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Category Archives for "Networking"

Invisibility, teleportation among top superpowers that IT pros want

Against my better judgment, I'm going to share a few tidbits from a vendor survey — one of those marketing schemes that have become the bane of my existence as a tech journalist (See: "Right back at you vendors: OUR independent study of YOUR independent research")But I figured you'd want to know what superpowers your peers desire, since I'm sure that's a discussion you and your colleagues have had at some point or another (my superpower would be to dodge vendor survey pitches).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco expands wireless reach with access points, management software

Perhaps nowhere is the challenge of keeping up with the onslaught of wireless devices greater than in the small-to-midsized companies with little or no IT expertise to handle it.That’s the target for Cisco’s latest line of 802.11ac Wave 2-based wireless products which include scalable Aironet wireless access points and a new version of Cisco’s Mobility Express software to manage the whole environment.+More on Network World: When the Internet Engineering Task Force meets this week in Chicago it will have a new chair – Cisco Fellow Alissa Cooper +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What’s in Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones?

Samsung's new Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones look beautiful, and are loaded with new features that could make an upgrade worthwhile.The handsets are superfast and 4K capable, and also herald the arrival of new technologies like Bluetooth 5 and LTE gigabit modems.We take a look inside the handsets and see how they have improved from the Samsung Galaxy S7.Screen size is biggerThe Galaxy S8 has a 5.8-inch screen, while the S8+ has a 6.2-inch screen, which are larger than the 5.5-inch S7 and the 5.7-inch Note 7. The screen resolution is 2960 x 1440 pixels, a slight uptick from S7's 2560 x 1440-pixel screen. Samsung was able to increase the S8 screen size by cutting the home button, and also adding to the height. The screen area now constitutes 83 percent of the S8 front surfaces.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Updating Apple iOS will protect you from this fake ransomware attack

Lookout researchers warned of a campaign involving fake ransomware attacks that attempt to extort money from users of mobile Safari. Victims are accused of accessing illegal pornography and the browser appears to be locked up unless a “ransom” is paid.“Your device has been locked for illegal pornography,” the message stated on a site with security agency icons such as NSA and Interpol at the bottom of the page. An overlay pop-up warned that Safari “cannot open page” with “OK” underneath the message. However, the dialog would not go away no matter how many times the victim tapped “OK.”Lookout said, “Each time he tapped ‘OK’ he would be prompted to tap ‘OK’ again, effectively putting the browser into an infinite loop of dialog prompts that prevented him from using the browser.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Updating Apple iOS will protect you from this fake ransomware attack

Lookout researchers warned of a campaign involving fake ransomware attacks that attempt to extort money from users of mobile Safari. Victims are accused of accessing illegal pornography and the browser appears to be locked up unless a “ransom” is paid.“Your device has been locked for illegal pornography,” the message stated on a site with security agency icons such as NSA and Interpol at the bottom of the page. An overlay pop-up warned that Safari “cannot open page” with “OK” underneath the message. However, the dialog would not go away no matter how many times the victim tapped “OK.”Lookout said, “Each time he tapped ‘OK’ he would be prompted to tap ‘OK’ again, effectively putting the browser into an infinite loop of dialog prompts that prevented him from using the browser.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How Microsoft plans to address AI and machine learning challenges

Microsoft, Google and IBM face difficult challenges in winning early enterprise adopters of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Microsoft AI Research Vice President Peter Lee shed some like on how Microsoft will meet those challenges when we met at this week’s MIT Technology Review EmTech Digital conference.Lee began with the same explanation that he gave to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Nadella, a former research engineer, does not need to have technology spoon fed to him, but he does need to understand the framework used to manage the future of the vertical industries transferred to the stewardship of Microsoft’s AI group. It is a big bet, amounting to 6,000 employees or one-fourth of the company and includes leading industry businesses such as healthcare, education, automotive, finance and retail. A very big bet on the future of AI, indeed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Privacy advocates plan to fight Congress’ repeal of ISP privacy rules

Privacy advocates haven't given up the fight after the U.S. Congress voted to allow ISPs to sell customers' browsing histories and other personal information without their permission.On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted 215 to 205 to strike down ISP privacy regulations approved by the Federal Communications Commission only months ago. House's passage of a resolution of disapproval followed a Senate vote to pass the same resolution days earlier. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the Republican-pushed bill. But Senator Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he will introduce new legislation to require the FCC to pass new ISP privacy rules.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Privacy advocates plan to fight Congress’ repeal of ISP privacy rules

Privacy advocates haven't given up the fight after the U.S. Congress voted to allow ISPs to sell customers' browsing histories and other personal information without their permission.On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted 215 to 205 to strike down ISP privacy regulations approved by the Federal Communications Commission only months ago. House's passage of a resolution of disapproval followed a Senate vote to pass the same resolution days earlier. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the Republican-pushed bill. But Senator Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he will introduce new legislation to require the FCC to pass new ISP privacy rules.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Experts: Online trolls are here to stay, unless we do something

A report issued this morning by the Pew Research Center and Elon University said that online interactions will continue to be shaped by trolling and mistrust, according to a survey of digital scholars and futurists.More than four in five of the 1,537 respondents surveyed said that the tone of communication via online media like social networks and discussion sites would either become more unhinged over the next decade or stay roughly the same.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Microsoft's Docs.com is sharing dangerously sensitive personal files and information + 5 burning questions with new IETF Chair and Cisco Fellow Alissa CooperTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

F5 to buy Brocade’s virtual ADC business?

F5 Networks is said to be lining up to acquire Brocade’s virtual Application Delivery Controller (ADC) business, the latest hunk of Brocade’s IP suite to be sold off to meet the terms of Brocade’s $5.5 billion acquisition by Broadcom, a deal announced last November. Brocade sold its Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business to Arris International in February for $800 million.The latest divestiture -- reported by companies contacted by the private equity firm shopping the ADC asset -- is said to involve Brocade’s Virtual Traffic Manager, formerly known as the SteelApp Traffic Manager.  Brocade had acquired the technology from Riverbed in 2015 for an undisclosed fee, and Riverbed itself had acquired the tech from Zeus Technologies in 2011 for $140 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

F5 to buy Brocade’s virtual ADC business?

F5 Networks is said to be lining up to acquire Brocade’s virtual Application Delivery Controller (ADC) business, the latest hunk of Brocade’s IP suite to be sold off to meet the terms of Brocade’s $5.5 billion acquisition by Broadcom, a deal announced last November. Brocade sold its Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business to Arris International in February for $800 million.The latest divestiture -- reported by companies contacted by the private equity firm shopping the ADC asset -- is said to involve Brocade’s Virtual Traffic Manager, formerly known as the SteelApp Traffic Manager.  Brocade had acquired the technology from Riverbed in 2015 for an undisclosed fee, and Riverbed itself had acquired the tech from Zeus Technologies in 2011 for $140 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Scammers scare iPhone users into paying to unlock not-really-locked Safari

Apple yesterday patched a bug in the iOS version of Safari that had been used by criminals to spook users into paying $125 or more because they assumed the browser was broken.The flaw, fixed in Monday's iOS 10.3 update, had been reported to Apple a month ago by researchers at San Francisco-based mobile security firm Lookout."One of our users alerted us to this campaign, and said he had lost control of Safari on his iPhone," Andrew Blaich, a Lookout security researcher, said in a Tuesday interview. "He said, 'I can't use my browser anymore.'"The criminal campaign, Blaich and two colleagues reported in a Monday post to Lookout's blog, exploited a bug in how Safari displayed JavaScript pop-ups. When the browser reached a malicious site implanted with the attack code, the browser went into an endless loop of dialogs that refused to close no matter who many times "OK" was tapped. The result: Safari was unusable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Scammers scare iPhone users into paying to unlock not-really-locked Safari

Apple yesterday patched a bug in the iOS version of Safari that had been used by criminals to spook users into paying $125 or more because they assumed the browser was broken.The flaw, fixed in Monday's iOS 10.3 update, had been reported to Apple a month ago by researchers at San Francisco-based mobile security firm Lookout."One of our users alerted us to this campaign, and said he had lost control of Safari on his iPhone," Andrew Blaich, a Lookout security researcher, said in a Tuesday interview. "He said, 'I can't use my browser anymore.'"The criminal campaign, Blaich and two colleagues reported in a Monday post to Lookout's blog, exploited a bug in how Safari displayed JavaScript pop-ups. When the browser reached a malicious site implanted with the attack code, the browser went into an endless loop of dialogs that refused to close no matter who many times "OK" was tapped. The result: Safari was unusable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Future Intel CPUs could be cobbled together using different parts

Today’s processors, made using a single continuous slab of silicon, may soon give way to multiple chips interconnected at high speeds, Intel said Tuesday morning.Intel said its new Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge, or EMIB, technology would let a 22nm chip connect to a 10nm chip and a 14nm chip, all on the same processor.“For example, we can mix high-performance blocks of silicon and IP together with low-power elements made from different nodes for extreme optimization,” said Intel’s Murthy Renduchintala, who heads the Client, IoT, and Systems Architecture Group.That’s a radical departure from how the company has constructed most CPUs and SoCs, where all components of a CPU or SoC are built on the same process. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Future Intel CPUs could be cobbled together using different parts

Today’s processors, made using a single continuous slab of silicon, may soon give way to multiple chips interconnected at high speeds, Intel said Tuesday morning.Intel said its new Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge, or EMIB, technology would let a 22nm chip connect to a 10nm chip and a 14nm chip, all on the same processor.“For example, we can mix high-performance blocks of silicon and IP together with low-power elements made from different nodes for extreme optimization,” said Intel’s Murthy Renduchintala, who heads the Client, IoT, and Systems Architecture Group.That’s a radical departure from how the company has constructed most CPUs and SoCs, where all components of a CPU or SoC are built on the same process. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 things you need to know about the security risks of wearables

The risks from corporate use of activity trackers and other wearables is low, some experts say -- especially in comparison to all the other security and privacy risks CISOs, CIOs and IT folks must worry about.That said, as with any connected device, there is risk potential. For example, recent research suggests that devices such as Fitbits can be hacked (when the hacker is within close proximity). By focusing on accelerometers and other motion sensors, researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of South Carolina found that it’s possible to, among other things, use sound waves at different frequencies to add thousands of steps to a Fitbit. (Scroll down to read Fitbit’s response to the research results.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)