Top 10 business collaboration stories of 2016

In 2016, a battle started to heat up in the enterprise collaboration market. The stalwarts of business, as well as consumer tech giants and a set of new entrants, were all in the mix. In this increasingly crowded market, the varying apps and other services targeted businesses from many different angles.Here are our picks for the most significant collaboration developments of the past year.1) Facebook at Work (finally) launches as 'Workplace' Facebook already owns consumer social networking, and with its new Workplace service, it set sights on the enterprise. The offering is designed to feel familiar to Facebook users but also remain separate from the company's consumer platform. (For more details, read our prelaunch history of Workplace.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facts and figures for the year ahead in IT

IT sharpens its focusImage by ComputerworldWhat's the outlook for the tech year ahead? In general, IT executives are feeling optimistic as they head into 2017. According to the results of Computerworld's Tech Forecast 2017 survey, enterprises plan to continue on the path to digital transformation, deepening their commitment to big data and analytics, as well as cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HTTP/2 promises better performance — but with security caveats

The new Internet communication protocol, HTTP/2, is now being used by 11 percent of websites -- up from just 2.3 percent a year ago, according to W3Techs.The new protocol does offer better performance, but there is no particular rush to upgrade, and it's backwards-compatible with the previous protocol, HTTP/1.1.No security problems have been found in the protocol itself, but there are vulnerabilities in some implementations and the possibility of lower visibility into internet traffic, so it's worth waiting for everything to shake out.The pressure to switch is likely to come from lines of business, said Graham Ahearne, director of product management at security firm Corvil.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HTTP/2 promises better performance — but with security caveats

The new Internet communication protocol, HTTP/2, is now being used by 11 percent of websites -- up from just 2.3 percent a year ago, according to W3Techs.The new protocol does offer better performance, but there is no particular rush to upgrade, and it's backwards-compatible with the previous protocol, HTTP/1.1.No security problems have been found in the protocol itself, but there are vulnerabilities in some implementations and the possibility of lower visibility into internet traffic, so it's worth waiting for everything to shake out.The pressure to switch is likely to come from lines of business, said Graham Ahearne, director of product management at security firm Corvil.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

49% off CyberPower Surge Protector 3-AC Outlet with 2 USB (2.1A) Charging Ports – Deal Alert

The Professional Surge Protector CSP300WUR1 safeguards common home and office devices, such as computers and electronics, by absorbing spikes in energy caused by storms and electrical power surges. Designed for convenience, the portable CSP300WUR1 is ideal for travelers. It provides 600 joules of protection, has three surge-protected outlets, and a folding wall tap plug. Two USB ports (2.1 Amp shared) charge personal electronics, including smartphones, digital cameras, MP3 players, and other devices. A Limited-Lifetime Warranty ensures that this surge suppressor has passed high quality standards in design, assembly, material or workmanship and further protection is offered by a $50,000 Connected Equipment Guarantee. It currently averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon, where its typical list price of $22 has been reduced 49% to just $11.27. See the discounted CSP300WUR1 on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

49% off CyberPower Surge Protector 3-AC Outlet with 2 USB (2.1A) Charging Ports – Deal Alert

The Professional Surge Protector CSP300WUR1 safeguards common home and office devices, such as computers and electronics, by absorbing spikes in energy caused by storms and electrical power surges. Designed for convenience, the portable CSP300WUR1 is ideal for travelers. It provides 600 joules of protection, has three surge-protected outlets, and a folding wall tap plug. Two USB ports (2.1 Amp shared) charge personal electronics, including smartphones, digital cameras, MP3 players, and other devices. A Limited-Lifetime Warranty ensures that this surge suppressor has passed high quality standards in design, assembly, material or workmanship and further protection is offered by a $50,000 Connected Equipment Guarantee. It currently averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon, where its typical list price of $22 has been reduced 49% to just $11.27. See the discounted CSP300WUR1 on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BlackBerry hands its brand to TCL, maker of its last smartphones

The BlackBerry smartphone is dead: Long live the BlackBerry smartphone.A week after it officially pulled out of the smartphone market, BlackBerry has agreed to license its brand to handset manufacturer TCL.The Chinese company will make and market future BlackBerry handsets worldwide except for India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, where BlackBerry has already struck local licensing deals.This is hardly new territory for TCL, which manufactured BlackBerry's last two handsets, the Android-based DTEK50 and DTEK60.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BlackBerry hands its brand to TCL, maker of its last smartphones

The BlackBerry smartphone is dead: Long live the BlackBerry smartphone.A week after it officially pulled out of the smartphone market, BlackBerry has agreed to license its brand to handset manufacturer TCL.The Chinese company will make and market future BlackBerry handsets worldwide except for India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, where BlackBerry has already struck local licensing deals.This is hardly new territory for TCL, which manufactured BlackBerry's last two handsets, the Android-based DTEK50 and DTEK60.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Evernote backs off from privacy policy changes, says it ‘messed up’

Evernote has reversed proposed changes to its privacy policy that would allow employees to read user notes to help train machine learning algorithms.CEO Chris O’Neill said the company had “messed up, in no uncertain terms.”The move by the note-taking app follows protests from users, some of whom have threatened to drop the service after the company announced that its policy would change to improve its machine learning capabilities by letting a select number of employees, who would assist with the training of the algorithms, view the private information of its users. The company claims 200 million users around the world. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Evernote backs off from privacy policy changes, says it ‘messed up’

Evernote has reversed proposed changes to its privacy policy that would allow employees to read user notes to help train machine learning algorithms.CEO Chris O’Neill said the company had “messed up, in no uncertain terms.”The move by the note-taking app follows protests from users, some of whom have threatened to drop the service after the company announced that its policy would change to improve its machine learning capabilities by letting a select number of employees, who would assist with the training of the algorithms, view the private information of its users. The company claims 200 million users around the world. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hacker allegedly stole logins from a US election agency

A Russian-speaking hacker has been found selling stolen login credentials for a U.S. agency that tests and certifies voting equipment, according to a security firm.The hacker was attempting to sell more than 100 allegedly compromised login credentials belonging to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the security firm Record Future said in a Thursday blog post. The company said it discovered online chatter about the breach on Dec. 1.Some of these credentials included the highest administrative privileges. With such access, an intruder could steal sensitive information from the commission, which the hacker claimed to have done, Recorded Future said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hacker allegedly stole logins from a US election agency

A Russian-speaking hacker has been found selling stolen login credentials for a U.S. agency that tests and certifies voting equipment, according to a security firm.The hacker was attempting to sell more than 100 allegedly compromised login credentials belonging to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the security firm Record Future said in a Thursday blog post. The company said it discovered online chatter about the breach on Dec. 1.Some of these credentials included the highest administrative privileges. With such access, an intruder could steal sensitive information from the commission, which the hacker claimed to have done, Recorded Future said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DNS and BIND demonstration using the Cloonix network emulator

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a fundamental Internet technology. Network emulators like Cloonix offer a way for researchers and students to experiment with the DNS protocol and with the various open-source implementations of DNS, such as BIND.

In this post, I will install Cloonix from the Github source code repository. I will run the Cloonix DNS demo script to create a simple DNS scenario and then run some experiments with DNS. Along the way, I will demonstrate some of the new Cloonix version 33 features.

Cloonix version 33

In this demonstration, I am using Cloonix version 33. I last used Cloonix when it was at version 29 and version 33 offers some significant changes and improvements. Compared to version 29, the major changes in version 33 are:

  • The Cloonix source code is now hosted on Github
  • The cloonix-ctrl commands have been renamed to cloonix-cli
  • The Cloonix lan object is now much simpler
  • Cloonix adds a simple GUI called cloonix_zor for managing Cloonix servers that have been started
  • The nat object replaces the cloonix slirp LAN
  • New demo scripts have been added. One of which, the DNS demo script, we will use in this demonstration

Using Cloonix version 33

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Introduction to StackStorm

Earlier I wrote about some fundamental principles that I believe apply to any form of automation, whether it’s network automation, or even building a virtual factory. One of the most important concepts in mature automation is autonomy; that is, a system that is more or less self-sufficent. Instead of relying on human beings for input, always try to provide that input with yet another automated piece of the system. There are several benefits to this approach:
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