Reaction: More Encryption is Bad?

This week I was peacefully reading the March 9th issue of ACM Queue when I received a bit of a surprise. It seems someone actually buys the “blame the victim” game, arguing that governments are going to break all encryption if we don’t give them what they want.

These ideas are all based on the same principle: If we cannot break the crypto for a specific criminal on demand, we will preemptively break it for everybody. And whatever you may feel about politicians, they do have the legitimacy and power to do so. They have the constitutions, legislative powers, courts of law, and police forces to make this happen. The IT and networking communities overlooked a wise saying from soldiers and police officers: “Make sure the other side has an easier way out than destroying you.” But we didn’t, and they are.

reaction-3If you don’t get the point, it’s simple: the only way to really have secure communications is to give the government the keys. Once again, my inner philosopher threw up (as I recently said on a Network Break podcast). The reason I find the line of argument above so horrifying is simple: it’s just true enough to Continue reading

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Who's Hiring?

  • The zanox Group are looking for a Senior Architect. We're looking for someone smart and pragmatic to help our engineering teams build fast, scalable and reliable solutions for our industry leading affiliate marketing platform. The role will involve a healthy mixture of strategic thinking and hands-on work - there are no ivory towers here! Our stack is diverse and interesting. You can apply for the role in either London or Berlin.

  • Swrve -- In November we closed a $30m funding round, and we’re now expanding our engineering team based in Dublin (Ireland). Our mobile marketing platform is powered by 8bn+ events a day, processed in real time. We’re hiring intermediate and senior backend software developers to join the existing team of thirty engineers. Sound like fun? Come join us.

  • Senior Service Reliability Engineer (SRE): Drive improvements to help reduce both time-to-detect and time-to-resolve while concurrently improving availability through service team engagement.  Ability to analyze and triage production issues on a web-scale system a plus. Find details on the position here: https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/434

  • Manager - Performance Engineering: Lead the world-class performance team in charge of both optimizing the Netflix cloud stack and developing the performance observability capabilities Continue reading

Alcatel Lucent Enterprise brings pay per use to the network

It seems like we can buy almost anything as a service today. Servers, storage, applications and collaboration can all be purchased using an “as a service” model. Recently Sprint introduced both Workplace and Mobility as a service to add to the growing portfolio of consumption-based products. In our consumer lives the Amazon button turns consumer goods into a service. The one piece of technology that’s still difficult to buy as a service is the network.Earlier this month, I authored this post discussing how the network needs to evolve into this kind of model.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

orhanergun.net New Design – New Price !

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Ransomware attacks on U.S. companies blamed on state-sponsored Chinese hackers

So what do Chinese government-supported hackers turn to after China backed off on supporting economic espionage? Applying their APT skills to infecting companies with ransomware…at least that is the prevailing theory put forth by several security firms.If China really did pull its previous level of support for economic espionage after its agreement with the US late last year, then those same hackers may be supplementing their income by joining the booming business of ransomware.Security firms involved in investigating ransomware attacks that have not previously been made public told Reuters that Chinese hackers are the most likely suspects behind the attacks. It should be noted that none of the security companies could be positive that plain-old cybercrooks weren’t behind the attacks after upping their game, improving skills and purchasing tools previously used only by governments. At least a half dozen ransomware attacks in the last three months have a level of sophistication that is usually only used in state-sponsored attacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SWSX highlights bright and dark tech futures

Visions of the future clashed during South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive in Austin, as some experts saw an uncertain future, some saw an unbounded future and some were frustrated by the present.As for uncertainty, the worlds of big data, AI, and government are just beginning to collide, and public policy decisions made now will cast shadows far into the future, panelists agreed at a session titled, "Data Ethics in the Age of the Quantified Society.""We are at an inflection point," said Nicole Wong, former White House policy advisor. "We are paving the roads for what the future will look like. Will it be a dystopian world like The Hunger Games, or a different world, with health care for millions, precision medicine and equitable distribution of benefits? But how do we build the underlying roads?"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to get started in IT security consulting

IT security consulting is an excellent way to grow as a security professional. In contrast to an corporate role, consultants are exposed to a variety of business situations and industries. Those who succeed in the consulting world find themselves equipped with greater skills and cutting-edge knowledge of new technologies.Before you enter consulting, take note of the field’s current opportunities and challenges. “Migrating security services to the cloud, incident response, forensics and security risk assessments are areas in high demand,” comments Brian Honan, founder of BH Consulting. The Ireland-based IT security consulting firm has grown to 10 consultants and serves clients in Ireland, Europe, the United Kingdom and the US.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

How to respond to ransomware threats

Don't jumpImage by ThinkStockRansomware is obviously analogous to kidnapping, and dealing with the perpetrators can feel much like negotiating with a jumper standing on the edge of high-rise roof. The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology recently released a report that in part describes how to deal with criminals when they are holding your data hostage. The report talks of what to do once a breach has been found.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here