Imagine an Android/Microsoft Franken-phone

Franken-phoneWhen it was reported that Microsoft might invest in CyanogenMod, the mobile OS built on the open-source release of the Android codebase, speculation arose as to why. Although eventually Microsoft decided not to contribute to Cyanogen, it got us thinking: What if Microsoft or someone else created a smartphone running CyanogenMod, and it had no apps by Google. Instead, it was preloaded with Microsoft equivalents. Could such a Microsoft-dominant Android smartphone be viable? Technically, we would have to say, yes. Here, we compare how Microsoft’s apps would fare as replacements for their Google counterparts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US reviews use of cellphone spying technology

Faced with criticism from lawmakers and civil rights groups, the U.S. Department of Justice has begun a review of the secretive use of cellphone surveillance technology that mimics cellphone towers, and will get more open on its use, according to a newspaper report.The cell-site simulators, also referred to by other names such as “IMSI catchers” or Stingrays, operate by fooling mobile phones into believing that they are communicating with a legitimate cellphone tower, while harvesting data from the phone including its identity, location, metadata and even content of phone transmissions, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.One of the complaints of civil rights groups is that even when targeting a single phone, the technology can collect data on other phones in the area that connect to the simulator, raising privacy issues.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Replacing Central Router with a Next-Generation Firewall?

One of my readers sent me this question:

After reading this blog post and a lot of blog posts about zero trust mode versus security zones, what do you think about replacing L3 Data Center core switches by High Speed Next Generation Firewalls?

Long story short: just because someone writes about an idea doesn’t mean it makes sense. Some things are better left in PowerPoint.

Read more ...

HP promises warranty on overclocked desktops popular with gamers

Gamers will be able to overclock and add more horsepower to HP’s signature gaming desktop without worrying about invalidating their warranties.The Envy Phoenix Desktop is among a number of newly redesigned desktops announced by HP on Monday. The towers have a premium look with an aluminum finish on the chassis, where HP had previously used plastic.For the first time, HP is offering Intel Core i5 and i7 chips that can be overclocked with its top-line Envy Phoenix desktop PC. That means gamers can increase computer performance by raising the CPU clock speed, which can be handy when running demanding games. These chips are often incorporated into home-built PCs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Walking with Packets: Traceroute Through MPLS Cloud

Think about this for a minute: An MPLS network with a two Provider Edge (PE) routers and some Provider (P) routers. The P routers have no VRFs configured on them and therefore have no routes whatsoever for any of the customer networks. A customer then does a traceroute from one of their sites, across the MPLS cloud, and into one of their other sites. The traceroute output shows the P routers as hops along the path.

How is it possible for the P routers to reply to the traceroute if they don't have routes back to the customer network?

iPhone 7 rumor rollup: Double cameras and Tattoo phobia

 Terry Johnston/Flickr Just as I was deciding between going with an Apple Watch tattoo or one of the old Fantasy Island TV show star Tattoo on my wrist, comes confirmation from Apple that ink on your wrist indeed can much up heart rate readings on your new Apple timepiece. Oh well, back to the iPhone 7 rumor rollup for me...To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 7 rumor rollup: Double cameras and Tattoo phobia

 Terry Johnston/Flickr Just as I was deciding between going with an Apple Watch tattoo or one of the old Fantasy Island TV show star Tattoo on my wrist, comes confirmation from Apple that ink on your wrist indeed can much up heart rate readings on your new Apple timepiece. Oh well, back to the iPhone 7 rumor rollup for me...To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Decapsulation ERSPAN Traffic With Open Source Tools

Cisco Encapsulated Remote SPAN (ERSPAN) feature allows to monitor traffic on one or more ports and send the monitored traffic to one or more destination ports.  Traffic is encapsulated into GRE tunnel and routed via network to ERSPAN destination. Any device that supports ERSPAN can be used as ERSPAN destination. It might be another Cisco device or Linux with installed software that can decapsulate GRE traffic.

The goal of this article is to show methods and tools for decapsulation of  ERSPAN traffic. For this purpose I have built simple lab that consists of a Cisco CSR 1000v router and two Linux boxes. Core Linux represents a network host and generates network traffic (ICMP) that is going to be monitored. It is connected to the port GigabitEthernet1 of the Cisco router. The router is configured to monitor traffic on the port Gi1 and it sends traffic encapsulated in GRE tunneling protocol to IP address 10.230.10.1. It is the IP address of the ERSPAN destination configured on Linux  Security Union. Security Onion is a unique Linux distro for intrusion detection, network security monitoring, and log management based on Ubuntu however any other Linux distro can be used.

Picture1_Toplogy

Picture 1 - ERSPAN Lab Topology

Below is an example of ERSPAN Continue reading

50 000 Page views of orhanergun.net between March-May 2015

This blog received 50 000 page views between 1 of March and 1 th of May.I shared you couple more metrics from the site stats in addition to Pageviews. Since at the same time two classes I teach ( Pre-CCDE and CCDE ) in addition to my other jobs, I couldn’t update the blog since… Read More »

The post 50 000 Page views of orhanergun.net between March-May 2015 appeared first on Network Design and Architecture.

LIFTTT gives IFTTT location-awesomeness

In my last article I mentioned If This Then That, a service I covered over a year ago. If you’ve used IFTTT you can skip to the next paragraph … IFTTT is a service that connects other services together allowing you to define triggers (“If This”) and actions (“Then That”) so you can do things that would otherwise require a lot of programming and, most likely as a consequence, a lot of swearing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Misfit Shine: The best fitness tracker

Want to track your health? You need to get the right gear to do this and a product I’ve been testing, the Misfit Shine, offers an outstanding combination of pricing, functionality, and ease-of-use.With the explosion of digital health monitoring products, the “quantified self” movement has moved away from its bio-hacker roots into the mainstream and Apple’s recent release of Health with iOS 8 underlined this change. And this brings up to the three issues that have, to date, limited who can use the tech:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dave Goldberg, entrepreneur and husband of Facebook’s Sandberg, dies

Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey’s CEO and husband of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, died Friday night. He was 47 years old.Goldberg, a well known Silicon Valley entrepreneur, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, his brother Robert said in a Facebook post.“In this time of sorrow, we mourn his passing and remember what an amazing husband, father, brother, son and friend he was,” Robert Goldberg wrote.In a statement released Saturday, SurveyMonkey said Goldberg’s “genius, courage and leadership were overshadowed only by his compassion, friendship and heart.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dave Goldberg, entrepreneur and husband of Facebook’s Sandberg, dies

Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey’s CEO and husband of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, died Friday night. He was 47 years old.Goldberg, a well known Silicon Valley entrepreneur, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, his brother Robert said in a Facebook post.RELATED: Notable deaths in 2014 from Tech, Science, Inventions“In this time of sorrow, we mourn his passing and remember what an amazing husband, father, brother, son and friend he was,” Robert Goldberg wrote.In a statement released Saturday, SurveyMonkey said Goldberg’s “genius, courage and leadership were overshadowed only by his compassion, friendship and heart.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Are You an ACKer?

There are lots of differences in the way that individuals communicate and interact. One difference I often notice is whether a given individual does or does not respond. Using myself as an example, I will typically respond to a text message or email even if no question is posed. Often I will either Thank the sender or provide some unnecessary comment.

My wife on the other hand almost never responds to an information only message. If nothing is being requested, don’t expect a response. I find that lots of people exhibit this behavior and there’s nothing wrong with it. The lack of a response doesn’t necessarily mean the information isn’t appreciated. It is important to realize that just because you do something a certain way, don’t expect others to do the same.

I’d love to hear from you, so share your thoughts by commenting below.

Disclaimer: This article includes the independent thoughts, opinions, commentary or technical detail of Paul Stewart. This may or may does not reflect the position of past, present or future employers.

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The post Are You an ACKer? appeared first on PacketU.

How to fix the CFAA

Someone on Twitter asked for a blogpost on how I'd fix the CFAA, the anti-hacking law. So here is my proposal.

The major problem with the law is that the term "authorized" isn't clearly defined. You non-technical people think the meaning is obvious, because you can pick up a dictionary and simply point to a definition. However, in the computer world, things are a bit more complicated.

It's like a sign on a store window saying "No shirt, no shoes, no service" -- but you walk in anyway with neither. You know your presence is unwanted, but are you actually trespassing? Is your presence not "authorized"? Or, should we demand a higher standard, such as when the store owner asks you to leave (and you refuse) that you now are trespassing/unauthorized?

What happens on the Internet is that websites routinely make public data they actually don't want people to access. Is accessing such data unauthorized? We saw that a couple days ago, where Twitter accidentally published their quarterly results an hour early on their website. An automated script discovered this and republished Twitters results to a wider audience, ironically using Twitter to do so. This caused $5-billion to drop off Continue reading
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