy is important to every IT professional, including network engineers—but there is very little training oriented towards anyone other than privacy professionals. This training aims to provide a high-level overview of privacy and how privacy impacts network engineers. Information technology professionals are often perceived as “experts” on “all things IT,” and hence are bound to face questions about the importance of privacy, and how individual users can protect their privacy in more public settings.
There is a recording for anyone who registers.
Hedge 161: Going Dark with Geoff Huston
Encrypt everything! Now! We don’t often do well with absolutes like this in the engineering world–we tend to focus on “get it down,” and not to think very much about the side effects or unintended consequences. What are the unintended consequences of encrypting all traffic all the time? Geoff Huston joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the problems with going dark.
Hedge 160: Avishai Ish-Shalom and Jurassic Cloud
Cloud might seem shiny and new—but that’s just the way it looks on the outside. Most cloud services are still built on decades old technology, from networking to file access. Avishai Ish-Shalom joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the impact of changes in hardware on the design of operating systems, and think through how things will need to change to continue the drive for more performance.
2022 Working Environment
The change of the year is always a good time to reflect. This year I’ve made major changes in my physical environment by reshaping many of the things about this house we recently moved to in Knoxville. Besides ripping out the entire kitchen, replacing all the floors, and reworking the fireplace, it was a good chance to rethink the office I work in every day. I’m rather persnickety about the lighting, layout, and tools I use (although a lot of people still think I’m crazy for using fairly standard tools, like Word, for writing).
This is my space, pretty much—
I use an adjustable height desk where I’m either leaning or standing—if I want to sit to read something, I normally grab a tablet and sit in the red chair off to the side, or even go someplace else in the house. I prefer not to read on my main computer screen most of the time. I normally keep ambient light to a minimum, and turn my monitor brightness down to pretty minimal, as well—below 20%.
I’m currently running an LG 38in curved monitor. I don’t game, so I care a lot more about resolution than refresh rate, etc. My Continue reading
Hedge 159: Roundtable on SONiC, Antipatterns, and Resilience through Acquisition
In this last episode of 2022, Tom, Eyvonne, and Russ sit around and talk about some interesting things going on in the world of network engineering. We start with a short discussion about SONiC, which we intend to build at least one full episode about sometime in 2023. We also discuss state and antipatterns, and finally the idea of acquiring another company to build network resilience.