At one point in his life, Michael Sage was a monk living in a monastery. Nowadays, though, he practices a different kind of evangelism in his job as a chief evangelist at BlazeMeter, a software load and performance-testing company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Even as top U.S. diplomats press issues of cybersecurity and Internet freedom in virtually every top-level meeting with their foreign counterparts, it's too soon to begin contemplating a formal, multilateral treaty laying out parameters for digital rules of the road, according to a senior State Department official.That's in part because it remains early days in cyber-diplomacy, but also because the U.S. approach of framing Internet issues within the context of existing international law and pushing to develop generally accepted norms is netting some encouraging results, Christopher Painter, the State Department's coordinator for cyber issues, testified Wednesday during a Senate hearing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Now that Google I/O is behind us, the next two major tech events are set to be Apple-dominated affairs. Up first, of course, we have WWDC which is slated to take place in just about two weeks in San Francisco. And following that, Apple sometime in late August or early September will finally take the wraps off the highly anticipated iPhone 7.Over the past few months, we've slowly but surely been inundated with an avalanche of iPhone 7 rumors, some more credible than others. But with Apple reportedly already looking to kickstart production, it stands to reason that some of the more recent leaks represent close approximations to what Apple will ultimately unveil in just a few months.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The thousands of endpoints in IoT systems may have to protect themselves against thousands of dangers. A decades-old IT lab wants to tell you if they’re up to the task.On Wednesday, ICSA Labs announced a program to test the security features of IoT devices and sensors. If the products pass, ICSA will give them a seal of approval. It can also keep testing them periodically to make sure they’re still safe.Consumers and enterprises are wary about security in the Internet of Things, where hardware, software and even use cases are brand new in many cases. Tiny connected devices that run all the time in the background could be vulnerable to completely new kinds of attacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Salesforce has named Amazon Web Services its preferred public cloud provider for services like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and App Cloud, expanding an existing partnership to provide the backend for the software-as-a-service provider.AWS already hosts several Salesforce services like Heroku, SalesforceIQ and the recently-announced IoT Cloud. This latest deal will help Salesforce to expand internationally without having to build its own data centers in order to comply with local data sovereignty laws. That's important as Salesforce tries to pick up more customers in countries that have strict requirements about where data is stored. Salesforce isn't the only company to turn to AWS in this capacity: Dropbox will store data with AWS in Germany starting later this year. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We scratch and claw sometimes to find enterprise IT angles regarding the tiny and inexpensive Raspberry Pi computers, but this week, an item has fallen right into our lap.Citrix touts Raspberry Pi
Citrix’s latest attempt to disrupt the business desktop PC market is via its $89 HDX Ready Pi box, which combines with Citrix XenDesktop virtual desktop technology and XenApp virtual apps. That could come in cheaper even than such client devices as Chromebooks.Citrix VP of Emerging Solutions Chris Fleck writes on a company blog this week that the combination of the low-cost Raspberry Pi 3 platform with its own system-on-chip architecture, plus a locked down Linux OS, could widely expand the market for Raspberry Pi.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft's attempts to catch up with Google in the online collaboration space took a step forward Wednesday, when the company announced that it's giving business users live chat in Office Online. The new feature will allow users to discuss documents stored in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business using chat sessions powered by Skype for Business.When more than one person is working on a shared document inside Word, Excel, OneNote or PowerPoint Online, they'll see a chat button show up in the Web app's toolbar. When clicked, it'll open a chat sidebar so everyone with the document open can discuss it. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Two years ago the FCC announced its intention to fine a Chinese electronics maker $34.9 million and a Florida man $48,000 for respectively selling and using illegal cell-phone jammers.Today the agency has issued press releases telling us that those fines have finally been made official, without either of the offending parties having bothered to mount a formal defense of their actions.[MORE: For sale: The nuclear bunker of your dreams]The wheels of justice, etc. And good luck collecting the $34.9 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Comments by Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins last week that the networking giant is open to collaborations with VMware in virtual networking raise the question: Just how would Cisco's ACI and VMware's NSX platforms could work together?In an interview with CRN last week, Robbins spoke vaguely about potentially exploring collaborations between Cisco’s ACI and VMware’s NSX, but did not commit to any specific integrations of the two products, which have typically been seen as competitors in the market.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: VMware narrowing SDN gap with Cisco | The future of auto safety is seatbelts, airbags and network technology +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bye-bye passwords; we’ve heard that a lot over the years, but Google has a plan to kill off passwords by the end of this year by replacing passwords with biometrics.“We have a phone, and these phones have all these sensors in them,” Daniel Kaufman, said at Google I/O on Friday. “Why couldn’t it just know who I was, so I don’t need a password? It should just be able to work.” Kaufman heads up Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) research unit.You may recall Project Abacus (video) being mentioned at Google I/O last year; it was tested across 28 states in 33 universities, so now Google intends to “get rid of the awkwardness” of two-factor authentication as well as passwords. Instead, you will be authenticated by how you use your Android.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tech giant Apple could be readying itself for an uncharacteristic act of openness, as the company prepares to take the wraps off of the Siri SDK in a bid for a bigger piece of the growing digital voice assistant market.A report from The Information’s Amir Efrati said yesterday that Apple is getting ready to make development tools for Siri widely available for the first time, which will allow app developers to create products that integrate with the company’s popular voice assistant.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Not dead yet: 7 of the oldest federal IT systems still wheezing away + Software-Defined WANs: Viptela gets $75M in fundingTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google Director of Research and renowned artificial intelligence (AI) expert Peter Norvig, presented an entirely different side of AI and machine learning at the EmTech Digital conference. He compared traditional software programming to machine learning to highlight the new challenges of debugging and verifying systems programmed with machine learning do what they are designed to do.Traditional software programming uses Boolean-based logic that can be tested to confirm that the software does what it was designed to do, using tools and methodologies established over the last few decades.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The original title for this story was "Transitioning from IPv4 to IPv6," but when we started researching, we quickly realized that most organizations are adopting an outside-in strategy, rather than moving over from all-IPv4 to all-IPv6 deployments. This means that they're often taking steps to accommodate incoming and outgoing IPv6 traffic at the organizational boundary and translating between the two stacks, or tunneling one protocol over another, for internal access and use. The majority of internal clients and other nodes are using IPv4, with increasing use of IPv6 in dual-stack environments (environments that run IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks side-by-side).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Impersonating appsEnterprise employees use mobile apps every day to get their jobs done, but when malicious actors start impersonating those apps, it spells trouble for IT departments. David Richardson, director of product at Lookout, and his team recently researched five families of malware doing just that: spoofing real enterprise apps to lure people to download their malware. The dataset of mobile code shows that these five, active mobile malware families often impersonate enterprise apps by ripping off the legitimate app’s name and package name. These apps include Cisco’s Business Class Email app, ADP, Dropbox, FedEx Mobile, Zendesk, VMware’s Horizon Client, Blackboard’s Mobile Learn app, and others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Last week, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission called cybersecurity the biggest risk facing the global financial industry."Cyber risks can produce far-reaching impacts," said SEC chair Mary Jo White.For example, cybercriminals recently stole $81 million from a bank in Bangladesh by using Swift, the global money transfer network.The SEC promises to step up regulation and Swift itself is expected to launch a new cyber security initiative this week that includes independent security audits of its customers. Meanwhile, top finance officials from G-7 nations met in Japan to discuss plans to improve global cybersecurity coordination.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Thousands of companies were turned into lawbreakers at a stroke the last time the High Court of Ireland referred a question about data protection to the Court of Justice of the European Union. And it may be about to do it again.That means yet more uncertainty for companies processing European citizens' personal information in the U.S., as they struggle to keep up with the changes in privacy regulations triggered by the CJEU's response to the Irish court's last question.Under EU law, citizens' personal information can only be exported to jurisdictions guaranteeing a similar level of privacy protection to that required by the 1995 Data Protection Directive.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
More evidence of the growing surge in wireless data reliance was released this week with CTIA’s announcement of its 2015 annual survey results.Americans used well over double (137 percent) the amount of data in 2015 than they used in 2014, the wireless industry trade body found. And 2015’s 9.6 trillion megabyte (MB) delivery was three times the throughput sent in 2013. In that year, we used only a measly 2.2 trillion MB.CTIA, formerly known as the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, says 2015’s 9.6 trillion MB is the equivalent of streaming 59,219 videos every minute. What’s interesting is that despite that 137 percent gain in data last year, subscriber numbers rose only 6 percent over the same period. And the total number of smartphones in use, in the country, was up only about a tenth at 9 percent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There are some seriously old IT systems at work in the federal IT arsenal and some that are 56 years old have no real retirement date.That was one observation from a report issued this week from the federal watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office.“Agencies reported using several systems that have components that are, in some cases, at least 50 years old. For example, the Department of Defense uses 8-inch floppy disks in a legacy system that coordinates the operational functions of the nation's nuclear forces. In addition, the Department of the Treasury uses assembly language code—a computer language initially used in the 1950s and typically tied to the hardware for which it was developed,” the GAO stated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Here we have a good candidate for this year's Father's Day gift, either for yourself or a dad you know. This handy gadget is a 600A portable power supply capable of charging your laptops, tablets and phones. However, this one can also boost most cars, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles and tractors as well. The Rugged Geek INTELLIBOOST is truly designed for all of the critical batteries in your life. In an emergency, just connect the included jumper cables and attach to your vehicle's dead battery. It will start gas engines up to 6.0l and diesel engines up to 3.0l. It also features 2 USB Charging ports to charge your devices, a laptop charging port with 8 included laptop tips, and a powerful LED flashlight with emergency modes. All while maintaining a footprint similar in size to most smartphones, and a weight of under 1 pound. It currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 140 reviewers, many of which have posted videos of themselves successfully boosting their own vehicles including a 6.0l Cadillac (see reviews). With a regular price of $199.99, this 55% off deal puts it at just $89.99. Continue reading
Arduino, the Italian company that has powered the "maker" movement with a series of small computing boards that can be programmed and configured for different tasks, is introducing a board targeted at the so-called Internet of Things.IoT encompasses the world of Internet-connected machinery and gadgets, many of which include sensors that remotely and autonomously send data.The Primo features WiFi, Bluetooth low energy, NFC (near-field communications), and infrared built into the board. Previously, users had to connect add-on boards to get wireless networking.The company first showed the board at the weekend's Maker Faire Bay Area. Increased interest among hobbyists in building gadgets and gizmos that could automatically communicate via the Internet led to its development, Arduino CEO Federico Musto said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here