Enterprise networkers have organized: Here are their demands

A user group for enterprise IT managers is taking on software-defined networking, calling for new technologies they say would better serve enterprise needs.On Tuesday, the Open Networking User Group (ONUG) announced initiatives behind four technologies that it says would help enterprises build and run their networks better.There’s no shortage of platforms and protocols for software-defined infrastructure, including things like OpenFlow, OpenStack and ONOS (Open Network Operating System). But they were developed around the needs of vendors and service providers more than of enterprises, ONUG founder Nick Lippis said. His group wants to push along a few more pieces that aren’t there yet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 security experts share their best tips for ‘fringe’ devices

What is a ‘fringe’ device in IT? For some, it’s a gadget everyone has forgotten about — a printer in a corner office, an Android tablet in a public area used to schedule conference rooms. A fringe device can also be one that’s common enough to be used in the office yet not so common that everyone is carrying one around or has one hooked up to the Wi-Fi every day. As with any security concern, many of these devices are overlooked. There might be security policies and software used to track and monitor iPads and Dell laptops, but what about the old HP printer used at the receptionist’s desk? In a hospital, it might be a patient monitoring device. In a more technical shop, it could be a new smartphone running an alternate operating system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 security experts share their best tips for ‘fringe’ devices

What is a ‘fringe’ device in IT? For some, it’s a gadget everyone has forgotten about — a printer in a corner office, an Android tablet in a public area used to schedule conference rooms. A fringe device can also be one that’s common enough to be used in the office yet not so common that everyone is carrying one around or has one hooked up to the Wi-Fi every day. As with any security concern, many of these devices are overlooked. There might be security policies and software used to track and monitor iPads and Dell laptops, but what about the old HP printer used at the receptionist’s desk? In a hospital, it might be a patient monitoring device. In a more technical shop, it could be a new smartphone running an alternate operating system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UK court declines to force alleged British hacker to decrypt his data

The U.K.'s National Crime Agency (NCA) failed in its attempt to use what critics described as a legal backdoor to force a suspected hacker to provide the decryption key for data on multiple devices.Lauri Love, 31, was arrested by U.K. authorities in 2013 under suspicion of hacking into computers belonging to multiple U.S. government agencies including NASA, the FBI, the Federal Reserve, and the Army.Love is the subject of separate indictments in courts in New Jersey, New York, and Virginia and faces extradition to the U.S. An extradition hearing is scheduled for the end of June.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UK court declines to force alleged British hacker to decrypt his data

The U.K.'s National Crime Agency (NCA) failed in its attempt to use what critics described as a legal backdoor to force a suspected hacker to provide the decryption key for data on multiple devices.Lauri Love, 31, was arrested by U.K. authorities in 2013 under suspicion of hacking into computers belonging to multiple U.S. government agencies including NASA, the FBI, the Federal Reserve, and the Army.Love is the subject of separate indictments in courts in New Jersey, New York, and Virginia and faces extradition to the U.S. An extradition hearing is scheduled for the end of June.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DR versus DIS: What’s the Diff?

OSPF and IS-IS, both link state protocols, use mechanisms that manage flooding on a broadcast link, as well as simplify the shortest path tree passing through the broadcast link. OSPF elects a Designated Router (or DR) to simplify broadcast links, and IS-IS elects a Designated Intermediate System (or DIS—a topic covered in depth in the IS-IS Livelesson I recently recorded). Beyond their being used in two different protocols, there are actually subtle differences in the operation of the two mechanisms. So what is the difference?

Before we dive into differences, let’s discuss the similarities. We’ll use the illustration below as a basis for discussion.

Q1 and Q2 illustrate the operation of a link state protocol without any optimization on a broadcast network, with Q1 showing the network, and Q2 showing the resulting shortest path tree. Q3 and Q4 illustrate link state operation with optimization over a broadcast link. It’s important to differentiate between building a shortest path tree (SPT) across the broadcast link and flooding across the broadcast link—flooding is where the primary differences lie in the handling of broadcast links in the two protocols.

Let’s consider building the SPT first. Both protocols operate roughly the same in this Continue reading

Community is Key

So in case anyone didn’t know, I got to speak at Interop Las Vegas 2016 last week. It was an amazing experience, and I think it changed my professional outlook on a lot of things.  I had never attended a large conference like this before, and it was slightly daunting in that respect, to say […]

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Community is Key

So in case anyone didn’t know, I got to speak at Interop Las Vegas 2016 last week. It was an amazing experience, and I think it changed my professional outlook on a lot of things.  I had never attended a large conference like this before, and it was slightly daunting in that respect, to say […]

The post Community is Key appeared first on Packet Pushers.

DHS moves to bolster intrusion/detection for federal networks

Looking to address a substantial shortfall in the government’s major weapon for defending against cyber attacks, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) said it has added a new intrusion prevention security service to the National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS)— also known as Einstein 3A.In a Privacy Impact Assessment, the DHS said the intrusion prevention, a Web Content Filtering system, provides protection at the application layer for web traffic by blocking access to suspicious websites, preventing malware from running on systems and networks, and detecting and blocking phishing attempts as well as malicious web content. This service will be added to the existing E3A intrusion prevention security services that are already in place, the DHS stated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft expands its Azure cloud platform to South Korea

Microsoft is expanding the global footprint of its cloud platform to South Korea, and it has officially launched its previously announced data center in Canada, the company announced Tuesday. In South Korea, Microsoft's cloud will be getting two new regions, including one in Seoul. They're aimed at serving both customers of the company's Azure cloud platform, and also its other services, including Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online. Customers also now have full use of two Microsoft Azure regions in Canada, located in Quebec City and Toronto. This announcement is part of Microsoft's ongoing plan to expand the geographic reach of its cloud computing platform. The expansion serves a pair of purposes: meeting the data sovereignty needs of customers, and making it faster for people to access Microsoft's cloud. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What SWAG will Google I/O 2016 attendees take home?

Next week, Google will show its love for independent software developers by giving them an exclusive first-look at new technologies and early and free access to new hardware at the ninth annual Google I/O conference. Here are a couple of educated guesses at free hardware, which developers call SWAG (something we all get), attendees will take home.Early access hardware giveaways The past is a good predictor of the future. Looking back at earlier I/O shows, Google wanted to give their loyal developers a head start developing for strategic new platforms and bestowed upon them the newest hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Privacy advocates want protections for US residents in foreign surveillance law

Congress should limit the ability of the FBI and other agencies to search for information about U.S. residents in a database of foreign terrorism communications collected by the National Security Agency, privacy advocates say.The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, which allows the NSA to collect foreign Internet communications, expires in late 2017, and Congress should require that the communications of U.S. residents swept up in the controversial Prism and Upstream programs be protected with court-ordered warrants, privacy advocates told a Senate committee Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Privacy advocates want protections for US residents in foreign surveillance law

Congress should limit the ability of the FBI and other agencies to search for information about U.S. residents in a database of foreign terrorism communications collected by the National Security Agency, privacy advocates say.The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, which allows the NSA to collect foreign Internet communications, expires in late 2017, and Congress should require that the communications of U.S. residents swept up in the controversial Prism and Upstream programs be protected with court-ordered warrants, privacy advocates told a Senate committee Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook Builds A Routing Platform

Huawei Offers Numerous Resources for Accelerating the “Open” in Open Networking

Take a peek: the future of open, open source, and open source SDN by Huawei.

Dropbox goes off to college with new Education service

Dropbox launched a new service on Tuesday to help graduate students, college faculty and staff collaborate on files while they’re at school. Schools can now pay $50 per user, per year for Dropbox Education, a version of the cloud storage company’s premium offering for organizations that’s tailored to the cost-sensitive education market. Dropbox is trying to sell more paid services, but its offerings have been aimed primarily at businesses. Dropbox Education will cost much less than the company's business plans, which typically run from $150 to $300 per user, per month.It’s a move that could give the company a bigger foothold in the lucrative education market at a time when Dropbox is working hard to expand its business beyond a large base of free consumer users. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Are Blockchains the Most Expensive Database?

One of the oft-made claims about Bitcoin and its blockchain transaction ledger is that they make transactions really cheap, so you can pay someone anywhere in the world for free, or close to it. But when you look closer, is that really true? Not by a long shot. -via CircleID

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Worldwide mobile app market hits $34 billion

Remember a few years ago when everyone and his brother was scrambling to build a mobile app in a frantic gold rush to get rich quick? Well, there was plenty of real gold in them thar virtual hills, but as in most gold rushes, only few people actually struck it rich.Similarly, over time the nimble advantages of the early online prospectors have been overtaken by the giant companies that now largely own the digital world.At least, that’s my takeaway from IDC’s new Worldwide Mobile Applications Forecast, 2016-2020 study. According to the IDC research, “mobile device users installed nearly 156 billion mobile applications worldwide in 2015, generating $34.2 billion in direct (non-advertising) revenue.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Rancher Labs Wrangles a $20M Series B

On the heels of CoreOS's funding, Rancher ropes some cash of its own.

How we built Origin CA: Web Crypto

At CloudFlare we strive to combine features that are simple, secure, and backed by solid technology. The Origin CA is a great example of this. You no longer need to go to a third-party certificate authority to protect the connection between CloudFlare and your origin server. You can now get a certificate to encrypt the connection between CloudFlare and the origin from CloudFlare directly with one click.

In certificate-based security, the most important thing is protecting the private key. We designed the one-click certificate dashboard to maximize private key security. Your private key is created client-side in your browser using the W3C’s Web Crypto API and only the public key is sent to CloudFlare’s servers. This security feature turned out to be a big win for usability as well as an interesting technical challenge.

Certificate authorities don’t need your private key

Most certificate authorities (CAs) specialize in one type of transaction: they take a certificate signing request (CSR) (and sometimes a fee) and in return they provide a signed certificate. A CSR is a way to tell a certificate authority what your public key is and to prove you have control of the corresponding private key. The certificate authority doesn’t Continue reading