Got a new Android phone? Here’s how to properly get rid of your old one

Whether you got a smartphone under the tree or just plan to gift yourself a handset soon, we hope the joy of the holidays extends to your relationship with your new phone. But don’t forget about the old one! Sure, you might not need it in your pocket, but if you’re not planning to repurpose the device or keep it as a backup, then you shouldn’t just toss it in a drawer or shove it in a closet somewhere. That dated device might still have cash value, or you could donate it to a good cause (possibly for a tax writeoff). At the very least, if you don’t plan on using the phone again, then you should recycle it and ensure that the harmful materials within don’t end up in the dump. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Will networks and security converge in 2017?

Bold predictions are in order at this time of year. Zeus Kerravala looked into his crystal bowl for the networking space, and Taylor Armeriding did the same for security. We went rummaging through our fortune cookies and came up with this Yoda-like one for 2017:Security shall networking become.What did that really mean? Our Yoda translator was of no help. Could networking replace security (or vice versa) in 2017? Should CIOs and CISOs prepare themselves for the inevitable assimilation (head nod to you aging Trekies)? How should, then, security and networking personnel prepare themselves for the inevitable onslaught?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Will networks and security converge in 2017?

Bold predictions are in order at this time of year. Zeus Kerravala looked into his crystal bowl for the networking space, and Taylor Armeriding did the same for security. We went rummaging through our fortune cookies and came up with this Yoda-like one for 2017:Security shall networking become.What did that really mean? Our Yoda translator was of no help. Could networking replace security (or vice versa) in 2017? Should CIOs and CISOs prepare themselves for the inevitable assimilation (head nod to you aging Trekies)? How should, then, security and networking personnel prepare themselves for the inevitable onslaught?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Will networks and security converge in 2017?

Bold predictions are in order at this time of year. Zeus Kerravala looked into his crystal bowl for the networking space, and Taylor Armeriding did the same for security. We went rummaging through our fortune cookies and came up with this Yoda-like one for 2017:Security shall networking become.What did that really mean? Our Yoda translator was of no help. Could networking replace security (or vice versa) in 2017? Should CIOs and CISOs prepare themselves for the inevitable assimilation (head nod to you aging Trekies)? How should, then, security and networking personnel prepare themselves for the inevitable onslaught?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why are browsers so bad after 26 years?

We all live in a browser if we use the internet. You're in one right now if you're reading this. And it's not a new piece of software. Sir Tim Berners-Lee first introduced us to the Mosaic browser in 1990. And despite 26 years of development, the browser remains the worst piece of software we use on a daily basis.Broke. Buggy. Bloated. Hogging memory. Crash-prone. Susceptible to malware. Lousy HTML rendering. I could go on and on with a litany of poorly constructed sentences describing the current state of browsers, but you get the idea. + Also on Network World: Windows 10 browser beatdown: Who’s got the edge? + Browsers aren't just for watching YouTube videos or visiting news sites, either. With the on-demand world of SaaS, browsers are the portal into important line-of-business software, even if the high priest of SaaS, Marc Benioff, hates that word. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

REVIEW: Early Wave 2 Wi-Fi access points show promise

There’s a lot to like about Wave 2 802.11ac products, including theoretically faster speeds than Wave 1 products and cool new features, such as multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO.) In this review, we look at five Wave 2 wireless access points, comparing prices and features, looking at usability and doing some performance testing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

First Look: Wave 2 Wi-Fi access points show promise

Wave 2 Wi-Fi access pointsImage by ThinkstockThere’s a lot to like about Wave 2 802.11ac products, including theoretically faster speeds than Wave 1 products and cool new features, such as multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO.) In this review, we look at five Wave 2 wireless access points, comparing prices and features, looking at usability and doing some performance testing. The products in this review are: Amped Wireless AC1300, ASUS EA-AC87, Cisco Aironet 1852i, Extreme Networks AP3935 and the Linksys LAPAC2600. Read the full review.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Using big data for security only provides insight, not protection

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.Cybersecurity experts are excited about big data because it is the “crime scene investigator” of data science. If your organization is hacked and customer information compromised, your use of big data to collect massive amounts of information on your systems, users and customers makes it possible for data analysts to provide insight into what went wrong.But while big data can help solve the crime after it occurred, it doesn’t help prevent it in the first place. You’re still left cleaning up the mess left behind by the breach: angry customers, possible compliance issues with data privacy standards like HIPAA and PCI DSS, maybe even government fines and class-action lawsuits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Using big data for security only provides insight, not protection

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.Cybersecurity experts are excited about big data because it is the “crime scene investigator” of data science. If your organization is hacked and customer information compromised, your use of big data to collect massive amounts of information on your systems, users and customers makes it possible for data analysts to provide insight into what went wrong.But while big data can help solve the crime after it occurred, it doesn’t help prevent it in the first place. You’re still left cleaning up the mess left behind by the breach: angry customers, possible compliance issues with data privacy standards like HIPAA and PCI DSS, maybe even government fines and class-action lawsuits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Using big data for security only provides insight, not protection

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.

Cybersecurity experts are excited about big data because it is the “crime scene investigator” of data science. If your organization is hacked and customer information compromised, your use of big data to collect massive amounts of information on your systems, users and customers makes it possible for data analysts to provide insight into what went wrong.

But while big data can help solve the crime after it occurred, it doesn’t help prevent it in the first place. You’re still left cleaning up the mess left behind by the breach: angry customers, possible compliance issues with data privacy standards like HIPAA and PCI DSS, maybe even government fines and class-action lawsuits.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Investigating: My Looking Glass Tool

If you're a networking engineer, sysadmin, or NetDevOps guru preferring the power of CLI over carpal-syndrome-inducing GUI you might like the My Looking Glass tool developed by Mehrdad Arshad Rad. Haven't tried it out, but the intro on GitHub page looks promising.

If you decide to try it out (or already did) please share your experience in a comment. Thank you!

So you want to expose Go on the Internet

This piece was originally written for the Gopher Academy advent series. We are grateful to them for allowing us to republish it here.

Back when crypto/tls was slow and net/http young, the general wisdom was to always put Go servers behind a reverse proxy like NGINX. That's not necessary anymore!

At Cloudflare we recently experimented with exposing pure Go services to the hostile wide area network. With the Go 1.8 release, net/http and crypto/tls proved to be stable, performant and flexible.

However, the defaults are tuned for local services. In this articles we'll see how to tune and harden a Go server for Internet exposure.

crypto/tls

You're not running an insecure HTTP server on the Internet in 2016. So you need crypto/tls. The good news is that it's now really fast (as you've seen in a previous advent article), and its security track record so far is excellent.

The default settings resemble the Intermediate recommended configuration of the Mozilla guidelines. However, you should still set PreferServerCipherSuites to ensure safer and faster cipher suites are preferred, and CurvePreferences to avoid unoptimized curves: a client using CurveP384 would cause up to a second of CPU to be consumed on our Continue reading

New products of the week 12.26.16

New products of the weekImage by DabkicksOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Cumulus Linux 3.2Image by Cumulus NetworksTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 12.26.16

New products of the weekImage by DabkicksOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Cumulus Linux 3.2Image by Cumulus NetworksTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Corporate boards aren’t prepared for cyberattacks

Major cyberattacks against organizations of all sizes seem to happen almost weekly. On Dec. 14, Yahoo announced the largest-ever data breach, involving more than 1 billion customer accounts.Despite the scale and potential harm from such attacks, there's wide recognition that corporate leaders, especially boards of directors, aren't taking the necessary actions to defend their companies against such attacks. It's not just a problem of finding the right cyber-defense tools and services, but also one of management awareness and security acumen at the highest level, namely corporate boards.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here