Encrypt that SNI: Firefox edition

A couple of weeks ago we announced support for the encrypted Server Name Indication (SNI) TLS extension (ESNI for short). As promised, our friends at Mozilla landed support for ESNI in Firefox Nightly, so you can now browse Cloudflare websites without leaking the plaintext SNI TLS extension to on-path observers (ISPs, coffee-shop owners, firewalls, …). Today we'll show you how to enable it and how to get full marks on our Browsing Experience Security Check.

Here comes the night

The first step is to download and install the very latest Firefox Nightly build, or, if you have Nightly already installed, make sure it’s up to date.

When we announced our support for ESNI we also created a test page you can point your browser to https://encryptedsni.com which checks whether your browser / DNS configuration is providing a more secure browsing experience by using secure DNS transport, DNSSEC validation, TLS 1.3 & ESNI itself when it connects to our test page. Before you make any changes to your Firefox configuration, you might well see a result something like this:

So, room for improvement! Next, head to the about:config page and look for the network.security.esni.enabled Continue reading

AIOps the next big thing for Enterprise IT?

Out of everything I think will be big in 2019, AIOps is near the top of the list. My current prediction is Artificial Intelligence (AI) making big moves in the enterprise IT Infrastructure and Operations market. AI-based technology is a hot topic in the media these days, everyone is exploring its benefits in a wide range of markets. From self-driving cars and industrial automation to advertising and fraud prevention. It’s no surprise that 2018 was predicted to be a dominating year for AI in IT. While I believe 2018 was a key year for AI getting it’s foot in the door of IT Ops, the reality is lagging behind the hype. In IT we hear a lot about machine learning, and big data, but with the reality of how this data is organized in most enterprises, the onus is still on us to get that data laid out in an organized structure to extract the potential that AI promises.

But how does all of this relate to IT Infrastructure and Operations? AIOps is the combination of AI and IT Operations. And while the IT community hears the AI related buzzwords, not many of us know where or how it can Continue reading

Human Connection Frames Success of 2018 Indigenous Connectivity Summit

The Internet is an incredible tool that can help amplify voices that may not otherwise be heard. But when it comes to making sure everyone can have access to this tool, we can’t downplay the power of human connections to overcome connectivity challenges.

One of the things that stood out for me most at the 2018 Indigenous Connectivity Summit (ICS) last week in Inuvik, NT was getting a first-hand view of what happens when Indigenous voices are at the forefront of Internet solutions.

Nearly 140 people joined us in the Arctic Circle for a two-day series of panels and presentations focused on finding solutions to improve connectivity in rural and remote Indigenous communities, with a special focus on northern connectivity challenges. The livestream was viewed over 850 times.

It was inspiring to hear speakers shed light on the ways they innovated to bring Internet to underserved Indigenous communities on their own terms through Community Networks throughout North America and abroad.

I think some of the most important successes, however, came when ICS participants were able to interact during breaks, round-table discussions, on the bus trip to Tuktoyaktuk, at the community feast, and even on the flights to and from the Continue reading

Worth Reading: Lifecycle Automation

What is driving change in this situation is that transport networks are incorporating features that enable them to be reconfigurable under programmatic control, at both the packet and optical layers. This provides the opportunity to speed up service delivery and streamline network operations via innovative software controlling this infrastructure. —Jonathan Homa @lighttalk

Deep Learning Is Coming Of Age

In the early days of artificial intelligence, Hans Moravec asserted what became known as Moravec’s paradox: “It is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult-level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility.”

This assertion is now unraveling primarily due to the ascent of deep learning. …

Deep Learning Is Coming Of Age was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at .

BrandPost: Why is OFDMA a Magical Feature in the 802.11ax Standard?

As we explore the new features appearing in 802.11ax, the list is unbalanced. Some would say there’s a pig in the python. One feature – OFDMA – seems much more significant than the others. First, a brief background, then a view of its implications.A Quick Review of OFDMAOFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) is an extension of the OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) architecture. OFDM takes an RF channel, such as the 20 MHz channel often used in Wi-Fi, and instead of using a single carrier-frequency modulated by AM, FM, or other means, sets out a number of sub-carriers. 802.11ac used 52 data-carrying sub-carriers in a 20 MHz RF channel, while 802.11ax has 234.To read this article in full, please click here

Ciena Inflates Software Control to Reduce Network Complexity

The company is expanding the reach of its SOAS software to boost IP capabilities and integrating Layer 3 expertise from its Packet Design acquisition.

Splintering the Internet: The Unintended Consequence of Regulation

In early 2000, two Paris-based, anti-racism groups sued Yahoo on the basis that its auction’s site was exposing French people to more than 1,000 objects of Nazi memorabilia. In May of that year, a French court confirmed the illegal nature of the sale under French law, claiming that the company had offended France’s “collective memory.” More importantly, the judge also ordered Yahoo to identify ways to block French users from its Nazi auction site or other Yahoo sites with content deemed to be racist.

The case attracted significant attention, due to the legal precedent it could set on the right of one country to reach across borders and impose its own laws on online material stored in other countries. At the time, Yahoo’s lawyer expressed his hope that “other countries [wouldn’t] take the same route.”

Fast forward 18 years and today’s Internet is going through an intense phase of regulation with similar effects to those of the Yahoo case. Almost every country in the world is currently in the business of “regulating the Internet.” A clarification is important at this stage. “Internet regulation” is a somewhat loaded and misguided phrase. In reality, what most state actors seek Continue reading

PQ 157: How Cisco Built A Carrier-Grade Network OS (Sponsored)

On today's sponsored Priority Queue podcast we take a deep dive into Cisco's IOS-XR network OS to learn what it takes to build a carrier-grade NOS, including its microservices architecture, multiple levels of abstraction, and how it captures and shares state data.

The post PQ 157: How Cisco Built A Carrier-Grade Network OS (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Juniper Nxtwork – Hackathon 2018

This year while at Juniper Nxtwork 2018 I had the privilege of attending the pre-event Hackathon on Tuesday, October 9th, 2018.  …

Continue reading →

The post Juniper Nxtwork – Hackathon 2018 appeared first on Fryguy's Blog.

Warum ich Cloudflare helfe in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz zu wachsen

Warum Cloudflare ?

Ich übernehme bei Cloudflare die Verantwortung für die DACH Region (Deutschland, Austria & Switzerland-CH), um das Geschäft von Cloudflare in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz zu erweitern. Die einzigartige Mission von Cloudflare ein besseres Internet zu gestalten, ist der Grund, warum ich diese Verantwortung übernommen habe. Heute kann ich es kaum erwarten dieses Ziel zu erreichen.

Cloudflare trägt dazu bei 10 Millionen Domains schneller und sicherer zu machen indem die Kunden gegen eine große Anzahl von Online-Angriffen geschützt werden und gleichzeitig die Verfügbarkeit garantiert wird. Dies ist die Grundlage für jedes erfolgreiche Geschäft.

Sicherheit, Datenschutz und Geschwindigkeit sind Schlüsselfunktionen für fast jedes Unternehmen: von sehr großen traditionellen bis hin zu reinen Online-Unternehmen oder Einzelpersonen, die ihre eigene persönliche Marke aufbauen. Dazu könnte ich endlos weitere Beispiele nennen und je mehr ich über Cloudflare’s Mission erfahre desto mehr bin ich begeistert.

Eine von Cloudflare’s größten Stärken ist das globale Netzwerk.
Cloudflare verfügt bereits über Rechenzentren in sieben Städten der DACH Region (weitere folgen), um sicherzustellen, dass das Internet für die Nutzer in der Region schnell, sicher und zuverlässig ist.  

Ich bin stolz, das erste Büro in Deutschland eröffnen zu dürfen. Gleichzeitig habe ich Continue reading

Why I’m helping Cloudflare grow in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Why Cloudflare?

I am incredibly excited to announce that I’m joining Cloudflare as the Head of DACH to help to expand Cloudflare’s demand in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Having been in the technology industry for many years, Cloudflare’s mission to help build a better Internet was frankly the reason I joined, and I’m now very eager to start working towards this.

I quickly learned how Cloudflare helps to speed up and secure over 10 million Internet properties by protecting these customers from a wide range of online attacks and providing the reliability needed to run strong businesses. Security, privacy, and performance are key drivers for almost every business: from large traditional enterprises to purely online businesses and even individuals building their own personal brand. I could go on and on. The more I learned, the more excited I became.

One of Cloudflare’s major strengths is its global network. Cloudflare already has data centers in seven cities in the DACH region (with more to come) helping to ensure the Internet is fast, safe, and reliable for users online in the region. So while I get the honor of opening our first office in Germany (in Munich), I loved that Cloudflare had Continue reading

How to use the Shodan search engine to secure an enterprise’s internet presence

Shodan, a search engine for all ports within the internet, can help enterprises identify and lock down security vulnerabilities. Senior writer J.M. Porup and content producer Juliet Beauchamp talk through the security scenarios.

What to Look for in a Network Monitoring Application

IBM wants to manage your cloud services no matter which ones you run

ORLANDO – IBM has rolled out a multi-cloud management system that promises to help customers manage, move and integrate apps across multivendor cloud infrastructures.IBM’s new Kubernetes-based Multi-cloud Manager runs on the company’s year-old IBM Cloud Private platform but lets customers manage and integrate workloads on clouds from other providers such as Amazon, Red Hat and Microsoft. That means better automation, quicker spin-up of services and better pricing when using the IBM platform, said IBM’s Robin Hernandez, Director, IBM Private Cloud Offering Management.RELATED: How to make hybrid cloud work Hernandez says at the heart of the Multi-cloud Manager is a dashboard interface for managing thousands of Kubernetes applications and huge volumes of data regardless of where in the organization they are located.To read this article in full, please click here

Leaf-and-Spine Fabric Myths (Part 3)

Evil CCIE concluded his long list of leaf-and-spine fabric myths (more in part 1 and part 2) with a layer-2 fabric myth:

Layer 2 Fabrics can't be extended beyond 2 Spine switches. I had a long argument with a $vendor guys on this. They don't even count SPB as Layer 2 fabric and so forth.

The root cause of this myth is the lack of understanding of what layer-2, layer-3, bridging and routing means. You might want to revisit a few of my very old blog posts before moving on: part 1, part 2, what is switching, layer-3 switches and routers.

Someone Has To Pay To Push The Bleeding Edge Of Systems

When you look at IBM, it is as if you are seeing many different instantiations of Big Blue across time playing out in the present, side by side. …

Someone Has To Pay To Push The Bleeding Edge Of Systems was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at .

Data Center Network Transformation Sign 1: Open (Disaggregated) Networking

BrandPost: The Marketplace Requirement for a Secure SD-WAN

When SD-WANs first began to be discussed, the focus of the discussion was on the potential cost savings that would result from incorporating more cost-effective broadband connectivity into the WAN. Reducing cost is clearly an important goal, but achieving that goal is only meaningful if the WAN is also providing all the requisite functionality. This blog will discuss the importance of WAN functionality such as security and the ability to effectively support cloud computing. This blog will also identify the key characteristics of a secure SD-WAN.Required WAN Functionality The functionality that WANs must provide was identified in the 2018 Guide to WAN Architecture and Design. That guide presented the results of a survey in which the respondents were presented with fifteen factors and asked to choose the top three factors that would likely have the most impact on their WAN over the next twelve months. The factors that were the most important are shown in Figure 1.To read this article in full, please click here

The Road to Success – Not Always Straight

A lot of people look to me for mentoring and advice. When you see someone in the industry having success, it’s easy to think that they know it all and never have any setbacks, that their career was a straight path to success from day one. When I look at someone like Ivan Pepelnjak, a person I have a tremendous respect for, I imagine him knowing it all from day one. Of course, in reality, he had to learn it the hard way like the rest of us.

A couple of days ago I thought about writing a little about my background. To show people that it’s normal to have some bumps in your career and that success is not achieved overnight.

When I think back of my career so far, there’s two or three things that really bother me and where I had to learn some hard lessons.

When I was done with upper secondary school, I was SO tired of school. I had no motivation. My grades were mediocre. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. All I knew was that I had an interest in IT and that I was going to go Continue reading