Network World SDN Archives - Page 270 of 366

IDG Contributor Network: SIM cards on the way out in cellular IoT

The miniscule slivers of plastic known as the SIM card are on their way out, at least in the machine-to-machine (M2M) space. The adoption of an embedded specification by the wireless industry is behind the change, explains Juniper Research in a press release about its recent report (subscription) on M2M for the Mobile Network Operator (MNO) vertical.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pokémon Go guide app with half a million downloads hacks Android devices

Security researchers have found a malicious application on Google Play that had over 500,000 downloads and was designed to gain complete control over Android devices.The application masqueraded as a guide for the popular Pokémon Go game and used multiple layers of obfuscation to bypass Google Play's malware detection mechanisms, researchers from Kaspersky Lab said in a blog post.The app contains a malicious module that doesn't execute immediately. Instead, the app waits for another application to be installed or uninstalled in order to determine if it's running on a real device or in an emulated environment, like the ones used to detect malware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech leaders, activists call for Obama to pardon Snowden

Tech luminaries Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, and Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, have joined a new campaign pushing for a pardon of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.Other supporters of the PardonSnowden.org campaign, launched Wednesday, are Harvard law professor and tech policy author Lawrence Lessig; tech investor Esther Dyson; noted cryptographer and MIT professor Ron Rivest; and Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow.The campaign, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, asks supporters to sign a letter asking President Barack Obama to pardon the former NSA contractor. "Snowden’s actions ... set in motion the most important debate about government surveillance in decades, and brought about reforms that continue to benefit our security and democracy," the letter says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FCC Chair’s update on 5G wireless, robocalls, business data services & more

The following statement was made by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation of the United States Senate during a hearing on "Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission" on Sept. 15.Chairman Thune, Ranking Member Nelson, and Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss our work at the Federal Communications Commission. Since we last met six months ago, the Commission has continued to make strong progress on our policy agenda. While I am pleased with this progress, our work is far from done. With each passing day, communications technology grows more important to our economy and quality of life. That means there’s no letting up at the Commission. We must continue to promote core values like universal access, public safety, consumer protection, and competition at the same bold pace we have consistently maintained. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Moto G4 Play: Solid budget phone with a removable battery and microSD card

Testing the Moto G4 Play during the past week was pleasant, if not nostalgic.In a way, the Moto G4 Play’s removable battery, microSD card and one-handed, light, sturdy plastic form factor has a retro-design and feel to it. A metal and glass premium exterior is not a reasonable expectation because at $149 it is a budget-priced phone. In the budget category, it is good option.The removable batteries and microSD cards that were designed out of smartphones a few years ago over consumers’ objections are nice features. microSD cards have started to reemerge in some phones, offering 128GB of ROM and promising to increase that to 1TB when compatible cards become available. Few phones, though, have a removable battery.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

70% off Omaker M4 Portable Bluetooth Shower and Outdoor Speaker with 12 Hour Playtime – Deal Alert

The M4 speaker from Omaker is IP54 rated, so its rugged splash, shock and dustproof design makes it ideal for shower and outdoor use. The latest Bluetooth 4.0 technology helps it pair quickly with your device (tap-to-pair with NFC capable devices) and maintain a long 33-foot connection range. Crystal clear sound quality and robust bass is realized through a 3W audio driver and passive subwoofer. The M4 is capable of producing 12 hours of music at 80% volume, up to three times longer than similar-sized portable speakers. It fully recharges in just 3 hours using an included Micro USB cable. The unit averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 4,400 people on Amazon (read reviews), many of which report sound quality that rivals more expensive speakers. Amazon indicates that its list price has been reduced significantly to just $26.99. See the discounted Omaker M4 speaker now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SAP turns to NTT to add driver data to its connected car analytics system

Safer passengers and healthier drivers might be among the outcomes of a new trial by a German software company and a Japanese telecommunications operator.NTT, the Japanese co-inventor of a sensing fabric used in health-monitoring clothing, is pairing up with business software developer SAP to collect and process real-time data on drivers' heart rate and alertness.SAP already sells a real-time analytics tool, Vehicle Insights, for processing data from connected vehicles.In the trial with NTT it will add information from NTT's IoT analytics platform to the database, allowing the analytics system to look for -- and perhaps act on -- links between drivers' state of health and other vehicle telemetry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Clinton dodges H-1B question, but Trump wants changes

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump responded to series of questions about science policy, including two questions on immigration.What the answers reveal is this: Clinton and Trump are as divided as night and day on H-1B reforms. Trump supports reform and U.S. worker protections; Clinton simply avoided answering the question.But both candidates support the idea of making it possible for foreign students who graduate from U.S. schools to remain in this country. The only difference is that Clinton outlines a way to accomplish this policy objective, and Trump does not.The questions were put together by ScienceDebate.org, a group representing dozens of professional scientific organizations. The candidates' answers were released Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 ways to avoid alert fatigue

So much noiseImage by ThinkstockAs a company grows, more tools are required, and with more tools come more alerts and often a breakdown of processes and procedures to handle them. Soon enough, the alerts coming from each of your systems and tools sound like an obnoxiously loud cocktail party, everyone having different conversations about different things. As a result, Security and DevOps teams become so desensitized to these alerts that even when the system flags a truly anomalous activity, it may get ignored due to burnout.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Awareness training: How much is too much?

Security experts agree that humans are the weakest link in the security chain. Virtually all of them agree that security awareness training can strengthen many of those weaknesses.But how best to do that can generate some debate.Lysa Myers, a security researcher at ESET, summarized in a recent post what she said was a collective message from several presentations at the recent Black Hat conference: While it is possible to train employees to be "hyper-vigilant, it can create more problems than it solves.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sophos rolls out Intercept X for endpoint protection

Sophos is coming out with Intercept X, its new name for endpoint protection that’s based on technology acquired when it bought SurfRight last year to broaden its endpoint strategy.The product uses behavior-based screening to detect malicious behavior on endpoints rather than signature-based protection that requires constant updating and can lag behind attackers’ efforts to create new versions.The software looks at the behavior of processes, specifically watching for 24 techniques that malware uses as part of attacks, says Dan Schiappa, senior vice president of the Enduser Security Group at Sophos. That boosts the chances of finding zero-day attacks that use a common set of techniques.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The best messaging apps with end-to-end encryption

There is a growing consciousness about the desire to keep one’s messages private. Some are concerned about hackers, or worry about the government spying on them, but most people just agree with the general principle that what you say in your chat conversations ought to stay between you and the people you chat with.It’s not a pleasant idea to think that your messages could be archived for perpetuity on a large company’s server or analyzed by some algorithm. The quest for privacy has birthed a whole generation of apps that promise to give you exactly that. Services like Telegram and Signal have turned the phrase “end-to-end encryption” into a popular discussion. We're here to help you figure out what this is all about and which apps to try.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What the rise of permissive open source licenses means

"If you use any open source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source." That's what former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said back in 2001, and while his statement was never true, it must have spread some FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about free software. Probably that was the intention.This FUD about open source software is mainly about open source licensing. There are many different licenses, some more restrictive (some people use the term "protective") than others. Restrictive licenses such as the GNU General Public License (GPL) use the concept of copyleft, which grants people the right to freely distribute copies and modified versions of a piece of software as long as the same rights are preserved in derivative works. The GPL (v3) is used by open source projects such as bash and GIMP. There's also the Affero GPL, which provides copyleft to software that is offered over a network (for example as a web service.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Flash vs. HTML5: The last stand

Believe it or not, Flash still has an ardent fan club. The once-ubiquitous media player for browsers has taken its lumps, thanks in large part to security issues. However, diehards remain in Flash’s corner in its battle with HTML5, despite the sense that Flash may be on the ropes, as HTML5 continues to close any functionality gaps it might have had with its proprietary predecessor.Occupy HTML5, a Facebook page that pitches itself as “The movement to rid the world of HTML purism,” is one such outlet taking up Flash’s mantle. The page stresses it “is not an anti-HTML5 movement, but rather an opposition to purism, biased supremacy, and corporate bullying.” Flash, Occupy HTML5 says, is mature. “It's supported by all major desktop browsers. It's stable when used properly. If not, it crashes a lot, just like every other technology.” The page, which has more than 700 Likes, was created by ardent Flash advocate Stephane Beladaci, who said recently he has been planning to relaunch the site.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Safety of Tesla Autopilot under scrutiny again, this time in China

Tesla Motors is once again facing controversy over the safety of its Autopilot technology for assisting car drivers, this time in connection with the death of the driver in a Model S crash in China.The father of the deceased filed a lawsuit in a Beijing court in July against the car dealer who sold him the car, alleging that his son had turned on the Autopilot feature before he crashed into a vehicle in January in the northeastern province of Hebei, according to reports citing Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.Tesla has said it is unable to determine whether or not Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash. As a result of the damage caused by the collision, the car was physically incapable of transmitting log data to Tesla servers, wrote spokeswoman Keely Sulprizio late Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Building a Raspberry Pi-powered Barkometer, Part 3

In the last two parts of the Barkometer, which is my IoT project to prove that my dog is not a barkoholic, I discussed the hardware and my problems with getting a clean recording. It turns out, much to my irritation, that the Sabrent USB 2.0 External 2.1 Surround Sound Adapter was the problem all along. But before I discuss the hardware problems, let me explain how to record sound on a Raspberry Pi …The subsystem of Raspbian that deals with sound is called the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA). ALSA is a huge, complex project with support for an incredible number of sound cards and is basically death by features. It handles everything from single channel recording (what I’m trying to do) to generating tones, white noise, and all sorts of test signals, to playback of multi-channel audio. Truly a massive engineering feat.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Gmail outage for business users lasted over 12 hours

Gmail service for users of the Google for Work cloud-based productivity suite was down for over 12 hours on Wednesday, apparently affecting users in a number of countries including the U.S. Google reported early Thursday that the problem was resolved for the vast majority of affected customers, and it would be working individually with the rest of them. It said it would provide a more detailed analysis of the incident to customers once its internal investigation is completed. The company first acknowledged the problem on its Apps Status Dashboard at 8:16 a.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday, stating that it is investigating reports of an issue with Gmail. “Based on reports, it affects only Google for Work Gmail users," Google said. Affected users were redirected to a page with 'Service not available, contact your administrator.'To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hackers are shaping U.S. election coverage with data leaks

Hackers are becoming a major source of political leaks in this year’s presidential race.Case in point: On Tuesday, stolen emails from former secretary of state Colin Powell became headline news after a mysterious site with possible ties to Russian cyber spies gave them to the press. Since then, media outlets have been pointing out juicy details found in the emails. For example, Powell called Clinton “greedy” and her rival Donald Trump a “national disgrace.”The incident has security experts worried that hackers are manipulating U.S. media outlets to influence this year’s election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hackers are shaping US election coverage with data leaks

Self-driving cars won’t make us more productive

Self-driving cars are raising hopes that we’ll get a lot done when we don’t have to drive anymore. According to a University of Michigan study, that’s about as likely as a parent finishing two memos and a big presentation while taking a teen-age learner out to drive.The average U.S. driver spends an hour a day in their car, but the study concluded that for 62 percent of Americans, freeing up that driving time won’t make them any more productive. And the findings suggest riding in a self-driving car may be a white-knuckle nightmare of nerves, car sickness, unsafe seats and flying gadgets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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