Charter Communications confirms bid to buy Time Warner Cable for $78.7B

Charter Communications has confirmed it plans to acquire of Time Warner Cable, a deal that if approved would create the second-biggest cable operator in the U.S.Cable operators are under pressure from a new generation of companies such as Netflix that offer competing video services, and Charter is hoping scale will help it compete more effectively. It values the deal at $78.7 billion including assumed debt.MORE M&A: 2015 Enterprise networking & IT M&A trackerCharter also plans to acquire Bright House Networks, a smaller cable company. If successful, the deals would make Charter, currently the fourth-biggest cable company in the U.S., second only to Comcast. The combined entity would serve 23.9 million customers in 41 states.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Tuesday, May 26

Charter strikes $55 billion deal for Time Warner CableCharter Communications will spend US$55 billion to buy Time Warner Cable in a deal that would create a broadband powerhouse in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reports. Comcast’s bid to buy Time Warner fell apart last month when it became clear that key regulators in the U.S. were opposed. Expect Charter’s plans to be closely scrutinized for their impact on competition, as well.Legendary Apple designer Jony Ive moves up into less hands-on roleThe British design genius who partnered with the late Steve Jobs to create some of the most iconic products in tech is moving up into a newly created executive role at Apple—and one that will likely have him in a less hands-on role, re/code reports. Jony Ive was named chief design officer, a role where he’ll focus on new ideas and future initiatives, while day-to-day oversight will fall to Richard Howarth on industrial design and Alan Dye on user interfaces.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Tuesday, May 26

Charter strikes $55 billion deal for Time Warner CableCharter Communications will spend US$55 billion to buy Time Warner Cable in a deal that would create a broadband powerhouse in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reports. Comcast’s bid to buy Time Warner fell apart last month when it became clear that key regulators in the U.S. were opposed. Expect Charter’s plans to be closely scrutinized for their impact on competition, as well.Legendary Apple designer Jony Ive moves up into less hands-on roleThe British design genius who partnered with the late Steve Jobs to create some of the most iconic products in tech is moving up into a newly created executive role at Apple—and one that will likely have him in a less hands-on role, re/code reports. Jony Ive was named chief design officer, a role where he’ll focus on new ideas and future initiatives, while day-to-day oversight will fall to Richard Howarth on industrial design and Alan Dye on user interfaces.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sony’s Xperia Z4 renamned Z3+ outside Japan, goes on sale in June

Sony’s new flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z4, will be called the Xperia Z3+ when it goes on sale outside Japan in June. The phone has a sleeker design, faster processor and better front camera than the Z3 it replaces.Like the Z4, the Xperia Z3+ was announced with little fanfare compared to events organized by competitors Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. The low-key launch on Tuesday doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on the product, but raises the question of how committed Sony is to its struggling smartphone unit.The Z3+ and Z4 are both available with 32GB of integrated storage. The only difference between them is that the Z4 is also available in a 64GB version. Both models have the option to add another 128GB using their microSD card slots.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 free Wi-Fi stumbling and surveying tools for Windows and Mac

Following up on our previous article highlighting 8 free Wi-Fi stumbling and surveying tools, here are 7 more tools that provide important details on known and unknown aspects of your WiFi network. Though enterprise-level solutions like AirMagnet Wi-Fi Analyzer and Ekahau Spectrum Analyzer have much more functionality, the free tools discussed here can be useful in a number of scenarios. For smaller networks, you might be able to get away with just using simple freeware tools for all of your Wi-Fi surveying needs. For larger wireless LANs (WLAN), these tools come in handy for a quick peek at the airwaves during design, deployment, or troubleshooting. (See screenshots from each of these products here.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 free Wi-Fi stumbling and surveying tools for Windows and Mac

Stumbling and surveyingHere are 7 tools that provide important details on known and unknown aspects of your WiFi network. Each of these tools gives you the basic wireless details: SSIDs, signal strength, channels, MAC addresses, and security status. Some can even reveal “hidden” or non-broadcasted SSIDs, display the noise levels, or display statistics on successful and failed packets of your wireless connection. Two of the tools include Wi-Fi password cracking tools as well, useful for educational or penetration testing purposes. (Read the full review.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link Aggregation in OpenFlow Environment

One of my readers couldn’t figure out how to combine Link Aggregation Groups (LAG, aka Port Channel) with OpenFlow:

I believe that in LAG, every traditional switch would know how to forward the packet from its FIB. Now with OpenFlow, does the controller communicate with every single switch and populate their tables with one group ID for each switch? Or how does the controller figure out the information for multiple switches in the LAG?

As always, the answer is “it depends”, and this time we’re dealing with a pretty complex issue.

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This is how we get ants

Today's Wassenaar proposal to limit 0days -- and thereby virtually all cybersecurity products -- is partly the result of lobbying by the ACLU and EFF. The principle technologist of the ACLU called 0day sellers "merchants of death". The EFF called for 0day sales to governments to be the center of any policy debate on cybersecurity.

Yet, they deny responsibility for Wassenaar -- because the regulations go too far, and appear to restrict virtually all cybersecurity software and any free-speech on the topic. These groups now back off and claim they never called for 0day restrictions in the first place.

For example, when the EFF said "exploit sales should be key point in cybersecurity debate", nowhere in the article does it explicitly call for a ban on exploit sales.  Their focus was on limiting the actions of the NSA in buying exploits, not so much those who would sell the exploits. 

This is true, but only technically. There's no conceivable situation where the US Government would unilaterally disarm itself of cyberweapons while allowing everyone else to purchase them. It's also not conceivable that when you've put that much work into calling 0days evil and unethical, that a reasonable Continue reading

The Night Awaits

and after it a new dawn, but as any wise person will tell you, not before the last light of the sun casts long shadows across the landscape. I often wonder at the sequence of events, coincidences, accidents, opportunities and more that led to the formation of the person that is now my wife. The character […]

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Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, automation, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books, is a regular contributor at DevCentral and was an F5 DevCentral MVP for 2014.

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The post The Night Awaits appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Continue reading

Newer technology pushes out CDMA in Africa, bringing faster speeds

A variety of technologies, LTE in particular, is making CDMA obsolete in many parts of Africa, bringing faster mobile communication to people throughout the region.This month, Orange, which operates LTE networks in Mauritius and Botswana, said it is moving its Kenyan subscribers off CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and that it will launch five LTE networks in Africa this year. CDMA can no longer favorably compete with 3G and LTE, CEO Vincent Lobry said in February.On its part, Telecom Namibia shut down all its CDMA sites on March 31 after moving its customers to faster HSPA+ and LTE networks. It said it wanted to repurpose spectrum and offer mobile voice, data, and video services over a more modern platform.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NFV and OPNFV: Getting Down to Business at ONS 2015

NFV and OPNFV approaches, experiences and challenges in Service Provider networks is an important area of coverage at the upcoming Open Networking Summit 2015 (ONS2015), the premier SDN and NFV conference, held June 14-18 in Silicon Valley, USA. View the detailed program agenda, distinguished speakers and register now! Use the code PACKETPUSHERS to get a 15% discount for ONS2015 registration and save $240.

Author information

Ethan Banks

Co-host at Packet Pushers

Ethan Banks, CCIE #20655, has been managing networks for higher ed, government, financials and high tech since 1995. Ethan co-hosts the Packet Pushers Podcast, which has seen over 3M downloads and reaches over 10K listeners. With whatever time is left, Ethan writes for fun & profit, studies for certifications, and enjoys science fiction. @ecbanks
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The post NFV and OPNFV: Getting Down to Business at ONS 2015 appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

How BlackBerry got blindsided by the iPhone

Apple in 2007 introduced the world to the iPhone and the smartphone industry would be the same. In an instant, Apple's take on what a phone should look like and how it should operate became the de-facto standard amongst all manufacturers hoping to compete in the burgeoning smartphone market.And while some companies, like Samsung, ably adjusted their products accordingly, others, like BlackBerry, were completely blindsided by the new consumer-oriented smartphone market that had been created.It almost seems like ages ago, but BlackBerry devices in the early to mid-2000's were incredibly popular and represented the gold standard amongst smartphones. Yet once the iPhone was introduced, BlackBerry's fall from grace wasn't too far behind.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Charter reportedly close to $55 billion deal for Time Warner Cable

Charter Communications is said to be near a US$55 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable, a deal that would create a broadband powerhouse in the U.S.The deal could be announced as early as Tuesday, according to articles in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, the first to report the story.Charter also plans to acquire Bright House Networks, a smaller cable company. If successful, the deals would make Charter, currently the fourth biggest cable company in the U.S., second to only Comcast.This is Charter’s second attempt to buy Time Warner Cable. After its first offer was rejected, Comcast in 2014 made its own bid. That deal, however, fell apart in April after the Federal Communications Commission referred the proposed acquisition to a hearing in front of a judge. The move effectively killed that plan because of the time and effort it would have taken.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Charter reportedly close to $55 billion deal for Time Warner Cable

Charter Communications is said to be near a US$55 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable, a deal that would create a broadband powerhouse in the U.S.The deal could be announced as early as Tuesday, according to articles in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, the first to report the story.Charter also plans to acquire Bright House Networks, a smaller cable company. If successful, the deals would make Charter, currently the fourth biggest cable company in the U.S., second to only Comcast.This is Charter’s second attempt to buy Time Warner Cable. After its first offer was rejected, Comcast in 2014 made its own bid. That deal, however, fell apart in April after the Federal Communications Commission referred the proposed acquisition to a hearing in front of a judge. The move effectively killed that plan because of the time and effort it would have taken.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Attackers use email spam to infect point-of-sale terminals with new malware

Cybercriminals are targeting employees who browse the Web or check their email from point-of-sale (PoS) computers, a risky but unfortunately common practice.Researchers from security firm FireEye recently came across a spam campaign that used rogue email messages masquerading as job inquiries.The emails had fake resumes attached that were actually Word documents with an embedded malicious macro. If allowed to run, the macro installed a program that downloaded additional malware from a remote server.Among those additional programs, the FireEye researchers identified a new memory-scraping malware threat that steals payment card data from PoS terminals. They’ve dubbed the new threat NitlovePOS.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Memorial Day 2015

Military Graves

For those who do not know, today, in the United States we hold a day of memory — Memorial Day — for those who have fallen in the defense of the freedom of our Nation. This is different from Veteran’s day, a day which honors those who either are or have served in the US Military, in that it is focused on those who have died in the actual service of the United States — in the course of duty, as it is often said. From the original Presidential proclamation —

On this Memorial Day, as we honor the memory of brave men who have borne our colors in war, we pray to God for His mercy. We pray for the wisdom to find a way to end this struggle of nation against nation, of brother against brother. We pray that soon we may begin to build the only true memorial to man’s valor in war–a sane and hopeful environment for the generations to Come.

As a veteran myself (9 years in the USAF), I find this day to be one of sadness and remembrance. My Grandfather died in the service, as have many of my other relatives, and almost Continue reading

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