As the Internet of Things develops, most vendors that are making these things don’t make security their top priority, allowing business considerations to take precedent, according to a Gartner expert.“Some of the leading vendors that are developing products are making some effort to address security concerns, but Gartner believes the majority aren’t at this stage — convenience, user friendliness, time-to-market all win out over security at this point,” says Earl Perkins, a research vice president at Gartner.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD The security implications of IoT: A roundtable discussion with four experts +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
UK mobile network operator (MNO) EE said this week that it is exploring the use of small aerial cells positioned in the sky over hard-to-reach, patchy signal areas.It calls the technology "air masts," and says the system uses either "tethered balloons or unmanned craft." Unmanned craft are more commonly called drones.Air mastsThe phone company reckons it's going to be able to implement the masts in the sky in part because it's been banking on what it calls a "unique" micro-network technology. The base stations that it has been using consist of smaller elements than are commonly utilized in an MNO installation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cheaper air travel is making the world seem smaller—and that’s increasingly the case for the online booking market too, with Expedia planning to swallow up rival Orbitz Worldwide barely a month after buying the smaller Travelocity.Expedia operates online booking services for flights, car rentals and hotels, including the Hotels.com brand, while Orbitz offers similar services under its own brand and at Ebookers.com and Hotelclub.com.For Expedia, the acquisition is primarily about growing its customer base: The companies offer similar services in overlapping markets. Orbitz also operates “white label” travel booking services for airlines and bank loyalty programs through its Orbitz Partner Network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Restrictive governments getting better at censoring the InternetAuthoritarian government are censoring the Internet more aggressively and using more sophisticated technology, according to the annual World Press Freedom Index being released Thursday by Reporters Without Borders. China is judged “a pioneer” in the field, after blocking access to all Google services during the last year and stamping out domestic coverage of protests in Hong Kong and the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Iran is also high on the list, as it works on a national intranet that will keep citizens off the global Internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Authoritarian governments are doubling down on press censorship and becoming more adept at blocking Internet access to uncensored news sources, according to the annual World Press Freedom Index that will be published on Thursday.The report, from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, saw many countries lose points this year as threats against reporters and press freedom increased. They included governments using national security as an excuse to track reporters and their sources; threats from para-military, organized crime and terrorist groups; government interference in the media, and reporters being targeted for covering demonstrations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook is taking its crusade for open networking to a broader battlefield, using its 16-port “Wedge” switch design as the basis of a new modular platform that can link together racks of servers across a data center.The social networking juggernaut doesn’t intend to become a data networking vendor. It designs switches for its own needs and then open-sources its hardware designs so others can use them. In time, other companies could turn Facebook switch designs into products for sale, but Facebook won’t be directly involved, said Matt Corddry, director of hardware engineering at Facebook.GOOD LUCK: Geeky Ways to Celebrate Friday the 13thTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We may be in the midst of a third industrial revolution — one driven by intelligent devices connected to the Internet, enabling services, solutions and big data offerings around every day industrial and consumer goods. Software licensing and entitlement management will be the heart of this new industrial revolution, according to a report by Flexera Software and IDC."The industrial revolution came about as we moved from human labor to machine automation," says Steve Schmidt, vice president of Corporate Development at Flexera Software. "Then a second industrial revolution came about as systems were put in place and new energy sources became available: railroads, iron and steel production, manufacturing automation, the use of steam power, oil, electricity and electrical communications."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Verizon unquestionably is the best wireless carrier, according to a comprehensive nationwide study of the service provided by the top four U.S. wireless providers during the second half of 2014.
That doesn’t mean that it’s the right choice for you. But it's a good starting point to help you choose the right wireless carrier, with a little hand-holding.
That’s because the national study, released Tuesday by RootMetrics, doesn’t dive into the specifics for where you live. What it does tell us, however, was which carrier was best in terms of call quality, data download speed, and other metrics. The data is broken down nationally, on a statewide basis, and in tested metro areas.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Smartphone thefts fall after kill switches come inLaw enforcement officials who pushed hard for vendors to make smartphones a less attractive target for theft by adding “kill switch” features are pleased to know the tactic is working. Statistics to be released Wednesday show smartphone thefts, particularly for iPhones, trending down significantly in New York, London and San Francisco.Anthem hit for failure to communicateInadequate security practices let hackers steal personal information on about 80 million customers of Anthem, and now inadequate follow-up with those victims by the health insurer has attorneys general in ten U.S. states demanding immediate action. Anthem said last week it would offer free credit monitoring and identity theft protection to victims, but since then, the AGs say, it has provided few additional details and no information about how individuals can sign up. They’re demanding that the insurer commit to reimbursing consumers for hack-related losses incurred between the breach and whenever victims get access to credit and identity theft safeguards.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has undersold the amount of intrusive new regulations his net neutrality proposal will bring to the Internet and to broadband providers, a Republican commissioner said Tuesday.The net neutrality proposal from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler would bring “adverse consequences to entire Internet economy,” Commissioner Ajit Pai said during a press conference. “The imposition of these heavy-handed ... regulations is going to present onerous burdens on everybody, across the entire landscape.”The proposal would allow the FCC to define just and reasonable prices for broadband service and to impose in the future common-carrier telecom regulations, like requiring providers to share their networks with competitors, the commissioner said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IT outsourcing customers are increasingly looking for their service providers not just to cut technology costs or improve process efficiency, but to deliver business results. But getting that kind of business value from IT suppliers has proven to be a challenge.The secret getting technology providers on board with delivering innovation may actually be the terms of the IT outsourcing deals. “Most IT services buyers seek compliance, not improved supplier performance” from their contracts, says Brad Peterson, partner in the Chicago office of law firm Mayer Brown. “That’s all that’s necessary for most it services categories. However, IT buyers can create substantially more value by using incentives to deliver innovation, analytics, data security, mobility, cloud and other fast-changing it services categories.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Over the past few years of blogging, many of my most popular posts have been interviews with industry thought leaders. To that end, I have started a new interview series I call 'the catch-up,’ where I will catch up with interesting thought leaders in the industry.This is the first interview in the series, featuring Cumulus Networks CEO JR Rivers. Over the next few weeks, I will post interviews with Martin Casado, David Meyer, Rob Hirschfeld, Dan Pitt, and many more. In the past I have only posted the text from interviews; now I have also started recording the interviews and will post them on my YouTube channel, OpenNetworking.TV.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet of Things (IoT) will usher in a new era of network intelligence and automation, but its arrival raises a host of serious security questions. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix explores the topic in depth with four experts:
* Marc Blackmer, Product Marketing Manager, Industry Solutions, Cisco
* Ari Juels, Professor in the Jacobs Institute at Cornell Tech (formerly Chief Scientist at RSA)
* Patrick Tague, Associate Research Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Information Networking Institute, and Associate Director, Information Networking Institute Carnegie MellonTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qualcomm pays up to end investigation in ChinaThe Chinese goverment has fined chip-maker Qualcomm about US$975 billion for abusing its dominant position in the market, including overcharging local mobile device manufacturers. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips go into many smartphones, and its wireless technology is licensed for use in a majority of 3G, 4G and LTE modems; renegotiated deals with Chinese handset makers should allow them to offer even cheaper smartphones to undercut competitors at the low end of that market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Wi-Fi may carry many voice calls within the next few years, but the technology required to make those calls is still young in some ways.Mobile subscribers have been talking and doing video chats over Wi-Fi for a long time using Internet-based services such as Skype. Now carriers are offering ways to call up friends and family over wireless LANs using their regular phone numbers.Wi-Fi calling made a splash last year when the iPhone 6 came out with the capability, though a number of Android and other devices also have it. T-Mobile USA and Sprint both allow Wi-Fi calling with selected smartphones. AT&T and Verizon, as well as EE in the UK, plan to follow.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With broadband speeds newly defined as starting at 25 Mbps, as opposed to the archaic 4 Mbps definition, what happens if you now no longer have residential broadband? And what do you do if, to add insult to injury, your ISP ups its prices?Well, the answer is that you pretty much do nothing. There isn't anything you can do. The ISP, in most cases, has a monopoly — a duopoly at best. If you want uncapped Internet, however jerky the video, you've got to use that hard-wired ISP.But that might soon be changing. The reason: dark fiber.Dark fiber is the term coined for private fiber networks often used for financial transactions. They're usually networks that are not owned by telcos and cable companies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here