How to Get Better Browsing

I have two topics that will make your browsing more pleasurable. The first is a solution for the few remaining sites that block pasting into form fields and or copying text and graphics. While some sites do this to prevent having their content used in any way that the owner might not approve of, others, such as H&R Block, do it because they think blocking the ability to paste clipboard content into form fields is a security issue (it isn’t). This blocking is particularly annoying when it interferes with a password manager. The whole point of employing a password manager is to make it easy to use strong passwords so making users retype long, complex strings is beyond annoying. My favorite password manager, LastPass, isn’t affected by this but others may have problems with sites that attempt to block pasting. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fabricpath Cheat Sheet Released

Fabricpath Cheat Sheet Released

After spending 4 weeks of rereading the Cisco doc I manage to extract this information and put all the pieces together and come up with this cheat sheet, trust me it's not easy at all. Especially when you should follow certain rules for elements such as color, spacing, font and the explanation.

The source of content goes to mostly Cisco Live & Cisco Validated Designs, but offcoruse it's just an extract of those information.

Please feel free to share your idea, I'm always looking to improve this if I find any other material to add here.

Click here to download Fabricpath Cheat Sheet

GENERAL – HOW TO BUILD A NETWORK PT.3

In the previous posts I talked about why it’s important to build a network and how you can do it but there is still one component missing. Any guesses?

How do we maintain our network once we have built it?

Stay In Touch

You spent all this time and put effort into building a network. Are you going to let this effort go to waste? I hope not. It’s important to stay in touch every now and then and check in how your friends are doing. This could be by sending an e-mail, a text message, just giving them a call or going for a lunch. Don’t contact them only when you need their assistance. Don’t be a leach. Show that you appreciate them and the help you have received from them in the past.

Return The Favor

One of your contacts helped you with a technology or troubleshooting an issue which helped you move forward in a project. The next time they may require assistance from you. When this time comes, maybe you are very busy at work. Do you simply turn them down? I hope not and if you do don’t expect any help the next time you Continue reading

SDxCentral Weekly News Roundup — April 29, 2016

VMware's head of public cloud efforts is leaving the company.

Installing Ansible 2.x in a Python Virtualenv on OS X

In this post, I’m going to walk you through the steps to install Ansible 2.x into a Python virtual environment (virtualenv) on OS X. There’s nothing terribly hard or unusual about this process, but I wanted to document it here for folks who might be new to the process (or who might be interested in why using this approach could be beneficial).

I’m stumbled into this process because I had been using Ansible 1.9.x and wanted to upgrade to Ansible 2.x so that I could use some of the new OpenStack-related modules. (These are modules that allow you to manipulate OpenStack-based resources, like instances or networks, using Ansible playbooks, and they were introduced with the release of Ansible 2.x.) The new modules had some additional Python dependencies, and installing these Python dependencies on OS X can be challenging at times (due to System Integrity Protection [SIP]). For example, installing the shade module on my OS X El Capitan system ran afoul of SIP.

The answer is to use Python virtual environments (aka “virtualenvs”). Virtualenvs provide a mechanism whereby you can isolate Python dependencies between different Python-based projects. You create a Python virtualenv, then Continue reading

Lizard Squad Ransom Threats: New Name, Same Faux Armada Collective M.O.

CloudFlare recently wrote about the group of cyber criminals claiming to be be the "Armada Collective." In that article, we stressed that this group had not followed through on any of the ransom threats they had made. Quite simply, this copycat group of cyber criminals had not actually carried out a single DDoS attack—they were only trying to make easy money through fear by using the name of the original “Armada Collective” group from late 2015.

Since we published that article earlier this week, this copycat group claiming to be "Armada Collective" has stopped sending ransom threats to website owners. Extorting companies proves to be challenging when the group’s email actively encourages target companies to the search for the phrase “Armada Collective” on Google. The first search result for this phrase now returns CloudFlare’s article outing this group as a fraud.

Beginning late Thursday evening (Pacific Standard Time) several CloudFlare customers began to receive threatening emails from a "new" group calling itself the “Lizard Squad”. These emails have a similar modus operandi to the previous ransom emails. This group was threatening DDoS attacks unless a ransom amount was paid to a Bitcoin address before a deadline. Based on discussions Continue reading

New Microsoft beta lets workers build their own apps without coding

Employees that need access to certain business data on the go can now build their own app for it using a tool from Microsoft that went into public beta on Friday.The company has announced that it's opening up its PowerApps app creation service to the world, after a private beta period that began last year. PowerApps allows line of business employees to take data from a variety of sources and create apps that run on phones and tablets without requiring them to do any coding. Developers' time is often constrained, so doing something like creating a mobile expense reporting app might not be a top priority, even if it would save time and money. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 7 may immediately be followed by the iPhone 8

Even though Apple last quarter generated $50.6 billion in revenue and $10.5 billion in profits last quarter (more than Google, Microsoft and Facebook combined), analysts came away disappointed. Specifically, analysts expressed concern regarding falling iPhone sales. In fact, this quarter marked the first time in history that Apple experienced a year over year drop in iPhone sales.For the quarter gone by, Apple sold 51.1 million iPhones compared to 61.7 million iPhones during the same quarter a year-ago. With many now worried that we've perhaps reached 'peak iPhone', Apple is now feeling a lot of pressure to really deliver with the iPhone 7. Further, because 'S' cycle refreshes typically focus on internal upgrades and thus don't generate as much excitement, Barclays analyst Mark Moskowitz believes that Apple might do away with the iPhone 7s altogether. Instead, the iPhone 7 may swiftly be followed by the iPhone 8 in 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware NSX & Cisco ACI Aren’t Mutually Exclusive

It depends on the ratio of physical to virtual in the network.

25% off Petcube Interactive Wi-Fi Pet Camera – Deal Alert

Petcube is an interactive pet camera that lets you watch, talk to and play with your pets from your smartphone when you’re away from home. Access and control the Petcube Camera through our mobile app for iOS or Android and check on the live HD broadcastTo activate a real laser toy on the camera, drag your finger across your phone screen or simply point to the area you would like the laser to go.Engage and join the conversation with thousands of pet lovers across the globe. Share your photos & videos, tips and experiences with fellow pet lovers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HPE Won’t Ignore Open Source NFV MANO

HPE has all the pieces, but carriers want open source.

Save $800 on Samsung UN60JS7000 60-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV – Deal Alert

With a regular list price of $2,099, this 38% off deal puts the JS7000 at just $1,297.99. Enjoy an exceptional home theater experience with the Samsung JS7000 60-Inch 4K SUHD Smart TV. The Samsung JS7000 features 4K UHD resolution (3840 x 2160) and Nano-crystal technology for vivid colors, enhanced contrast, and a brighter, more true-to-life picture. The JS7000 Smart TV absorbs ambient light and reduces reflections to minimize glare for a great picture from any angle. With Smart TV and Smart View 2.0, you can easily access and play your favorite content and watch TV on your mobile device. A quad-core processor lets you quickly switch between apps, streaming content, and other media. And with ConnectShare Movie, you can watch videos, play music, and view photos via a USB connection. See the Samsung JS7000 now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM Debuts General-Purpose Flash Arrays

Worth Reading: A Systematic Analysis of the Juniper Dual EC Incident

In December 2015, Juniper Networks announced that unknown attackers had added unauthorized code to ScreenOS, the operating system for their NetScreen VPN routers. This code created two vulnerabilities: an authentication bypass that enabled remote administrative access, and a second vulnerability that allowed passive decryption of VPN traffic. Reverse engineering of ScreenOS binaries revealed that the first of these vulnerabilities was a conventional back door in the SSH password checker.

The post Worth Reading: A Systematic Analysis of the Juniper Dual EC Incident appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: A Systematic Analysis of the Juniper Dual EC Incident

In December 2015, Juniper Networks announced that unknown attackers had added unauthorized code to ScreenOS, the operating system for their NetScreen VPN routers. This code created two vulnerabilities: an authentication bypass that enabled remote administrative access, and a second vulnerability that allowed passive decryption of VPN traffic. Reverse engineering of ScreenOS binaries revealed that the first of these vulnerabilities was a conventional back door in the SSH password checker.

The post Worth Reading: A Systematic Analysis of the Juniper Dual EC Incident appeared first on 'net work.

Intel ready to exit smartphone and tablet markets

Intel could be on the verge of exiting the market for smartphones and standalone tablets, wasting billions of dollars it spent trying to expand in those markets.The company is immediately canceling Atom chips, code-named Sofia and Broxton, for mobile devices, an Intel spokeswoman confirmed.These are the first products on the chopping block as part of Intel's plan to reshape operations after announcing plans this month to cut 12,000 jobs.The news of the chip cuts was first reported by analyst Patrick Moorhead in an article on Forbes' website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Weasel pops Large Hadron Collider

In a battle between a rodent and a 17-mile-long superconducting machine designed to smash protons, one might expect the rodent to fare poorly. And in this case, it did, though not without the little guy doing some damage of its own.From a BBC report: The Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at Cern is offline after a short circuit - caused by a weasel.The unfortunate creature did not survive the encounter with a high-voltage transformer at the site near Geneva in Switzerland.The LHC was running when a "severe electrical perturbation" occurred in the early hours of Friday morning.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Weasel pops Large Hadron Collider

In a battle between a rodent and a 17-mile-long superconducting machine designed to smash protons, one might expect the rodent to fare poorly. And in this case, it did, though not without the little guy doing some damage of its own.From a BBC report: The Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at Cern is offline after a short circuit - caused by a weasel.The unfortunate creature did not survive the encounter with a high-voltage transformer at the site near Geneva in Switzerland.The LHC was running when a "severe electrical perturbation" occurred in the early hours of Friday morning.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network Performance Monitoring is dead

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.Step back and imagine the world of technology 10 years ago. YouTube was in its infancy, the iPhone was more than a year away from release, Blackberry was the smartest phone on the market and Twitter was barely making a peep.While the masses are now glued to their iPhones watching cat videos and pontificating 140 characters at a time, the backend infrastructure that supports all of that watching and tweeting—not to mention electronic health records, industrial sensors, e-commerce, and a myriad of other serious activities—has also undergone a massive evolution. Unfortunately, the tools tasked with monitoring and managing the performance, availability, and security of those infrastructures have not kept up with the scale of data or with the speed at which insight is required today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here