Amazon S3 Internet outage unleashes flood of apologies — from others

While Amazon Web Services hasn't yet issued an apology via its social media channels regarding big problems today with its Simple Storage Service (S3), the company's customers have turned to Twitter and Facebook to apologize to their own customers -- while pointing the finger at AWS.AWS, via its @awscloud Twitter account, did alert customers that "S3 is experiencing high error rates. We are working hard on recovering." That was posted a bit after 2pm EST and Amazon has since posted a few updates, including a note about the status dashboard recovering.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft adds Store app-only restriction as option in Windows 10

Microsoft has added a setting to Windows 10 that will let users restrict new software installation to only those apps hosted in the Windows Store.The option debuted in the latest version of Windows 10 Insider, the preview program which gives participants an early peek at the next feature upgrade as Microsoft builds it. That version, labeled 15042, was released Friday.[ Related: Fix Windows 10 problems with these free Microsoft tools ] With the setting at its most stringent, Windows 10 will block the installation of Win32 software -- the traditional legacy applications that continue to make up the vast bulk of the Windows ecosystem -- and allow users to install only apps from the Windows Store, Microsoft's marketplace.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

containerd summit recap: slides, videos and meeting notes

Last week, we hosted a containerd summit for contributors and maintainers. Containerd is a core container runtime with an emphasis on simplicity, robustness and portability. It is available as a daemon for Linux and Windows, which can manage the complete container lifecycle of its host system: image transfer and storage, container execution and supervision, snapshot storage for container filesystems and a few other things to make the management of containers robust.

We started off by getting everyone up to speed on the project, roadmap and goals before diving down into specific issues and design of containerd.  We had a couple breakout sessions where we discussed blocking issues and feature requests by various members of the community. You can see a summary of the breakout sessions in last week’s development report in the containerd repository and the various presentations below:

Deep Dive into containerd by Michael Crosby, Stephen Day, Derek McGowan and Mickael Laventure (Docker)

Driving containerd operations with gRPC by Phil Estes (IBM)

containerd and CRI by Tim Hockin (Google)

 

We ended the day with discussions around governance and extension model. Watch this video recording to learn more about why and how core contributors are thinking about integrating containerd with other Continue reading

26% off Portal Mesh Wi-Fi System (2-pack) – Coverage for Homes up to 6,000 sq. ft., Gigabit Speed – Deal Alert

PORTAL is designed for homes with lots of devices and many neighbors. WiFi devices all share the same airwaves, and just like an old highway with not enough lanes, your internet slows to a crawl whenever there are too many people and devices crowding the same channels. Mesh 2.0 patented technology and 9 dedicated antennas act like a shield to keep your WiFi maxed out at the speed you pay for. The result is consistently fast reliable internet, lag-free gaming and smooth ultraHD video streaming everywhere in your home.   Currently receiving 4.3 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews) and is discount by 26%, down to $279.23,  Check out purchasing options on Amazon now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

26% off Portal Mesh Wi-Fi System (2-pack) – Coverage for Homes up to 6,000 sq. ft., Gigabit Speed – Deal Alert

PORTAL is designed for homes with lots of devices and many neighbors. WiFi devices all share the same airwaves, and just like an old highway with not enough lanes, your internet slows to a crawl whenever there are too many people and devices crowding the same channels. Mesh 2.0 patented technology and 9 dedicated antennas act like a shield to keep your WiFi maxed out at the speed you pay for. The result is consistently fast reliable internet, lag-free gaming and smooth ultraHD video streaming everywhere in your home.   Currently receiving 4.3 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews) and is discount by 26%, down to $279.23,  Check out purchasing options on Amazon now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HTC’s Netflix-esque VR subscription costs $6.99 per month

HTC is giving users of its Vive virtual reality headset access to a Netflix-like subscription service. Everyone who currently owns a Vive will get a free trial for a month, and the service will cost US $6.99 a month thereafter.For that price, users will be able to pick out five virtual reality apps at the start of each month, including games and other interactive experiences. The service will be available in a "couple weeks," Rickard Steiber, the company’s senior vice president for virtual reality said during an interview at the Game Developers Conference Monday.One benefit to consumers is that the subscription will give users an affordable way to try out titles every month, without requiring them to commit to a full retail purchase. The company had 14,000 people say they were interested in such a subscription after HTC announced it at the Consumer Electronics Show last month, Steiber said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service isn’t working

Amazon Web Services today acknowledged that its Simple Storage Service (S3), one of the company's most popular cloud-based products, is experiencing increased error rates, causing some sites across the Internet to stop working.AWS posted an alert on its Service Health Dashboard noting: “We've identified the issue as high error rates with S3 in US-EAST-1, which is also impacting applications and services dependent on S3. We are actively working on remediating the issue.”+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Battle of the clouds AWS vs. Azure vs. Google +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intel will change its approach to PC chip upgrades

Intel is changing its view on how it upgrades chips.Rather than tying chip upgrades directly to the manufacturing process involved, Intel will look at delivering a sustained set of performance upgrades with each new chip architecture."We're going to be focused more on the generation by the amount of performance increment it will give us," said Venkata Renduchintala, president of Intel's Client and Internet of Things businesses and its Systems Architecture Group. "I don't think generations will be tagged to node transitions."The performance benefits will matter more, and the process technology that lives underneath is going to be less conspicuous, Renduchintala said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Border agents go all Monty Python on visa-holding software engineer

There have been more egregious episodes of U.S. border agents hassling and/or needlessly detaining citizens and valid visa-holders since the White House changed hands, but perhaps none has been more bizarre – or even darkly comical – than this one. Celestine Omin, a 28-year-old software engineer from Lagos, Nigeria, was traveling to the U.S. on Sunday as part of his job with Andela, a startup backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. Upon arrival at JFK Airport, he was questioned by one border agent, waited for an hour, and then was brought to a different room to be questioned by a second agent. From a LinkedIn story:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Border agents go all Monty Python on visa-holding software engineer

There have been more egregious episodes of U.S. border agents hassling and/or needlessly detaining citizens and valid visa-holders since the White House changed hands, but perhaps none has been more bizarre – or even darkly comical – than this one.Celestine Omin, a 28-year-old software engineer from Lagos, Nigeria, was traveling to the U.S. on Sunday as part of his job with Andela, a startup backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. Upon arrival at JFK Airport, he was questioned by one border agent, waited for an hour, and then was brought to a different room to be questioned by a second agent. From a LinkedIn story:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Into the Gray Zone: Considering Active Defense

Most engineers focus on purely technical mechanisms for defending against various kinds of cyber attacks, including “the old magic bullet,” the firewall. The game of cannons and walls is over, however, and the cannons have won; those who depend on walls are in for a shocking future. What is the proper response, then? What defenses are there The reality is that just like in physical warfare, the defenses will take some time to develop and articulate.

One very promising line of thinking is that of active defense. While the concept is often attributed to some recent action, active defense has been one form of warfare for many centuries; there are instances of what might be called active defense outlined in the Bible and in Greek histories. But it is only recently, in light of the many wars around Israel, that defense in depth has taken on its modern shape in active defense. What about active defense is so interesting from a network security perspective? It is primarily this: in active defense, the defender seeks to tire an attacker out by remaining mobile, misdirecting the attacker, and using every opportunity to learn about the attacker’s techniques, aims, and resources to reflect Continue reading

15 unfilled tech jobs that cost the U.S. billions

Unfilled tech jobs that are costing the U.S. billionsImage by Thinkstock With IT industry unemployment hovering at around 2.8 percent (as of Q3 2016) and organizations struggling to land talent, many companies find themselves with unfilled jobs. That's a problem not just for individual companies, but for the U.S. economy as a whole, says Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor. "Filling open jobs doesn't just help workers. It also helps companies and the broader economy. Every job that's open is money left on the table, in the form of lost productivity for employers and earnings in consumers' pockets. When more open jobs are filled with the right people, economic gains include greater business productivity and consumer spending, thanks to more people earning wages, then saving, investing and spending those wages," Chamberlain says. In IT, a combination of rapidly changing markets, incredible demand for and short supply of talent means thousands of open, unfilled roles are costing companies -- and the economy -- money every day. In fact, the value of the approximately 263,586 unfilled IT jobs posted by employers in the U.S. adds up to $20.1 billion, according to the Glassdoor research. The value Continue reading

A new way to prevent cyberattacks on home devices

BARCELONA -- Homeowners worried about cybersecurity attacks on IP-connected devices like lights, baby monitors, home security systems and cameras, will soon be able to take advantage of a $200 network monitoring device called Dojo.The device was shown at Mobile World Congress here this week and will go on sale online in April. While the Dojo device isn’t intended to provide enterprise-level security, it could be used to help, in a small way, in warding off massive attacks like the one that used the Mirai botnet which took advantage of unsecure, consumer-grade cameras and other devices last October.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A new way to prevent cyberattacks on home devices

BARCELONA -- Homeowners worried about cybersecurity attacks on IP-connected devices like lights, baby monitors, home security systems and cameras, will soon be able to take advantage of a $200 network monitoring device called Dojo.The device was shown at Mobile World Congress here this week and will go on sale online in April. While the Dojo device isn’t intended to provide enterprise-level security, it could be used to help, in a small way, in warding off massive attacks like the one that used the Mirai botnet which took advantage of unsecure, consumer-grade cameras and other devices last October.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple stores now selling the LG UltraFine 5K Display again after Wi-Fi interference issues

Update: LG's UltraFine 5K Display is now available to order again after Apple removed it from store shelves on Feb. 13. Apple is offering delivery as soon as March 8 for orders placed today. In-store pick-up isn't currently available.Last October, Apple announced the LG collaboration has as the go-to external Retina display for the new MacBook Pro after the company discontinued its Thunderbolt Display.But the UltraFine 5K Display was plagued by connection issues. Placing the display within six feet of a Wi-Fi router caused interference, resulting in continued disconnections and even the MacBook Pro freezing up. LG confirmed that these issues stem from “poor shielding.” According to 9to5Mac, future builds of the LG display will resolve this, but existing displays will require “retrofitting with additional shielding.” With new inventory in stock, it appears that LG has fixed its shielding issues—at least in hardware it's selling from this point on.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco tries to squash Smart Install security abuse

Cisco is playing down a security issue with its Smart Install switch management software that could allow unauthenticated access to customer configuration details.Cisco defines Smart Install as a legacy feature that provides zero-touch deployment for new switches, typically access layer switches.+More on Network World: Cisco Jasper grows Internet of Things reach, breadth+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco tries to squash Smart Install security abuse

Cisco is playing down a security issue with its Smart Install switch management software that could allow unauthenticated access to customer configuration details.Cisco defines Smart Install as a legacy feature that provides zero-touch deployment for new switches, typically access layer switches.+More on Network World: Cisco Jasper grows Internet of Things reach, breadth+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trend Micro report: Ransomware booming

The profitability of ransomware made it the top cyber threat last year in two categories: the number of attacks and the amount of money generated for crooks, according to a Trend Micro lookback on data collected from customers.Not only is the ransomware business booming, it’s innovating, with Trend Micro researchers identifying 752 new families last year, up from 29 in 2015.Add to this the rise of ransomware as a service (RaaS) and payments made to anonymous bitcoin accounts, and the result is a booming criminal enterprise worth $1 billion last year, according to TrendLabs 2016 Security Roundup. Neophyte crooks are being drawn in because it’s so easy to set up a ransomware operation, the report says. “Since RaaS is available in the underground, the service provides fledgling cybercriminals the necessary tools to run their own extortion campaigns,” it says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trend Micro report: Ransomware booming

The profitability of ransomware made it the top cyber threat last year in two categories: the number of attacks and the amount of money generated for crooks, according to a Trend Micro lookback on data collected from customers.Not only is the ransomware business booming, it’s innovating, with Trend Micro researchers identifying 752 new families last year, up from 29 in 2015.Add to this the rise of ransomware as a service (RaaS) and payments made to anonymous bitcoin accounts, and the result is a booming criminal enterprise worth $1 billion last year, according to TrendLabs 2016 Security Roundup. Neophyte crooks are being drawn in because it’s so easy to set up a ransomware operation, the report says. “Since RaaS is available in the underground, the service provides fledgling cybercriminals the necessary tools to run their own extortion campaigns,” it says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here