Western Digital self-encrypting external hard disk drives have flaws that can expose data

The hardware-based encryption built into popular Western Digital external hard disk drives has flaws that could allow attackers to recover data without knowing the user password.A team of three security researchers investigated how the self-encryption feature was implemented in several popular Western Digital My Passport and My Book models. Depending on the type of microchip used for the encryption operation, they found design flaws and backdoor-like features that enable brute-force password guessing attacks or even decryption of the data without knowing the password.In some cases they found that the encryption is performed by the chip that bridges the USB and SATA interfaces. In other cases the encryption is done by the HDD's own SATA controller, with the USB bridge handling only the password validation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Automating Adding New Networks to a Data Center with UCS Director

Introduction Working as an Cloud Architect with Cisco means I get the chance to talk to many different customers and discuss their challenges and pain points.  One that continually comes up is what should be fairly simple, adding a new network segment to their data center network. It used to be that a network team […]

The post Automating Adding New Networks to a Data Center with UCS Director appeared first on Packet Pushers.

What’s hot in driverless cars?

Who's drivingImage by REUTERS/Edgar SuThe development of self-driving and autonomous cars seems to be all the rage in the automotive community these days. Certainly lots of work remains to be done around safety and communications technologies but there is a heavy push to make car drones a reality. Here we take a look at some of the most recent developments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IRS, tax industry players detail identity theft, fraud combat plans

As tax identity theft and fraud continue to spiral upwards, the IRS and key industry players are trying to develop new technolgies and techniques to slow the swindle juggernaught down.The IRS this week updated the community about what work has been done by its collarborative group of chief executive officers and private sector firms such as H&R Block and Intuit since March when it formed the group to bolster protections against identity theft refund fraud for the 2016 tax season.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

MPAA shuts down BrowserPopcorn

Well that was crazy fast.A browser-based version of Popcorn Time, which is often referred to as a 'Netflix for pirates,' was recently launched and picking up steam. BrowserPopcorn was created by a 15-year-old and didn't require anything to be downloaded or for users to login before streaming movies or TV shows. If you had visited browserpopcorn.xyz this morning to partake in an illegal movie streaming fest, you would have seen this: BrowserPopcorn But now you see this:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spousetivities in Tokyo

Regular readers of this site know that my wife, Crystal, organizes spouse activities (aka “Spousetivities”, like the combination of “spouse” and “activities”) at conferences. This year she’s adding activities in Tokyo, Japan, in conjunction with the Fall OpenStack Summit!

Here’s a quick look at what is planned:

  • Tokyo city tour w/ tea ceremony (very cool!)
  • Tour of Tokyo Tower, Meiji Jingu, and Odaiba
  • A visit to Mt. Fuji and Hakone
  • Nikko tour

More details on these activities is available on the Spousetivities site.

The activities are funded in part by VMware NSX and Blue Box (their sponsorship helps reduce the cost of activities for participants). If you have a loved one (spouse, domestic partner, family member, friend, whatever!) traveling with you to Tokyo, head on over to the registration page to get them signed up for some great activities while you’re at the Summit.

Google makes full-disk encryption and secure boot mandatory for some Android 6.0 devices

Google's plan to encrypt user data on Android devices by default will get a new push with Android 6.0, also known as Marshmallow.The company requires Android devices capable of decent cryptographic performance to have full-disk encryption enabled in order to be declared compatible with the latest version of the mobile OS.Google's first attempt to make default full-disk encryption mandatory for phone manufacturers was with Android 5.0 (Lollipop), but it had to abandon that plan because of performance issues on some devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FCC to probe Verizon, AT&T over contract lock-in

The FCC announced late last week that it would investigate Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink and Frontier over highly strict service terms in wireline business service contracts, which critics say lock customers into their deals unfairly.The commission is particularly focused on the special access market, which encompasses the legacy copper links that make up part of the fabric of U.S. Internet service. The large incumbent providers under investigation control a lot of these special access links, and their competitors have been claiming for years that they’ve leveraged these localized monopolies to keep customers from jumping ship.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: IoT standards groups get ready to rumble at CES + Google to enterprises: Ditch your Microsoft contract early for us +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Open Networking Needs to Be Interchangeable

OpenBuildingBlocks

We’re coming up quickly on the fall meeting of the Open Networking User Group, which is a time for many of the members of the financial community to debate the needs of modern networking and provide a roadmap and use case set for networking vendors to follow for in the coming months. ONUG provides what some technology desperately needs – a solution to which it can be applied.

Open Or Something Like It

We’ve already started to see the same kind of non-open solution building that plagued the early network years creeping into some aspects of our new “open” systems. Rather than building on what we consider to be tried-and-true building blocks, we instead come to proprietary solutions that promise “magic” when it comes to configuration and maintenance. Should your network provide the magic? Or is that your job?

Magical is what the network should look like to a user, not to the admins. Think about the networking in cloud providers like AWS and MS Azure. The networking there is a very simple model that hides complexity. The average consumer of AWS services doesn’t need to know the specifics of configuration in the underlay of Amazon’s labyrinth of the Continue reading

Irish privacy watchdog to investigate Facebook over spying allegations

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner has agreed to investigate allegations that Facebook exposes its users' personal data to mass snooping by U.S. intelligence services, following a ruling of the High Court of Ireland on Tuesday.Austrian Facebook user Maximilian Schrems filed a complaint with the DPC in 2013, in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency's PRISM surveillance system.The DPC initially dismissed the complaint as "frivolous," a decision Schrems went on to challenge in the Irish high court.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

My Son’s birthday.60% discount on the CCDE preparation bundle for the first 20 people !

Today is my son’s birthday. So I decided to give 60% discount on my CCDE preparation resources bundle for the first 20 people which will be first come first serve basis and this offer stands good till end of 23th of October. This is the ultimate resource for those who study Cisco Certified Design Expert certification. Earlier… Read More »

The post My Son’s birthday.60% discount on the CCDE preparation bundle for the first 20 people ! appeared first on Network Design and Architecture.

Why Would You Want to Attend a Classroom Workshop?

One of my regular subscribers wondered whether it makes sense to attend a live workshop (like the one we’re running in Miami in a few weeks) instead of listening to my webinars:

I am following your blog posts quite regularly, I’ve been a yearly subscriber for more than 3 years now and I’m even trying to attend as many webinars as I can in real time. Is there a real benefit to participate in this classroom event if we are almost aware of all your slide decks and videos?

Absolutely. Here’s what one of the attendees of a recent SDN workshop wrote when asking me whether I would be willing to do an on-site event for his company:

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Is it still possible to do phone phreaking? Yes, with Android on LTE

In the 1960s and 70s, technically savvy enthusiasts sought to game telecommunications systems to make free calls, keeping telecom engineers on their toes.That practice, known as phreaking, involved such luminaries as Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and John Draper, known as Cap'n Crunch, who used a whistle from a cereal box to meddle with AT&T's long-distance trunk lines.These days, mobile operators have fully embraced the Internet and are increasingly moving voice calls over fast, packet-switched networks, known as Voice over LTE (Long Term Evolution). The advantage is higher-quality voice calls for subscribers and lower costs for operators.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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