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Category Archives for "Networking"

Let’s Mobilize for Better Data Stewardship

If we want organizations like Equifax to be good data stewards, we, the users and consumers, must mobilize.

In October, the Internet Society explored why the dominant approach to data handling, based around the concepts of risk and compliance, does not work. To recap: “…data handlers try to adhere to regulatory requirements and minimize the risk to themselves – not necessarily to the individuals whose data they handle. For some data handlers, the risk that poor security creates may not extend to them.”

Euphemistically put, Equifax has not been an example of forthcomingness, transparency, and accountability. Users can change this paradigm. Users can shift the cost of a data breach onto the data handler by holding the accountable for their action or lack of action.

The key is to organize. For example, Consumer Reports is organizing a campaign calling on Equifax to take the next steps to address the fallout from the data breach. Their first step was to deliver a petition signed by over 180,000 individuals to Equifax’s headquarters.

The Internet Society just pledged $10k to this cause, to help Consumer Reports make sure Equifax does everything in its power to make things right for consumers in Continue reading

Top benefits of using Linux in the modern enterprise

Let’s be honest. There are many enterprise data centers (and data center admins) who aren’t crazy about Linux. But most of that opposition comes from simply not understanding the benefits of Linux and not experiencing Linux hands-on. Fortunately, we’ve got a comprehensive guide to everything Linux that you can use to get familiar with the basics. Once you start testing out Linux for yourself and getting comfortable with it, I think you’ll find that Linux is the best operating system available today.

So what are the benefits, in general, of using Linux? Some of these benefits include:

  • Consistent operating model. No matter what version or distribution of Linux you use, whether you’re on a supercomputer or a tiny embedded device, the general operation of Linux is the same no matter where you go. What this means is that, with some exceptions, the command line syntax is similar, process management is similar, basic network administration is similar, and applications can be (relatively) easily ported between distributions. The end result of this consistent operating model is a cost savings generated by greater staff efficiency and flexibility.
  • Scalability. Linux is eminently scalable and is able to run on everything from wristwatches to supercomputers Continue reading

Reaction: AT&T’s Paper on dNOS

The AT&T White Paper: What they get Right, what they get Wrong

AT&T recently published a paper on dNOS, an open, disaggregated, Network Operating System for any kind of hardware. They list three primary purposes for their effort at helping the networking industry build an open source dNOS:

  • To improve the rate of innovation and introduction of new features
  • To provide more flexibility in network design
  • To reduce costs where possible by taking advantage of purchasing “at scale”

How could disaggregation help with these three goals? The first of these, the rate of innovation, is really about packaging and perception, but we often forget that perception is a large part of innovation. If software developers always believe they must wait on the hardware, and hardware developers always feel like they must wait on the software, then the two teams develop an interlocking system that can slow down the pace at which either team can operate. One certain way to drive innovation is to break up such interconnected systems, allowing each one to use the features of the other in ways not originally intended, or drive the other team to create new features through competition. For instance, if the software team Continue reading

Continuing David Vyorst’s Legacy: Recognizing the Next Generation of Open Internet Advocates

Last week we shared the sad news that David Vyorst, the Executive Director of the ISOC-DC chapter and an instrumental part of the North American Internet community, passed away.

The DC Chapter and the Internet Society are jointly establishing a fellowship award in David’s name. The fellowship will be awarded to a young person in a US-based chapter who has an innovative project or initiative for making a chapter more effective in advancing the values of a free and open Internet accessible by everyone.

You can visit the DC Chapter’s website to make a donation in David’s memory.

Photo credit: Glenn McKnight

The post Continuing David Vyorst’s Legacy: Recognizing the Next Generation of Open Internet Advocates appeared first on Internet Society.

How to create self-driving private clouds

A few years ago, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) outlined the five stages of self-driving vehicles. In actuality, there are six levels, but the zero level is no automation, so we will ignore that. The idea behind the different phases is to make it possible for us to get there in a reasonable, phased approach.It’s unrealistic that the car manufacturers could go from where we are today to a fully autonomous car with no driver or even controls. Even if the automotive community could build an autonomous vehicle today, very few people would have enough trust to use a car with no controls. When it comes to a massive shift like this, crawl-walk-run is definitely the right approach — and that’s what the five stages are designed to do.To read this article in full, please click here

Why Some Phishing Emails Are Mysteriously Disappearing

Why Some Phishing Emails Are Mysteriously Disappearing

Why Some Phishing Emails Are Mysteriously Disappearing

Phishing is the absolute worst.

Unfortunately, sometimes phishing campaigns use Cloudflare for the very convenient, free DNS. To be clear –– there’s a difference between a compromised server being leveraged to send phishing emails and an intentionally malicious website dedicated to this type of activity. The latter clearly violates our terms of service.

In the past, our Trust and Safety team would kick these intentional phishers off the platform, but now we have a new trick up our sleeve and a way for their malicious emails to mysteriously disappear into the ether.

Background: How Email Works

SMTP - the protocol used for sending email - was finalized in 1982, when it was just a small community online. Many of them knew and trusted each other, and so the protocol was built entirely on trust. In an SMTP message, the MAIL FROM field can be arbitrarily defined. That means you could send an email from any email address, even one you don’t own.

This is great for phishers, and bad for everyone else.

The solution to prevent email spoofing was to create the Sender Policy Framework (SPF). SPF allows the domain owner to specify which servers are allowed to send Continue reading

How to squeeze the most out of Linux file compression

If you have any doubt about the many commands and options available on Linux systems for file compression, you might want to take a look at the output of the apropos compress command. Chances are you'll be surprised by the many commands that you can use for compressing and decompressing files, as well as for comparing compressed files, examining and searching through the content of compressed files, and even changing a compressed file from one format to another (i.e., .z format to .gz format).You're likely to see all of these entries just for the suite of bzip2 compression commands. Add in zip, gzip, and xz, and you've got a lot of interesting options.To read this article in full, please click here

Reflections on a Global and Cyber heavy week at GCCS and GFCE

Two weeks ago, a small Internet Society delegation was in Delhi to participate in a number of events that contained the word ‘Global’ and ‘Cyber’. In this post, I’ll share some of our perspectives on the first two events – the GCCS and the GFCE.

GCCS – The Global Conference on Cyberspace

The first meeting of the week was the Global Conference on Cyberspace. This was originally a government-initiated conference series and is also commonly known as the London Process.

Part of the strength of these meetings is that they create a trusted environment for governments to discuss global issues that are usually state-centric, such as international aspects of security and stability. Over time, these meetings have opened up to other stakeholders, with the 2015 meeting in The Hague being the most inclusive so far. However, inclusive participation is not a given. Inclusion is important because these types of meetings ultimately are where norms for inter-state behaviour emerge, not necessarily in writing but through the development of a common narrative. But such narratives are only strong and impactful if those who implement and are impacted by those norms have a seat at the table. Although inclusive, multi-stakeholder participation has historically Continue reading

Network Topology Visualization – Example of Using LLDP Neighborships, NETCONF and little Python/Javascript

Ok, this is a continuation of two streams of articles here, first my recent NETCONF tutorial here, and secondly my very old project (back then in Java) of visualization of network topologies using SNMP information called “HelloRoute”. So this is a resurrection of a very old ideas, just using newer methods and tools. But first a foreword on visualization.

Foreword – Visualization use in Network Infrastructure by Author’s experience

Well, as far as I would say, automated network visualization or documentation never really took of as primary source of documentation, everywhere I look we still maintain manually created maps with version control, trying to keep them up-to-date in change process and etc… , the reason why this is so is the context that human author can give the map, for example office networks mapped by purpose or parts of buildings, or by legal organizations. Have a look on the picture below, this is a difference between human and automated maps in most generic network modeling tools.

Now to not completely kill the point of you finishing this tutorial, I BELIEVE THE PROBLEM IS THAT VISUALIZATION TOOLS ON MARKET ARE MOSTLY GENERIC PRODUCTS, Continue reading

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