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Category Archives for "Networking"

H-1B advocate Sen. Orrin Hatch sets stage for new visa battle

The U.S. Senate's leading proponent for increasing the H-1B visa cap is Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). His previous legislative efforts have infuriated critics of the visa program. Hatch's 2015 visa cap-increasing bill, I-Squared, was so awful, said the IEEE-USA, that it would "help destroy" the U.S. tech workforce.Hatch is updating his I-Squared bill with reforms he hopes buy leeway with his critics. That doesn't seem likely.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Raspberry Pi roundup: Hi, my breath is fresh, remote access, and a darker shade of Pi

Sticking Raspberry Pis in cute little packages is, after all, part of the point of the Raspberry Pi. It’s a small computer, so let’s put it places you can’t fit laptops or desktops. We’ve seen them behind picture frames, inside Nintendo Game Boy-ish shells, and in so many other places.Step forward, PiMiniMint creator Matt Wagner, who has managed to stuff a Raspberry Pi Zero – along with a screen, a battery, an SD card reader and much more – into a tin of Altoids. Curious.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Cisco reserves $125 million to pay for faulty clock component in switches, routers + Microsoft's monthlong delay of patches may pose risksTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Startup Nyansa helps companies quantify the impact of application performance

Understanding the impact of an IT outage is a fairly standardized process. Take how much revenue the company generates, break it down to an hourly amount and, as they say in the UK, “Bob’s your Uncle”. However, IT outages aren’t nearly as common as they used to be a decade or more ago. Businesses build their infrastructure with so much redundancy that the concept of an outage is rare. I believe most companies could go into their data center and flick any piece of equipment off and not one user would notice.The bigger problems today are related to “brown out” situations, where things are working but not quite right. A user tries to make a call from a VoIP phone and the call is choppy or attempts to input some information into a CRM system and the interface is slow. These are much more difficult problems to quantify the impact of. Last year I asked a number of IT leaders if they were aware of how much productivity was lost due to poor application performance and most either took a shot in the dark or admitted they had no idea. As best as I can tell, the number is Continue reading

Startup Nyansa helps companies quantify the impact of application performance

Understanding the impact of an IT outage is a fairly standardized process. Take how much revenue the company generates, break it down to an hourly amount and, as they say in the UK, “Bob’s your Uncle”. However, IT outages aren’t nearly as common as they used to be a decade or more ago. Businesses build their infrastructure with so much redundancy that the concept of an outage is rare. I believe most companies could go into their data center and flick any piece of equipment off and not one user would notice.The bigger problems today are related to “brown out” situations, where things are working but not quite right. A user tries to make a call from a VoIP phone and the call is choppy or attempts to input some information into a CRM system and the interface is slow. These are much more difficult problems to quantify the impact of. Last year I asked a number of IT leaders if they were aware of how much productivity was lost due to poor application performance and most either took a shot in the dark or admitted they had no idea. As best as I can tell, the number is Continue reading

Arrest of Samsung’s Lee may not affect smartphone business in short term

The arrest of Samsung Electronics’ vice chairman Lee Jae-yong on Friday in South Korea may not have a direct impact on the company’s high-profile electronics business, including its smartphones unit, according to analysts.Samsung announced in 2012 the promotion of the executive, also known as Jay. Y. Lee, to his current formal position at Samsung Electronics. But he is largely seen as the de-facto leader of the Samsung Group, running the business on behalf of his ailing father, Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee.He was arrested on charges of bribery as part of an alleged corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple to unveil iOS 11 at WWDC on June 5

With so many rumors surrounding the iPhone 8, it's been easy to lose sight of the fact that we're just a few short months away from seeing the next-generation version of iOS, the mobile OS that powers Apple's iconic smartphones.Earlier today, Apple announced that WWDC 2017 will be held from June 5-9 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. The annual developer's conference is where Apple will take the wraps off of iOS 11 while also showing us what the future of macOS, tvOS and watchOS will look like."Each year during WWDC," Apple's press release reads, "millions of talented developers around the world learn about Apple's breakthrough platform technologies ranging from programming languages like Swift to breakthrough developer APIs like SiriKit, HomeKit, HealthKit and CarPlay. These Apple technologies inspire developers to continue creating incredible experiences for every aspect of customers’ lives and improve the way they manage their smart homes, cars, health and more for over one billion active Apple devices."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Experts at RSA give their best cybersecurity advice

Come to the RSA show, and you’ll find plenty of cybersecurity technology. The top vendors from across the industry are here, showing products for fighting ransomware, preventing data breaches and more.But even the best security software is useless if users and businesses aren’t taking the right steps to protect themselves. So we asked experts at the show for their best cybersecurity tips.Joe Stewart, director of malware research at Dell SecureWorks He advises everyone to set up two-factor authentication to protect their internet accounts, especially email. It can be particularly useful when stopping hackers who are trying to steal login passwords from users, whether through malware or email phishing schemes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Experts at RSA give their best cybersecurity advice

Come to the RSA show, and you’ll find plenty of cybersecurity technology. The top vendors from across the industry are here, showing products for fighting ransomware, preventing data breaches and more.But even the best security software is useless if users and businesses aren’t taking the right steps to protect themselves. So we asked experts at the show for their best cybersecurity tips.Joe Stewart, director of malware research at Dell SecureWorks He advises everyone to set up two-factor authentication to protect their internet accounts, especially email. It can be particularly useful when stopping hackers who are trying to steal login passwords from users, whether through malware or email phishing schemes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Technology Short Take #78

Welcome to Technology Short Take #78! Here’s another collection of links and articles from around the Internet discussing various data center-focused technologies.

Networking

Servers/Hardware

Nothing this time around, sorry!

Security

Google open source TensorFlow 1.0 debuts – vies for platform status

Google Brain announced release 1.0 of its machine learning (ML) library yesterday at the TensorFlow Developer Summit in Mountain View. ML is a method of programing computers with data to make highly reliable predictions, instead of creating a program in a language like Java, C# or Python.ML is a more efficient method of solving problems such as image recognition, language translation and ranking things like comments and recommendations. Google, along with Facebook, IBM and Microsoft has used ML internally to solve problems like ranking search results.A little over a year ago Google released TensorFlow based on its experience with its proprietary ML library, DistBelief. TensorFlow is in use within Google with about 4,000 source code directories including TensorFlow model description files. It is used in many applications including Google Search, Maps and Gmail’s spam filter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google opens source TensorFlow 1.0 debuts – vies for platform status

Google Brain announced release 1.0 of its machine learning (ML) library yesterday at the TensorFlow Developer Summit in Mountain View. ML is a method of programing computers with data to make highly reliable predictions, instead of creating a program in a language like Java, C# or Python.ML is a more efficient method of solving problems such as image recognition, language translation and ranking things like comments and recommendations. Google, along with Facebook, IBM and Microsoft has used ML internally to solve problems like ranking search results.A little over a year ago Google released TensorFlow based on its experience with its proprietary ML library, DistBelief. TensorFlow is in use within Google with about 4,000 source code directories including TensorFlow model description files. It is used in many applications including Google Search, Maps and Gmail’s spam filter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

You can now use Google Authenticator and any TOTP app for Two-Factor Authentication

Since the very beginning, Cloudflare has offered two-factor authentication with Authy, and starting today we are expanding your options to keep your account safe with Google Authenticator and any Time-based One Time Password (TOTP) app of your choice.

If you want to get started right away, visit your account settings. Setting up Two-Factor with Google Authenticator or with any TOTP app is easy - just use the app to scan the barcode you see in the Cloudflare dashboard, enter the code the app returns, and you’re good to go.

Importance of Two-Factor Authentication

Often when you hear that an account was ‘hacked’, it really means that the password was stolen.

Two-Factor authentication is sometimes thought of as something that should be used to protect important accounts, but the best practice is to always enable it when it is available. Without a second factor, any mishap involving your password can lead to a compromise. Journalist Mat Honan’s high profile compromise in 2012 is a great example of the importance of two-factor authentication. When Continue reading

Internet Society speaks out against proposed password disclosure requirements

Today, the Internet Society, along with 50 organizations and trade associations and nearly 90 individual experts who care deeply about an open, trusted Internet, expressed our deep concerns that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security may require individuals to disclose their social media account passwords as a condition of entry into the United States.  Last week, the new U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security indicated that the U.S. government is considering such a policy as an element of border screening.

Ms. Kathryn Brown

PC prices will continue to go up due to shortage of components

PC prices are going up due to a shortage of a number of components, and the situation isn't expected to change in the coming quarters.A shortage of DRAM, SSDs, batteries, and LCDs have conspired to drive up PC prices, Gianfranco Lanci, corporate president and chief operating officer at Lenovo, said during an earnings call on Thursday.The cost of purchasing these components is going up, which is triggering PC prices to also rise, said Lanci, a PC industry veteran. The shortage of components like memory will continue, Lanci said.As component supplies shrink, PC prices will rise, said Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner. Moreover, PC makers are raising prices to squeeze more profits out of the shrinking PC market, Kitagawa said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Israeli soldiers hit in cyberespionage campaign using Android malware

More than 100 members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the majority of them stationed around the Gaza strip, fell victim to a cyberespionage attack that used malicious Android applications to steal information from their mobile devices.The attack campaign started in July and continues to date, according to researchers from antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, who cooperated in the investigation with the IDF Information Security Department.The Israeli soldiers were lured via Facebook Messenger and other social networks by hackers who posed as attractive women from various countries like Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. The victims were tricked into installing a malicious Android application, which then scanned the phone and downloaded another malicious app that masqueraded as an update for one of the already installed applications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here