When Orange Tsai set out to participate in Facebook's bug bounty program in February, he successfully managed to gain access to one of Facebook's corporate servers. But once in, he realized other hackers had beaten him to it.Tsai thought he had stumbled on some malicious activity in Facebook's network. But, according to a statement from Facebook on Friday, what he found was something else.Tsai, a consultant with Taiwanese penetration testing outfit Devcore, had started by mapping Facebook's online properties, which extend beyond user-facing services like facebook.com or instagram.com.One server that caught his attention was files.fb.com, which hosted a secure file transfer application made by enterprise software vendor Accellion and was presumably used by Facebook employees for file sharing and collaboration.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In its first 27 years of existence we saw the introduction of six Ethernet rates – 10Mbps, 100Mbps, 1Gbps, 10Gbps 40Gbps and 100Gbps. And the Ethernet community is now working feverously to introduce six new rates -- 2.5Gbps, 5Gbps, 25Gbps 50Gbps, 200Gbps and 400Gbps-- in the next three years. Higher Ethernet rates used to be introduced when industry bandwidth requirements drove the need for speed. Butwith Ethernet’s success, it soon became apparent that one new advance could satisfy the requirements of each Ethernet application space. This was clearly illustrated nearly 10 years ago when it was recognized that computing and networking were growing at different rates. This led to 40Gbps being selected as the next rate for servers beyond 10Gbps, while 100Gbps was selected as the next networking rate. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Interviewing remote workers is much different than hiring for a traditional, on-site position. In addition to the usual questions about knowledge, hard skills and experience, interviewing candidates for a remote position must take into account commitment, ability to work independently, oral and written communication skills, conflict resolution, motivation and technology prowess."There are some differences to look for when you're hiring remote workers. You need to emphasize constant communication, availability and collaboration skills, as well as the ability to work independently, to solve problems and resolve conflicts and be able to gauge productivity," says Madhav Bhandari, head of growth at cloud productivity management and time tracking software company Hubstaff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Chinese regulator is said to have ordered Apple to shut down its iBooks Store and iTunes Movies only six months after the services were launched in the country.The action against Apple in a country, which it rates as its second largest market by revenue after the U.S., came from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, reported The New York Times, quoting two persons who spoke on the condition of anonymity.U.S. tech companies have been under pressure to comply with Chinese Internet regulations and censorship, with some Internet services like Facebook and Twitter blocked in the country.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Poor little Windows phone could have a bigger effect on Microsoft's business than you'd think. As the company's mobile device strategy continues to disintegrate, Microsoft may feel compelled to push harder on Windows 10 adoption and paid services to prove it can survive without a viable smartphone—and that could be bad news for consumers. The raw numbers are shocking: Microsoft sold a minuscule 2.3 million Lumia phones last quarter, down from 8.6 million a year ago. Phone revenue declines will only “steepen” during the current quarter, chief financial officer Amy Hood warned during a conference call. That’s dragged down Microsoft’s results as a company, too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Indians love to discuss the weather and more recently the pollution that is on the increase in some of the country's cities. A new tool from Twitter could help people stay updated on pollution levels.The company has teamed up with a local data journalism outfit, IndiaSpend, to launch a service that provides users in Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai with updates on the pollution level in their locality if they send a tweet using the #Breathe hashtag with their location.Users will then get a reply with a real-time update about the air quality in the area, with a visual notification of the measurement of the air quality and the possible health implications, according to a Twitter blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you’re an Android user and you’re looking to get the latest premium phone, you’re likely choosing between the recently-launched Samsung Galaxy S7 or the LG G5.Both phones are impressive in their own right, but because they’re virtually similar in their hardware offerings, choosing between one or the other could be tough. You could peruse through our reviews of both the G5 ($649 on Amazon) or Galaxy S7 ($633 on Amazon) to figure out which one is right for you, or you can simply peep through an abridged version we’ve put together for you here. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft's decision to radically change the distribution and maintenance of Windows 10 put a $1.6 billion temporary dent in its revenue, the company said Thursday.In a filing covering the March quarter, Microsoft pointed to the revenue deferral of Windows 10 -- a relatively new way of accounting for the Redmond, Wash. company -- as a reason for the 6% year-over-year decline in revenue."Revenue decreased $1.2 billion or 6%, primarily due to the impact of a net revenue deferral related to Windows 10 of $1.6 billion and an unfavorable foreign currency impact of approximately $838 million or 4%," Microsoft's 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) stated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft's Windows 10 Mobile platform, formerly known simply as Windows Mobile, has less than 3 percent mobile OS market share, and it is so far from the center of Microsoft's focus that it was barely even mentioned at last month's Build developer conference in San Francisco. The company also recently released iOS versions of some of its most popular apps, including Office, that were greatly improved, taking away one of Windows' traditional advantages over rival platforms.So why would a savvy software veteran like Alfredo Patron devote precious corporate resources to port enterprise apps to Windows 10 Mobile? "We're making a bet," says Patron, the vice president of business development for TeamViewer, a company that develops remote access software for enterprises. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. Last year the world watched in awe as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sent stunning pictures of Pluto back to Earth. New Horizons had traveled 3 billion miles across the solar system over a decade's time to make its closest approach to Pluto—about 7,750 miles above the surface. That's roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India.This is quite an impressive scientific achievement. But what if one small bug in the navigation software had sent the spacecraft millions of miles off course? Instead of viewing the mesmerizing Pluto terrain nicknamed "the heart," disappointed NASA scientists would instead be looking at a whole lot of black nothingness. To ensure that nothing like that happens, NASA engineers use a methodology called formal verification to validate every possibility in the spacecraft's software code.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Every decade or so, a new era of computing comes along that shapes everything we do. Much of the 90s was about client-server and Windows PCs. By the aughts, the Web had taken over and every advertisement carried a URL. Then came the iPhone, and we're in the midst of a decade defined by people tapping myopically into tiny screens.So what comes next, when mobile gives way to something else? Mark Zuckerberg thinks it's VR. There's likely to be a lot of that, but there's a more foundational technology that makes VR possible and permeates other areas besides.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Energizer EN100 Ultra Compact Plug-in Power Inverter provides 100 watts of continuous AC power to your devices. Designed for road trips or anyone who drives frequently, this device simply plugs into your cigarette adaptor and can charge everything from your laptop, to your portable DVD player, to your various phones and tablets simultaneously. Or keep it on hand for emergencies.This unit averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from almost 500 people (read reviews). Regularly listed for $34.99, the EN100 is heavily discounted and can be purchased now on Amazon for just $19.99. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia is proving to be quite the albatross around the company's neck. The company has stepped away from focusing on phones, and its handset sales revenue fell by almost half in the first quarter.Microsoft sold only 2.3 million Lumia phones during the quarter, 73 percent fewer units compared with the first quarter of 2015. That meant Lumia handset revenue fell 46 percent. This dragged down the company's overall device revenue despite major gains in its Surface business. Sales of Surface tablets and the Surface Book touchscreen laptop brought in $1.1 billion for Microsoft during the last quarter, compared with $713 million during the same period last year. That's good news for the company's future, but it's being hurt by the present state of the phone business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Things just a lot more interesting in the x86 server market.AMD has announced a plan to license the design of its top-of-the-line server processor to a newly formed Chinese company, creating a brand-new rival for Intel.AMD is licensing its x86 processor and system-on-chip technology to a company called THATIC (Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. Ltd.), a joint venture between AMD and a consortium of public and private Chinese companies.AMD is providing all the technology needed for THATIC to make a server chip, including the CPUs, interconnects and controllers. THATIC will be able to make variants of the x86 chips for different types of servers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The software framework that powers the network connections on many GNU/Linux systems just got its second major update in less than a year and a half, with the version 1.2 release of NetworkManager.Version 1.2 brings several improvements to NetworkManager, including better security and usability for Wi-Fi. The changes should make the list of available access points more responsive and manageable, save energy on mobile devices and laptops, and even improve privacy by MAC address randomization, according to an official announcement. LuisalvaradoxWikipedia
An earlier version of NetworkManagerTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I still recall where I first saw the late Prince's 1984 movie Purple Rain -- at a now-defunct bar called Play it Again Sam's in Boston's Allston/Brighton area where those of us who couldn't afford a fancy high-tech machine called a VCR would go to watch second-run movies while downing pitchers of beer and buckets of popcorn.Prince, who died today at the age of 57, probably would have frowned on such repurposing of his artistic output in light of his well-documented and uneasy relationship with the latest technology for distributing video and audio.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
NASA this week took a giant step toward using solar electric power for future space missions by awarding a $67 million to Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop an advanced electric propulsion system.Such a system would deploy large solar arrays that can be used to convert sunlight into electrical power that ionizes atoms of xenon which is the propellant for the spacecraft’s thrusters. The thrust of such a power plant isn’t huge but its ability to provide increasing, continuous power over a long period of time is what makes it so attractive for long-duration spaceflights.+More on Network World: NASA: Top 10 space junk missions+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the latest installment of the Cloud Chronicles video series, we visit Care.com in Waltham, Massachusetts, a company that found tremendous benefit from using the cloud.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e., drones) here to stay, entrepreneurs are pouncing on the opportunity to safeguard people from having these flying machines drop in unexpectedly and venture capitalists are buying in. SkySafe, a San Diego startup formed last year by a team from MIT, UC San Diego, the Air Force Research Lab and more, says its goal is “to build safe, secure airspaces as a new wild west of drone development and innovation emerges.” The company this week announced it has raised seed funding, said to total $3 million, in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. SkySafe’s possible customers would include prisons, stadiums and airports looking to keep their airspace safe by, if need be, downing intrusive drones after spotting them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In midtown Manhattan Wednesday, around 25 EmblemHealth IT employees and their supporters held a protest over the firm's decision to shift work to IT services firm Cognizant.On the sidewalks next to EmblemHealth's midtown offices, they yelled "Protect U.S. jobs," "Keep jobs in the U.S.A." and, to the people passing by: "It's our jobs now, your jobs next." They waved signs and slowly moved along.The IT employees gathered for the protest outside St. Michael's Church on 34th Street near 9th Avenue, across from EmblemHealth's office.INSIDER: Network jobs are hot: Salaries expected to rise in 2016
A small contingent of plainclothes security, dressed in suits, watched. There was never any tension or reason for security to become animated. There were a few moments of humor, particularly when everyone made way for a tiny, sunglasses-wearing poodle on a leash that walked by with its owner.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here