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Category Archives for "Networking"

China passes controversial cybersecurity law

China has passed a new cybersecurity law that gives it greater control over the internet, including by requiring local storage of certain data.Human rights groups and trade associations in the U.S. and other countries have warned of the implications of the law both for internet businesses and human rights in the country.The National People's Congress Standing Committee passed the new cybersecurity law Monday, according to reports.“Despite widespread international concern from corporations and rights advocates for more than a year, Chinese authorities pressed ahead with this restrictive law without making meaningful changes,” said Sophie Richardson, China director of Human Rights Watch in a statement over the weekend.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s AirPods to launch much later than anticipated

It's already early November and, in case you missed it, Apple's AirPods are nowhere to be found in stores. Originally introduced alongside the iPhone 7 in September, Apple's new AirPods were poised to help usher in a new wireless era where the notion of connecting to a device via a cord would seem backwards if not downright antiquated. To that end, the unveiling of Apple's AirPods came at an appropriate time, right next to the iPhone 7 which famously was designed without a traditional 3.5mm headphone jack.Back in September, Apple said that its AirPods would launch in late October. And yet, October has come and gone and the highly-anticipated earbuds still lack a release date. Addressing the delay just ahead of the company's special Mac event in late October, an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch that the AirPods launch was being pushed back so that Apple could presumably address some lingering bugs and usability issues.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FBI sticks to earlier view not to charge Clinton over email server

FBI Director James Comey said new emails that had been found had not changed the agency's July decision not to recommend charges against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server.In a letter Sunday to lawmakers, Comey wrote that based on the FBI's review of the emails, the agency had not changed the conclusion it had expressed in July with regard to Clinton's use of a personal email server when she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.The letter from Comey comes ahead of U.S. presidential elections on Tuesday and will likely blunt criticism that Clinton used the email server for confidential government communications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FBI sticks to earlier view not to charge Clinton over email server

FBI Director James Comey said new emails that had been found had not changed the agency's July decision not to recommend charges against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server.In a letter Sunday to lawmakers, Comey wrote that based on the FBI's review of the emails, the agency had not changed the conclusion it had expressed in July with regard to Clinton's use of a personal email server when she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.The letter from Comey comes ahead of U.S. presidential elections on Tuesday and will likely blunt criticism that Clinton used the email server for confidential government communications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft to protect World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen from Russian hackers

If you were the World Chess Champion and you were about to defend your title in a 12-round match against a Russian grandmaster, should you be worried about being hacked? Apparently so, since current World Chess Champion Magus Carlsen has asked Microsoft to protect him from attacks by Russian hackers.It’s not like Carlsen, who became a grandmaster at age 13, practices by playing against a computer. In fact, grandmaster and author Andrew Soltis told NPR that “Carlsen won't even play his computer. He uses it to train, to recommend moves for future competition. But he won't play it, because he just loses all the time and there's nothing more depressing than losing without even being in the game.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft to protect World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen from Russian hackers

If you were the World Chess Champion and you were about to defend your title in a 12-round match against a Russian grandmaster, should you be worried about being hacked? Apparently so, since current World Chess Champion Magus Carlsen has asked Microsoft to protect him from attacks by Russian hackers.It’s not like Carlsen, who became a grandmaster at age 13, practices by playing against a computer. In fact, grandmaster and author Andrew Soltis told NPR that “Carlsen won't even play his computer. He uses it to train, to recommend moves for future competition. But he won't play it, because he just loses all the time and there's nothing more depressing than losing without even being in the game.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BGP Large Communities

IPv4 addresses are not the only Internet number resource that has effectively run out in recent times. Another pool of Internet numbers under similar consumption pressures has been the numbers that are intended to uniquely identify each network in the Internet’s inter-domain routing space. These are Autonomous System numbers.

Devops in Networking presentation

This link has the slides that I presented as part of lightning talk at Devops Days India, 2016. In the slides, I have tried to capture how automation in networking area is evolving. I attended first day of the conference and it had a pretty decent collection of talks in Devops area.

Tools you need: W3 Schools color libraries and Bootstrap Studio for Web building

I often find myself hacking away at web sites and today I have a couple of tools to share that have made my life easier. Well, slightly easier.The first is a neat set of CSS libraries I discovered on W3 Schools. These libraries define commonly used color values for things like safety standards, highway signs, army camouflage colors, and so on. The libraries can be linked to your Web pages by referencing them directly:<link rel="stylesheet" href=“http://www.w3schools.com/lib/w3-colors-highway.css">To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Alexa Voice Service, a singing fish, and the FABRIQ speaker

In my last post I discussed implementing Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service on a Raspberry Pi but you can also do the same on other platforms; witness AVS driving a hacked Big Mouth Billy Bass: Created by Brian Kane, a a teacher at Rhode Island School of Design, this is a wonderful rethink of a 20-year old, hideous … what could you call it? Toy? Thing? Conversation piece? Built on an Arduino, Kane’s Big Mouth Alexa Bass (my name, not Brian’s) is a work of genius.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Putting Alexa on a Raspberry Pi

Every geek worth his nerdiness has wanted to be able to converse with their computer since we saw Star Trek's Data talk to the Enterprise's computer back in the 1960s. For most of the time since then, having a real conversation with a computer has seemed something that was really, really far away. Recently, it's got a lot closer ...Just over a year ago I reviewed Amazon’s Echo which I judged to be amazing and I still think it's amazing although even though the technology is still in its early days. The problem is that the Echo isn't really conversational as it's limited to a basic request-response model (though its occasional weird weird non-sequiturs are hysterical and TV ads from Amazon of course get hilarious responses). That said, the Echo, which uses the Alexa Voice Service, remains a compelling, useful product and since I wrote about it, Alexa’s abilities have grown rapidly. Alexa now understands a much greater range of ways to make a request, can deliver information on a wider range of topics, and has an API that has matured and expanded impressively. Here's how the Echo works: On the backend, there’s the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) which is: Continue reading

Update your Belkin WeMo devices before they become botnet zombies

Owners of WeMo home automation devices should upgrade them to the latest firmware version, which was released this week to fix a critical vulnerability that could allow hackers to fully compromise them.The vulnerability was discovered by researchers from security firm Invincea in the Belkin WeMo Switch, a smart plug that allows users to remotely turn their electronics on or off by using their smartphones. They confirmed the same flaw in a WeMo-enabled smart slow cooker from Crock-Pot, and they think it's probably present in other WeMo products, too.WeMo devices like the WeMo Switch can be controlled via a smartphone app that communicates with them over a local Wi-Fi network or over the Internet through a cloud service run by Belkin, the creator of the WeMo home automation platform.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Update your Belkin WeMo devices before they become botnet zombies

Owners of WeMo home automation devices should upgrade them to the latest firmware version, which was released this week to fix a critical vulnerability that could allow hackers to fully compromise them.The vulnerability was discovered by researchers from security firm Invincea in the Belkin WeMo Switch, a smart plug that allows users to remotely turn their electronics on or off by using their smartphones. They confirmed the same flaw in a WeMo-enabled smart slow cooker from Crock-Pot, and they think it's probably present in other WeMo products, too.WeMo devices like the WeMo Switch can be controlled via a smartphone app that communicates with them over a local Wi-Fi network or over the Internet through a cloud service run by Belkin, the creator of the WeMo home automation platform.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cybersecurity: A Priority for Next POTUS

When the two major presidential candidates haven’t been focused on each other’s personal behavior or legal imbroglios, they’ve tended to discuss a few major issues such as health care, immigration reform, or battling terrorism. Yes, these are critical topics but what about cybersecurity?  After all, this very campaign has featured nation state hacking, email theft, and embarrassing email disclosures from egomaniac Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Alas, each candidate has been relatively silent about cybersecurity threats, national vulnerabilities, or what they plan to do to bridge this gap.  Secretary Clinton’s policies look a lot like President Obama’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP) but add a national security component due to her personal experience with state sponsored hacks of the DNC and John Podesta.  Donald Trump seemed completely ignorant about cybersecurity issues (remember “the cyber” comments and his rant about his 10-year-old son’s computer skills?), but has since come up with some pedestrian cybersecurity policy objectives. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cybersecurity: A Priority for Next POTUS

When the two major presidential candidates haven’t been focused on each other’s personal behavior or legal imbroglios, they’ve tended to discuss a few major issues such as health care, immigration reform, or battling terrorism. Yes, these are critical topics but what about cybersecurity?  After all, this very campaign has featured nation state hacking, email theft, and embarrassing email disclosures from egomaniac Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Alas, each candidate has been relatively silent about cybersecurity threats, national vulnerabilities, or what they plan to do to bridge this gap.  Secretary Clinton’s policies look a lot like President Obama’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP) but add a national security component due to her personal experience with state sponsored hacks of the DNC and John Podesta.  Donald Trump seemed completely ignorant about cybersecurity issues (remember “the cyber” comments and his rant about his 10-year-old son’s computer skills?), but has since come up with some pedestrian cybersecurity policy objectives. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DNC hacker calls on brethren to monitor US election

The hacker who claims to have breached the Democratic National Committee isn't done trying to influence this year's election. On Friday, Guccifer 2.0 warned that Democrats might try to rig the vote next Tuesday.Guccifer 2.0 wrote the statement in a new blog post as U.S. federal agencies are reportedly bracing for cyber attacks on election day.The U.S. has already blamed Russia for allegedly meddling with the upcoming election by hacking into political targets, including the DNC, and then leaking the sensitive documents to the public.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DNC hacker calls on brethren to monitor US election

The hacker who claims to have breached the Democratic National Committee isn't done trying to influence this year's election. On Friday, Guccifer 2.0 warned that Democrats might try to rig the vote next Tuesday.Guccifer 2.0 wrote the statement in a new blog post as U.S. federal agencies are reportedly bracing for cyber attacks on election day.The U.S. has already blamed Russia for allegedly meddling with the upcoming election by hacking into political targets, including the DNC, and then leaking the sensitive documents to the public.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon Echo Dot, Order 5 and Get One for Free- Deal Alert

Echo Dot is a hands-free, voice-controlled device that uses Alexa to play & control music (either on its own, or through a connected speaker/receiver), control smart home devices, provide information, read the news, set alarms, and more. If you’re looking to buy them as gifts, or for different homes or rooms, Amazon will throw in a free one ($50 value) when you buy 5, or two free ones when you buy 10 (a $100 value). To take advantage of this limited time offer, select 6 or 12 in the quantity dropdown and add to your Shopping Cart. Enter promo code DOT6PACK or DOT12PACK at checkout where you will see the discount applied. The new Amazon Echo Dot comes in black, and now also white.  See the new Amazon Echo Dot now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Securing the cloud endpoint

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.In the quest for securing the cloud, one key aspect is often left out of the discussion: the security impact of the cloud endpoint – most notably the imperiled browser.As enterprises and individuals increasingly move computing to the cloud, security at the endpoint has been an escalating concern. Taking matters into their own hands, many enterprise consumers are going “direct to cloud” – avoiding enterprise IT practices that would otherwise protect endpoints, connectivity and data. Meanwhile, IT executives that once viewed cloud-based shared computing and storage infrastructure as their least trustworthy option now see the cloud as the safest choice.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here