FCC approves net neutrality rules, reclassifies broadband as a utility

Net NeutralityToday is a good day. By a 3-2 vote, the FCC has voted to adopt net neutrality rules to protect the open Internet. This plan will reclassify internet access as a Title II public utility, which in turn gives the agency more regulatory power. While many will say that any power grab by the government is a bad thing, this is certainly good news for consumers. The Internet as a whole has become far too important to be controlled by a few private corporations which are more interested in lining their own pockets rather than listening to public interest. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler was quoted saying, “This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech.” I couldn’t of said it any better myself.

This plan will put a stop to paid prioritization (see Comcast / Verizon forcing Netflix to pay for bandwidth usage, which is the complete opposite of most peering agreements. ) — It also prevents ISPs from creating Internet slow lanes for traffic as they see fit. Until now, Verizon wireless has been allowed to charge it’s customers monthly fees for access to “business email” Continue reading

Spring forward: Apple will take the wraps off Apple Watch at March 9 event

Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday, March 8. The following day, Apple is inviting us to “spring forward” at a “special event” in San Francisco. Hmm…could Apple be showing off a device that has something to do with setting the clock? Macworld will be in the audience to bring you the details at 10 a.m. Pacific.As is standard for Apple, the invite gave no details other than time, date, and location (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a larger venue than Town Hall in Cupertino, where Apple held its last event). But given the tag line and the timing, it’s a given that the company is finally launching Apple Watch after months of build-up.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung mass produces 128GB smartphone memory with 2X-plus performance

Samsung is mass producing the industry's first 128GB embedded flash memory based on the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 standard.The memory will be targeted for use in next-generation flagship smartphones and will offer 2.7 times the performance of today's embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC) flash memory.Samsung is touting the new memory's ability to offer smoother ultra-high definition video streaming, more efficient multitasking and reduced power use.The UFS 2.0 specification, released in 2013, offers a multi-lane, serial bus versus the single-lane, parallel bus used in today's eMMC flash.The UFS 2.0 specification boasts up to 600MBps (megabytes per second) of throughput, but because it can use two serial lanes, it has a total of 1,200MBps, or 12Gbps, Samsung stated. That compares with the eMMC 5.0 spec, which has a 400MBps maximum performance over a single parallel bus.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung mass produces 128GB smartphone memory with 2X-plus performance

Samsung is mass producing the industry's first 128GB embedded flash memory based on the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 standard.The memory will be targeted for use in next-generation flagship smartphones and will offer 2.7 times the performance of today's embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC) flash memory.Samsung is touting the new memory's ability to offer smoother ultra-high definition video streaming, more efficient multitasking and reduced power use.The UFS 2.0 specification, released in 2013, offers a multi-lane, serial bus versus the single-lane, parallel bus used in today's eMMC flash.The UFS 2.0 specification boasts up to 600MBps (megabytes per second) of throughput, but because it can use two serial lanes, it has a total of 1,200MBps, or 12Gbps, Samsung stated. That compares with the eMMC 5.0 spec, which has a 400MBps maximum performance over a single parallel bus.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Some Bitdefender products break HTTPS certificate revocation

Aggressive adware applications that break the trust between HTTPS (HTTP Secure) websites and users have been at the center of controversy lately. But over the past week, HTTPS interception flaws of varying severity were also found in security programs, with products from antivirus vendor Bitdefender being the latest example.Carsten Eiram, the chief research officer of vulnerability intelligence firm Risk Based Security, found that the latest versions of several Bitdefender products, namely Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, Bitdefender Internet Security and Bitdefender Total Security, do not check the revocation status of SSL certificates before replacing them with new ones that are signed using a root certificate installed locally. The products use this technique in order to scan encrypted HTTPS traffic for potential threats.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FCC passes net neutrality rules, reclassifies broadband as utility

The Federal Communications Commission has voted to approve new net neutrality rules by reclassifying broadband as a regulated public utility, over the objections of the commission's Republican members and large broadband providers.The commission voted 3-2 Thursday to approve net neutrality rules that prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic and from offering paid traffic prioritization services. The commission's vote on the new rules prompted loud applause from the audience at the FCC meeting.INSIDER: 5 tricks to improve poor TCP performance The new regulations will almost certainly face a court challenge from broadband providers, and a court case could drag out for years. Verizon Communications, AT&T and Comcast have all opposed reclassification of broadband.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Docker introduces orchestration tools for large scale deployments

As adoption of the Docker virtualization container grows, the namesake company behind the open source technology has released three tools for managing large scale deployments.Docker Machine, Swarm and Compose are collectively designed to make containers more portable and scalable, so they can be deployed and managed more easily en masse. Machine and Swarm are in a beta stage of development.Debuting in 2013, Docker has become popular with developers and organizations, having been downloaded over 100 million times. The software provides a way to package an application along with its dependent libraries so it can be easily and quickly run on any Linux platform. All the major cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM, Joyent, and Microsoft, can host Docker containers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CCNP Voice is Extinct, The CCNP Collaboration is Taking Over!

Just as was recently announced for the CCNA Voice and CCNA Video, the CCNP Voice has now gone the way of the dinosaur. It’s replacement? The highly-anticipated CCNP Collaboration certification, which of course will now be adding video to its laundry list of topics.

To attain the CCNP Collaboration certification, you must now pass four different exams. This is actually a nice bit of news, since we had to pass five separate exams to achieve the CCNP Voice certification. Don’t get too excited though; Cisco is sure to have packed each of these four exams full of enough content to account for the loss! On that note, Cisco has not yet released the exact details regarding the topics for each exam. So we must wait a little while to let the full picture develop.

The first of the four exams is called “Implementing Cisco IP Telephony and Video, Part 1” and corresponds to exam number 300-070 CIPTV1. This exam will mostly likely introduce the majority of the necessary Cisco IPT concepts while laying a solid foundation to build upon. The second is called “Implementing Cisco IP Telephony and Video, Part 2” which corresponds to exam number 300-075 CIPTV2. For this Continue reading

Being Hacked Is Good For Business! or Why You Need To Security Detection not Security Prevention

I've always said that its pointless investing in strong IT security because it will drag down profits and productivity which impacts your stock price in the current quarter. Be prepared for the media campaign that reacts to a security breach and make the most of the media coverage for promotion, exposure and business growth.


The post Being Hacked Is Good For Business! or Why You Need To Security Detection not Security Prevention appeared first on EtherealMind.

Net Neutrality May Face an Uphill Battle If History Tells Us Anything

The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on a proposal today that effectively bars Internet companies from prioritizing some Internet traffic over others.As John Oliver famously explained "ending net neutrality would allow big companies to buy their way into the fast lane, leaving everyone else in the slow lane."The FCC's proposal faces plenty of opposition from telecom companies and others, but it's just the latest round in a long fight. Here is a brief history of attempts to enact net neutrality and the often successful push against it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Net Neutrality May Face an Uphill Battle If History Tells Us Anything

The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on a proposal today that effectively bars Internet companies from prioritizing some Internet traffic over others.As John Oliver famously explained "ending net neutrality would allow big companies to buy their way into the fast lane, leaving everyone else in the slow lane."The FCC's proposal faces plenty of opposition from telecom companies and others, but it's just the latest round in a long fight. Here is a brief history of attempts to enact net neutrality and the often successful push against it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple holding special media event on March 9

Apple today sent out invitations for an upcoming media event slated to take place on March 9 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The event will get underway at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.Likely on the agenda will be more information regarding the upcoming Apple Watch. While we know the device will launch sometime in April, we've yet to hear full pricing information for the product. And besides, the invitation subtitle reads, "Spring Forward", likely a not-so-subtle allusion to timekeeping.Apple may also use the upcoming event to introduce new products, such as an iPad Pro and, if we're lucky, perhaps a Retina MacBook Air. If we're really lucky, we may finally get information about upgrades to Apple's 21.5 inch iMac which hasn't been upgraded since late 2013.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Box woos financial services firms with a tailored cloud offering

It was just about two weeks ago that Box set out to remove a major barrier to the cloud for security-minded organizations with its Encryption Key Management capability. Now, it's taken that focus a step further with a full-fledged cloud storage service aimed squarely at financial services firms.The aim behind Box's EKM, now in beta, is to give businesses in highly regulated industries such as finance the ability to maintain exclusive control over the digital keys used to encrypt their data.Historically, the lack of that kind of control is a big part of what has kept many companies in such industries off of the cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FCC votes to overturn state laws limiting municipal broadband

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted to overturn large parts of two state laws that limit local governments from funding and building broadband networks.Commissioners, in a 3-2 vote Thursday, moved to preempt laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that limit the expansion of existing municipal broadband networks in the two states.The FCC order, coming in response to petitions from a city in each state, does not apply to laws that limit municipal broadband networks in about 20 other states. But the vote signals how the agency may act if it gets similar petitions from cities in other states, FCC officials have said.The FCC action will help bring broadband competition to new areas, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said. “You can’t say you’re for broadband, and then turn around and endorse limits on it,” he said. ‘You can’t say you’re for competition, then deny local officials the right to offer competing choices.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung will freeze workers’ pay in South Korea

Samsung Electronics will freeze the salary of all its employees in South Korea this year as the company struggles to improve its bottom line in an ever more competitive global smartphone market.The salary freeze, the company’s first since 2009, won’t affect bonuses and performance-based incentives, the company said Thursday.Samsung hopes the move will help it survive a challenging business environment. The world’s largest smartphone maker reported plunging profits throughout last year as the popularity of its premium Galaxy smartphone series lagged compared to that of low-priced Android devices from Chinese brands such as Xiaomi and Lenovo.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EVPN (RFC 7432) Explained

EVPN or Ethernet VPN is a new standard that has finally been given an RFC number. Many vendors are already working on implementing this standard since the early draft versions and even before that Juniper already used the same technology in it’s Qfabric product. RFC 7432 was previously known as: draft-ietf-l2vpn-evpn.

The day I started at Juniper I saw the power of the EVPN technology which was already released in the MX and EX9200 product lines. I enabled the first customers in my region (Netherlands) to use it in their production environment.

EVPN is initially targeted as Data Center Interconnect technology, but is now deployed within Data Center Fabric networks as well to use within a DC. In this blog I will explain why to use it, how the features work and finally which Juniper products support it.

Why?

Data Center interconnects have historically been difficult to create, because of the nature of Layer 2 traffic and the limited capabilities to control and steer the traffic. When I have to interconnect a Data Center today I have a few options that often don’t scale well or are proprietary. Some examples:

  • Dark Fiber
  • xWDM circuit
  • L2 service from a Service Provider
  • VPLS
  • Continue reading

Reminder that the Internet, too, could have saved Coca-Cola from ‘New Coke’ debacle

Don Keough, retired chief operating officer at Coca-Cola, died earlier this week at the age of 88. He is described in a Fortune headline as “The real boss behind Coke's secret formula.”Among the accomplishments credited to Keough is one that directly involved that secret formula, namely convincing CEO Roberto Goizueta in 1985 to reverse course on the disaster that was “New Coke” in favor of returning to the original recipe.News of Keough’s death had me rereading a 2010 Buzzblog  post that involved this thought experiment: Let's rewrite history: It was 25 years ago tomorrow, April 23, 1985, that the world's most famous soft drink company committed arguably the world's most famous product development/marketing gaffe: New Coke.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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