IRS security is failing taxpayers, senator says

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the Congress, and private electronic tax-filing vendors aren't doing enough to protect the personal information of taxpayers, senators said Tuesday.The IRS needs to step up its cyberecurity efforts, said members of the Senate Finance Committee, citing two recent data breaches at the agency, along with 94 open cybersecurity recommendations from the Government Accountability Office."Hackers and crooks, including many working for foreign crime syndicates, are jumping at every opportunity they have to steal hard-earned money and sensitive personal data from U.S. taxpayers," Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said during a hearing. "In my view, taxpayers have been failed by the agencies, the companies, and the policymakers here in Congress they rely on to protect them."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Startup analyzes behavior to stop malware threats

Startup Seceon has joined a growing number of firms focused on quickly analyzing behaviors on corporate networks to identify and prioritize threats that ought to be dealt with, cutting down on the manual work required to spot and stop attacks.In addition to identifying intrusions, the company’s Open Threat Management (OTM) platform can also automatically block suspect behaviors using scripts to other devices on the network.The company competes against a number of others including Damballa, LightCyber and Vectra as well as vendors with broader portfolios such as Carbon Black, Black Ensilo, Fireeye, Guidance, Promisec, Resolution1 Security, and Tanium.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Sisense wants to make every user a data scientist

Analytics seems to be like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow—hugely valuable but generally difficult (or impossible) to reach. It was always too hard, too slow, too expensive and too technical to be used on a widespread basis.Then things started to change. The rise of APIs meant that getting data into and out of core solutions became easier. The advent of cloud computing meant that standing up infrastructure on a short-term basis was easier, and a bunch of new approaches helped to make things far easier. One of the biggest proponents of this new way of driving analytics out to the business users is SAP, who is pushing hard for its HANA in-memory analytics service.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Startup analyzes behavior to stop malware threats

Startup Seceon has joined a growing number of firms focused on quickly analyzing behaviors on corporate networks to identify and prioritize threats that ought to be dealt with, cutting down on the manual work required to spot and stop attacks.In addition to identifying intrusions, the company’s Open Threat Management (OTM) platform can also automatically block suspect behaviors using scripts to other devices on the network.The company competes against a number of others including Damballa, LightCyber and Vectra as well as vendors with broader portfolios such as Carbon Black, Black Ensilo, Fireeye, Guidance, Promisec, Resolution1 Security, and Tanium.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The HTC 10 campaigns for the title best smartphone of 2016

HTC announced the HTC 10 premium smartphone today—its entry into the extreme competition for best smartphone on the planet. The device belongs to a category that makes no compromises in exterior presentation and interior performance. Trade-offs are a luxury enjoyed by makers of commodity smartphone models that pragmatic consumers buy.HTC earned its reputation by designing exquisite phones that others in the industry, including Apple, had to follow and sometimes copy. Most notably the iPhone 6 and 6s product lines look like HTC designs. Powered by a Qualcomm 820 SoC, the HTC 10 will be one of the fastest phones available. However, raw speed is its least-important feature because almost every smartphone is fast, to such an extent that the performance increase of the newest phones compared to last year’s is barely perceptible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sponsored Post: TechSummit, Netflix, Aerospike, TrueSight Pulse, Redis Labs, InMemory.Net, VividCortex, MemSQL, Scalyr, AiScaler, AppDynamics, ManageEngine, Site24x7

Who's Hiring?

  • 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 which 3rd party vendors fail to provide.  Expert on both systems and web-scale application stack performance optimization. Find details on the position here https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/860482

  • Software Engineer (DevOps). You are one of those rare engineers who loves to tinker with distributed systems at high scale. You know how to build these from scratch, and how to take a system that has reached a scalability limit and break through that barrier to new heights. You are a hands on doer, a code doctor, who loves to get something done the right way. You love designing clean APIs, data models, code structures and system architectures, but retain the humility to learn from others who see things differently. Apply to AppDynamics

  • Software Engineer (C++). You will be responsible for building Continue reading

The Gig Economy Breaks Social Security

With the tax deadline looming in the US and the future of the gig economy as the engine of scaling startup workforces under fire, there's an important point to consider: In the gig economy the entire social contract is kaput. Here's why.

Everyone who works in the US pays into the Social Security system. The whole idea of Social Security is young people pay in and old people take out.

When you are an employee Social Security taxes are taken directly out of your paycheck. You don't even have to think about it.

When you work in the gig economy you get a 1099-MISC at the end of the year. A 1099 reports payments made by the hiring company during the year and it's sent by the hiring company both to the worker and the IRS.

It's up to the worker to identify their income on their tax return as self employment income, which is subject to a Social Security tax of 15.3%. Most gig workers probably won't declare this income because a lot of them don't even know they are supposed to. My wife, Linda Coleman, a respected Enrolled Agent, says from people she has talked to Continue reading

Docker Container Network Types

Docker provides similar network connection options as general virtualization solutions such as VMware products, Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, VirtualBox, etc. However, Docker takes a slightly different approach with its network drivers, confusing new users which are familiar with general terms used by other virtualization products. The following table matches general terms with Docker network drivers you can use to achieve the same type of connectivity for your container.

General Virtualization Term Docker Network Driver
NAT Network bridge
Bridged macvlan, ipvlan (experimental since Docker 1.11)
Private / Host-only bridge
Overlay Network / VXLAN overlay

Most Powerful (Whatever) From A to Z

At least according to Google Chrome AutocompleteHaving long found Google Chrome’s Autocomplete feature useful, the thought was to have a little fun by combining its predictive capabilities with journalism’s “Most Powerful (Whatever)” list format by typing into the search box “Most powerful a” … “Most powerful b” … and on through the alphabet to “Most powerful z.” The results, primarily a byproduct of the public’s frequency of searching on those terms, are a mixture of what you might expect and some real head-scratchers. (Note: The slide images were created by one of our designers using a newly downloaded version of Chrome, so your mileage may vary.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IPv6 and the Internet of Things

It has often been claimed that IPv6 and the Internet of Things are strongly aligned, to the extent that claims are made they mutually dependant. Each needs the other. However, the evidence we have so far with small self-managed device deployments does not provide a compelling justification of this case. The question here is: Does the Internet of Things require IPv6 as an essential precondition, or are we going to continue to deploy an ever expanding population of micro devices within today’s framework of ever increasing address sharing on IPv4?

IS-IS LiveLesson Publishing Soon

is-is-livelessonWhile the IS-IS book is still useful, it is getting on a little in age, and some people find learning through video to be more helpful. I’ve recorded seven hours of video on IS-IS in the form of a LiveLesson with Cisco Press. They should be available on the 18th of April (just a few days from now), and apparently they’re already available as a sneak peek.

Thanks to Brett (who runs, and has run, all my projects at Cisco Press and Addison-Wesley), Pete (who patiently recorded my many fumbles), and Chris Cleveland, who has been my steadfast editor for all things Cisco Press and Addison-Wesley for some fifteen years now), for making this happen. This is the first, I think, of a number of new video projects I have on tap, so watch this space.

And no, I’m not going to stop writing books (just a gentle reminder).

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Google cloud to OpenStack users: Come on in!

Open source cloud computing platform OpenStack has a new semi-annual version of its code out this month and one symbolically important aspect is a deepened partnership with Google’s public cloud.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Status check on OpenStack: The open source cloud has arrived | Why Google hasn’t taken off in the cloud yet +In a blog post, Google announced that the Mitaka release of OpenStack includes a native option to backup OpenStack Cinder storage volumes to its public cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lasers!

Cool! You mean that I actually have frickin' switches with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' ports?

Dr. Evil is right, lasers are cool! The draft sFlow Optical Interface Structures specification exports metrics gathered from instrumentation built into Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) and Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable (QSFP) optics modules. This article provides some background on optical modules and discusses the value of including optical metrics in the sFlow telemetry stream exported from switches and hosts.
Pluggable optical modules are intelligent devices that do more than simply convert between optical and electrical signals. The functional diagram below shows the elements within a pluggable optical module.
The transmit and receive functions are shown in the upper half of the diagram. Incoming optical signals are received on a fiber and amplified as they are converted to electrical signals that can be handled by the switch. Transmit data drives the modulation of a laser diode which transmits the optical signal down a fiber.

The bottom half of the diagram shows the management components. Power, voltage and temperature sensors are monitored and the results are written into registers in an EEPROM that are accessible via a management interface.

The proposed sFlow extension standardizes Continue reading

In-ear earphones get the Bluetooth treatment

Up-front disclaimer: I have several issues with earbuds, aka “in-ear earphones” – those things that you stick inside (or just on the outside of) your ear when you want to listen to music. For the most part, people experience earbuds when they buy their first smartphone or music player, and many don’t realize that you can graduate to less sucky devices to hear your music better. The first big issue for me – comfort. Put these in your ears for any length of time longer than two minutes, and the outside of your ear starts to get sore. Next comes fit – most of the time the earbuds won’t fit correctly and will slip off, forcing you to jam the earbud further inside your ear canal, which can’t be a good thing for comfort or the health of the ear. Third – with some people there’s a bunch of gunk both inside and outside their ears, and these things tend to get grimy pretty quickly (there’s a reason why earbud companies never ask me to return their review samples).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Seceon’s analytic approach brings security into the digital era

In the Star Trek episode, The City on The Edge of Forever, Spock found himself in a primitive setting with the task of building a radio to contact the Enterprise.Edith Keeler came in and saw Spock and asked him what he was doing. Spock sarcastically answered, “I am endeavoring, ma’am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bearskins.”The normally emotionless Spock was clearly frustrated with working with tools that weren’t designed to solve the problem he was facing. I’m sure security professionals today face the same level of frustration. It’s been well documented on this site and other publications that we are rushing headlong into the digital business era. However, security professionals are working with tools designed for an era long gone. Traditional security devices do a great job of protecting the perimeter of the business, but they don’t help protect against insider attacks, persistent threats or any of the challenges associated with security a digital organization.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to create enterprise apps employees want to use

Mobile apps have become a cornerstone in the enterprise as a way to connect business leaders, clients and employees. A major contributing factor to this shift, according to Adam Fingerman, cofounder and chief experience officer of ArcTouch Mobile & Connected Experiences is our reliance on our mobile devices; there's even a name for this phenomenon, "nomophobia." This reliance on technology has fundamentally affected businesses that have adopted a "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude about mobile devices. But a problem arises when a business thinks it can just create an app and expect employees to use it. People are accustomed to using apps that are finely tailored to their user experience, easy to use and fun. Business apps should be no exception -- if you want them adopted by your staff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 interview questions to ask remote workers

Interview questions to ask remote workersImage by PexelsInterviewing remote workers is much different than hiring for a traditional, on-site position. In addition to the usual questions about knowledge, hard skills and experience, interviewing candidates for a remote position must take into account commitment, communication skills, conflict resolution, motivation and technology prowess. "There are some differences to look for when you're hiring remote workers. You need to emphasize constant communication, availability and collaboration skills, as well as the ability to work independently, to solve problems and resolve conflicts and be able to gauge productivity," says Madhav Bhandari, head of growth at cloud productivity management and time tracking software company Hubstaff. Here are 10 interview questions for remote workers that will help you find the perfect fit.1. What's your remote work experience?Image by PexelsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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