Rant: American broadband, what’s wrong with you?

During a typical week, I attend five to 10 video calls, typically using Google Hangouts or Skype. Frequently, these calls are international. Video collaboration is preferable because the other participants’ expression and attentiveness can be observed and data or code can be shared. Except in the United States, where often the group of video callers turns off the video stream due to bandwidth limitations.The high quality of international video calls compared to choppy domestic video calls has me wavering between anger and the verge of total despair. I admit that my story and data are personal and anecdotal, but I don’t think I’m alone because I’ve had many people turn down offers to connect with a video call in favor of plain old telephone service (POTS) calls.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In terms of spam, Donald Trump is beating Hillary Clinton hands down

As the U.S. presidential election nears, Donald Trump is emerging as the clear winner -- at least when it comes to having his name used in spam messages.Spammers and cyber attackers are using Trump's name far more than Hillary Clinton's in emails pushing get rick quick schemes or phishing for personal information, according to an analysis from Proofpoint.The security firm scanned the subject line of emails received by its customers in June and July looking for occurrences of "trump" or "clinton," and found that the Republican nominee appeared in 169 times as many emails as his Democratic opponent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In terms of spam, Donald Trump is beating Hillary Clinton hands down

As the U.S. presidential election nears, Donald Trump is emerging as the clear winner -- at least when it comes to having his name used in spam messages.Spammers and cyber attackers are using Trump's name far more than Hillary Clinton's in emails pushing get rick quick schemes or phishing for personal information, according to an analysis from Proofpoint.The security firm scanned the subject line of emails received by its customers in June and July looking for occurrences of "trump" or "clinton," and found that the Republican nominee appeared in 169 times as many emails as his Democratic opponent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Midokura Release Gives a View Between Physical & Virtual

Users can also connect multiple clouds.

Use the internet? This Linux flaw could open you up to attack

A flaw in the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) used by Linux since late 2012 poses a serious threat to internet users, whether or not they use Linux directly.That's the key finding of a research study that's scheduled to be presented Wednesday at the USENIX Security Symposium in Austin, Texas.The TCP weakness, identified by researchers from the University of California at Riverside, enables attackers to hijack users’ internet communications completely remotely. It could be used to launch targeted attacks that track users’ online activity, forcibly terminate a communication, hijack a conversation between hosts or degrade the privacy guarantee of anonymity networks such as Tor, the researchers said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Use the internet? This Linux flaw could open you up to attack

A flaw in the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) used by Linux since late 2012 poses a serious threat to internet users, whether or not they use Linux directly.That's the key finding of a research study that's scheduled to be presented Wednesday at the USENIX Security Symposium in Austin, Texas.The TCP weakness, identified by researchers from the University of California at Riverside, enables attackers to hijack users’ internet communications completely remotely. It could be used to launch targeted attacks that track users’ online activity, forcibly terminate a communication, hijack a conversation between hosts or degrade the privacy guarantee of anonymity networks such as Tor, the researchers said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP pushes for AR at work with its Elite x3 phone and HoloLens

HP wants to add augmented reality to its Elite x3 smartphone, and it's looking at Microsoft's HoloLens as one way to do it.The Elite x3, which runs Windows 10 Mobile, was scheduled to ship last month starting at US$699.99 but has been delayed. HP believes the smartphone has the horsepower to be a PC in a pinch. It might also become an AR device that could be used in enterprises.Universal Windows applications made for the HoloLens AR headset will work on smartphones, and they could be used on the Elite x3, said Michael Park, vice president and general manager of mobility at HP.The Elite x3 won't do AR right out of the starting gate, but it will eventually, Park said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bugs & Bugs: DARPA, bug bounties & thousands of bees

Black Hat & Def Con provided plenty of fodder for our new installment of Bugs & Bugs, as seen in our Facebook Live stream on the latest news about computer bugs and real insects.Network World's Bob Brown and Tim Greene discussed, as you can see in the saved edition of the video below, new research that shows affluent communities tend to attract more different species of insects and other arthropods -- and that's a good thing. We also explored the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge that took place in Las Vegas on the eve of Def Con and resulted in a $2M first prize for the grand winner of this computer-on-computer Capture the Flag contest.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bugs & Bugs: DARPA, bug bounties & thousands of bees

Black Hat & Def Con provided plenty of fodder for our new installment of Bugs & Bugs, as seen in our Facebook Live stream on the latest news about computer bugs and real insects.Network World's Bob Brown and Tim Greene discussed, as you can see in the saved edition of the video below, new research that shows affluent communities tend to attract more different species of insects and other arthropods -- and that's a good thing. We also explored the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge that took place in Las Vegas on the eve of Def Con and resulted in a $2M first prize for the grand winner of this computer-on-computer Capture the Flag contest.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

8% to 20% off Multiple Fitbit Tracker Models – Deal Alert

Fitbit trackers come in various models and fitting each individuals fitness needs. Discounts are now being offered for many of these models.  Below are several of the models that are currently discounted on Amazon.Fitbit Flex—a slim, stylish device that tracks all-day activity like steps, distance, calories burned and active minutes. See how every day stacks up with LEDs that light up like a scoreboard as you get closer to your goal. Then wear it at night to measure your sleep quality and wake with a silent, vibrating alarm. Currently available on Amazon at the discounted price of $79.95To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Hacking wireless keyboards

You should be able to trust your wireless keyboard. And yet security researchers have been warning people to be suspicious of wireless computer accessories using sketchy radio protocols for years. Those warnings peaked five months ago, when hackers at the security firm Bastille found that millions of cheap keyboard and mouse dongles let hackers inject keystrokes onto your machine from hundreds of yards away. Now, in case you missed that message, the same researchers have extended their attack to millions more devices—and this time, they can not only inject keystrokes, but also read yours, too. —Wired

The post Worth Reading: Hacking wireless keyboards appeared first on 'net work.

A new $500,000 iOS bug bounty beats Apple’s offer

A security firm is offering up to US$500,000 for information on zero-day vulnerabilities in iOS, surpassing Apple's bug bounty just days after it was announced.On Tuesday, Texas-based Exodus Intelligence said it will give between $5,000 and $500,000 for zero-day vulnerabilities relating to iOS version 9.3 and higher. These zero-days are software flaws that have gone undetected by Apple, making them potentially very valuable, especially for cyber criminals who can use them to hack iPhones. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Aviat, Level 3 Will Use Cisco’s Tail-f for Network Services Orchestration

Cisco Tail-f network services orchestrator is attracting carrier deals.

Martin Casado: In the Developer Era, Startups Rule

Gone are the days of begging IT for a pencil.

3 Data Centers Form Core of Deutsche Telekom’s Pan-Euro Network

It's DT's version of a telco cloud.

Windows Secure Boot: Insecure by design and mostly likely can’t be fixed

Encryption backdoors don’t work; the latest proof of that was discovered by security researchers Slipstream and MY123. This time, the security flub-up involves “golden keys” which can unlock Windows devices allegedly protected by Secure Boot.The researchers sounded the alarm, saying Microsoft messed up and accidentally leaked the security key which is supposed to protect Windows devices from attackers as a box boots up. This same flaw could be used by the machine’s owner to jailbreak a locked box and run a different OS like Linux – anything really, so long as it is cryptographically signed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows Secure Boot: Insecure by design and mostly likely can’t be fixed

Encryption backdoors don’t work; the latest proof of that was discovered by security researchers Slipstream and MY123. This time, the security flub-up involves “golden keys” which can unlock Windows devices allegedly protected by Secure Boot.The researchers sounded the alarm, saying Microsoft messed up and accidentally leaked the security key which is supposed to protect Windows devices from attackers as a box boots up. This same flaw could be used by the machine’s owner to jailbreak a locked box and run a different OS like Linux – anything really, so long as it is cryptographically signed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Melding Hyperscale And HPC To Reach Exascale

It is going to take a lot of different things to build an exascale system. One of them is money, and the other is a lot of good – and perhaps unconventional – ideas. It may also take more cooperation between the hyperscale and HPC communities, who both stand to benefit from the innovation.

As a professor of computer architectures at the University of Manchester, the director of technology and systems at chip designer ARM, and the founder of a company called Kaleao to create microservers that implement many of his architectural ideas, John Goodacre has some strong opinions about …

Melding Hyperscale And HPC To Reach Exascale was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Raspberry Pi roundup: Keys to Pi foundry changing hands; Pi in the ocean, sky

One reason the Raspberry Pi’s runaway success has been a fun story to cover is that it’s very non-corporate – there’s relatively little branding silliness or careful PR stage management involved, and journalists like me instead get to write about an inventive little tool that is letting normal people around the world accomplish interesting and creative things.Yet the business side does, occasionally, rear its ugly head – late last month, U.S.-based electronics vendor Avnet purchased Premier Farnell, one of two licensed manufacturers of the Raspberry Pi, for about $900 million.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: How a 96-year-old company modernized its infrastructure by embracing innovation | Oracle says it didn’t ask employee to cook cloud accounts+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DC Fabric Segment Routing Use Case (3)

In the second post in this series, we considered the use of IGP-Prefix segments to carry a flow along a specific path in a data center fabric. Specifically, we looked at pulling the green flow in this diagram—

—along the path [A,F,G,D,E]. Let’s assume this single flow is an elephant flow that we’re trying to separate out from the rest of the traffic crossing the fabric. So—we’ve pulled the elephant flow onto its own path, but this still leaves other flows to simple ECMP forwarding through the fabric. This means some number of other flows are still going to follow the [A,F,G,D,E] path. The flows that are randomly selected (or selected by the ECMP has) to follow the same path as the elephant flow are still going to contend with the elephant flow for queue space, etc.

So we need more than just a way to pull an elephant flow onto a specific path. In fact, we also need a way to pull a specific set of flows off a particular path in the ECMP set. Returning to our diagram, assume we want all the traffic other than the elephant flow to be load shared between H and B, and Continue reading