Converge your network with explicit congestion notification

Every now and again, we like to highlight a piece of technology or solution featured in Cumulus Linux that we find especially useful. Priority Flow Control (PFC) and Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) are exactly such things. In short, these technologies allow you to converge networks and save money. By supporting lossless or near lossless Ethernet, you can now run applications such as RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) or RoCEv2 over your current data center infrastructure. In this post, we’ll concentrate on the end-to-end solution for RoCEv2 – ECN and how it can help you optimize your network. We will cover PFC in a future post.

What is explicit congestion notification?

ECN is a mechanism supported by Cumulus Linux that helps provide end-to-end lossless communication between two endpoints over an IP routed network. Normally, protocols like TCP use dropped packets to indicate congestion, which then tells the sender to “slow down’. Explicit congestion notification uses this same concept, but instead of dropping packets after the queues are completely full, it notifies the receiving host that there was some congestion before the queues are completely full, thereby avoiding dropping traffic. It uses the IP layer (ECN bits in the IP TOS header) Continue reading

EP13: Colin McNamara DevOps expert and cloud architect shares with us on how to secure your future in IT!

The iCloud hackers’ bitcoin ransom looks like a fake

A group of hackers who claimed to hold millions of iCloud accounts for ransom said on Friday they'd been paid. But one bitcoin expert says that's bogus. The Turkish Crime Family grabbed headlines last month by claiming they had the stolen login credentials for more than 700 million icloud.com, me.com and mac.com accounts. They demanded increasing ransoms from Apple while threatening to wipe the data from devices connected to the affected accounts if it did not.On Friday, the hackers tweeted that they had been paid US$480,000 in bitcoin. As proof, the group posted a link showing a transaction on Blockchain.info, a popular bitcoin wallet.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The iCloud hackers’ bitcoin ransom looks like a fake

A group of hackers who claimed to hold millions of iCloud accounts for ransom said on Friday they'd been paid. But one bitcoin expert says that's bogus. The Turkish Crime Family grabbed headlines last month by claiming they had the stolen login credentials for more than 700 million icloud.com, me.com and mac.com accounts. They demanded increasing ransoms from Apple while threatening to wipe the data from devices connected to the affected accounts if it did not.On Friday, the hackers tweeted that they had been paid US$480,000 in bitcoin. As proof, the group posted a link showing a transaction on Blockchain.info, a popular bitcoin wallet.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US Department of Labor accuses Google of underpaying women

The U.S. Department of Labor says Google discriminates against female employees in pay at a level that's even worse than the tech industry as a whole.The department has found "systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce," Labor Department Regional Director Janette Wipper testified in a court in San Francisco on Friday, according to a report by The Guardian. Janet Herold, the department's regional solicitor, told the Guardian that pay discrimination against women was extreme.Wipper said that the DoL found pay disparities in a snapshot of salaries from 2015, according to the Guardian.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

University finds Proactive Security and PCI Compliance through NSX

The University of Pittsburgh is one of the oldest institutions in the country, dating to 1787 when it was founded as the Pittsburgh Academy. The University has produced the pioneers of the MRI and the television, winners of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, Super Bowl and NBA champions, and best-selling authors.

As with many businesses today, the University continues to digitize its organization to keep up with the demands of over 35,000 students, 5,000 faculty, and 7,000 staff across four campuses. While the first thing that comes to mind may be core facilities such as classrooms, this also includes keeping up with the evolving technology on the business side of things, such as point-of-sale (POS) systems. When a student buys a coffee before studying or a branded sweatshirt for mom using their student ID, those transactions must be facilitated and secured by the University.

What does it mean to secure financial transactions? For one, just as with a retail store operation, the University must achieve PCI compliance to facilitate financial transactions for its customers. What does this mean? Among other tasks, PCI demands that the data used by these systems is completely isolated from other IT operations. However, locking everything down Continue reading

DNS Glitch

Had a DNS glitch mid morning ET in switching some configurations around. It should be back up and running now, and rule11.tech should be coming up as a secondary domain soon’ish.

The post DNS Glitch appeared first on 'net work.

What one company learned from testing Intel’s superfast Optane SSDs

Intel's large-capacity Optane is like the Ferrari of storage: It's super fast, it's cool and it's expensive.Also, it isn't for everyone yet. That was reiterated by Intel when it introduced its first large capacity SSD, the Optane SSD DC P4800X, last month.The 375GB DC P4800X is aimed at high-end applications. Optane is also available as low-capacity cache storage on motherboards, allowing Windows 10 and other applications to load faster.Before release, Intel gave Optane SSDs to a select few customers who had a chance to get their hands dirty with the new technology for longer than a year. The testers included Facebook, IBM, Lenovo, and database company Aerospike, which believes Optane could unite DRAM and SSDs. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Show 334: Illumio & Adaptive Security (Sponsored)

In today s sponsored podcast we talk with Illumio about its Adaptive Security Platform. Illumios approach is to drive filtering and enforcement using adaptive segmentation technology that adjusts security policies in real time to changes in your network. The post Show 334: Illumio & Adaptive Security (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Microsoft launches Windows 10 beta program for business users

Business users get access to their own version of the Windows 10 beta program this week. On Friday, Microsoft unveiled the Windows Insider Program for Business, alongside its first post-Creators Update Windows 10 beta.The program will let business users sign up for beta updates with their Azure Active Directory credentials, rather than a personal Microsoft account. The new feature is designed to provide IT professionals with a path for giving Microsoft business-specific feedback on Windows 10 features. That, in turn, should help business users shape feature development.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: ONIE in the Data Center

ONIE stands for Open Networking Install Environment; it allows a network operating system (NOS) to be installed on any white-box switch hardware that supports this technology. Essentially it’s an extremely lightweight Linux implementation that is put on the mass-storage device in the switch during the manufacturing process, enabling automation of discovery and installation of a NOS image once installed on the customer network. ONIE supports installation from a variety of sources over a network using IPv4, IPv6 and tFTP, or even locally from a USB flash drive. Not only does this technology ease data center administration, it gives the end user a broader choice in software and hardware combinations. —Data Center Journal

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20% off Litom Solar Outdoor Motion Sensor Security Lights, 2 Pack – Deal Alert

This Amazon #1 best selling solar security light is super bright and easy to install wherever you need it. It features 3 modes: (1) Always on, (2) Dim until motion is detected, and (3) Off until motion is detected. It's designed with a large sensor that will detect motion over a larger distance, and 20 LED lights that the company claims are larger and more powerful than the competition offers. Being weatherproof, this is a light you can mount anywhere you need it outdoors. The Liton outdoor motion sensing light averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,800 people (see reviews), and a 2-pack is currently being offered at $31.99, a 20% discount over its typical list price of $39.99. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

36% off Litom Solar Outdoor Motion Sensor Security Lights, 2 Pack – Deal Alert

This Amazon #1 best selling solar security light is super bright and easy to install wherever you need it. It features 3 modes: (1) Always on, (2) Dim until motion is detected, and (3) Off until motion is detected. It's designed with a large sensor that will detect motion over a larger distance, and 20 LED lights that the company claims are larger and more powerful than the competition offers. Being weatherproof, this is a light you can mount anywhere you need it outdoors. The Liton outdoor motion sensing light averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,800 people (see reviews), and a 2-pack is currently being offered at $31.95, a 20% discount over its typical list price of $49.99. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

20% off Litom Solar Outdoor Motion Sensor Security Lights, 2 Pack – Deal Alert

This Amazon #1 best selling solar security light is super bright and easy to install wherever you need it. It features 3 modes: (1) Always on, (2) Dim until motion is detected, and (3) Off until motion is detected. It's designed with a large sensor that will detect motion over a larger distance, and 20 LED lights that the company claims are larger and more powerful than the competition offers. Being weatherproof, this is a light you can mount anywhere you need it outdoors. The Liton outdoor motion sensing light averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,800 people (see reviews), and a 2-pack is currently being offered at $31.99, a 20% discount over its typical list price of $39.99. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

36% off Litom Solar Outdoor Motion Sensor Security Lights, 2 Pack – Deal Alert

This Amazon #1 best selling solar security light is super bright and easy to install wherever you need it. It features 3 modes: (1) Always on, (2) Dim until motion is detected, and (3) Off until motion is detected. It's designed with a large sensor that will detect motion over a larger distance, and 20 LED lights that the company claims are larger and more powerful than the competition offers. Being weatherproof, this is a light you can mount anywhere you need it outdoors. The Liton outdoor motion sensing light averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,800 people (see reviews), and a 2-pack is currently being offered at $31.95, a 20% discount over its typical list price of $49.99. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaks: CIA used bits of Carberp Trojan code for malware deployment

When the source code to a suspected Russian-made malware leaked online in 2013, guess who used it? A new release from WikiLeaks claims the U.S. CIA borrowed some of the code to bolster its own hacking operations.On Friday, WikiLeaks released 27 documents that allegedly detail how the CIA customized its malware for Windows systems.The CIA borrowed a few elements from the Carberp financial malware when developing its own hacking tool known as Grasshopper, according to those documents.Carberp gained infamy as a Trojan program that can steal online banking credentials and other financial information from its victims' computers. The malware, which likely came from the criminal underground, was particularly problematic in Russia and other former Soviet states.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaks: CIA used bits of Carberp Trojan code for malware deployment

When the source code to a suspected Russian-made malware leaked online in 2013, guess who used it? A new release from WikiLeaks claims the U.S. CIA borrowed some of the code to bolster its own hacking operations.On Friday, WikiLeaks released 27 documents that allegedly detail how the CIA customized its malware for Windows systems.The CIA borrowed a few elements from the Carberp financial malware when developing its own hacking tool known as Grasshopper, according to those documents.Carberp gained infamy as a Trojan program that can steal online banking credentials and other financial information from its victims' computers. The malware, which likely came from the criminal underground, was particularly problematic in Russia and other former Soviet states.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Twitter pulls lawsuit after US government backs down

Twitter has withdrawn a lawsuit against the U.S. government after the Customs and Border Protection backed down on a demand that the social media outlet reveal details about a user account critical of the agency.The lawsuit, filed Thursday, contended that the customs agency was abusing its investigative power. The customs agency has the ability to get private user data from Twitter when investigating cases in areas such as illegal imports, but this case was far from that.The target of the request was the @alt_uscis account, one of a number of "alt" accounts that have sprung up on Twitter since the inauguration of President Donald Trump. The accounts are critical of the new administration and most claim to be run by current or former staff members of government agencies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Twitter pulls lawsuit after US government backs down

Twitter has withdrawn a lawsuit against the U.S. government after the Customs and Border Protection backed down on a demand that the social media outlet reveal details about a user account critical of the agency.The lawsuit, filed Thursday, contended that the customs agency was abusing its investigative power. The customs agency has the ability to get private user data from Twitter when investigating cases in areas such as illegal imports, but this case was far from that.The target of the request was the @alt_uscis account, one of a number of "alt" accounts that have sprung up on Twitter since the inauguration of President Donald Trump. The accounts are critical of the new administration and most claim to be run by current or former staff members of government agencies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IoT malware starts showing destructive behavior

Hackers have started adding data-wiping routines to malware that's designed to infect internet-of-things and other embedded devices. Two attacks observed recently displayed this behavior but likely for different purposes.Researchers from Palo Alto Networks found a new malware program dubbed Amnesia that infects digital video recorders through a year-old vulnerability. Amnesia is a variation of an older IoT botnet client called Tsunami, but what makes it interesting is that it attempts to detect whether it's running inside a virtualized environment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here