President Donald Trump said this week that the federal budget is a "mess" and is promising to make it leaner. This means that federal IT spending -- now at $81.6 billion -- is likely to see cuts, analysts said.The Trump administration is still filling top technology policy positions, including replacing former federal CIO Tony Scott, who left last month. Scott, a former CIO of Microsoft and The Walt Disney Co., was appointed by President Barack Obama in February 2015.For now, all eyes are on former U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump's just-confirmed budget director. Elected in 2010, Mulvaney was part of the Tea Party wave and a member of the conservative House voting block, the Freedom Caucus.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Industrial IoT explodingImage by ThinkstockThe number of connected devices is growing exponentially. In fact, current estimates from IDC Research predict IoT spending will reach $1.29 trillion by 2020. Although many of these are consumer devices (such as Fitbits or smartphones), the presence of IoT devices in industrial settings is skyrocketing as well, with manufacturing forecasted to be the industry making the largest investment in IoT. With this increased connectivity, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) offers exciting possibilities for transforming many different industries – from industrial automation and manufacturing, to oil & gas and building security. By utilizing the IIoT, industrial companies can leverage technologies like big data analytics to optimize operations, improve efficiency and generate insights that can increase profitability and competitive advantage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security researchers have achieved the first real-world collision attack against the SHA-1 hash function, producing two different PDF files with the same SHA-1 signature. This shows that the algorithm's use for security-sensitive functions should be discontinued as soon as possible.SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) dates back to 1995 and has been known to be vulnerable to theoretical attacks since 2005. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has banned the use of SHA-1 by U.S. federal agencies since 2010, and digital certificate authorities have not been allowed to issue SHA-1-signed certificates since Jan. 1, 2016, although some exemptions have been made.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Retromobile 2017 Car ShowImage by Reuters/Benoit TessierOne of the true stellar classic car events on the world happened recently in Paris. “Retromobile” features hundreds of amazingly cool, some one of a kind models. Here we’ll talk a look at 11 of the decidedly coolest – courtesy of Reuters.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The internet is a tough place to have a conversation. Abuse has driven celebrities and ordinary folks from social media platforms that are ill-equipped to deal with it, and some publishers have switched off comment sections.That’s why Google and Jigsaw (an early stage incubator at Google parent company Alphabet) are working on a project called Perspective. It uses artificial intelligence to try to identify toxic comments, with an aim of reducing them. The Perspective API released Thursday will provide developers with a score of how likely users are to perceive a comment as toxic. In turn, that score could be used to develop features like automatic post filtering or to provide users with feedback about what they're writing before they submit it for publication. Starting on Thursday, developers can request access to Perspective's API for use in projects they're working on, and Jigsaw will approve them on a rolling basis.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Traditionally, IT organizations have spent six months to a year or more on the IT outsourcing transaction process, finding the right providers and negotiating a suitable contract. But as IT services — and, increasingly, as-a-service— deals have gotten shorter, that lengthy process may no longer make sense.Industry advisors and consultants have debated the potential benefits of speedier sourcing for several years. In today’s rapidly changing business and technology landscape, it may become an imperative. But an effective outsourcing engagement demands more than just an accelerated version of the traditional IT services transaction process.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Years from now, your first autonomous car may have a lot of help from 5G wireless networks to navigate the streets safely.5G will be as important to autonomous cars as 4G has been to mobile phones. The technology will help cars change lanes, recognize signals and draw up accurate maps. 5G will also help vehicles communicate in order to scope out road and weather conditions.For collision avoidance, 5G will connect cars to cloud services for object recognition. It will also provide a constant link to live TV for backseat passengers to enjoy. Many 5G capabilities for autonomous cars will be on display at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, where Intel and Qualcomm will be showing off their latest technologies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Mobile World Congress, the Davos of wireless technology, is happening next week in Barcelona, and it’s going to be a particularly important year, as the mobile landscape readies itself for a couple of fairly major shifts.Here’s our quick look ahead to next week in sunny Spain and the four main points we expect from the MWC show.5G, or at least previews of it
There’s been a big school of 5G press releases floating into our inboxes here in tech media just ahead of MWC (i.e., “Verizon plans 5G wireless trial service in 11 cities this year”), and it’s no real surprise – next-generation mobile networks are going to do a lot more than just boost speeds. They’ll also connect large numbers of devices – not just phones and tablets and laptops – to each other.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This 34-inch 21:9 curved monitor with a panoramic view, cinematic WQHD resolution and rich sound has just sunk 50% to its best price yet on Amazon, making this a solid deal on the U3415W. Learn more and explore buying options for the U3415W on Amazon.
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This 34-inch 21:9 curved monitor with a panoramic view, cinematic WQHD resolution and rich sound has just sunk 50% to its best price yet on Amazon, making this a solid deal on the U3415W. Learn more and explore buying options for the U3415W on Amazon.
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This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. During my recent trip to Tel Aviv to attend CyberTech 2017, I had a one-on-one conversation with Barak Klinghofer, co-founder and CTO of Hexadite. He gave me a preview of an educational presentation he was to give two weeks later at the RSA Conference. His insight is worth repeating for anyone looking to add automation tools to their security toolset.As I saw at CyberTech, and I’m sure was the case at RSA, the hottest topics were security automation, automated incident response and security orchestration. These can be confusing terms, as every vendor describes them a little bit differently.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The global partnership announced Wednesday between Telefonica and IoT specialist Sigfox could ensure the latter’s long-term success while accelerating the overall growth of LPWANs (low-power, wide-area networks).Telefonica said it will integrate Sigfox’s energy-sipping, low-data-rate radios into millions of devices used for things like smart metering and asset tracking. The Spain-based mobile carrier operates in 21 countries across Europe and Latin America, so the deal should significantly expand Sigfox’s footprint. It’s talking with customers about possible large-scale rollouts across both regions, including Spain, Germany, Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As you probably know by now, on February 16, the State of New York’s Department of Financial Services (DFS) finalized its new cybersecurity regulations, which take effect on March 1, 2017. These regulations are somewhat redundant with others in the financial services industry (i.e. FFIEC, GLBA, NIST CSF, OCC, etc.) but tend to go a bit further with several specific prescriptive requirements. For example, the New York State cybersecurity regulations cover nonpublic data (rather than customer data), mandate the presence of a CISO (or third-party equivalent) and require a program for secure data destruction.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Recently passing my 15th anniversary as a technology industry analyst caused me to reflect on the evolution of our business, and I'm disappointed to share that amid some positive developments, one significant ethical shortcoming still persists.If you had asked me 15 years ago—when the world was reeling from an equities collapse aggravated in part by conflict-of-interest shenanigans on Wall Street—I would have predicted that the tech analyst community would split neatly between sell-side research and buy-side research.But that has not happened, and you the customer are the worse off for it.The financial industry analyst model
In financial research, the industry makes a clear distinction between sell-side analysis and buy-side analysis. A sell-side financial analyst relies on information often spoon-fed from public companies to drive activity to trading desks (i.e., works primarily on behalf of sellers), while a buy-side specialist strives to inform better investor performance (i.e., works primarily on behalf of buyers). The same advisory or investment firm can employ both buy- and sell-side analysts, but they must isolate themselves behind "Chinese Firewalls" designed to prevent buy- and sell-side specialists from even talking to each other without a lawyer present.To read this article in Continue reading
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted to roll back some net neutrality regulations that require broadband providers to inform customers about their network management practices.The Republican-controlled FCC on Thursday suspended the net neutrality transparency requirements for broadband providers with fewer than 250,000 subscribers. Critics called the decision anticonsumer.The transparency rule, waived for five years in a 2-1 party-line vote Thursday, requires broadband providers to explain to customers their pricing models and fees as well as their network management practices and the impact on broadband service.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Trump administration on Wednesday announced plans to roll back Obama protections for transgender kids in schools. Apple quickly responded with a forceful statement against the move.“Apple believes everyone deserves a chance to thrive in an environment free from stigma and discrimination,” the company said in a statement it provided to Politico. “We support efforts toward greater acceptance, not less, and we strongly believe that transgender students should be treated as equals. We disagree with any effort to limit or rescind their rights and protections.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Currently discounted 33% and selling for just $19.99, the NETGEAR N300 WiFi Router with external antennas (WNR2020) offers high-performance wireless speeds of up to 300 Mbps, and for the current price is a good consideration for the internet needs in your second home, apartment, dormitory, or as a drop-in replacement of your legacy router. It also features external 5dBi antennas for improved WiFi coverage and Push 'N' Connect for easy WiFi connections. The scheduled WiFi on/off button allows for convenient power savings by scheduling times for WiFi to be turned off. It's currently rated 4 out of 5 stars from over 7,600 customers (read recent reviews here) on Amazon, where its been recently discounted 33% to a very reasonable $19.99. See the discounted N300 Wi-Fi router from Netgear on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Linux system administrators should be on the watch for kernel updates because they fix a local privilege escalation flaw that could lead to a full system compromise.The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-6074, is over 11 years old and was likely introduced in 2005 when the Linux kernel gained support for the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP). It was discovered last week and was patched by the kernel developers on Friday.The flaw can be exploited locally by using heap spraying techniques to execute arbitrary code inside the kernel, the most privileged part of the OS. Andrey Konovalov, the Google researcher who found the vulnerability, plans to publish an exploit for it a few days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
One of my main roles is improving the security of the software produced by my employer, and it was in that role that I attended the annual gathering of the security industry in San Francisco last week. The RSA Conference is one of the two global security conferences I attend, the other being Blackhat. While Blackhat has become more corporate, it’s still dominated by hackers and focuses more on vulnerabilities, whereas RSA is very much a corporate event focused on enterprise security and security policy.RELATED: Machine learning offers new hope against cyber attacks
Several of the tracks at RSA this year covered the area of security in the development process. I was most interested in the Advanced Security & DevOps track. DevOps is a hot topic in the industry, and now we have SecDevOps, or perhaps DevSecOps as the new security buzzword spinoff. Behind the buzzwords, however, I learned some useful lessons, a few of which I’d like to discuss here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Broadcom will unload the Ruckus Wireless Wi-Fi business for US$800 million when it takes over Brocade Communications Systems later this year.
The buyer, Arris International, is a maker of video and broadband equipment, including cable modems and set-top boxes with Wi-Fi inside. As part of the deal, it will also acquire Brocade’s ICX business, which makes data center, campus and carrier Ethernet switches.
Ruckus makes Wi-Fi gear primarily for enterprises and service providers. Brocade acquired Ruckus last April for $1.2 billion in a bid to expand its enterprise networking business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here