The latest ransomware is pure evil genius

Ransomware is always nasty business, but the latest variant discovered by the MalwareHunterTeam takes the nastiness to a whole ‘nother level.Turning victims into criminals Apparently, the latest Popcorn Time ransomware adds a new twist to the standard M.O. of demanding payment from their victims or permanently lose access to their files. In what seems like a brilliant if seriously messed up maneuver, if victims don’t want to pay the Bitcoin ransom “the fast and easy way,” the program gives victims the option of paying up “the nasty way”—by sending the ransomware link on to others. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Synaptics has a new fingerprint sensor that will mean smoother phone screens

A Silicon Valley biometrics company says it has developed a fingerprint sensor that can sit under glass so smartphone screens don't need a cutout or extra button to accommodate the sensor.The Synaptics FS9100 sensor can sit under a millimeter of glass and still provide accurate fingerprint readings, so it should be easier to integrate one under a display.At present, most fingerprint sensors have to sit above the glass, necessitating a cutout in the face of the phone or a dedicated button that houses the sensor. That's the case on market-leading handsets like the iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S7.And while there are some fingerprint sensors that work under glass, that glass needs to be thinner than 1mm, so the glass needs to be shaved in the area of the sensor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

We Were Acquired by Cloudflare, Here’s What’s Next

We Were Acquired by Cloudflare, Here’s What’s Next

Like most of you, I first heard of Cloudflare via this blog. I read about HTTP/2, Railgun, the Hundredth Data Center, and Keyless SSL — but I never thought I would work here. I, along with my co-founder Adam, and our friends and coworkers were hard at work building something very different. We were working on a tool which spent most of its life in the web browser, not on servers all around the world: an app store for your website. Using our tool a website owner could find and install any of over a hundred apps which could help them collect feedback from their visitors, sell products on their site, or even make their site faster.

Our goal was to create a way for every website owner to find and install all of the open-source and SaaS tools technical experts use everyday. As developers ourselves, we wanted to make it possible for a developer in her basement to build the next great tool and get it on a million websites (and make a million dollars) the next day. We didn’t want her to succeed because she had the biggest sales or marketing team, or the most Continue reading

What to expect from Cisco’s competitors in 2017

In my previous post, I previewed what we should expect to see from Cisco in 2017. While I think Cisco is in a strong position next year, I don’t expect Cisco’s competitors to sit around and let it take share. Below are the market segments where I think we’ll see the most activity and which vendors are likely to be the most disruptive.Collaboration Hard-charging Microsoft has turned its unified communications (UC) focus to the cloud with its Skype For Business Voice available as part of the Office 365 suite. One can argue who has better voice or video, but Microsoft’s real strength is in how easy it is to purchase and start using voice, including PSTN calling. Microsoft also announced its Team product, which directly competes with Cisco’s Spark product, so the collaboration battle will be drawn on many fronts. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What to expect from Cisco’s competitors in 2017

In my previous post, I previewed what we should expect to see from Cisco in 2017. While I think Cisco is in a strong position next year, I don’t expect Cisco’s competitors to sit around and let it take share. Below are the market segments where I think we’ll see the most activity and which vendors are likely to be the most disruptive.Collaboration Hard-charging Microsoft has turned its unified communications (UC) focus to the cloud with its Skype For Business Voice available as part of the Office 365 suite. One can argue who has better voice or video, but Microsoft’s real strength is in how easy it is to purchase and start using voice, including PSTN calling. Microsoft also announced its Team product, which directly competes with Cisco’s Spark product, so the collaboration battle will be drawn on many fronts. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple faced a challenging 2016

Apple had a tough 2016. Early in the year, the tech giant became entangled in a legal battle with the FBI over the company's refusal to help the agency unlock the phone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. Apple argued that doing so would open a back door that would put other iPhone users at risk of privacy breaches. Apple also had a somewhat disappointing financial year with annual sales dropping for the first time since 2001, when the company released the iPod.  On the hardware side, Apple did release a refreshed version of the iPhone and the MacBook Pro, but both received mixed reviews. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump’s margin up after Wisconsin recount over voting machine security

President-elect Donald Trump added 131 votes to his winning margin in a recount in Wisconsin of ballots cast in the state for the recent U.S. presidential elections, but a significant part of the recount was not by hand.The recount was asked for by Green Party candidate Jill Stein after doubts were raised that the voting systems can be hacked. Wisconsin uses both the optical scan and direct-recording electronic types of voting machines, which are both susceptible to compromise, Stein said in a petition to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump’s margin up after Wisconsin recount over voting machine security

President-elect Donald Trump added 131 votes to his winning margin in a recount in Wisconsin of ballots cast in the state for the recent U.S. presidential elections, but a significant part of the recount was not by hand.The recount was asked for by Green Party candidate Jill Stein after doubts were raised that the voting systems can be hacked. Wisconsin uses both the optical scan and direct-recording electronic types of voting machines, which are both susceptible to compromise, Stein said in a petition to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

67% off Sabrent 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub with Individual Power Switches – Deal Alert

The thin, lightweight design makes this hub a great travel companion to expand one USB 3.0 port into four. Each port has its own power switch so you can control each port independently. It currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 4,300 people (read recent reviews). Its typical list price of $30 had been reduced 67% to just $10. See it on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

67% off Sabrent 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub with Individual Power Switches – Deal Alert

The thin, lightweight design makes this hub a great travel companion to expand one USB 3.0 port into four. Each port has its own power switch so you can control each port independently. It currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 4,300 people (read recent reviews). Its typical list price of $30 had been reduced 67% to just $10. See it on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Load Balancing at Fastly

High-speed scale-out load balancing is a Mission Impossible. You can get the correct abstraction at the wrong cost or another layer of indirection (to paraphrase the authors of Fastly load balancing solution).

However, once every third blue moon you might get a team of smart engineers focused on optimal solutions to real-life problems. The result: a layer of misdirection, a combination of hardware ECMP and server-level traffic redirection. Enjoy!

LSA issue @ December 13, 2016 at 10:24AM

Here is your fresh IPv6 fix: Tenth iNOG, namely iNOG::A, is all about IPv6 experience.
Technical talks are:
1) Orla McGann (HEAnet) An Irish IPv6 Fairytale
2) Nathalie Trenaman (RIPE) The Sad Tale of 462 Operators Who Switched Off IPv6* (*with a happy ending)
3) Ed Horley (Groupware Technology) IPv6 Operating Challenges

Particulary interesting talk was given by Nathalie from RIPE who was talking about IPv6 global perception seen from RIPE point-of-view.

#Video #iNOG #IPv6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSH6jxmqrag
By: via LSA

29% off Plantronics Explorer 50 Bluetooth Headset – Deal Alert

The Explorer 50 Bluetooth Headset from Plantronics averages 4 out of 5 stars from over 2,000 people (read reviews) on Amazon, where its typical list price of $25.48 has been reduced 29% to just $17.99. The Plantronics Explorer 50 Bluetooth headset reduces background noise, connects to two smartphones, streams your music and GPS directions, and has a power-saving DeepSleep mode. Up to 11 hours of talk time. It's designed to fit either ear, the earloop swivels and rotates for a stable fit. See the discounted Explorer 50 now on Amazon. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

That anti-Trump Recode article is terrible

Trump's a dangerous populist. However, the left-wing media's anti-Trump fetishism is doing nothing to stop Trump. It's no better than "fake news" -- it gets passed around a lot on social-media, but is intellectually bankrupt, unlikely to change anybody's mind. A good example is this op-ed on Re/Code [*] about Silicon Valley leaders visiting Trump.

The most important feature of that Re/code article is that it contains no criticism of Trump other than the fact that he's a Republican. Half the country voted for Trump. Half the country voted Republican. It's not just Trump that this piece imagines as being unreasonable, but half the country. It's a fashionable bigotry among some of Silicon Valley's leftist elite.

But CEOs live in a world where half their customers are Republican, where half their share holders are Republican. They cannot lightly take political positions that differ from their investors/customers. The Re/code piece claims CEOs said "we are duty-bound as American citizens to attend". No, what they said was "we are duty-bound as officers of our corporations to attend".

The word "officer", as in "Chief Operating Officer", isn't an arbitrary title like "Senior Software Engineer" that has no real meaning. Instead, "officer" Continue reading

Dozens arrested in international DDoS-for-hire crackdown

Law enforcement agencies arrested 34 suspects in 13 countries, including the U.K and the U.S., as part of a crackdown last week on DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks.The arrests targeted buyers of DDoS-for-hire services, which get paid to flood websites or internet-connected systems with traffic, forcing them to go offline.In addition to the 34 arrests, law enforcement agencies interviewed and warned another 101 individuals. Many of the suspects were under the age of 20, the European Union police agency Europol said in a Monday statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dozens arrested in international DDoS-for-hire crackdown

Law enforcement agencies arrested 34 suspects in 13 countries, including the U.K and the U.S., as part of a crackdown last week on DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks.The arrests targeted buyers of DDoS-for-hire services, which get paid to flood websites or internet-connected systems with traffic, forcing them to go offline.In addition to the 34 arrests, law enforcement agencies interviewed and warned another 101 individuals. Many of the suspects were under the age of 20, the European Union police agency Europol said in a Monday statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BrandPost: Reducing Wan Complexity With SD-WAN Segmentation

There are a lot of reasons why IT is so excited about SD-WAN solutions these days. Of course, the potential cost savings of being able to leverage broadband Internet connections securely and with high reliability are particularly compelling. But the true value of an SD-WAN encompasses many more benefits including agility, security and application Quality of Service (QoS). As Zeus Kerravala accurately frames in his recent SD-WAN Makes An Excellent Segmentation Tool WANSpeak blog published on Sept. 27, “most SD-WAN solutions operate as an overlay to the underlying physical topology, which makes it ideal to extend the concept of segmentation out of the data center and across the WAN and into branch offices.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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