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Cool Yule Tools 2016: Our Top Picks

Digital disruption at Santa's WorkshopImage by Stephen SauerSanta's not the only one going digital - here are our favorite digital products to give (or receive) for the holidays. The next 20 slides are the "best of the best" from this year's Cool Yule Tools, now in its 17th incarnation. To access the entire guide, head here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cool Yule Tools 2016: Digital disruption at Santa’s Workshop

Things are hopping at Santa 2.0 (S2) – the new name for Santa’s Workshop. The North Pole toy factory has undergone a serious digital transformation, with centuries-old processes giving way to new and more efficient methods. Even the sleigh has gone digital – it’s now a self-driving, self-flying gift distribution system. Initially the S2 team wanted to hire Uber drivers to deliver presents, but after some more tinkering the autonomous system kicked in. But don’t worry – the reindeers are all doing just fine in their retirement.While good girls and boys might still be handwriting their wish lists and delivering them via the post office, once the S2 team gets a hold of the requests, they’re quickly scanned, digitized and processed through the new ecosystem. Collaboration elves all work hard together (via a dedicated private Slack channel) to guarantee that production is on top of their game as well. Drones, robots, virtual reality and other emerging technologies are all being used to make sure that the S2 has another successful holiday season.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

As Watson matures, IBM plans more AI hardware and software

Just over five years ago, IBM's Watson supercomputer crushed opponents in the televised quiz show Jeopardy. It was hard to foresee then, but artificial intelligence is now permeating our daily lives.Since then, IBM has expanded the Watson brand to a cognitive computing package with hardware and software used to diagnose diseases, explore for oil and gas, run scientific computing models, and allow cars to drive autonomously. The company has now announced new AI hardware and software packages.The original Watson used advanced algorithms and natural language interfaces to find and narrate answers. Then, Watson was one supercomputer, but now AI systems are deployed at a grander scale. Mega data centers run by Facebook, Google, Amazon, and other companies use AI on thousands of servers to recognize images and speech and analyze loads of data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best Xbox Black Friday 2016 bundles $50 cheaper than last year

Xbox One  bundles can be had at a slew of big name retailers, from GameStop to Walmart, and what the deals lack in variety they make up for in being $50 cheaper than last year.Xbox One bundles are generally going for $250 this holiday shopping season, $50 off the regular price and $50 off the going price last holiday season. (Compare vs. 2015 Xbox Black Friday deals here.)But not all the deals are exactly alike, and if you shop around, you’ll find some are a bit better when you take into account gift cards and other goodies thrown into the packages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

412 million FriendFinder Network accounts said to be exposed in hack

Over 412 million accounts on dating and entertainment network FriendFinder Networks have reportedly been exposed, the second time that the network has been breached in two years, according to a popular breach notification website.The websites that have been breached include adultfriendfinder.com, described as the "world's largest sex and swinger community," which accounted for over 339.7 million of the 412 million accounts exposed, LeakedSource said Sunday.Other network sites that had user accounts exposed were cams.com with 62.6 million exposed, penthouse.com with 7 million, stripshow.com with 1.4 million, icams.com with about 1 million and an unidentified website adding 35,372 users whose accounts were exposed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

412 million FriendFinder Network accounts said to be exposed in hack

Over 412 million accounts on dating and entertainment network FriendFinder Networks have reportedly been exposed, the second time that the network has been breached in two years, according to a popular breach notification website.The websites that have been breached include adultfriendfinder.com, described as the "world's largest sex and swinger community," which accounted for over 339.7 million of the 412 million accounts exposed, LeakedSource said Sunday.Other network sites that had user accounts exposed were cams.com with 62.6 million exposed, penthouse.com with 7 million, stripshow.com with 1.4 million, icams.com with about 1 million and an unidentified website adding 35,372 users whose accounts were exposed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best Deals of the Week, November 7th – November 11th – Deal Alert

Best Deals of the Week, November 7th - November 11th - Deal AlertCheck out this roundup of the best deals on gadgets, gear and other cool stuff we have found this week, the week of November 7th. All items are highly rated, and dramatically discounted.35% off Oster Cordless Electric Wine Bottle Opener with Foil CutterThis cordless electric wine opener from Oster removes the cork in seconds with one-button operation, and opens up to 30 bottles before needing to be recharged. It features a foil cutter for easily removing seals and a comfortable soft-grip handle. Currently averages 4 out of 5 stars from over 4,000 people (read reviews). It's discounted 35% on Amazon, so you can get it right now for just $12.99. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Scoring the DNS Root Server System

The process of rolling the DNS Root’s Key Signing Key of the DNS has now started. During this process there will be a period where the root zone servers’ response to a DNS query for the DNSKEY resource record of the root zone will grow from the current value of 864 octets to 1,425 octets. Does this present a problem? Let’s look at the DNS Root Server system and score it on how well it can cope with large responses. It seems that awarding stars is the current Internet way, so let’s see how many stars we’ll give to the Root Server System for their handling of large responses.

SC16 live real-time weathermaps

Connect to https://inmon.sc16.org/sflow-rt/app/sc16-weather/html/ between now and November 17th to see a real-time heat map of the The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC16) network.

From the SCinet web page, "The Fastest Network Connecting the Fastest Computers: SC16 will host the most powerful and advanced networks in the world – SCinet. Created each year for the conference, SCinet brings to life a very high-capacity network that supports the revolutionary applications and experiments that are a hallmark of the SC conference."

The real-time weathermap leverages industry standard sFlow instrumentation built into network switch and router hardware to provide scaleable monitoring of the SCinet network. Link colors are updated every second to reflect operational status and utilization of each link.
Clicking on a link in the map pops up a 1 second resolution strip chart showing the protocol mix carried by the link.
OSiRIS (Open Storage Research Infrastructure) is a "distributed, multi-institutional storage infrastructure that lets researchers write, manage, and share data from their own computing facility locations."

Connect to http://inmon.sc16.org/sflow-rt/app/OSiRIS-weather/html/ to see an animated diagram of the SC16 OSiRIS demonstration connecting SCinet with University of Michigan, Michigan State, Wayne Continue reading

BlackNurse attack: 1 laptop can DoS some firewalls, bring down big servers

An attacker doesn’t need an IoT botnet or massive resources for a denial of service attack to knock large servers offline; researchers warned that all it takes is one laptop for a “BlackNurse” attack to bring vulnerable Cisco, SonicWall, Palo Alto and Zyxel firewalls to their knees.Danish researchers at the Security Operations Center of telecom operator TDC described BlackNurse as a low bandwidth Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) attack that “is capable of doing a denial of service to well-known firewalls.”In their report (pdf), the researchers wrote:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BlackNurse attack: 1 laptop can DoS some firewalls, bring down big servers

An attacker doesn’t need an IoT botnet or massive resources for a denial of service attack to knock large servers offline; researchers warned that all it takes is one laptop for a “BlackNurse” attack to bring vulnerable Cisco, SonicWall, Palo Alto and Zyxel firewalls to their knees.Danish researchers at the Security Operations Center of telecom operator TDC described BlackNurse as a low bandwidth Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) attack that “is capable of doing a denial of service to well-known firewalls.”In their report (pdf), the researchers wrote:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Unable to access Cisco ASA through AnyConnect VPN?

How Does Internet Work - We know what is networking

I stepped on this issue few weeks ago. I was implementing a new ASA Firewall solution, first time for me with software newer than version 8.4.2 It seems that all those stories about changes in the NAT logic after that version were true. This is what I found out about ASA packet processing. Configuration was really straightforward and everything worked fine except one thing. When connected remotely using Cisco AnyConnect I was able to access all devices inside the network (inside ASA firewall), but not the ASA itself. I wasn’t able to connect with SSH nor with ASDM. I, of course,

Unable to access Cisco ASA through AnyConnect VPN?

Amazon, Newegg go all out on Black Friday 2016 tech deals

Online retailers Amazon.com and Newegg are getting a jump on Black Friday 2016 with a slew of tech deals, including from Amazon some big cuts on its Echo, Kindles and tablets.Black Friday watchers such as BFads and Best Black Friday have been tracking new ads such as these closely and we've been watching them closely.MORE: 40-plus Eye-Popping Black Friday 2016 tech dealsAmazon really wants you to buy its own stuff Amazon has already begun its Black Friday countdown and is attempting to lure shoppers via Lightning deals that can last for only a few hours, until items being offered at cut-rate prices are gone.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Brocadecom

The news is public: Broadcom is acquiring Brocade, my employer. Official announcement here, and some (unofficial) commentary here. What’s happening, and what does it mean for me? There’s limits to what I can say – either because I don’t have the answers, or because it’s not public. But here’s a little bit of info for readers wondering what will happen to me.

What’s Happening?

Broadcom has announced its intention to acquire Brocade for approximately $5.5 billion:

This morning we announced a definitive agreement under which Broadcom will acquire Brocade. Broadcom believes the SAN business is a strong complement to its portfolio of enterprise storage and networking solutions, and its intention is to continue to deliver the market-leading storage networking solutions and innovation for which Brocade is so well known.

When will this happen?

Closing of the transaction is presently expected in the second half of Broadcom’s fiscal year 2017, which ends in October 2017, and is subject to regulatory approvals in various jurisdictions, customary closing conditions as well as the approval of Brocade’s stockholders.

What about the IP business?

This is the tricky bit. Broadcom is well-known as a maker of “merchant silicon,” used by many networking Continue reading

Brocadecom

The news is public: Broadcom is acquiring Brocade, my employer. Official announcement here, and some (unofficial) commentary here. What’s happening, and what does it mean for me? There’s limits to what I can say - either because I don’t have the answers, or because it’s not public. But here’s a little bit of info for readers wondering what will happen to me.

Update: We now have news: It’s Extreme Networks

What’s Happening?

Broadcom has announced its intention to acquire Brocade for approximately $5.5 billion:

This morning we announced a definitive agreement under which Broadcom will acquire Brocade. Broadcom believes the SAN business is a strong complement to its portfolio of enterprise storage and networking solutions, and its intention is to continue to deliver the market-leading storage networking solutions and innovation for which Brocade is so well known.

When will this happen?

Closing of the transaction is presently expected in the second half of Broadcom’s fiscal year 2017, which ends in October 2017, and is subject to regulatory approvals in various jurisdictions, customary closing conditions as well as the approval of Brocade’s stockholders.

What about the IP business?

This is the tricky bit. Broadcom is well-known as a maker Continue reading

Black Friday deals on the iPhone 7 offer up incredible savings

There's no better time to get a new iPhone than in November. Not only have all the kinks associated with iOS presumably been ironed out by then, but Black Friday promotions across a number of big name retail outlets makes finding incredible deals on Apple smartphones surprisingly easy.In what's become something of a tradition, many retailers have started publishing their Black Friday deals weeks in advance, presumably so that shoppers can take stock of what's available and plan accordingly. While Black Friday may be more closely associated with finding tremendous deals on HDTVs, it's also a great time to pick up all types of consumer electronics.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

GameStop touts cool blue Xbox One for Black Friday 2016, Toys R Us geeks out too

Plenty of retailers are cutting the price of Microsoft Xbox One S 500GB bundles from $300 to $250 this Black Friday and holiday shopping season, but GameStop is offering a cool blue console on an exclusive basis. GameStop, which is closed on Thanksgiving day, but will have deals on the Xbox and dozens of other gaming items available online before Black Friday formally commences on Nov. 25. The Toys R Us Black Friday 2016 ads have been revealed, too, and while the retailer is promoting lots of LEGOS, dolls and sports toys, it geeks out with tablets, robots and drones as well. Toys R Us stores open at 5pm on Thanksgiving day. Black Friday watchers such as BFads and Best Black Friday have been tracking new ads such as these closely and we've been watching them closely.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here