Collaboration, Connectivity, and Self-Determination

Over 20 million people in North America lack access to fast, affordable, and reliable Internet. In October 2018, the Indigenous Connectivity Summit gathered over 150 Indigenous leaders, policymakers, network operators, and community members in the Canadian Arctic town of Inuvik to focus on a common goal: bringing fast, affordable, and reliable Internet to Indigenous communities. The event featured success stories of community networks across North America to demonstrate the power of communities to lead their own Internet solutions, and how anyone can support them.

Crystal Gail Fraser, a Gwichyà Gwich’in woman who calls Inuvik home, sees collaborative Internet solutions as a critical path to self-determination for her community.

As I stepped off the plane in Inuvik, I inhaled the arctic air. I observed the scenic landscape of Dinjii Zhuh (Gwich’in) and Inuvialuit territory, taking in the familiarity: the snow-covered rolling hills, stunted spruce trees, and ice crystals in the air.

A scenic landscape on the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, which is located on Inuvialuit
land.
Photo credit: April Froncek

This land and all that it holds, means, and represents, has been critical to Dinjii Zhuh culture, economies, and lifestyles since Ts’ii Dęįį (Time Immemorial).

Crystal Gail Fraser and her daughter Quinn Addison Continue reading

Internet of Things Devices as a DDoS Vector

As adoption of Internet of Things devices increases, so does the number of insecure IoT devices on the network. These devices represent an ever-increasing pool of computing and communications capacity open to misuse. They can be hijacked to spread malware, recruited to form botnets to attack other Internet users, and even used to attack critical national infrastructure, or the structural functions of the Internet itself (we give several examples from recent headlines in the Reference Section, below).

The problem this poses is what to do about IoT as a source of risk. This blog post includes reflections on events that came to light in recent weeks, sets out some thoughts about technical mitigations, and sketches out the boundaries of what we think can be done technically. Beyond those boundaries lie the realms of policy measures, which – while relevant to the big picture – are not the topic of this post.

Why are we exploring this issue now? Partly because of our current campaign to improve trust in consumer IoT devices.

And partly, also, because of recent reports that, as a step towards mitigating this risk, connected devices will be subjected to active probing, to detect whether or not they Continue reading

Terraform your physical network with YANG

Every time when I get bored from my day job I tend to find some small interesting project that I can do that can give me an instant sense of accomplishment and as the result lift my spirits and improve motivation. So this time I remembered when someone once asked me if they could use Terraform to control their physical network devices and I had to explain how this is the wrong tool for the job. Somehow the question got stuck in my head and now it came to fruition in the form of terraform-yang.

This is a small Terraform plugin (provider) that allows users to manipulate interface-level settings of a network device. And I’m not talking about a VM in the cloud that runs network OS of your favourite vendor, this stuff is trivial and doesn’t require anything special from Terraform. I’m talking about Terraform controlling your individual physical network devices over an OpenConfig’s gNMI interface with standard Create/Read/Update/Delete operations exposed all the way to Terraform’s playbooks (or whatever they are called). Network Infrastructure as code nirvana…

Writing a custom Terraform provider for a network device

Although this may look scary at the beginning, the process of creating your Continue reading

Cisco taps into AWS for data center, cloud applications

Cisco has released a cloud-service program on its flagship software-defined networking (SDN) software that will let customers manage and secure applications running in the data center or in Amazon Web Service cloud environments.The service, Cisco Cloud ACI (application centric infrastructure) for AWS lets users configure inter-site connectivity, define policies and monitor the health of network infrastructure across hybrid environments, Cisco said.[ Check out What is hybrid cloud computing and learn what you need to know about multi-cloud. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] Specifically, this connectivity includes an "underlay network for IP reachability (IPsec VPN) over the Internet, or through AWS Direct Connect; an overlay network between the on-premises and cloud sites that runs BGP EVPN [Ethernet VPN] as its control plane and uses Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) encapsulation and tunneling as its data plane,” Cisco says.To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco taps into AWS for data center, cloud applications

Cisco has released a cloud-service program on its flagship software-defined networking (SDN) software that will let customers manage and secure applications running in the data center or in Amazon Web Service cloud environments.The service, Cisco Cloud ACI (application centric infrastructure) for AWS lets users configure inter-site connectivity, define policies and monitor the health of network infrastructure across hybrid environments, Cisco said.[ Check out What is hybrid cloud computing and learn what you need to know about multi-cloud. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] Specifically, this connectivity includes an "underlay network for IP reachability (IPsec VPN) over the Internet, or through AWS Direct Connect; an overlay network between the on-premises and cloud sites that runs BGP EVPN [Ethernet VPN] as its control plane and uses Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) encapsulation and tunneling as its data plane,” Cisco says.To read this article in full, please click here

You Can Now Get This Award-Winning VPN For Just $1/month

If you use the internet (which you clearly do), you likely know how important it is to protect your data in an increasingly dangerous cyber environment. But like other essential tasks that tend to be tedious (like filing taxes early and brushing your teeth for the full two minutes), most installing and running a VPN can sound unappealing to many: sure, they encrypt your internet traffic and hide your location — but they can also run frustratingly slowly, delaying the way you’d usually use the internet for entertainment and work. That’s where Ivacy VPN is different: not only will the speedy service let you browse and stream lag-free, it also offers real-time threat detection technology, removing malware and viruses at the server level. It ensures that all your downloads and devices stay totally secure, so you can stay safe online without being inconvenienced.To read this article in full, please click here

You Can Now Get This Award-Winning VPN For Just $1/month

If you use the internet (which you clearly do), you likely know how important it is to protect your data in an increasingly dangerous cyber environment. But like other essential tasks that tend to be tedious (like filing taxes early and brushing your teeth for the full two minutes), most installing and running a VPN can sound unappealing to many: sure, they encrypt your internet traffic and hide your location — but they can also run frustratingly slowly, delaying the way you’d usually use the internet for entertainment and work. That’s where Ivacy VPN is different: not only will the speedy service let you browse and stream lag-free, it also offers real-time threat detection technology, removing malware and viruses at the server level. It ensures that all your downloads and devices stay totally secure, so you can stay safe online without being inconvenienced.To read this article in full, please click here

Google partners with Intel, HPE and Lenovo for hybrid cloud

Still struggling to get its Google Cloud business out of single-digit marketshare, Google this week introduced new partnerships with Lenovo and Intel to help bolster its hybrid cloud offerings, both built on Google’s Kubernetes container technology.At Google’s Next ’19 show this week, Intel and Google said they will collaborate on Google's Anthos, a new reference design based on the second-Generation Xeon Scalable processor introduced last week and an optimized Kubernetes software stack designed to deliver increased workload portability between public and private cloud environments.[ Read also: What hybrid cloud means in practice | Get regularly scheduled insights: Sign up for Network World newsletters ] As part the Anthos announcement, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) said it has validated Anthos on its ProLiant servers, while Lenovo has done the same for its ThinkAgile platform. This solution will enable customers to get a consistent Kubernetes experience between Google Cloud and their on-premises HPE or Lenovo servers. No official word from Dell yet, but they can’t be far behind.To read this article in full, please click here

Google partners with Intel, HPE and Lenovo for hybrid cloud

Still struggling to get its Google Cloud business out of single-digit marketshare, Google this week introduced new partnerships with Lenovo and Intel to help bolster its hybrid cloud offerings, both built on Google’s Kubernetes container technology.At Google’s Next ’19 show this week, Intel and Google said they will collaborate on Google's Anthos, a new reference design based on the second-Generation Xeon Scalable processor introduced last week and an optimized Kubernetes software stack designed to deliver increased workload portability between public and private cloud environments.[ Read also: What hybrid cloud means in practice | Get regularly scheduled insights: Sign up for Network World newsletters ] As part the Anthos announcement, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) said it has validated Anthos on its ProLiant servers, while Lenovo has done the same for its ThinkAgile platform. This solution will enable customers to get a consistent Kubernetes experience between Google Cloud and their on-premises HPE or Lenovo servers. No official word from Dell yet, but they can’t be far behind.To read this article in full, please click here

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