Senate leader introduces bill to extend Patriot Act surveillance

The majority leader of the U.S. Senate has introduced a bill that would extend the surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act until 2020, instead of expiring on June 1.The bill, introduced by Senator Mitch McConnell Tuesday night, would extend section 215 of the Patriot Act, the controversial part of the law that the U.S. National Security Agency has used to collect U.S. telephone records in bulk. Many digital and civil rights groups have protested the NSA phone records collection program, saying it violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protecting the country’s residents against unreasonable searches and seizures.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The VPLS & MPLS IP VPN Buyers Field Guide

VPLS & MPLS IP VPN Procurement step by step – every IT Managers key area documented.

Author information

Sponsored Blog Posts

The Packet Pushers work with our vendors to present a limited number of sponsored blog posts to our community. This is one. If you're a vendor and think you have some blog content you'd like to sponsor, contact us via [email protected].

The post The VPLS & MPLS IP VPN Buyers Field Guide appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Sponsored Blog Posts.

EMC Syncplicity lets enterprises manage their own encryption keys

Some enterprises that are happy to put their data in a public cloud prefer to keep the keys to that data under their own control. That’s the message online file sync and sharing services are sending lately.On Wednesday, EMC’s Syncplicity division announced Customer Managed Keys, a feature that lets enterprises store the encryption keys for their Syncplicity shared data on a rights management server on their own premises. It’s a new option in addition to having the keys stored in Syncplicity’s cloud.The announcement came just a couple of months after rival Box released its own private key-management feature into beta testing. That system, called EKM (Enterprise Key Management), may become generally available on Wednesday at the Box Dev conference in San Francisco. EKM likewise was added as an alternative to keeping keys in the vendor’s cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EMC Syncplicity lets enterprises manage their own encryption keys

Some enterprises that are happy to put their data in a public cloud prefer to keep the keys to that data under their own control. That’s the message online file sync and sharing services are sending lately.On Wednesday, EMC’s Syncplicity division announced Customer Managed Keys, a feature that lets enterprises store the encryption keys for their Syncplicity shared data on a rights management server on their own premises. It’s a new option in addition to having the keys stored in Syncplicity’s cloud.The announcement came just a couple of months after rival Box released its own private key-management feature into beta testing. That system, called EKM (Enterprise Key Management), may become generally available on Wednesday at the Box Dev conference in San Francisco. EKM likewise was added as an alternative to keeping keys in the vendor’s cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

9 tips for speeding up your business Wi-Fi

The days are long past when a fast office Wi-Fi connection was a nice-to-have. These days it's essential for your business to provide clients and employees alike with a speedy, reliable wireless network.6. Disable lower data rates and standardsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

The state of mobile payments in 2015

Mobile payments in 2015Image by ShutterstockApple, Starbucks and Disney are all strong brands with loyal followings, but they also have something else in common: They're early leaders in the ever-evolving mobile payments market.Some analysts predict 2015 will be the first year all the pieces — including a larger base of NFC-enabled devices and terminals, and growing consumer acceptance — come together to take mobile currency mainstream. A number of additional companies are also entering the world of mobile payments, such as American Express, which you might expect to see, and Jawbone, which might seem surprising.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Crypto gurus: The government’s key escrow plan won’t work

Cryptography experts at the RSA security conference on Tuesday picked holes in U.S. plans to require that law enforcers be given a way to break encryption to exercise lawful intercept rights.U.S. government officials have been increasingly hostile over the past year to the widespread use of encryption on mobile phones and online communications, arguing that a way needs to be found to provide law enforcement and intelligence agencies with lawful interception capabilities.In response, security experts warned that building “back doors” into cryptographic systems in order to provide governments with access to data would be dangerous because it would create vulnerabilities that could later be exploited by hackers too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What is a non-blocking switch?

How does Internet work - We know what is networking

It is fairly common to hear about switch being non-blocking. It’s because almost all switches today are non-blocking. But what that means? When I asked people around me on what exactly non-blocking switch means, they were unable to get to the same conclusion. I was going through a lot of different internet places and vendor documents before I wrote this here, but, do not hesitate to add something in comments if you have different view on the subject. Line-rate switch means the same as if you would said wire-speed switch. It basically means that this switch has the forwarding capacity that supports concurrently

What is a non-blocking switch?

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Wednesday, April 22

US warns airlines about onboard Wi-Fi hackingHere’s one more thing for nervous flyers to worry about: Two U.S. federal agencies are advising airlines to look out for signs that passengers may be trying to hack into planes’ navigation systems via Wi-Fi or onboard entertainment systems, Wired reports. The FBI and TSA apparently don’t have evidence that this is happening, but are taking seriously claims that it can be done, and issued a list of things to be on the lookout for.Drone lands on Japanese Prime Minister’s roofTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Wednesday, April 22

US warns airlines about onboard Wi-Fi hackingHere’s one more thing for nervous flyers to worry about: Two U.S. federal agencies are advising airlines to look out for signs that passengers may be trying to hack into planes’ navigation systems via Wi-Fi or onboard entertainment systems, Wired reports. The FBI and TSA apparently don’t have evidence that this is happening, but are taking seriously claims that it can be done, and issued a list of things to be on the lookout for.Drone lands on Japanese Prime Minister’s roofTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chipmakers lay groudwork for faster and smarter data center switches

Broadcom and Freescale Semiconductor have announced switching platforms that promise to improve the performance of network virtualization and make the underlying technologies more widely available.Just like other parts of enterprise IT infrastructures, the network is going through some major changes thanks to the growing importance of cloud services and virtualization. Two offerings launched by chipmakers Broadcom and Freescale highlight how switches will evolve going forward.The next-generation of Broadcom’s StrataXGS Trident ethernet switch portfolio, the Trident-II+ SoC (system-on-a-chip) is designed for virtualized data centers running on 10 Gigabit ethernet. The total switching capacity is 1.28Tbps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Huawei to expand retail presence, as it finds success selling higher-end phones

Huawei Technologies is seeking to double its retail presence around the world, amid a growing a pushing to sell more mid-range and high-end smartphones.The Chinese handset maker aims to establish 70,000 retail spaces by the end of 2017, up from the 30,000 locations it already has, including Huawei stores, product counters and “display zones” where its smartphones were shown for sale last year.More than half of those locations are in China, the company’s home market, said Glory Zhang, chief marketing officer for Huawei’s consumer business group. The balance will start to change by year end, when Huawei brings more high-end products to international markets, she added.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

MtGox creditors can finally file claims for lost bitcoins

Former customers of MtGox, once the world’s largest trading place for bitcoin, can finally file claims for lost assets.The filings are starting over a year after the exchange collapsed with bitcoin worth hundreds of millions of dollars missing. Claims will be accepted until May 29, bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi announced Wednesday at a MtGox creditors’ meeting.The claims will be submitted online at claims.mtgox.com and users have the option of sending them via Kraken, the bitcoin exchange operated by Payward, which has been helping Kobayashi in investigating the lost coins and setting up the claims system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here