Supreme Court approves rule change that expands FBI computer search powers

The Supreme Court has adopted amendments to a rule to give judges the authority to issue warrants to remotely search computers whose locations are concealed using technology.The proposed move had been criticized by civil rights groups and companies like Google that said it threatened to undermine the privacy rights and computer security of Internet users.The top court has approved changes to the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure , including Rule 41, which with some exceptions prohibits a federal judge from issuing a search warrant outside of the judge’s district. The change in the rule was proposed by the Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure at the request of the Department of Justice .To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HELLO, WORLD

Welcome to Cloud Packet! I’m Shakib Shaygan, a full-time blogger and network engineer who has been designing and building networks for over 6 years now. I recently completed the CCIE lab to earn CCIE #46559 (Routing and Switching & Data Center), besides that I have some knowledge of open source and other networking product such as Juniper & Brocade.

As for a bit of background, I’ve worked as a normal IT Support, help desk, and currently as a network researcher, focusing on SDN for Telco. Currently I’m looking forward to doing some research, learning, and writing on a variety of networking-oriented topics. Look for a series of posts related to the CCIE Data Center experience as well as any other interesting topic which I encounter.

One of the reasons that I start this blog was to have a base that I can share my notes, as usually I write down everything that I learn because we are human and we will forget most of them for sure.

Ebbinghaus Forgetting curve

Information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it. That's almost same condition with every human which follow simple rules, the more you repeat this Continue reading

HELLO, WORLD

Welcome to Cloud Packet! I’m Shakib Shaygan, a full-time blogger and network engineer who has been designing and building networks for over 6 years now. I recently completed the CCIE lab to earn CCIE #46559 (Routing and Switching & Data Center), besides that I have some knowledge of open source and other networking product such as Juniper & Brocade.

As for a bit of background, I’ve worked as a normal IT Support, help desk, and currently as a network researcher, focusing on SDN for Telco. Currently I’m looking forward to doing some research, learning, and writing on a variety of networking-oriented topics. Look for a series of posts related to the CCIE Data Center experience as well as any other interesting topic which I encounter.

One of the reasons that I start this blog was to have a base that I can share my notes, as usually I write down everything that I learn because we are human and we will forget most of them for sure.

Ebbinghaus Forgetting curve

Information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it. That's almost same condition with every human which follow simple rules, the more you repeat this Continue reading

Massive growth shows why Amazon is the public cloud leader

Amazon showed off its dominance in the public cloud market on Thursday as the capstone to a better than expected quarterly earnings report.Revenue from Amazon Web Services during the first quarter of 2016 was up 64 percent year-over-year, showing the big money that's still out there as companies invest more and more in the public cloud. Amazon's cloud platform generated revenue of $2.56 billion, putting it on pace to make $10 billion this year, in line with a letter from CEO Jeff Bezos sent to shareholders earlier this month. That's big money to go with Amazon's massive customer base, which includes names like Netflix, Time Inc., and Intuit. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung’s Tizen 3.0 to take on Android and iOS starting in September

Many alternative mobile operating systems like Firefox have fallen by the wayside while Android and iOS continue to dominate, but Samsung's Tizen has survived.After years of inactivity, Tizen is now back on the map with a major OS upgrade. A new version of the OS -- Tizen 3.0 -- was announced this week at the Samsung Developers Conference in San Francisco.Tizen 3.0 is a big technological upgrade that should make it compatible with some of the latest smartphones and tablets. Other improvements prime the OS for installation in smart appliances, wearables, in-car entertainment systems, drones, TVs, and virtual reality headsets.Tizen 3.0 will be a 64-bit capable OS, like iOS and Android. It will work on devices with some of the latest 64-bit ARM and x86 processors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Running docker containers with native L2 networking & DHCP

A container normally comes up on the docker0 bridge with an IP from the static docker pool. This can be configured by editing docker options and restarting docker engine.
License: CC from Docker Blog / Dave Tucker

There are cases where a container needs to come up on a pre-existing bridge or a user defined bridge. This can be achieved by giving the --net option during docker run or configuring docker daemon options pre to docker engine boot. Creating an image with dhclient installed in it & programmed to start automatically is one way of doing l2-dhcp from the physical network infrastructure. There are other ways of doing this - macvlan, ipvlan or manually plugging in a veth pair between the docker container namespace and the host network stack. I will describe the former method here. macvlan and veth pair addition methods are described here [Cr1].

Step 1: Build a docker image with the required set of tools. An example is given below. This installs dhclient, netutils and iputils along with running sshd. User root’s password is set to centos using the start.sh script. Dockerfile & script source attributed to maxamillion (github link)

Dockerfile
 FROM centos:latest  
MAINTAINER Continue reading

With some advanced preparation, you can survive a ransomware attack  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  You know it's bad when a cyber crime wave makes victims out of U.S. police departments. Law enforcement agencies in at least seven states have been blackmailed by cyber attackers using ransomware. Data on departmental computers has been encrypted by malware and held hostage, with the demand that a ransom be paid in bitcoins. Unaccustomed to giving in to criminals, many of the agencies refused to pay and subsequently lost access to their information forever.Cyber criminals also have been targeting U.S. hospitals. In one high profile case, a California hospital lost access to its critical patient records for a week until a ransom worth about $17,000 was paid. Experts estimate this particular facility was losing as much as $100,000 a day in just one department because it wasn't able to perform CT scans without access to its data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

With some advanced preparation, you can survive a ransomware attack  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  You know it's bad when a cyber crime wave makes victims out of U.S. police departments. Law enforcement agencies in at least seven states have been blackmailed by cyber attackers using ransomware. Data on departmental computers has been encrypted by malware and held hostage, with the demand that a ransom be paid in bitcoins. Unaccustomed to giving in to criminals, many of the agencies refused to pay and subsequently lost access to their information forever.Cyber criminals also have been targeting U.S. hospitals. In one high profile case, a California hospital lost access to its critical patient records for a week until a ransom worth about $17,000 was paid. Experts estimate this particular facility was losing as much as $100,000 a day in just one department because it wasn't able to perform CT scans without access to its data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OneNote gets easy video embedding and many more new features

Microsoft has announced a veritable bonanza of new features for its OneNote note-taking software across multiple platforms, providing added functionality for people who rely on it to organize their thoughts. First and foremost, Microsoft made it easier to save online videos for later use inside OneNote. Users can now add a link to one of a handful of popular video services inside OneNote for Windows 10, Mac, and iOS, and Microsoft's software will automatically embed the linked video into the notebook for easy playback later. Users of Microsoft's note-taking software on the iPad can now rearrange audio recordings, images, text, shapes, and any other item on a page by touching and dragging them. To help with that, Microsoft added a lasso tool so that users can select groups of objects and move them around as one unit. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CIA: Learn how to make invisible ink, photos – from 1918

The CIA unearths some pretty interesting materials and this week it was touting the oldest once-classified documents in is collection. The mostly cryptic documents, from 1917 and 1918 describe secret writing techniques are believed to be the only remaining classified documents from the World War I era. Any documents describing secret writing fall under the CIA’s purview to declassify, the agency noted. +More on Network World: The hot art in the CIA’s cool art collection+  The CIA website noted that one file outlines the chemicals and techniques necessary for developing certain types of secret writing ink and a method for opening sealed letters without detection. Another communication dated June 14, 1918 – written in French – discloses the formula the German’s used to produce invisible ink.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CIA: Learn how to make invisible ink, photos – from 1918

The CIA unearths some pretty interesting materials and this week it was touting the oldest once-classified documents in is collection. The mostly cryptic documents, from 1917 and 1918 describe secret writing techniques are believed to be the only remaining classified documents from the World War I era. Any documents describing secret writing fall under the CIA’s purview to declassify, the agency noted. +More on Network World: The hot art in the CIA’s cool art collection+  The CIA website noted that one file outlines the chemicals and techniques necessary for developing certain types of secret writing ink and a method for opening sealed letters without detection. Another communication dated June 14, 1918 – written in French – discloses the formula the German’s used to produce invisible ink.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

As tablet sales take a dive, analysts expect smartphone vendors to launch convertibles

The traditional tablet may not be dying, but it’s increasingly being relegated to the low end of the market, according to an IDC report released Thursday. Users are migrating toward convertibles instead, and the vendors are following.IDC said worldwide tablet sales fell 14.7 percent to just 39.6 million units during the first quarter of 2016. Excluding some seasonal holiday upticks, tablet sales have generally declined from their all-time high in the fourth quarter of 2013, when worldwide sales reached 78.6 million units. IDC analyst Jitesh Ubrani said traditional slate tablets still dominate the market with 87.6 percent of all units sold. Increasingly, though, they’ve become “synonymous with the low end of the market,” IDC said in its report. The firm said it believes the market for iPads will continue, but only as replacements, not as new customers purchasing an iPad for the first time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

25% off Logitech MX Anywhere 2 Wireless Mobile Mouse – Deal Alert

The MX Anywhere 2 from Logitech is designed to track accurately on virtually any surface you need it to -- from your desk, to an airplane seat, to even a piece of glass. Easy-Switch technology allows you to pair up to three Windows or Mac devices at the same time, and switch between them with the touch of the button. The sculpted shape supports your hand and is designed to feel comfortable for hours on end.  And the MX 2 Anywhere charges quickly. A one-minute charge gets you an hour, and a full charge can last up to two months depending on usage. Over 300 reviewers give this unit an average of 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews), and with the 25% discount you can buy it now for $59.99. Learn more about the Logitech MX Anywhere 2 on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here