Snapchat tallies government data requests for the first time

Snapchat’s service featuring disappearing messages is known for its popularity among teens. Now it’s becoming popular with law enforcement.Snapchat, for the first time, has disclosed the number of requests for user information it has received from governments in the U.S. and in other countries. These requests may come in the form of subpoenas, court orders, search warrants or other legal processes, seeking a variety of user information like usernames, email addresses and phone numbers.Authorities may also seek the content of messages. They have a tight window, though—Snapchat says it deletes people’s messages from its servers after all recipients have viewed them, or 30 days after an unopened message is sent. Governments can also seek logs containing the metadata of messages, which Snapchat retains.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Smush your photos to boost Samsung Galaxy face recognition, researchers say

You can improve facial recognition security on Samsung Galaxy phones by morphing multiple photos of yourself to unlock the device, researchers at the University of York's FaceVar Lab say. This improves upon storing a single target image, according to the team led by David Robertson, of the Department of Psychology's FaceVar lab. Their paper, "Face averages enhance user recognition for smartphone security," has been published in the journal PLOS ONE. MORE: 6 things Galaxy 6 does that iPhone 6 can't | Biometric security is on the riseTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ansible and Containers: Why and How

Ansible__Containers_1

Everyone loves the promise of containers.  

More specifically: everyone loves the promise of a world where they can build an application on their laptop, and have that application run exactly the same way in every environment -- from their laptop all the way to production, and at every step in between.

That's still a holy grail, though.  In the meantime, people seem to be looking for practical ways to get all of the advantages of containers -- consistency, lightweight environments, application segregation, and so on -- while still maintaining the flexibility required to work with the many environments that are not amenable to containerization.

Which may explain why so many people... wow, just a lot of people... seem to be talking about Ansible and containers together:

 

ansible-docker-lolwut

So why are people using Ansible with Docker and other container formats?  A few reasons:

* Ansible playbooks are portable. If you build a container with a pure Dockerfile, it means that the only way you can reproduce that application is in a Docker container. If you build a container with an Ansible playbook, you can then reproduce a very similar environment in Vagrant, or in a cloud instance of your choice, Continue reading

Intel releases the 750 Series SSD, its fastest consumer flash

Intel today unveiled its first consumer-class solid-state drive (SSD) with a PCI Express 3.0 bus and non-volatile memory express (NVMe) high-speed host controller interface.The new 750 Series SSD's performance tops out with sequential read/write speeds of up to 2,400MBps and 1,200MBps, respectively.Unlike previous Intel consumer flash products that used a serial-ATA (SATA) computer bus interface, the new SSDs will be directly attached to a motherboard via NVMe or through PCIe interconnect. Intel The 750 Series SSD in a 2.5-in (15mm z-height) form factor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Interop LasVegas 2015: My Schedule

First INTEROP – ever!  I’ve been feeling like a kid in a candy store trying to figure out what sessions I want to go to. The selection is vast… and the decision making has really been rough.

I’ve gotten a majority of my schedule figured out.  But still lots of hard decision making ahead.  It’s hard to not be able to be in multiple places at the same time. Truth be told some of those slots are just going to end up being what is “calling” to me the most on that day.

Where will I for sure be? I will absolutely and for sure be attending the following sessions!

schedule

Obama cyberattacker sanctions raise due process, attribution concerns

New U.S. government sanctions targeting the bank accounts of suspected cyberattackers raise questions about due process for people who feel they’re wrongly accused and about how agencies will identify the source of attacks.The new sanctions, announced by President Barack Obama’s administration Wednesday, would allow the U.S. Department of the Treasury to freeze the funds held in U.S. banks of people and organizations suspected of engaging in malicious cyberattacks that pose a “significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, economic health, or financial stability” of the U.S., according to information released by the White House.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple details secret history behind the Apple Watch

The Apple Watch is unquestionably Apple's biggest gamble in years. Not only does the device represent a new product for Apple, it represents an entirely new product category altogether. With the device slated to launch in just about three weeks, all eyes will be watching closely to see if Apple has truly delivered yet another revolutionary product.Ahead of the highly anticipated Apple Watch launch, Wired today posted an exhaustive recap of the Apple Watch development process, which began in earnest shortly after Steve Jobs' passing. Apple decided to make a watch and only then set out to discover what it might be good for (besides, you know, displaying the time). "There was a sense that technology was going to move onto the body," says Alan Dye, who runs Apple's human interface group. "We felt like the natural place, the place that had historical relevance and significance, was the wrist."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Like Google, Mozilla set to punish Chinese agency for certificate debacle

The Mozilla Foundation plans to reject new digital certificates issued by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in its products, but will continue to trust certificates that already exist.The move will follow a similar decision announced Wednesday by Google and is the result of CNNIC, a certificate authority (CA) trusted in most browsers and operating systems, issuing an unrestricted intermediary certificate to an Egyptian company called MCS Holdings.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Galaxy S6 Edge review: Innovative, impressive — and impractical

Let this serve as a lesson: Looks can be deceiving.Samsung has introduced two new phones in its Galaxy line, and it's interesting to compare the two. Samsung's Galaxy S6 is a gorgeous phone that's both beautiful and brimming with top-notch technology. It really is an impressive device. The Galaxy S6 Edge is essentially the same phone with an added curve to its display that makes it even more striking.On paper and in pictures, the Edge seems like the phone to own. But after using it alongside the regular S6 for the past several days, I'm not convinced it is.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VCDX-NV Interview: Chris Miller Talks VMware NSX Certification

Chris Miller is the principal architect for AdvizeX in Columbus OH. He runs the NSX program from a technical and marketing perspective, including Chris Miller-AdvizeXenterprise pre-sales support and go-to-market strategies.

*** 

I started my career as a traditional Cisco networking guy. I spent 10 to 15 years as a network architect. But I’d been tracking what was going on in the community, with Open Flow and some of the other technologies. When I saw what VMware was doing, it got me pretty excited. I thought, ’It’s pretty revolutionary what’s going on here.’ I immediately jumped on the opportunity to take part in NSX.

In terms of enterprise customers, we weren’t initially seeing a lot of adoption in the market. Then VMware announced the Nicira acquisition, and Cisco announced what they were going to do with ACI, and heads started turning. I realized, you know, here are two of our largest partners putting their investment dollars behind this technology. And then, when I saw what NSX could do, and the benefits it could bring, it was very clear to me that this was the next wave.

What excites me most about network virtualization is that you essentially don’t have to Continue reading

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, April 2

Obama authorizes sanctions against hackersThe White House has added another weapon to the U.S. government’s arsenal in its fight against hackers, with an executive order signed by President Obama authorizing sanctions against hackers who harm critical infrastructure, or expose personal information and trade secrets. The order allows the government to block a person or organization’s access to U.S. financial institutions and any property they have in the country.Facebook Riffs on Snapchat with video appTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, April 2

Obama authorizes sanctions against hackersThe White House has added another weapon to the U.S. government’s arsenal in its fight against hackers, with an executive order signed by President Obama authorizing sanctions against hackers who harm critical infrastructure, or expose personal information and trade secrets. The order allows the government to block a person or organization’s access to U.S. financial institutions and any property they have in the country.Facebook Riffs on Snapchat with video appTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Smart home hacking is easier than you think

Last March, a very satisfied user of the Honeywell Wi-Fi Thermostat left a product review on Amazon.com that shed some light on an unexpected benefit of the smart home – revenge.The reviewer wrote that his wife had left him, and then moved her new lover into the home they once shared, which now featured the Honeywell Wi-Fi thermostat. The jilted ex-husband could still control the thermostat through the mobile app installed on his smartphone, so he used it to make the new couple's lives a little less happily ever after:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chinese Internet authority clashes with Google over digital certificates

A Chinese Internet administrator blasted Google on Thursday, after the U.S. search giant decided to stop recognizing digital certificates issued by the group following a security lapse.“The decision that Google has made is unacceptable and unintelligible,” China’s Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in an online posting.Google’s decision means that its Chrome browser could end up clashing with sites served by the Chinese Internet agency.On Wednesday, Google explained the move in an update to an earlier blog posting. The company is still concerned by the way CNNIC issued a certificate to an IT company based in Egypt that misused it in a botched security test.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chinese Internet authority clashes with Google over digital certificates

A Chinese Internet administrator blasted Google on Thursday, after the U.S. search giant decided to stop recognizing digital certificates issued by the group following a security lapse.“The decision that Google has made is unacceptable and unintelligible,” China’s Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in an online posting.Google’s decision means that its Chrome browser could end up clashing with sites served by the Chinese Internet agency.On Wednesday, Google explained the move in an update to an earlier blog posting. The company is still concerned by the way CNNIC issued a certificate to an IT company based in Egypt that misused it in a botched security test.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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