Technology Short Take #80

Welcome to Technology Short Take #80! This post is a week late (I try to publish these every other Friday), so my apologies for the delay. However, hopefully I’ve managed to gather together some articles with useful information for you. Enjoy!

Networking

• Biruk Mekonnen has an introductory article on using Netmiko for network automation. It’s short and light on details, but it does provide an example snippet of Python code to illustrate what can be done with Netmiko.
• Gabriele Gerbino has a nice write-up about Cisco’s efforts with APIs; his article includes a brief description of YANG data models and a comparison of working with network devices via SSH or via API.
• Giuliano Bertello shares why it’s important to RTFM; or, how he fixed an issue with a Cross-vCenter NSX 6.2 installation caused by duplicate NSX Manager UUIDs.
• Andrius Benokraitis provides a preview of some of the networking features coming soon in Ansible 2.3. From my perspective, Ansible has jumped out in front in the race among tools for network automation; I’m seeing more coverage and more interest in using Ansible for network automation.
• Need to locate duplicate MAC addresses in your environment, possibly caused by cloning Continue reading

FBI director floats international framework on access to encrypted data

FBI director James Comey has suggested that an international agreement between governments could ease fears about IT products with government-mandated backdoors, but privacy advocates are doubtful.Speaking on Thursday, Comey suggested that the U.S. might work with other countries on a “framework” for creating legal access to encrypted tech devices.“I could imagine a community of nations committed to the rule of law developing a set of norms, a framework, for when government access is appropriate,” he said on Thursday.Comey made his comments at the University of Texas at Austin, when trying to address a key concern facing U.S. tech firms in the encryption debate: the fear that providing government access to their products might dampen their business abroad.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FBI director floats international framework on access to encrypted data

FBI director James Comey has suggested that an international agreement between governments could ease fears about IT products with government-mandated backdoors, but privacy advocates are doubtful.Speaking on Thursday, Comey suggested that the U.S. might work with other countries on a “framework” for creating legal access to encrypted tech devices.“I could imagine a community of nations committed to the rule of law developing a set of norms, a framework, for when government access is appropriate,” he said on Thursday.Comey made his comments at the University of Texas at Austin, when trying to address a key concern facing U.S. tech firms in the encryption debate: the fear that providing government access to their products might dampen their business abroad.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

26% off Nintendo Wii Remote Plus, Toad – Deal Alert

Simple, intuitive and easy to use. The Wii Remote Plus is a unique controller for the Wii and Wii U video game systems, now with the increased sensitivity of Wii MotionPlus built-in. The button presses of typical controllers are replaced by the natural, fluid motion of your hand. The Wii Remote Plus senses your every action and makes you feel less like a player and more like you're part of the game. This Wii remote is highly rated, and currently discounted 26% on Amazon to just $29.49.See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

32% off Nintendo Wii Remote Plus, Toad – Deal Alert

Simple, intuitive and easy to use. The Wii Remote Plus is a unique controller for the Wii and Wii U video game systems, now with the increased sensitivity of Wii MotionPlus built-in. The button presses of typical controllers are replaced by the natural, fluid motion of your hand. The Wii Remote Plus senses your every action and makes you feel less like a player and more like you're part of the game. This Wii remote is highly rated, and currently discounted 32% on Amazon to just $27.15, saving you almost $13. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Squeezing The Joules Out Of DRAM, Possibly Without Stacking

Increasing parallelism is the only way to get more work out of a system. Architecting for that parallelism required requires a lot of rethinking of each and every component in a system to make everything hum along as efficiently as possible.

There are lots of ways to skin the parallelism cats and squeeze more performance and less energy out of the system, and for DRAM memory, just stacking things up helps, but according to some research done at Stanford University, the University of Texas, and GPU maker Nvidia, there is another way to boost performance and lower energy consumption. The …

Squeezing The Joules Out Of DRAM, Possibly Without Stacking was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Microsoft expands connected car push with patent licensing

Microsoft's push into the connected car space has moved up a gear with a new patent licensing agreement with Toyota. The world's second-largest auto maker will have access to a range of Microsoft patents as part of the deal announced this week. Rather than trying to build a high-tech automobile of its own, Microsoft is focusing on providing carmakers with the tools they need to create smarter vehicles and the Toyota deal is the first of what it hopes will be a series of such agreements. Microsoft offers an entire suite of cloud services aimed at aiding the development of internet-enabled automobiles and is also integrating its Cortana virtual assistant into cars alongside PCs, phones and other devices. In the future, a connected car could become a rolling extension of a user’s office, with Office 365 integrations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

20% off Razor Hovertrax 2.0 Hoverboard Self-Balancing Smart Scooter – Deal Alert

Step on the deck and go with Razor Hovertrax 2.0, the world’s smartest self-balancing electric scooter. Intelligently-engineered with EverBalance technology, Hovertrax 2.0 is the only board that auto-levels for a safer, easier mount and a smoother ride. Whether you’re coasting, racing, or commuting, Hovertrax 2.0 is always in balance. Indoors or out, Hovertrax 2.0 does the work so you can enjoy the journey. Hovertrax 2.0: technology so advanced, it’s simple. Once you learn how to ride, it becomes second nature.  Razor was also the first U.S. brand to receive the UL 2272 listing for safety, ensuring that the Hovertrax 2.0 meets or exceeds the highest fire and electrical safety standards. The HoverTrax 2.0 has a list price of $459.99 has been reduced 20% to just 369.99. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Leaked iCloud credentials obtained from third parties, Apple says

A group of hackers threatening to wipe data from Apple devices attached to millions of iCloud accounts didn't obtain whatever log-in credentials they have through a breach of the company's services, Apple said."There have not been any breaches in any of Apple's systems including iCloud and Apple ID," an Apple representative said in an emailed statement. "The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained from previously compromised third-party services."A group calling itself the Turkish Crime Family claims to have login credentials for more than 750 million icloud.com, me.com and mac.com email addresses, and the group says more than 250 million of those credentials provide access to iCloud accounts that don't have two-factor authentication turned on.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Leaked iCloud credentials obtained from third parties, Apple says

A group of hackers threatening to wipe data from Apple devices attached to millions of iCloud accounts didn't obtain whatever log-in credentials they have through a breach of the company's services, Apple said."There have not been any breaches in any of Apple's systems including iCloud and Apple ID," an Apple representative said in an emailed statement. "The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained from previously compromised third-party services."A group calling itself the Turkish Crime Family claims to have login credentials for more than 750 million icloud.com, me.com and mac.com email addresses, and the group says more than 250 million of those credentials provide access to iCloud accounts that don't have two-factor authentication turned on.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Rescuing Network Time Protocol

The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) protocol. It is responsible for syncing time between servers, using a variety of reference clocks as a guide. To the average user, this function may seem inconsequential, but knowing the time to one-thousandth of a second or less is essential for countless computer functions. Exactly when an electronic stock trade was made, for example, can mean a difference of millions of dollars. Similarly, in the 2003 blackout in the northeastern United States and Canada, in the nine seconds before the blackout, ten thousand events were recorded, but, because they were not accurately time-stamped, it proved impossible to document exactly what happened and learn much from what happened. As the Network Time Foundation site observes, “Knowing the time isn’t important. Until it is.” —The New Stack

The post Worth Reading: Rescuing Network Time Protocol appeared first on 'net work.

If incident response automation is hot, threat detection automation is sizzling

If incident response automation is hot, threat detection automation is sizzling

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.In a recent Network World article Jon Oltsik noted that Incident Response (IR) automation is becoming a very hot topic in the info security world. Oltsik called out multiple factors driving demand for IR automation and orchestration, including the manual nature of IR work, the cyber skills shortage and the difficulty of coordinating activity between SecOps and DevOps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If incident response automation is hot, threat detection automation is sizzling

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.In a recent Network World article Jon Oltsik noted that Incident Response (IR) automation is becoming a very hot topic in the info security world. Oltsik called out multiple factors driving demand for IR automation and orchestration, including the manual nature of IR work, the cyber skills shortage and the difficulty of coordinating activity between SecOps and DevOps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

18 free cloud storage options

The cloud is full of free storage, if you know where to look.From Box to DropBox, Google to Apple, there’s plenty of free storage to be had in the cloud. Many companies use free cloud storage as a way to entice users into their clouds in hopes that they will pay more for additional storage.Below, in alphabetical order, are 18 free cloud services – but a word of warning: The market for free cloud storage is volatile and offers from these vendors can change frequently, including being eliminated with little or no warning.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: 7 ways to supercharge your personal cloud storage+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Save $1,100 on the HP LaserJet Enterprise M506dh Printer By Using This Code – Deal Alert

HP is having a spring sale, and they've discounted the LaserJet Enterprise M506dh Printer by a whopping $1,100 if you use the special coupon code BMA165655 between now and 3/31. This HP Laser Monochrome Printer has a steadfast printing speed of up to 45 ppm -- perfect when you have a progressive printing system in mind. Its 1200x1200 dpi copy ensures sheer, precise copies in result. It’s an f2a71a#201 Automatic duplex printer that can absorb up to 250 sheets on its output bin, and does a 100-sheet on its multipurpose tray 1, while it can work suitably with 550-sheet on its 2 and 3 input trays. It can perform with 650 sheets on a standard paper input, and 250 standard paper output sheets. It can print out 150,000 pages on a monthly duty cycle. Use the coupon code BMA165655 to save big money for a limited time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google’s Android Things OS won’t work on new Raspberry Pi board

The new Raspberry Pi Zero W was designed to be a board to make internet-of-things devices, but a key OS from Google won't work on the hardware.Google's Android Things IoT OS will not work with the small developer board, which is partly a wireless board, partly a gadget development tool. The Zero W is priced at US$10.The Zero W has a 1GHz single-core BCM2835 processor, which is based on the ARMv6 architecture.Android Things does not support ARMv6, so the OS will not work on the board. The OS is specially tuned to work with specific chipsets.The BCM2835 chip is the same in the original Raspberry Pi developer boards.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5G eBook Available Now: Moving from Vision to Reality

Download now to learn the latest on how the 5G standard is evolving.

Wikileaks documents show CIA’s Mac and iPhone compromises

The U.S. CIA has had tools to infect Apple Mac computers by connecting malicious Thunderbolt Ethernet adapters to them since 2012, according to new documents purported to be from the agency and published by WikiLeaks.One of the documents, dated Nov. 29, 2012, is a manual from the CIA's Information Operations Center on the use of a technology codenamed Sonic Screwdriver. It is described as "a mechanism for executing code on peripheral devices while a Mac laptop or desktop is booting."Sonic Screwdriver allows the CIA to modify the firmware of an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter so that it forces a Macbook to boot from an USB stick or DVD disc even when its boot options are password protected.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wikileaks documents show CIA’s Mac and iPhone compromises

The U.S. CIA has had tools to infect Apple Mac computers by connecting malicious Thunderbolt Ethernet adapters to them since 2012, according to new documents purported to be from the agency and published by WikiLeaks.One of the documents, dated Nov. 29, 2012, is a manual from the CIA's Information Operations Center on the use of a technology codenamed Sonic Screwdriver. It is described as "a mechanism for executing code on peripheral devices while a Mac laptop or desktop is booting."Sonic Screwdriver allows the CIA to modify the firmware of an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter so that it forces a Macbook to boot from an USB stick or DVD disc even when its boot options are password protected.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here