IDG Contributor Network: Robots are malfunctioning, hurting people

A mounting list of robot-related accidents has experts questioning whether the devices will be prone to more dangerous malfunctions or even programmed attacks.Notable mishaps that have been documented include a robotic security guard knocking over a child at a California shopping mall, a demonstration robot smashing a window at a Chinese conference—it caused a bystander to get injured, and 144 deaths in the United States caused by robotic surgery. All this according to security firm IOActive.+ Also on Network World: How secure are home robots? + These incidents “clearly demonstrate the serious potential consequences of robot malfunctions,” the consultancy says in a white paper it recently published about existing robot security (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Robots are malfunctioning, hurting people

A mounting list of robot-related accidents has experts questioning whether the devices will be prone to more dangerous malfunctions or even programmed attacks.Notable mishaps that have been documented include a robotic security guard knocking over a child at a California shopping mall, a demonstration robot smashing a window at a Chinese conference—it caused a bystander to get injured, and 144 deaths in the United States caused by robotic surgery. All this according to security firm IOActive.+ Also on Network World: How secure are home robots? + These incidents “clearly demonstrate the serious potential consequences of robot malfunctions,” the consultancy says in a white paper it recently published about existing robot security (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Which Linux distros should newbies use?

Easy or tough?Image by ThinkstockLinux has a bad rap as a daily driver – the programs aren’t written to run on Linux, it’s tricky to install stuff, and so on. But it might surprise people who think along those lines to learn that plenty of the distributions out there are actually quite simple to use. Here’s our latest appreciation of the desktop Linux landscape.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

83% off TechMatte Air Vent Magnetic Universal Car Mount for Smartphones, 2 Pack – Deal Alert

The MagGrip Vent Car Mount is a sturdy, cradle-less device holding system focused on simplicity. Pop it onto your car's air vent, and magnets do all the work. Currently a 2-pack is discounted significantly to just $8 on Amazon, where the product averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 7,000 people. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CoDel and Active Queue Management

Buffering packets in a network is both good and bad. It is good because a buffer can hold packets from one stream while another stream’s packets are being processed, to take up and release short bursts of traffic, to hold and then release packets when there is a very short interruption on the wire (or during a route change), and in many other situations. However, queues are bad when there is a standing queue, which means a particular flow always has some number of packets in a particular queue along the path between the source and the destination. This normally occurs at the narrowest point along the path, or rather the link with the lowest bandwidth. In a previous post, I looked at BBR, a change to the way TCP computes its window sizes, that attempts to reduce the amount of traffic “in flight” between a sender and receiver to reduce the number of packets being held in a particular buffer along the way.

This post will consider another solution: CoDel. CoDel is essentially an improved tail drop mechanism that provides the correct signals to TCP to slow down its send rate, or rather to reduce the window size (and Continue reading

Microsoft paying a bug bounty of $30,000

First off, I have to issue something of a correction regarding last week's blog post on Intel price cuts. As it turns out, I have been informed that Intel didn't cut the prices, Micro Center cut them as a loss leader, something it frequently does. It doesn't change the bargain prices, just the motivation. So, I wanted to set the record straight on that. Onward. Microsoft is looking for a few good bugs. And people who will keep it quiet. OK, so I have no evidence of direct causality, but it seems convenient. Over the past few weeks, Google has embarrassed Microsoft twice by publicly disclosing security vulnerabilities in Windows 10 that still have not been patched after 90 days. Google has no mercy with its Zero Day disclosures and plays no favorites. Any company that does not fix a bug by 90 days after Google informs them of it will be hung out to dry. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft paying a bug bounty of $30,000

First off, I have to issue something of a correction regarding last week's blog post on Intel price cuts. As it turns out, I have been informed that Intel didn't cut the prices, Micro Center cut them as a loss leader, something it frequently does. It doesn't change the bargain prices, just the motivation. So, I wanted to set the record straight on that. Onward. Microsoft is looking for a few good bugs. And people who will keep it quiet. OK, so I have no evidence of direct causality, but it seems convenient. Over the past few weeks, Google has embarrassed Microsoft twice by publicly disclosing security vulnerabilities in Windows 10 that still have not been patched after 90 days. Google has no mercy with its Zero Day disclosures and plays no favorites. Any company that does not fix a bug by 90 days after Google informs them of it will be hung out to dry. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM’s new Q program to include a 50-qubit quantum computer

Characters named Q in film and TV have been portrayed as being exceptional. Q in the James Bond movies served up futuristic gadgets, and Q in Star Trek was omnipotent.A new quantum computing program called Q at IBM will be remarkable in its own right. In a few years, IBM plans to create a quantum computer with more than 50 qubits, which should push conventional computers one step closer to the trash heap.IBM Q will deliver paid quantum computing consulting and services to users. It's much like IBM's Watson, which uses conventional computers, but Q uses quantum computers.The 50-qubit quantum computer will be 10 times larger than a 5-qubit system already housed by IBM. And the new system will be able to do things that conventional computers can't do. It will accelerate drug discovery and make scientific discoveries, IBM said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Checklist for choosing a small cloud host or ISP

I’ve gone through a number of hosting companies. My NOC is at Expedient in Indianapolis (Carmel). They do a great job for my testing needs. They have a large, well-designed facility, lots of power and, most important, they know what they’re doing and do it 24/7.In my role as someone who knows the difference between UDP and TCP, I get asked a lot to recommend an ISP or cloud host for purposes of web and mail hosting for small businesses, organizations and even generic civilians. Over the years, I’ve found some common difficulties that can mean the difference between enjoyable experiences and long, drawn-out support problems with incumbent frustration.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Interdatacenter broadcast control – ARP Proxy in OTV and EVPN

When it comes to multi domain or Inter datacenter communication, minimizing the broadcast traffic between the datacenters is an important scaling requirement. Especially if you are dealing with millions of end hosts, localizing the broadcast traffic is critical to save resources on the network and the end hosts. Resources are bandwidth , CPU , memory […]

The post Interdatacenter broadcast control – ARP Proxy in OTV and EVPN appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

Should police departments be able to have their own DNA databases?

DNA is supposed to be the answer for solving cold cases. For example, Wisconsin police have turned to DNA to help solve a 42-year-old cold case of “Baby Sarah.” Recently in Niagara Falls, cops found the man responsible for a smash and grab robbery committed 11 years ago, in 2006, via DNA which the man had been ordered to submit for unrelated offences. But it takes some state labs a year-and-a-half to process DNA, so some police departments are bypassing the state labs and creating their own DNA databases to track criminals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Should police departments be able to have their own DNA databases?

DNA is supposed to be the answer for solving cold cases. For example, Wisconsin police have turned to DNA to help solve a 42-year-old cold case of “Baby Sarah.” Recently in Niagara Falls, cops found the man responsible for a smash and grab robbery committed 11 years ago, in 2006, via DNA which the man had been ordered to submit for unrelated offences. But it takes some state labs a year-and-a-half to process DNA, so some police departments are bypassing the state labs and creating their own DNA databases to track criminals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Part 4 of Thinking Serverless —  Addressing Security Issues

This is a guest repost by Ken Fromm, a 3x tech co-founder — Vivid Studios, Loomia, and Iron.io. Here's Part 1 and 2 and 3. 

This post is the last of a four-part series of that will dive into developing applications in a serverless way. These insights are derived from several years working with hundreds of developers while they built and operated serverless applications and functions.

The platform was the serverless platform from Iron.io but these lessons can also apply to AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, Azure Functions, and IBM’s OpenWhisk project.

Arriving at a good definition of cloud IT security is difficult especially in the context of highly scalable distributed systems like those found in serverless platforms. The purpose of this post is to not to provide an exhaustive set of principles but instead highlight areas that developers, architects, and security officers might wish to consider when evaluating or setting up serverless platforms.

Serverless Processing — Similar But Different

High-scale task processing is certainly not a new concept in IT as it has parallels that date back to the days of job processing on mainframes. The abstraction layer provided by serverless process — in combination with Continue reading

Worth Reading: Redliner

…due to the nature of rapid-growing web services like LinkedIn, we face big challenges when trying to measure service capacity limits. These challenges come from the constantly changing traffic shape, the heterogeneous infrastructure characteristics, and the evolving bottlenecks. In order to determine service capacity limits accurately and pinpoint capacity bottlenecks effectively, we need a solution that… —LinkedIn Engineering Blog

The post Worth Reading: Redliner appeared first on 'net work.

IDG Contributor Network: Why BPM is now taking a central role in digital transformation

Business Process Management (BPM) has always been one of those disciplines that sounded great on paper but was difficult to realize in practice. It made sense that documenting, analyzing and managing the entirety of an organization’s business processes would enable those organizations to increase operational efficiency. But for those brave organizations that gave it the "old college try"—particularly in the early days of BPM—the results were seldom spectacular.A new generation of BPM software, however, is changing this trajectory. Driven by the need for speed and agility, in addition to the traditional needs of efficiency and optimization, organizations are now turning to BPM as a key driver of digital transformation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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