NoviFlow Locks In a $9M Round of Funding
The OpenFlow-friendly startup has plans for expansion.
Chef Cooks Up a $40M Funding Round
DevOps automation framework firm Chef automates software for enterprises
Some notes on satellite C&C
Wired and Ars Technica have some articles on malware using satellites for command-and-control. The malware doesn't hook directly to the satellites, of course. Instead, it sends packets to an IP address of a known satellite user, like a random goat herder in the middle of the wilds of Iraq. Since the satellites beam down to earth using an unencrypted signal, anybody can eavesdrop on it. Thus, while malware sends packets to that satellite downlink in Iraq, it's actually a hacker in Germany who receives them.This is actually fairly old hat. If you look hard enough, somewhere (I think Google Code), you'll find some code I wrote back around 2011 for extracting IP packets from MPEG-TS streams, for roughly this purpose.
My idea was to use something like masscan, where I do a scan of the Internet from a fast data center, but spoof that goat herder's IP address. Thus, everyone seeing the scan would complain about that IP address instead of mine. I would see all the responses by eavesdropping on that satellite connection.
This doesn't work in Europe and the United States. These markets use more expensive satellites which not only support encryption, but also narrow "spot Continue reading
Featured Use Case Studies: HP SDN for Education
HP SDN isn't just for enterprises. Learn how the educational sector is reaping the benefits of software-defined networking on campus.
Former HP Exec Now Heads Skyport Systems
Art Gilliland takes the reins as Skyport ramps its secure server.
Trade Stimulators and the Very Old Idea of Increasing User Engagement
Very early in my web career I was introduced to the almost mystical holy grail of web (and now app) properties: increasing user engagement.
The reason is simple. The more time people spend with your property the more stuff you can sell them. The more stuff you can sell the more value you have. Your time is money. So we design for addiction.
Famously Facebook, through the ties that bind, is the engagement leader with U.S. adults spending a stunning average of 42.1 minutes per day on Facebook. Cha-ching.
Immense resources are spent trying to make websites and apps sticky. Psychological tricks and gamification strategies are deployed with abandon to get you not to leave a website or to keep playing an app.
It turns out this is a very old idea. Casinos are designed to keep you gambling, for example. And though I’d never really thought about it before, I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn retail stores of yore used devices called trade stimulators to keep customers hanging around and spending money.
Never heard of trade stimulators? I hadn’t either until, while watching American Pickers, one of my favorite shows, they talked about this whole Continue reading
Skyport CEO: People Will Re-Platform for Security
Skyport Systems, the startup building a new secure server infrastructure for cloud applications, has appointed Art Gilliland as its new CEO.
The Network Command Line is Dying
Configuring devices from the command line is time-honoured tradition for network engineers. But for everyday operational tasks, the CLI is no longer fit for purpose.
The post The Network Command Line is Dying appeared first on EtherealMind.
IIX Launches Console, a More Direct Take on Internet Bypass
It's not about SD-WAN. Console is more about automating some very old processes.
Mobile Backhaul Takes a Page from Cloud Computing
Parallel Wireless approaches the RAN from a different perspective.
ASA v9.4 Elliptic Curve Cryptography with TLS1.2
With ASA version 9.4 Cisco has added support for Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), which is one of the most powerful types of encryption in use today. While ECC has been in use since 2004, only it’s recently use has skyrocketed. Part of this reason is power consumption… In my limited understanding, experts have concluded that a shorter ECC keys are just as strong as a much larger RSA key. This increases performance significantly, which reduces the power required for each calculation. If you want to learn more about ECC, check out this fantastic article from arstechnica.
That brings me to the issue. Last night I failed over some 5585x’s running > 9.4 that happened to be doing Anyconnect SSL VPN. This morning, my client was seeing issues. Luckily the solution was simple and a college pointed me to the solution fairly quickly. From the Cisco support community page I found later on….
For version 9.4.(x) we have the following information:
Elliptic curve cryptography for SSL/TLS—When an elliptic curve-capable SSL VPN client connects to the ASA, the elliptic curve cipher suite will be negotiated, and the ASA will present the SSL VPN client with an elliptic curve Continue reading
Rebuilding Reader
For the time being, we are discontinuing Reader.PacketPushers.net. We didn't advertise it heavily in the past. Reader saw some traffic, but not a lot. And...we were never entirely happy with the result we got out of it. Our plan is to reboot Reader at some point in the future with new software. We still think it's a good idea, but we want to get a more polished look and feel out of it first.
The post Rebuilding Reader appeared first on Packet Pushers.