Apple iOS 11 Cripples WLAN Troubleshooting Apps
WiFi networking pros say software update limits effectiveness of free apps like Fing on iPhones and iPads.
Apple iOS 11 Cripples WLAN Troubleshooting Apps
WiFi networking pros say software update limits effectiveness of free apps like Fing on iPhones and iPads.
Hello IPv6, Goodbye CGNs – Recent Discussions at a EU/Europol Meeting
Jan Zorz was recently invited to speak at a workshop held by the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU and Europol. Jan gave a well-received talk about how Slovenia widely deployed IPv6 and encouraged EU policymakers and law enforcement officials to do the same across Europe.
Per the press release, the workshop was “to address the increasing problem of non-crime attribution associated with the widespread use of Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (CGN) technologies by companies that provide access to the internet.”
With IPv4 address space depleting, CGNs have been widely implemented to conserve public IPv4 address space. In other words, many customers are sharing a single public IPv4 address that often also changes over time. Problems with sharing IP addresses (and therefore CGNs) are well outlined in RFC 6269: “Such issues include application failures, additional service monitoring complexity, new security vulnerabilities, and so on.”
CGNs also present a problem for law enforcement agencies looking to investigate and prosecute crimes online, as it’s much more difficult to narrow down the culprit. This workshop had several IPv6 experts speak of their experiences, partially on the assertion that IPv6 deployment would eliminate CGNs and once again Continue reading
CLI or API… Again (and Again and Again…)
Got this comment on one of my blog posts:
When looking at some of the CLIs just front-ending RESTAPIs, I wonder if "survival" of CLI isn't just in the eyes of the beholder.
It made me really sad because I wrote about this exact topic several times… obviously in vain. Or as one of my network automation friends said when I asked him to look at the draft of this blog post:
Read more ...Is my TPM affected by the Infineon disaster?
I made a tool to check if your TPM chip is bad. Well, it extracts the SRK public key and you can then use marcan’s tool to easily check if the key is good or bad.
Example use:
$ g++ -o check-srk -std=gnu++11 check-srk.cc -ltspi -lssl -lcrypto 2>&1 && ./check-srk
Size: 2048
Outputting modulus…
8490234823904890234823904823904890238490238490238490238490[…]893428490823904231
$ wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/marcan/fc87aa78085c2b6f979aefc73fdc381f/raw/526bc2f2249a2e3f5d4450c7c412e0dbf57b2288/roca_test.py
[…]
$ python roca_test.py 8490234823904890234823904823904890238490238490238490238490[…]893428490823904231
Vuln!
(use -s if you have an SRK PIN)
If the SRK is weak then not only are very likely anything else you generated in the TPM weak, but also anything generated outside the TPM and imported is crackable, since your blobs are encrypted using this crackable SRK key.
How to Monkey-Patch the Linux Kernel
I have a weird setup. I type in Dvorak. But, when I hold ctrl or alt, my keyboard reverts to Qwerty.
You see, the classic text-editing hotkeys, ctrl+Z, ctrl+X, ctrl+C, and ctrl+V are all located optimally for a Qwerty layout: next to the control key, easy to reach with your left hand while mousing with your right. In Dvorak, unfortunately, these hotkeys are scattered around mostly on the right half of the keyboard, making them much less convenient. Using Dvorak for typing but Qwerty for hotkeys turns out to be a nice compromise.
But, the only way I could find to make this work on Linux / X was to write a program that uses X "grabs" to intercept key events and rewrite them. That was mostly fine, until recently, when my machine, unannounced, updated to Wayland. Remarkably, I didn't even notice at first! But at some point, I realized my hotkeys weren't working right. You see, Wayland, unlike X, actually has some sensible security rules, and as a result, random programs can't just man-in-the-middle all keyboard events anymore. Which broke my setup.
Yes, that's right, I'm that guy:
Source: xkcd 1172
So what was I to do? I began Continue reading
Denver Network Programmability User Group Meeting
If you live (or will be) in Denver next week—specifically, on Wednesday, November 1—I’ll be joining the Denver Network Programmability User Group (NPUG) to talk about network programmability and my recent book with Jason Edelman and Matt Oswalt around network programmability and automation. We’d love to have you join us!
Here are the meeting details:
When: Wednesday, November 1, at 4:00 Mountain Time
Where: GTRI, 990 S Broadway, Suite 300, Denver CO (free parking in and around GTRI)
What: Me joining the NPUG to share some thoughts on network programmability
Why: Because there will be food and drinks, and because you love talking about network programmability and automation
Who: You!
As I mentioned, there will be food and beverages provided for attendees so please take a few moments to RSVP (so that we can plan on how much food and drink to provide).
I’d love to see you there!
5 Things You Can Do With AWX
As you’ve probably already heard, Red Hat announced the release of the AWX project at AnsibleFest in San Francisco. AWX is the open source project behind Red Hat® Ansible® Tower, offering developers access to the latest features, and the opportunity to directly collaborate with the Ansible Tower engineering team.
AWX is built to run on top of the Ansible project, enhancing the already powerful automation engine. AWX adds a web-based user interface, job scheduling, inventory management, reporting, workflow automation, credential sharing, and tooling to enable delegation.
Even if you’re only managing a small infrastructure, here are 5 things you can do with AWX. And we promise, they’ll make your job as a system administrator a whole lot easier:
Delegate
Central to AWX is the ability to create users, and group them into teams. You can then assign access and rules to inventory, credentials, and playbooks at an individual level or team level. This makes it possible to setup push-button access to complex automation, and control who can use it, and where they can run it.
For example, when developers need to stand up a new environment, they don’t need to add another task to your already overbooked Continue reading
BSC Builds 21st Century HPC In A 19th Century Cathedral
This summer, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) added to its roster another of the world’s most powerful high performance computing systems. The Barcelona Computing Center’s new MareNostrum 4, delivered by IBM with the help of partners Lenovo and Fujitsu, and fueled by HPC technologies from Intel, will facilitate extensive engineering and scientific research in fields like astrophysics, weather forecasting, and genome research. Nestled within a unique building – the Torre Girona chapel, which fell out of use – the fourth generation MareNostrum system relies on a general purpose cluster working with three specialized clusters to achieve its …
BSC Builds 21st Century HPC In A 19th Century Cathedral was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
Cray Supercomputers One Step Closer to Cloud Users
Supercomputer maker Cray is always looking for ways to extend its reach outside of the traditional academic and government markets where the biggest deals are often made.
From its forays into graph analytics appliances and more recently, machine and deep learning, the company has potential to exploit its long history building some of the world’s fastest machines. This has expanded into some new ventures wherein potential new Cray users can try on the company’s systems, including via an on-demand partnership with datacenter provider, Markley, and now, inside of Microsoft’s Azure datacenters.
For Microsoft Azure cloud users looking to bolster modeling …
Cray Supercomputers One Step Closer to Cloud Users was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.
Think Of Your Audience
One of the challenges technical authors face is that of peer respect. That is, technical people who took a lot of time to learn what they know want to be respected by their peers when they write. They want to be recognized for their knowledge, wisdom, and insights.
In that context, there’s often fear before pressing “Publish.” Was every detail correct? Was every scenario considered? Was the very latest information about a topic included?
The fear of hitting publish is well-founded for technical authors, because technical folks have a way of being nit-picky, pedantic, and annoying. One small detail wrong, one badly stated premise, and the angry comment and critical tweet claws come out, slashing at your ego.
Will they like me? I just want everyone to like me.
One solution, of course, is to have a thick skin. If you view criticisms as a way to improve a piece, that’s the best route to go, especially when the commenter has a good point. Being able to ignore critics is another useful skill, because there are plenty of folks who say a lot while adding no value whatsoever.
However, I think the most important point to keep in mind Continue reading
Think Of Your Audience
One of the challenges technical authors face is that of peer respect. That is, technical people who took a lot of time to learn what they know want to be respected by their peers when they write. They want to be recognized for their knowledge, wisdom, and insights.
In that context, there’s often fear before pressing “Publish.” Was every detail correct? Was every scenario considered? Was the very latest information about a topic included?
The fear of hitting publish is well-founded for technical authors, because technical folks have a way of being nit-picky, pedantic, and annoying. One small detail wrong, one badly stated premise, and the angry comment and critical tweet claws come out, slashing at your ego.
Will they like me? I just want everyone to like me.
One solution, of course, is to have a thick skin. If you view criticisms as a way to improve a piece, that’s the best route to go, especially when the commenter has a good point. Being able to ignore critics is another useful skill, because there are plenty of folks who say a lot while adding no value whatsoever.
However, I think the most important point to keep in mind Continue reading
Cisco’s $1.9B BroadSoft Purchase Gives it a Telecom Cloud Services Edge
Cisco's latest acquisition follows its Perspica purchase announced last week.