Military-style data transportation. That's how Corsair describes their Flash Survivor Stealth series of USB flash drives. Its anodized, aircraft-grade aluminum housing is waterproof to 200 meters, vibration-resistant, and shock-resistant while small enough to fit on your keychain. USB 3.0 offers read speeds up to four times faster than traditional USB 2.0 drives, so it's fast enough to play most videos directly from it, without having to transfer to a hard drive first. The drive is backwards compatible to 2.0 as well. Just plug it in, and it works with Windows, Mac OS and Linux without any additional software or drivers. This product also comes with a limited 5 year warranty. It averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 210 people on Amazon (read reviews), many of which report it's still alive after years of hard use. The 256GB model's list price of $157 has been reduced 40% to $94.62. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The San Francisco 49ers are my home football team. They aren't doing too well in the NFC West standings these days. On the plus side, though, they do have a great stadium.Levi's Stadium is about 40 miles south of San Francisco in Santa Clara, California. It seats more than 65,000 spectators in two bowl-like structures. The logistics are daunting for a stadium that big. Consider the issues involved with getting thousands of fans to their seats quickly and securely in time to enjoy the game.
Parking—Purchasing parking passes digitally and providing turn-by-turn directions to the visitor's assigned lot
Navigation—Helping fans quickly and easily find their seats
Security—Mitigating risks and enabling fans to be the eyes and ears of the stadium and report any security issues that may occur.
Refreshments—Ensuring fans get the food and beverages they want, when they want them.
Beacons, IoT sensors and sophisticated mobile apps have elevated the experience for 49ers fans and changed the game for venue operators.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Poor implementation of encryption in a popular Android remote management application exposes millions of users to data theft and remote code execution attacks.According to researchers from mobile security firm Zimperium, the AirDroid screen sharing and remote control application sends authentication information encrypted with a hard-coded key. This information could allow man-in-the-middle attackers to push out malicious AirDroid add-on updates, which would then gain the permissions of the app itself.AirDroid has access to a device's contacts, location information, text messages, photos, call logs, dialer, camera, microphone and the contents of the SD card. It can also perform in-app purchases, change system settings, disable the screen lock, change network connectivity and much more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Just in case you aren't spending enough already on tech products, Best Buy is offering a post-Black Friday 2016 Special Edition Tech Sale featuring super fancy laptops, tablet cases and computer mice.
We're talking everything the fashionista or hardcore fanboy/fangirl on your holiday shopping list didn't know they needed. Best Buy's Special Edition Tech collection features 11 items and they'll be available while supplies last starting on Dec. 4 in select stores and online at BestBuy.com.
MORE: 50-plus eye-popping Black Friday 2016 tech dealsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
President-elect Donald Trump ran a campaign focused on national security and making America great again through economic reform. Clearly both goals should include policies and programs to bolster the nation’s cybersecurity capabilities. This shouldn’t be an abstract concept to Mr. Trump after an election cycle featuring Russian hacks and WikiLeaks posts. To reinforce this priority, it is also worth noting that in a pre-election survey by ESG research, 49 percent of cybersecurity professionals said cybersecurity is a critical issue and should be the top national security priority for the next President, while 45 percent said cybersecurity is a very important issue and should be one of the top national security priorities for the next President. If those citizens on the front line see cybersecurity as a major priority, this should speak volumes to the President-elect. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Over the past decade, I've witnessed a constant stream of IT executives and technology professionals view cloud as a threat to their careers. The business side of the organization has always been a captive customer of IT's services, and now IT feels threatened by the litany of low-cost solutions readily available in the public cloud. Every once in a while IT begrudgingly agrees to implement a public cloud solution. When the do, they carefully fence it off from the rest of IT—nominally to protect the company from hackers, but equally to protect the purity of IT. Treating cloud as a standalone point solution enables them to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, using the mixed results to demonstrate that cloud just can’t hack it in the real world. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Add credit card fraud to the list of things that distributed processing can speed up.
An e-commerce site will typically block a credit card number after 10 or 20 failed attempts to enter the corresponding expiry date and CVV (card verification value), making life difficult for fraudsters who don't have a full set of credentials.
But there are plenty of e-commerce sites out there, and it's possible to obtain missing account details by submitting slightly different payment requests to hundreds of them in parallel.
It takes less than six seconds to perform the "distributed guessing attack," according to the researchers at Newcastle University in the U.K. who figured out how to do it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This Bushbox is an ultra light Titanium multi-fuel pocket stove for the great outdoors. It can be used with wood, organic material, a standard alcohol burner or esbit tabs, and folds down so small and lightweight that you could fit it in your pocket (or a Christmas stocking!). It comes with two trivets for any pot size, and comes with an ash pan for soil/ground protection. It averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon, where its list price of $69 has been reduced to $49.90. See the discounted titanium Bushbox on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When my iPhone 6s started shutting down earlier this month even though it still had 20% or 30% battery life showing, I suspected maybe it was just getting too cold. After all, I've seen my iPhones be temperature sensitive in the past.But it turns out that the problem really stemmed from a bug in version 10.1 or 10.1.1 of Apple iOS, and now Apple is offering free battery replacement by those affected. The weird thing that those of us affected by this have experienced is that after charging the phone back in, it almost immediately turns back on, back at its 20% or 30% battery level.MORE: Best Black Friday 2016 deals on Apple iPhones, Macs & MoreTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
After a two-month stretch of no growth, Windows 10 in November gained user share, powering more than a quarter of all Windows PCs for the first time, data published today showed.According to U.S. metrics vendor Net Applications, Windows 10 gained 1.1 percentage points of user share last month, ending with 23.7% of all personal computers. Windows 10 ran 26.1% of all Windows machines: The difference between the user share of all PCs and only those running Windows stemmed from the fact that Windows powered 91% of all personal computers, not 100%.User share is an estimate of the proportion of all personal computer users who run a device powered by a specific operating system. The analytics company measures OS user share by counting devices whose browsers reach websites of Net Applications' clients.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Western Digital (WD) today introduced a new series of storage devices designed specifically for use with Raspberry Pi, a single-board micro PC.The WD PiDrive Foundation Edition drives include a microSD card preloaded with the custom New Out of Box Software OS installer.Raspberry Pi's official OS, Raspbian PIXEL, can be installed directly from WD's microSD card without an Internet connection, the company stated. In addition, the drives include Project Spaces, independent partitions of the drive with Raspbian Lite, which allows up to five separate projects to be developed on a single drive.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
More than meets the eyeImage by Anshel SagFor many people, PCs are just a tool; a bland beige or black box shoved underneath a desk and physically ignored except for when you press the power button. But not for everyone. In the right hands, PCs can be transformed into works of art inside and out.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Amazon Web Services is looking to make it easier, and more efficient, for enterprises to analyze their data in the cloud."Eighty percent of what we call analytics is not analytics at all but just hard work," said Werner Vogels, chief technology officer at Amazon.com, speaking during a keynote speech this morning at the AWS re:Invent cloud conference in Las Vegas.Instead of digging down into a company's data to find patterns and insights that will give an enterprise a competitive advantage, too much time is spent on indexing, storage, security, and making sure the right access is set up.+ MORE FROM AWS RE:INVENT: Cool tech at AWS re:Invent +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Application performance management (APM) software must serve multiple masters -- developers, IT and business managers -- all of whom want visibility into the performance of corporate software to make sure it produces a great, reliable experience for the end-user.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Windows 10’s aggressive data-collection capabilities may concern users about corporate spying, but enterprises have control that consumer-edition Windows users do not: Administrators can decide how much information gets sent back to Microsoft.But enterprises need to think twice before turning off Windows telemetry to increase corporate privacy. That’s because doing so can decrease the effectiveness of Windows 10’s security features.[ InfoWorld’s deep look: Why (and how) you should manage Windows 10 PCs like iPhones. | The essentials for Windows 10 installation: Download the Windows 10 Installation Superguide today. ]
Microsoft isn’t merely hoovering up large amounts of data because it can. The company has repeatedly reiterated its stance that Windows 10 does not collect the user’s personal data, but rather anonymized file data that is then used to improve overall user experience and Windows functionality.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The capabilities of artificial intelligence and machine learning are accelerating, and many cybersecurity tasks currently performed by humans will be automated. There will still be plenty of work to go around so job prospects should remain good, especially for those who keep up with technology, broaden their skill sets, and get a better understanding of their company's business needs.Cybersecurity jobs won't go the way of telephone operators. Take, for example, Spain-based antivirus company Panda Security. When the company first started, there were a number of people reverse-engineering malicious code and writing signatures.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The current debate over fake online news has one country feeling vindicated: China. For years, its controversial censorship system has been cracking down on so-called "online rumors," and last week a state-controlled newspaper essentially told the U.S., "I told you so.""China’s crackdown on online rumors a few years ago was harshly condemned by the West,” wrote the Global Times. “Things changed really quickly, as the anxiety over internet management has been transferred to the U.S."To be sure, the two are very different.In the U.S., it’s private citizens and internet companies that are questioning the role of fake news while acknowledging freedom of speech. In China, the government itself is arresting people as part of its concerted effort to maintain control over all corners of the internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In my last post—Your network, IoT, cloud computing and the future—I introduced a few trends that appear to be shaping the Internet we have today. This post is the first of two that detail my observations on the large-scale security picture on the Internet and what companies, network professionals and individuals need to take into consideration when addressing the new challenges presented by expanding trends such as the cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT).Today’s installment outlines some fundamental architectural underpinnings of the security vulnerabilities we all face. The next installment will outline some near-term suggestions for things we each might do, as well as suggest some overall architectural moves that may make things safer for all users of the InternetTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Law enforcement agencies have dismantled a major cybercriminal network responsible for malware-based attacks that have been harassing victims across the globe for years.The network, called Avalanche, operated as many as 500,000 infected computers on a daily basis and was responsible for delivering malware through phishing email attacks. Avalanche has been active since at least 2009, but on Thursday, authorities in the U.S. and Europe announced they had arrested five suspects allegedly involved with it.Avalanche has been found distributing more 20 different malware families including GozNym, a banking Trojan designed to steal user credentials, and Teslacrypt, a notorious ransomware. Europol estimated the network has caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages across the world.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
After spending $7 billion for the Nokia smartphone business, Microsoft has a dying platform on its hands, and shareholders want answers from CEO Satya Nadella. Rather than push the Lumia line, Microsoft has cut back its smartphone hardware to a smaller number of devices, markets and carriers. And the company has made more of an effort to get its own apps on iOS and Android rather than its own platform. Needless to say, Microsoft shareholders wanted to know why. GeekWire reports shareholders at the annual meeting gave Nadella an earful over it. One shareholder wanted to know why the nifty Microsoft Pix app (it is very nice) is only on iPhone and Android and not on Windows Phone. The same is true for Microsoft Outlook. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here