Senators stall vote to extend NSA phone records dragnet

U.S. Senator Rand Paul spoke on the chamber's floor for more than nine hours Wednesday during a filibuster to prevent lawmakers from voting on a bill to extend portions of the law used by the National Security Agency to collect telephone and business records from the country's residents.Paul, a Kentucky Republican, continued to talk on the Senate floor at 10:25 p.m. EST, after taking control of the chamber earlier in the day. Nine other senators joined him for short stretches throughout the day, including Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, and Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat.Time is running out for the Senate to extend the section of the Patriot Act that the NSA uses as authorization to collect telephone and other business records. Section 215 of the Patriot Act expires at the end of the month, and lawmakers are scheduled to take an extended Memorial Day break next week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Racist query terms in Google Maps trigger the White House in results

Google Maps lists the White House among top search results for certain queries containing racist terms against African-Americans.The Washington Post first reported the issue after a reader alerted the newspaper that entering a well-known racial slur while Google Maps is focused on the nation’s capital yielded the White House as the first result. The result comes up when using Google’s mobile Maps app, as well as its Maps website.Regardless of the user’s location within Maps, a search for another racially insulting term against blacks listed the Underground Railroad TV station in Chicago as the top result, with the White House coming in second. Other similarly racist query terms also gave the White House as the top result, along with the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia in Big Rapids, Michigan.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bigger, better, faster: What does Wave 2 of 802.11ac have in store?

"Bigger, better, faster" is a mantra with which many of us are now familiar. Even if it isn't something we have printed on a t-shirt, it can be how we strive to live without often realizing it. Improvement is a part of life. You don't have to look hard to see examples of certain things that have already realized their great potential for improvement. But what about things we take for granted, like wireless?  Wireless is all around us, but it's something we take for granted. Sometimes it’s harder to find a business or public location without Wi-Fi than it is to find one with it. So can wireless actually advance? Whether it's in the boardroom or the living room, we have expectations of buttery-smooth audio and video. As the number of wireless devices grows at a profound rate, how can we shore up the wireless network to provide service to all that’s connected? Wireless AC may be the light at the end of the tunnel. With Wave 1 speeds of 1.3Gbps (your mileage may vary) we're offered a chance to handle the larger amount of requests constantly bombarding our access points (APs). Still, the struggle in dense environments Continue reading

Building a Fully Automated Ubuntu Installation Process

Recently on Twitter, I mentioned that I had managed to successfully create a fully automated process for installing Ubuntu Server 14.04.2, along with a method for bootstrapping Ansible. In this post, I’m going to describe the installation process I built and the components that went into making it work. I’ll discuss the Ansible bootstrap process in a separate post. I significantly doubt that there is anything new or unique here, but hopefully this information will prove helpful to others facing similar challenges.

Before I continue, allow me to briefly discuss why I didn’t use a system like Cobbler instead of putting together my own system. Cobbler is a great tool. For me, though, this was also about deepening my own knowledge. I wanted to better understand the various components involved and how they interacted, and I didn’t feel I would really be able to do that with a “prebuilt” system like Cobbler. If you are more interested in getting something up and running as opposed to learning more about how it works (and that’s OK), then I’d recommend you skip this post and go download Cobbler. If, on the other hand, you want to make this into more Continue reading

Alcatel-Lucent uses SDN to meld IP, optical services

Alcatel-Lucent this week extended its carrier SDN product line with an automation and network control system designed to accelerate service provisioning from multivendor IP and optical infrastructure.The company’s Network Services Platform combines Alcatel-Lucent’s SDN-based software with its 5260 service-aware management system, Service Router operating system and the 1830 Photonic Service Switch GMPLS routing engine algorithms from Bell Labs. It also has a REST API interface to the Nuage Networks Virtual Services Platform SDN controller for data center networks so the IP/MPLS/optical network can be quickly provisioned based on the needs of data center interconnection and virtual machine mobility.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Alcatel-Lucent uses SDN to meld IP, optical services

Alcatel-Lucent this week extended its carrier SDN product line with an automation and network control system designed to accelerate service provisioning from multivendor IP and optical infrastructure.The company’s Network Services Platform combines Alcatel-Lucent’s SDN-based software with its 5260 service-aware management system, Service Router operating system and the 1830 Photonic Service Switch GMPLS routing engine algorithms from Bell Labs. It also has a REST API interface to the Nuage Networks Virtual Services Platform SDN controller for data center networks so the IP/MPLS/optical network can be quickly provisioned based on the needs of data center interconnection and virtual machine mobility.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hot stuff: The coolest drones

DronesImage by Northrop Grumman/Chad Slattery/Handout via ReutersThe world of drones – military and public – is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up with the changes. Here we take a look at some of the most recent advancements, such as getting drones to fly as a group, deliver orders in restaurants and take advanced technology into space. Read on:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hot stuff: The coolest drones

DronesImage by Northrop Grumman/Chad Slattery/Handout via ReutersThe world of drones – military and public – is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up with the changes. Here we take a look at some of the most recent advancements, such as getting drones to fly as a group, deliver orders in restaurants and take advanced technology into space. Read on:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mailing List

I’m switching the updates mailing list to mailchimp so I can post emails with more “stuff” from time to time that’s not posted on the blog. The signup is under the “hamburger menu” on the top left corner.

The post Mailing List appeared first on 'net work.

E-paper display gives payment cards a changing security code

By embedding an e-paper display in the back of credit and debit cards, payment specialist Oberthur Technologies hopes to make online fraud a lot more difficult. An upcoming test in France will show if the underlying technology can cut it.Using payment cards with an embedded chip makes payments more secure in physical stores, but it’s still relatively easy for criminals to copy card details and use them online. Oberthur’s Motion Code technology replaces the printed 3-digit CVV (Card Verification Value) code, usually found on the back of the card, with a small screen, where the code changes periodically.Today, any criminal who has seen a card or overheard the owner dictating the CVV code can make an unauthorized purchases online or by phone. With Motion Code, because the CVV changes from time to time, the time a fraudster has to act is reduced.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Android stock browser vulnerable to URL spoofing

A vulnerability in Android’s default Web browser lets attackers spoof the URL shown in the address bar, allowing for more credible phishing attacks.Google released patches for the flaw in April, but many phones are likely still affected, because manufacturers and carriers typically are slow to develop and distribute Android patches.The vulnerability was discovered by a researcher named Rafay Baloch and was privately reported to Google with the help of security firm Rapid7.Baloch discovered the flaw on Android 5.0 Lollipop, which uses Chrome as its default browser, but then also confirmed it in the stock browser in older Android versions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NFV Terminology and Architecture from ETSI

Well, if you thought SDN introduced a lot of terminology, you’ll love NFV! The good news is that ETSI, which defines NFV, does a great job documenting NFV, with extensive term and acronym lists to support other documents about the details of NFV architecture. Several of the ETSI NFV docs provide some great stepping-stones for understanding the basic concepts and terminology, which is where we’ll go in this post.

This is the last in a related series! The other posts:

A Brief Big Picture of NFV

One of the challenges with this blog is figuring out how much prior knowledge to assume. If you don’t know much at all about NFV, read this section for a quick intro. Otherwise, skip to the next heading.

Briefly…

Think of every networking device used in the IT world. Those include routers, switches, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, load balancers, and so on. Traditionally, those devices have indeed been devices – purpose built hardware, running some OS that performed the networking function.

While you’re thinking of the old way to network, Continue reading

LTE smartphones are becoming faster and cheaper

High-end smartphones offer high-speed wireless connections—but few mobile operators have made the infrastructure investments required to keep up with them. The arrival of cheaper phones with 300Mbps LTE capabilities may encourage that investment.LTE chips with real-world download speeds over 100Mbps have become a standard feature on high-end smartphones, while smartphones costing under US$100 now include LTE chips, albeit slower ones.Better cameras, screens and design have gotten most of the attention on this year’s crop of high-end smartphones, but support for the latest versions of LTE, a rarity a year ago, has become a standard feature. Download speeds on the HTC One M9 and the LG G4 top out at 450Mbps on paper, while the Samsung Galaxy S6 is theoretically capable of 300Mbps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First look: Windows Server 2016 goes on a cloud diet

Windows Server 2016 is both an evolution of the current Windows Server 2012 R2 release and a revolution in the making. If you plan to use Windows Server 2016 in the same way you’ve used Windows Server all along, you’ll be able to pick it up and work with it with very little learning curve. But if you are ready to abandon the old ways and embrace the new world of cloud servers, containers, and microservices, Windows Server 2016 has something new for you.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

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