dweet.io: A simple, effective messaging service for the Internet of Things

In my last post I discussed Freeboard, a powerful, polished, open source Web dashboard and mentioned that Bug Labs, the creators of Freeboard, also offer a very interesting Internet of Things messaging service called dweet which we’ll look at today.Now, there are many messaging services (for example MQTT) that can be used by IoT applications but few that are really simple and free as well; dweet is, indeed, simple and free though there is also an inexpensive enhanced level of dweet service we’ll get to later.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yes, we can validate the Wikileaks emails

Recently, WikiLeaks has released emails from Democrats. Many have repeatedly claimed that some of these emails are fake or have been modified, that there's no way to validate each and every one of them as being true. Actually, there is, using a mechanism called DKIM.

DKIM is a system designed to stop spam. It works by verifying the sender of the email. Moreover, as a side effect, it verifies that the email has not been altered.

Hillary's team uses "hillaryclinton.com", which as DKIM enabled. Thus, we can verify whether some of these emails are true.

Recently, in response to a leaked email suggesting Donna Brazile gave Hillary's team early access to debate questions, she defended herself by suggesting the email had been "doctored" or "falsified". That's not true. We can use DKIM to verify it.

You can see the email in question at the WikiLeaks site: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5205. The title suggests they have early access to debate questions, and includes one specifically on the death penalty, with the text:
since 1973, 156 people have been on death row and later set free. Since 1976, 1,414 people have been executed in the U.S

Deep Dive- Contrail Data Center Interconnect

In previous blog we discussed high level for  Juniper Contrail Data Center Interconnect and how to connect physical servers with servers deployed inside SDN environment. In this blog we will have deep dive for both scenarios. We will discuss in detail configuration options ,  control plane and data plane operations involved in both options:-

picture1

Following component are included in reference topology:-

  1. 1 x MX-5 will be configured as Data Center Edge Router
  2. Contrail Control Node
  3. Compute 51 (which has 1 x vRouter)
  4. Compute 52 (Which has 1 x vRouter)
  5. MP-iBGP will be configured by Contrail Control Node between itself and all vRouters.
  6. Contrail node will act as Route Reflector (RR) and all vRouter will act as client to RR.
  7. vRouter will establish GRE tunnel (for data plane forwarding) with all other vRouter .
  8. MX-5 (Data Center Edge Router) will also establish MP-iBGP  peer-ship with Contrail Control node and will establish GRE tunnel with all vRouters.

Now if we recall iBGP forwarding rules and co-relate to our environment:-

  1. All vRouter which are RR  clients will transmit routes only to RR.
  2. RR will receive the routes from any of the client and will transmit received routes to all clients (except the vRouter from where the Continue reading

U.S. indicts Russian for hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox, Formspring

The U.S. has charged a suspected Russian hacker with breaking into computers at LinkedIn, Dropbox and a question-and-answer site formerly known as Formspring.On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted 29-year-old Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin following his arrest by Czech police in Prague on Oct. 5.LinkedIn has said that Nikulin was involved in the 2012 breach of the company that stole details from over 167 million accounts. However, a U.S. court filing unsealed on Friday only gave limited details on Nikulin's alleged crimes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

U.S. indicts Russian for hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox, Formspring

The U.S. has charged a suspected Russian hacker with breaking into computers at LinkedIn, Dropbox and a question-and-answer site formerly known as Formspring.On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted 29-year-old Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin following his arrest by Czech police in Prague on Oct. 5.LinkedIn has said that Nikulin was involved in the 2012 breach of the company that stole details from over 167 million accounts. However, a U.S. court filing unsealed on Friday only gave limited details on Nikulin's alleged crimes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How the Dyn DDoS attack unfolded

Today's attacks that overwhelmed the internet-address lookup service provided by Dyn were well coordinated and carefully plotted to take down data centers all over the globe, preventing customers from reaching more than 1,200 domains Dyn was in charge of.The attacks were still going on at 7 p.m. Eastern time, according to ThousandEye, a network monitoring service.Dyn’s service takes human-language internet addresses such as www.networkworld.com and delivers the IP addresses associated with them so routers can direct the traffic to the right locations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How the Dyn DDoS attack unfolded

Today's attacks that overwhelmed the internet-address lookup service provided by Dyn were well coordinated and carefully plotted to take down data centers all over the globe, preventing customers from reaching more than 1,200 domains Dyn was in charge of.The attacks were still going on at 7 p.m. Eastern time, according to ThousandEye, a network monitoring service.Dyn’s service takes human-language internet addresses such as www.networkworld.com and delivers the IP addresses associated with them so routers can direct the traffic to the right locations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Some notes on today’s DNS DDoS

Some notes on today's DNS outages due to DDoS.

We lack details. As a techy, I want to know the composition of the traffic. Is it blindly overflowing incoming links with junk traffic? Or is it cleverly sending valid DNS requests, overloading the ability of servers to respond, and overflowing outgoing link (as responses are five times or more as big as requests). Such techy details and more make a big difference. Was Dyn the only target? Why were non-Dyn customers effected?

Nothing to do with the IANA handover. So this post blames Obama for handing control of DNS to the Russians, or some such. It's silly, and not a shred of truth to it. For the record, I'm (or was) a Republican and opposed handing over the IANA. But the handover was a symbolic transition of a minor clerical function to a body that isn't anything like the U.N. The handover has nothing to do with either Obama or today's DDoS. There's no reason to blame this on Obama, other than the general reason that he's to blame for everything bad that happened in the last 8 years.

It's not a practice attack. A Bruce Schneier post created Continue reading

An IoT botnet is partly behind Friday’s massive DDOS attack

Malware that can build botnets out of IoT devices is at least partly responsible for a massive distributed denial-of-service attack that disrupted U.S. internet traffic on Friday, according to network security companies.Since Friday morning, the assault has been disrupting access to popular websites by flooding a DNS service provider called Dyn with an overwhelming amount of internet traffic.Some of that traffic has been observed coming from botnets created with the Mirai malware that is estimated to have infected over 500,000 devices, according to Level 3 Communications, a provider of internet backbone services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

An IoT botnet is partly behind Friday’s massive DDOS attack

Malware that can build botnets out of IoT devices is at least partly responsible for a massive distributed denial-of-service attack that disrupted U.S. internet traffic on Friday, according to network security companies.Since Friday morning, the assault has been disrupting access to popular websites by flooding a DNS service provider called Dyn with an overwhelming amount of internet traffic.Some of that traffic has been observed coming from botnets created with the Mirai malware that is estimated to have infected over 500,000 devices, according to Level 3 Communications, a provider of internet backbone services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

An IoT botnet is partly behind Friday’s massive DDOS attack

Malware that can build botnets out of IoT devices is at least partly responsible for a massive distributed denial-of-service attack that disrupted U.S. internet traffic on Friday, according to network security companies.Since Friday morning, the assault has been disrupting access to popular websites by flooding a DNS service provider called Dyn with an overwhelming amount of internet traffic.Some of that traffic has been observed coming from botnets created with the Mirai malware that is estimated to have infected over 500,000 devices, according to Level 3 Communications, a provider of internet backbone services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Loggly aims to reveal what matters in log data  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  Logs are one of those things that a lot of people take for granted. Every software, device and application generates its own logs, and they are often overlooked until something happens and someone needs to dig into the logs to try to discover a root cause of the issue. Companies that treat logs in this way are missing out on an opportunity to improve their business.Logs have an interesting property that makes them quite valuable: they are the only common thread across a company's entire technology stack. It doesn't matter if it's network devices, security devices, operating systems or applications—all generate logs. Because of that, and with the proper tools, it's possible to look end-to-end in the infrastructure and the application stack using logs. The result is the ability to see what is happening from node to node, and from process to process.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Loggly aims to reveal what matters in log data  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  Logs are one of those things that a lot of people take for granted. Every software, device and application generates its own logs, and they are often overlooked until something happens and someone needs to dig into the logs to try to discover a root cause of the issue. Companies that treat logs in this way are missing out on an opportunity to improve their business.Logs have an interesting property that makes them quite valuable: they are the only common thread across a company's entire technology stack. It doesn't matter if it's network devices, security devices, operating systems or applications—all generate logs. Because of that, and with the proper tools, it's possible to look end-to-end in the infrastructure and the application stack using logs. The result is the ability to see what is happening from node to node, and from process to process.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Extensive DDoS attack against Dyn restarts, could indicate a new use of old criminal tech

Attacks against DNS service provider Dyn resumed today after a two and a half hour lull, and could indicate a new application of an old criminal technology, experts say.Dyn hasn’t shared details on the type of DDoS attacks used nor the size of those attacks that have affected access to sites including Amazon, Etsy, GitHub, Shopify, Twitter and the New York Times.+More on Network World: Gartner Top 10 strategic technology trends you should know for 2017To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Extensive DDoS attack against Dyn restarts, could indicate a new use of old criminal tech

Attacks against DNS service provider Dyn resumed today after a two and a half hour lull, and could indicate a new application of an old criminal technology, experts say.Dyn hasn’t shared details on the type of DDoS attacks used nor the size of those attacks that have affected access to sites including Amazon, Etsy, GitHub, Shopify, Twitter and the New York Times.+More on Network World: Gartner Top 10 strategic technology trends you should know for 2017To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPads and Apple TV aimed at transforming patient care

No one looks forward to a hospital stay, but the tech amenities at Jacobs Medical Center could make visits more comfortable for patients.With an iPad and Apple TV in every room, patients will be able to control room settings such as temperature, lighting and window shades. They can access games, log into their own social and entertainment apps, and control the TV. The iPad also provides access to a patient’s electronic medical records, including information such as medications, caregivers' names, diagnostic data, and upcoming lab work or medical procedures. RELATED: 14 go-to tools for Mac sysadmins | 25 CIO pay packages revealed | Tech jobs set for biggest raisesTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here