Will Huawei become a pawn in a high-stakes U.S.-China technology war?

The Justice Department investigation into Huawei recalls a similar probe into whether Shenzhen rival ZTE broke U.S. sanctions by exporting devices containing American components to Iran. ZTE was found guilty last year not only of breaking the sanctions, which resulted in an $892 million fine, but of breaking the settlement deal’s terms by failing to punish those involved.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

Will Huawei become a pawn in a high-stakes U.S.-China technology war?

The Justice Department investigation into Huawei recalls a similar probe into whether Shenzhen rival ZTE broke U.S. sanctions by exporting devices containing American components to Iran. ZTE was found guilty last year not only of breaking the sanctions, which resulted in an $892 million fine, but of breaking the settlement deal’s terms by failing to punish those involved.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

Is OSPF or IS-IS Good Enough for My Data Center?

Our good friend mr. Anonymous has too many buzzwords and opinions in his repertoire, at least based on this comment he left on my Using 4-byte AS Numbers with EVPN blog post:

But IGPs don't scale well (as you might have heard) except for RIFT and Openfabric. The others are trying to do ECMP based on BGP.

Should you be worried about OSPF or IS-IS scalability when building your data center fabric? Short answer: most probably not. Before diving into a lengthy explanation let's give our dear friend some homework.

Read more ...

Re-coding Black Mirror, Part II

We’ll be looking at a couple more papers from the re-coding Black Mirror workshop today:

(If you don’t have ACM Digital Library access, all of the papers in this workshop can be accessed either by following the links above directly from The Morning Paper blog site, or from the WWW 2018 proceedings page).

Pitfalls of affective computing

It’s possible to recognise emotions from a variety of signals including facial expressions, gestures and voices, using wearables or remote sensors, and so on.

In the current paper we envision a future in which such technologies perform with high accuracy and are widespread, so that people’s emotions can typically be seen by others.

Clearly, this could potentially reveal information people do not wish to reveal. Emotions can be leaked through facial micro-expressions and body language making concealment very difficult. It could also weaken social skills if it is believed that there is no need to speak or move to convey emotions. “White lies” might become impossible, removing a person’s responsibility to be compassionate. It could also lead to physical harm:

The ability Continue reading

Don’t Reply To Everything

I recently came across a simple idea that is having a positive impact on productivity. That idea is to not reply to everything. While this can be applied to social media broadly, I’m focused on email management here.

For me, not replying is more difficult than it sounds. I am a personality type that doesn’t like loose ends. I like to meet other’s expectations, and have them think cuddly, happy thoughts about what a swell person I am. I know that when I send an email, I hope to get a response. Therefore, when I receive an e-mail, my natural inclination is to respond.

Too cuddly?

Now, I don’t feel I overly waste time on replying to email. I’ve improved my response technique over the years. I bring an e-mail thread to a conclusion as rapidly as possible by anticipating and proactively answering questions. That’s more time-consuming than a quick, lazy “back to you” response, but saves time in the long run.

However, an advance on the proactive reply is never replying at all. Not responding is the ultimate way to bring an email thread to a conclusion.

You’re So Rude

On the surface, ignoring inbox messages seems rude. However, Continue reading

Don’t Reply To Everything

I recently came across a simple idea that is having a positive impact on productivity. That idea is to not reply to everything. While this can be applied to social media broadly, I’m focused on email management here.

For me, not replying is more difficult than it sounds. I am a personality type that doesn’t like loose ends. I like to meet other’s expectations, and have them think cuddly, happy thoughts about what a swell person I am. I know that when I send an email, I hope to get a response. Therefore, when I receive an e-mail, my natural inclination is to respond.

Too cuddly?

Now, I don’t feel I overly waste time on replying to email. I’ve improved my response technique over the years. I bring an e-mail thread to a conclusion as rapidly as possible by anticipating and proactively answering questions. That’s more time-consuming than a quick, lazy “back to you” response, but saves time in the long run.

However, an advance on the proactive reply is never replying at all. Not responding is the ultimate way to bring an email thread to a conclusion.

You’re So Rude

On the surface, ignoring inbox messages seems rude. However, Continue reading

The Enterprise of Thing’s troubling lack of security

When it comes to security and manageability, Enterprise of Things (EoT) devices must have far more stringent requirements than consumer IoT devices, which often have virtually no built-in security. Indeed, enterprise use of consumer-grade IoT is highly risky.Making the matter even more urgent is the growing number of deployed EoT devices, which is expected to increase significantly over the next two to three years. (I estimate there will be more “things” in an enterprise than PC and mobile phone clients combined within three to four years.)To read this article in full, please click here

The Enterprise of Thing’s troubling lack of security

When it comes to security and manageability, Enterprise of Things (EoT) devices must have far more stringent requirements than consumer IoT devices, which often have virtually no built-in security. Indeed, enterprise use of consumer-grade IoT is highly risky.Making the matter even more urgent is the growing number of deployed EoT devices, which is expected to increase significantly over the next two to three years. (I estimate there will be more “things” in an enterprise than PC and mobile phone clients combined within three to four years.)To read this article in full, please click here

Innovative Licensing Approaches: Enabling Access in Hard-to-Reach Places Through Collaborative Partnerships

In the Republic of Georgia, high in the mountains of the Tusheti region, a community network has been built to bring faster Internet connectivity to those that did not have it. The story is compelling, not only for the determination of people to make sure that the Internet is available in one of the remotest places in the world, but also for their strong belief of what connecting to the Internet could bring to the people of Tusheti. “Tourism is a beacon of hope for us,” said Ia Buchaidze, who owns a local bakery, “and the Internet is very important for that.”

The project was a true collaborative partnership involving many parties: the Georgian Government, the Internet Society and its Georgia Chapter, the Small and Medium Telecom Operators Association of Georgia, LTD Freenet, and the Tusheti Development Fund (TDF). This network did not need a license, but it did need an authorization from the Georgian Government for it to be built and for the spectrum to be used. The objective was to provide access to a remote region through a locally-built and developed community network.

Similarly, in Mexico, a community network has been built in a remote and Continue reading

Research: Bridging the Air Gap

Way back in the old days, the unit I worked at in the US Air Force had a room with a lot of equipment used for processing classified information. Among this equipment was a Zenith Z-250 with an odd sort of keyboard and a very low resolution screen. A fine metal mesh embedded in a semi-clear substrate was glued to the surface of the monitor. This was our TEMPEST rated computer, on which we could type up classified memos, read classified email, and the like. We normally connected it to the STU-3 through a modem (remember those) to send and receive various kinds of classified information.

Elovici, Mordechai Guri, Yuval. “Bridgeware: The Air-Gap Malware.” Accessed May 13, 2018. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/4/226377-bridgeware/abstract.

The idea of TEMPEST begins way back in 1985, when a Dutch researcher demonstrated “reading” the screen of a computer using some relatively cheap, and easy to assemble, equipment, from several feet away. The paper I’m looking at today provides a good overview of the many ways which have been discovered since this initial demonstration to transfer data from one computer to another across what should be an “air gap.” For instance, the TEMPEST rated computer described Continue reading

Don’t get left behind: SDN, programmable networks change how network engineers work

The rise of programmable networks has changed the role of the network engineer, and accepting those changes is key to career advancement. Network engineers need to become software fluent and embrace automation, according to a panel of network professionals brought together by Cisco to discuss the future of networking careers.[ For more on SDN see where SDN is going and learn the difference between SDN and NFV. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] “The whole concept of engineer re-skilling has become a pretty hot topic over the last four or five years. What’s notable to me is that the engineers themselves are now embracing it,” says Zeus Kerravala, founder of ZK Research, who moderated the panel. To read this article in full, please click here

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