Russ

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Security ‘net: Social Media & Narratives

I have a rather motley collection of links this week roaming over security, social media, and algorithms. First up is three interesting reads on social media, some of which isn’t very technical, but it’s tangential to technology, so I still get to post them here. Since beginning work in earnest on a PhD in philosophy, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to stories in this realm, and thinking about how these things impact us as people and our culture at large.

First up, a prediction that Facebook is going to die because it’s a “garbage dump.” I’m not a huge user of Facebook, so I really don’t pay attention to what goes on there (which is probably why if you’ve tried to friend me there, I’ve not answered — I rarely look at requests, and almost never approve them).

It’s sort of like going to your junk drawer to find the nail clippers, and rifling through old receipts, coupons, paper clips. Instead of fetching your clippers, which you know are in the back, you occupy yourself momentarily with what’s in your drawer and why it’s there.

It’s important for communication channels to keep their signal to noise ratio Continue reading

Worth Reading: Replacing Judgment with Algorithms

Human judgment is being replaced by automatic algorithms, and that brings with it both enormous benefits and risks. The technology is enabling a new form of social control, sometimes deliberately and sometimes as a side effect. And as the Internet of Things ushers in an era of more sensors and more data — and more algorithms — we need to ensure that we reap the benefits while avoiding the harms.

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Take them seriously — you could change the world

We often think that because we’re engineers, squirreled away in the basement suite (we used to have a fireproof suit hanging in the basement elevator as a little joke on the IT world at one job), we can’t have a huge impact on people. Or maybe it’s because you don’t think you’re famous enough — you don’t have a blog, several books published, multiple speaking engagements, and you don’t work for some big vendor. Whatever the reason for thinking you don’t — or shouldn’t — have an impact in someone’s life, let me say this.

You’re wrong.

The impact of one person can hardly be underestimated; from a book I read recently, for instance:

I turned and walked out of his office, closing the door with the characteristic rattle of the frosted glass pane. Though I could not have put it into words then, I was a different person from the one who had walked into that office ten minutes earlier. A person for whom I had the highest regard had taken me seriously. If he thought I was worthy of an hour of his time every week, then just maybe I was worth something. -Michael Card, The Walk

The Continue reading

Worth Reading: Micro Routers

Today, Weaveworks, via the release of Weave Net 1.4, is announcing that it is using that API to simplify connecting Docker containers together using “micro routers.” Rather than relying on a central database to keep track of which Docker containers are associated with one another, Weaveworks has created what amounts to a couple of megabytes of code, using the Go programming language, that can be embedded inside a container. -via it business edge

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Worth Reading: Broadband Investment in a Slump

Reports suggest that spending could continue to be tight among broadband carriers. Bloomberg, for instance, suggests that 2016 could be a more-of-the-same year after a slowdown of 8.1 percent in 2015. A good case in point is AT&T. Seeking Alpha reports that Evercore predicts that the carrier’s wireless investments this year may end up being 21 percent lower than in 2014. via it business edge

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Worth Reading: Thoughts on the 5G Network

5G is the current title for much of the network system work in the telco industry these days. All companies, SDOs and industry fora are now working on 5G technologies. There seems to be a rough consensus on requirements and use cases, and first proposals seem to suggest that the design and the implementation will have something to do with SDN/NFV. In general, the assumptions are that 5G will be faster (thanks to better radio), larger (intended to cover more connected devices due to IoT, smart city, new markets), more flexible (network programmability), and converged (unification of mobile and fixed network access/core). -via dirk kutscher

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Security ‘net: Student privacy in focus

Student Privacy in Focus

Driving your market back to the earliest age possible is a tried and true marketing technique — and technology companies are no different in this regard. Getting people hooked on a product at an early age is a sure fire way to build a lifelong habit of preference for that one brand, and for usage in general. Perhaps, though, we should be concerned when it comes to social media. As “edtech” makes its way into our schools, should we be concerned about the privacy of our children? Via CDT:

Schools have largely embraced education applications, websites, and devices (collectively referred to as “edtech”) as a means for improving classroom instruction and administration. 71 percent of parents report their child uses technology provided by schools for educational purposes. In most cases this means more data is being collected on students. However, US privacy law has not kept pace with the rapid adoption of technology and data collection in schools. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), our existing student privacy law, is outdated and there are no sector-specific privacy laws that focus on edtech.

How effective is anonymization, anyway? A good bit of research is showing Continue reading

Think visually: How graphics skills help engineers

Among all the skills I hear network engineers talk about, two that are often underrated are writing skills and graphics skills. There is some small slice of the networking world that is serious about writing (though I often think we make too big of a production out of writing, getting wrapped around tools and process instead of focusing on actual writing), but graphics is one area the we really don’t talk about a lot. After all, I’m an engineer, not a graphic designer, right? Or maybe — I’ve always heard I should be a master of one skill, rather than a jack of all trades…

Diane, over at Data Center Mix, has a great post up on four ways being an artist has helped her sell data center products. There are some great ideas in there, but as someone with formal training in graphic design (in a distant past I can barely remember any longer), I wanted to add a few thoughts about graphics skills as a network engineer.

She begins with this thought: a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m never quite certain this is actually true in every case (Charles Dickens in cartoon format doesn’t sound very Continue reading

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