Safe Online, Safe On Land: Promoting Safe Internet Use to Children in Kenya

On February 16th this year, MediaNet Works and the Internet Society Kenya Chapter launched “Safe Online, Safe On Land” a 12-month project that seeks to promote safe Internet usage and practices among children in Kenya. With funding from the Internet Society’s Beyond the Net Grants Program the project anticipates to reach 700 children, targeting Koinonia Community, four children’s homes, one secondary school, and three other schools in Ngong, Kajiado County.

In addition, 12 teachers, 15 child protection and social workers, 10 journalists from both the community and mainstream media, including the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE), will benefit from this project.

Justification of the Project

The launch of this project coincided with media coverage of Internet and social media safety issues in the country. Cases of online child abuse and human trafficking have recently featured in local media. Consequently, the National Assembly on 26 April, 2018, passed the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Bill which is set to be presented to the president for assent. The Bill’s offenses relevant to this project include publication of fake news, pornography, cyberterrorism, cybersquatting, and child pornography.

To set the ball rolling consultative meetings between representatives of MediaNet Works and Koinonia Community were held Continue reading

The Cargo Cult of Google Tools

You should definitely watch this amazing video from Ben Sigelman of LightStep that was recorded at Cloud Field Day 4. The good stuff comes right up front.

In less than five minutes, he takes apart crazy notions that we have in the world today. I like the observation that you can’t build a system more than three or four orders of magnitude. Yes, you really shouldn’t be using Hadoop for simple things. And Machine Learning is not a magic wand that fixes every problem.

However, my favorite thing was the quick mention of how emulating Google for the sake of using their tools for every solution is folly. Ben should know, because he is an ex-Googler. I think I can sum up this entire discussion in less than a minute of his talk here:

Google’s solutions were built for scale that basically doesn’t exist outside of a maybe a handful of companies with a trillion dollar valuation. It’s foolish to assume that their solutions are better. They’re just more scalable. But they are actually very feature-poor. There’s a tradeoff there. We should not be imitating what Google did without thinking about why they did it. Sometimes the “whys” will apply Continue reading

Going Cloud First: Risks to Consider

What is Nmap? Why you need this network mapper

Network administrators, IT managers and security professionals face a never-ending battle, constantly checking on what exactly is running on their networks and the vulnerabilities that lurk within. While there is a wealth of monitoring utilities available for network mapping and security auditing, nothing beats Nmap's combination of versatility and usability, making it the widely acknowledged de facto standard.What is Nmap? Nmap, short for Network Mapper, is a free, open-source tool for vulnerability scanning and network discovery. Network administrators use Nmap to identify what devices are running on their systems, discovering hosts that are available and the services they offer, finding open ports and detecting security risks.To read this article in full, please click here

What is Nmap? Why you need this network mapper

Network administrators, IT managers and security professionals face a never-ending battle, constantly checking on what exactly is running on their networks and the vulnerabilities that lurk within. While there is a wealth of monitoring utilities available for network mapping and security auditing, nothing beats Nmap's combination of versatility and usability, making it the widely acknowledged de facto standard.What is Nmap? Nmap, short for Network Mapper, is a free, open-source tool for vulnerability scanning and network discovery. Network administrators use Nmap to identify what devices are running on their systems, discovering hosts that are available and the services they offer, finding open ports and detecting security risks.To read this article in full, please click here

What is Nmap? Why you need this network mapper

Network administrators, IT managers and security professionals face a never-ending battle, constantly checking on what exactly is running on their networks and the vulnerabilities that lurk within. While there is a wealth of monitoring utilities available for network mapping and security auditing, nothing beats Nmap's combination of versatility and usability, making it the widely acknowledged de facto standard.What is Nmap? Nmap, short for Network Mapper, is a free, open-source tool for vulnerability scanning and network discovery. Network administrators use Nmap to identify what devices are running on their systems, discovering hosts that are available and the services they offer, finding open ports and detecting security risks.To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco certified? Join us at VMworld!

No, you’re not a fish out of water. You’re actually in the right place to be exposed to content that will change the way you think about networking and security.

We know you have spent years honing your skills around switching, routing, load balancing and network security so the concepts of NSX will be familiar to you. Get ready! We will dive deeper into new applications of these concepts to support the enterprise shift to cloud-centric networking and security.

Here is a list of the top 10 sessions for CCIEs and other Cisco Certified networking and security professionals to attend at VMworld to help you maximize your professional development into VMware NSX by covering the personal, business and technical benefits.

Make sure to scroll to the bottom for special NSX Mindset activities.

Top 10 Networking and Security Sessions for CCIEs – VMworld 2018

1. The NSX Keynote: Building the Network of the Future with the Virtual Cloud Network
Monday, Aug 27, 1:30-2:30PM
NS3729KU
Speaker: Tom Gillis (@_tomgillis)

2. NSX Mindset: Clouds Collide, Opportunity Strikes 
Monday, 4:00PM – 5:00PM
NET1919BU
Speaker: Chris McCain (@hcmccain). Stay to the end for a surprise!

3. Deploying NSX Data Center Continue reading

Worth Reading: The Australian encryption debate is close to home

Last week, a global alliance of 76 organizations, companies, and individuals urged Australian officials to refrain from requiring technology companies to weaken the security of their products and services by building in backdoors to facilitate law enforcement access. —Michael Jardine @CDT

Nyansa Voyance at NFD18

Disclaimer : I was lucky enough to have been invited to attend Network Field Day 18 this past July in Silicon Valley. This event brings independent thought leaders to a number of IT product vendors to share information and opinions. I was not paid to attend any of these presentations, but Tech Field Day did provide travel, room, and meals for the event. There is no expectation of providing any blog content, and any posts that come from the event are from my own interest. I’m writing about Nyansa strictly from demonstrations of the product.  I’ve not installed it on my own network and have no experience running it.

Anyway,…on with the show!

Nyansa (pronounced nee-ahn’-sa) is focused on user expereince on the access network. Their product, Voyance, analyzes data from a list of sources to provide a view into what client machines are seeing. This is more than just logs from the machine itself. We’re talkin about taking behaviors on the wireless, access network, WAN, and Internet, and correlating those data points to predict user experience issues and recommend actions to remediate those problems. As we discussed in the presentation, there are products that do each of Continue reading

What Will Be the Real Impact From Knative?

Some view the platform as the death knell for serverless platforms not based on Kubernetes, while others tout patience.

Reaction: Network software quality

Over at IT ProPortal, Dr Greg Law has an article up chiding the networking world for the poor software quality. To wit—

When networking companies ship equipment out containing critical bugs, providing remediation in response to their discovery can be almost impossible. Their engineers back at base often lack the data they need to reproduce the issue as it’s usually kept by clients on premise. An inability to cure a product defect could result in the failure of a product line, temporary or permanent withdrawal of a product, lost customers, reputational damage, and product reengineering expenses, any of which could have a material impact on revenue, margins, and net income.

Let me begin here: Dr. Law, you are correct—we have a problem with software quality. I think the problem is a bit larger than just the networking world—for instance, my family just purchased two new vehicles, a Volvo and a Fiat. Both have Android systems in the center screen. And neither will connect correctly with our Android based phones. It probably isn’t mission critical, like it could be for a network, but it is annoying.

But even given software quality is a widespread issue in our world, it is still Continue reading

Classic Rock and Cloud-Native Attacks Collide at Black Hat

Leading cloud access security broker (CASB) vendors McAfee and Bitglass talk security and cloud-native attacks at Black Hat.

Alibaba Cloud Eyes Expansion Into Southeast Asia With New Products, Partners

At the Alibaba Cloud Summit this week, the cloud provider launched a wide breadth of products that span serverless, data, search and analytics, IoT, and machine learning.

India’s Idea Cellular Will Use Nokia’s Cloud Core

Nokia’s cloud-native core technology will help the Indian operator evolve from LTE to a 5G core.

Cisco software, subscription strategies pay off

Cisco’s strategy of diversifying into a more software-optimized business is paying off – literally.The software differentiation was perhaps never more obvious than in its most recent set of year-end and fourth quarter results. (Cisco's 2018 fiscal year ended July 28.)  Cisco said deferred revenue for the fiscal year was $19.7 billion, up 6 percent overall, “with deferred product revenue up 15 percent, driven largely by subscription-based and software offers, and deferred service revenue was up 1 percent.”[ Related: Getting grounded in intent-based networking] The portion of deferred product revenue that is related to recurring software and subscription offers increased 23 percent over 2017, Cisco stated. In addition, Cisco reported deferred revenue from software and subscriptions increasing 23 percent to $6.1 billion in the fourth quarter alone.To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco software, subscription strategies pay off

Cisco’s strategy of diversifying into a more software-optimized business is paying off – literally.The software differentiation was perhaps never more obvious than in its most recent set of year-end and fourth quarter results. (Cisco's 2018 fiscal year ended July 28.)  Cisco said deferred revenue for the fiscal year was $19.7 billion, up 6 percent overall, “with deferred product revenue up 15 percent, driven largely by subscription-based and software offers, and deferred service revenue was up 1 percent.”[ Related: Getting grounded in intent-based networking] The portion of deferred product revenue that is related to recurring software and subscription offers increased 23 percent over 2017, Cisco stated. In addition, Cisco reported deferred revenue from software and subscriptions increasing 23 percent to $6.1 billion in the fourth quarter alone.To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco software, subscription strategies pay off

Cisco’s strategy of diversifying into a more software-optimized business is paying off – literally.The software differentiation was perhaps never more obvious than in its most recent set of year-end and fourth quarter results. (Cisco's 2018 fiscal year ended July 28.)  Cisco said deferred revenue for the fiscal year was $19.7 billion, up 6 percent overall, “with deferred product revenue up 15 percent, driven largely by subscription-based and software offers, and deferred service revenue was up 1 percent.”[ Related: Getting grounded in intent-based networking] The portion of deferred product revenue that is related to recurring software and subscription offers increased 23 percent over 2017, Cisco stated. In addition, Cisco reported deferred revenue from software and subscriptions increasing 23 percent to $6.1 billion in the fourth quarter alone.To read this article in full, please click here

Enable Private DNS with 1.1.1.1 on Android 9 Pie

Recently, Google officially launched Android 9 Pie, which includes a slew of new features around digital well-being, security, and privacy. If you’ve poked around the network settings on your phone while on the beta or after updating, you may have noticed a new Private DNS Mode now supported by Android.

This new feature simplifies the process of configuring a custom secure DNS resolver on Android, meaning parties between your device and the websites you visit won’t be able to snoop on your DNS queries because they’ll be encrypted. The protocol behind this, TLS, is also responsible for the green lock icon you see in your address bar when visiting websites over HTTPS. The same technology is useful for encrypting DNS queries, ensuring they cannot be tampered with and are unintelligible to ISPs, mobile carriers, and any others in the network path between you and your DNS resolver. These new security protocols are called DNS over HTTPS, and DNS over TLS.

Configuring 1.1.1.1

Android Pie only supports DNS over TLS. To enable this on your device:

1. Go to Settings → Network & internet → Advanced → Private DNS.
2. Select the Private DNS provider hostname option.
3. Enter Continue reading

How to protect your infrastructure from DNS cache poisoning

Domain Name System (DNS) is our root of trust and is one of the most critical components of the internet. It is a mission-critical service because if it goes down, a business’s web presence goes down.DNS is a virtual database of names and numbers. It serves as the backbone for other services critical to organizations. This includes email, internet site access, voice over internet protocol (VoIP), and the management of files.You hope that when you type a domain name that you are really going where you are supposed to go. DNS vulnerabilities do not get much attention until an actual attack occurs and makes the news. For example, in April 2018, public DNS servers that managed the domain for Myetherwallet were hijacked and customers were redirected to a phishing site. Many users reported losing funds out of their account, and this brought a lot of public attention to DNS vulnerabilities.To read this article in full, please click here

How to protect your infrastructure from DNS cache poisoning

Domain Name System (DNS) is our root of trust and is one of the most critical components of the internet. It is a mission-critical service because if it goes down, a business’s web presence goes down.DNS is a virtual database of names and numbers. It serves as the backbone for other services critical to organizations. This includes email, internet site access, voice over internet protocol (VoIP), and the management of files.You hope that when you type a domain name that you are really going where you are supposed to go. DNS vulnerabilities do not get much attention until an actual attack occurs and makes the news. For example, in April 2018, public DNS servers that managed the domain for Myetherwallet were hijacked and customers were redirected to a phishing site. Many users reported losing funds out of their account, and this brought a lot of public attention to DNS vulnerabilities.To read this article in full, please click here