Scalability of the Great Cannon

Here is a great paper on China's Great Cannon, which was used to DDoS GitHub. One question is how scalable such a system can be, or how much resources it would take for China to intercept connections and replace content.

The first question is how much bandwidth China needs to monitor. According to the this website, in early 2015 that's 1.9-terabits/second (1,899,792-mbps).

The second question is how much hardware China needs to buy in order to intercept network traffic, reassemble TCP streams, and insert responses. The answer is about one $1000 desktop computer. In other words, China can deploy the Great Cannon using $200,000 worth of hardware.

This answer is a little controversial. Most people think that a mere desktop computer could not handle 10-gbps of throughput, much less do anything complicated with it like reassembling TCP streams. However, they are wrong. Intel has put an enormous amount of functionality into their hardware to solve precisely this problem. Unfortunately, modern software like Linux or Windows is a decade behind hardware advances, and cannot take advantage of this.

The first step is to bypass the operating system. This sounds a bit odd, but it's not hard to do. Continue reading

The mobile-enabled enterprise: Are we there yet?

Modern mobile technology may have been born with the first iPhone, a quintessential consumer device, but it wasn’t long before the business possibilities began to emerge. Fast forward to today, and it’s difficult to find a company that hasn’t embraced phones and tablets for its employees to some degree.It’s not difficult to see why. After all, the potential is nothing if not compelling: an untethered workforce equipped with easy-to-use tools for workers to be productive no matter where they are and at any time of day.That allure, indeed, is surely part of the reason IT organizations will dedicate at least 25 percent of their software budgets to mobile application development, deployment and management by 2017, according to IDC. By that same year, in fact, the vast majority of line-of-business apps will be built for mobile-first consumption, IDC predicts—and for competitive necessity at least as often as for efficiency or productivity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The mobile-enabled enterprise: Are we there yet?

Modern mobile technology may have been born with the first iPhone, a quintessential consumer device, but it wasn’t long before the business possibilities began to emerge. Fast forward to today, and it’s difficult to find a company that hasn’t embraced phones and tablets for its employees to some degree.It’s not difficult to see why. After all, the potential is nothing if not compelling: an untethered workforce equipped with easy-to-use tools for workers to be productive no matter where they are and at any time of day.That allure, indeed, is surely part of the reason IT organizations will dedicate at least 25 percent of their software budgets to mobile application development, deployment and management by 2017, according to IDC. By that same year, in fact, the vast majority of line-of-business apps will be built for mobile-first consumption, IDC predicts—and for competitive necessity at least as often as for efficiency or productivity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Catching up to other African nations, Zambia plans mobile infrastructure initiative

As an increasing number of people use mobile phones to access the Internet in Africa, Zambia is playing catch-up. To spur Internet and mobile phone connectivity throughout the country, the Zambian government has announced an initiative to build telecom infrastructure.The Zambian government says it will spend $65 million to erect new telecom towers across the country to be used by the country’s three mobile operators in the Southern African country.There’s little doubt than in many African countries, people depend on mobile phones for Internet access. The Mobile Africa 2015 study conducted by survey company GeoPoll and World Wide Worx, a technology analysis organization in South Africa, reports that Internet browsing via mobile phone is on the rise in the countries studied—South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Digital rights groups protest US ruling to block digital transmissions

A decision by a U.S. government agency prohibiting the transmission of 3D dental records into the U.S. could open the door to further content restrictions on the Internet, digital rights groups have said.The heart of the question is whether the U.S. International Trade Commission can block digital goods, in additional to physical ones, from being imported to the U.S. The Motion Picture Association of America has watched the agency’s decision closely, with an eye on using the USITC to block websites.The USITC’s decision concerns a patent dispute between two companies that make clear dental braces, but it could have larger consequences and is the wrong way to deal with infringement complaints, the rights groups said Friday in a letter to the agency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Apple Watch’s cure for notification overload? More notifications

Sometimes I just can't be positive about certain things. That I can't rejoice over the Apple Watch selling out makes me feel like misanthrope Melvin Udall, Jack Nicholson's character in the movie As Good as It Gets. In fact, I think Melvin's most memorable line may sum up the Apple Watch: "What if this is as good as it gets?" Melvin, of course, was referring to his life with obsessive compulsive disorder, and I'm referring to a consumer device that requires at least a Panglossian level of optimism to get excited about.But the Apple Watch will either fix wearables or finally put the category to rest. If the ultimate consumer wearable can't be made useful by the ultimate designer of consumer products, we can close the dresser draw and pull the shades on this product category.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PlexxiPulse—We’re Headed to HIMSS

Are you attending HIMSS 2015 in Chicago? We’ll be there with our newest partner! This week we announced our partnership with PSSC Labs. This partnership combines Plexxi’s SDN switching and control with PSSC’s high-performance compute and Cloudera enterprise. We’ll be showcasing the integrated solution, called the CloudOOP Big Data Pod, for the first time April 12 – 16 at HIMSS 2015. We’ll also be demonstrating how to effectively manage Big Data applications across a Hadoop cluster. Visit us at the PSSC Labs booth (#5284). We can’t wait to see you.

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Enjoy!

TechTarget: How SDN and SDS are shaping future clouds
By Jim O’Reilly
Tenants of clouds, whether public or hybrid, want the control mechanisms of a typical in-house data center. They don’t want to give up on virtual storage area networks and firewalls, access controls, governance and compliance and all the other security and control systems that go with ownership. But, at the same time, they want to see the promised agility, rapid scaling and cost effectiveness that brought them to the cloud in the first place.

Enterprise Networking Planet: The SDN-IoT Connection
Continue reading

Apple Watch already sold out of all models

If there was any doubt as to how consumers would take to the Apple Watch, I think we can put them to rest. Just six hours after the Apple Watch opened up for pre-orders, Apple's initial supply was completely sold out.What's more, even folks who were lucky enough to have their orders processed may see shipping times of 4 to 6 weeks. All in all, it's clear that demand for Apple's hotly anticipated wearable is extremely robust. While it remains to be seen just how revolutionary and game-changing a product the Apple Watch will or will not be, things are certainly off to a good start.As for current shipping times, MacRumors recently compiled this list which should provide a ballpark figure for which Apple Watch models might ship sooner than others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

China’s ‘Great Cannon’ DDoS tool enforces Internet censorship

China is deploying a tool that can be used to launch huge distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to enforce censorship. Researchers have dubbed it “the Great Cannon.”The first time the tool was seen in action was during the massive DDoS attacks that hit software development platform GitHub last month. The attack sent large amounts of traffic to the site, targeting Chinese anti-censorship projects hosted there. It was the largest attack the site has endured in its history.That attack was first thought to have been orchestrated using China’s “Great Firewall,” a sophisticated ring of networking equipment and filtering software used by the government to exert strict control over Internet access in the country. The firewall is used to block sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as several media outlets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

150 years after Lincoln assassination, massive online archive goes live

As the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination approaches, a massive online archive has gone live containing 99,525 documents related to the Civil War-era commander-in-chief.The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, a joint digitization project sponsored by The University of Illinois and the Abraham Lincoln Association, is dedicated to identifying, imaging, transcribing, annotating, and publishing all documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln during his lifetime. Lincoln was assassinated in Ford' Theater in Washington, D.C.  on April 14, 1865. Creative Commons Lic. President Lincoln with Gen. George B. McClellan and group of officers at Antietam, Md.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Friday, April 10

Thin crowds greet Apple Watch in stores in AsiaThe arrival of the Apple Watch in stores across Asia on Friday failed to draw the same crowds that greeted the launch of the iPhone 6—a sign, perhaps, that Apple fans are prepared to queue overnight to buy, but not just to try. The watch is now on show at Apple Stores across the U.S. too, but you’ll have to wait until April 24 to buy one. The company is accepting preorders online only.Reviewers like the new MacBook’s looks, but find a lot to criticizeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Friday, April 10

Thin crowds greet Apple Watch in stores in AsiaThe arrival of the Apple Watch in stores across Asia on Friday failed to draw the same crowds that greeted the launch of the iPhone 6—a sign, perhaps, that Apple fans are prepared to queue overnight to buy, but not just to try. The watch is now on show at Apple Stores across the U.S. too, but you’ll have to wait until April 24 to buy one. The company is accepting preorders online only.Reviewers like the new MacBook’s looks, but find a lot to criticizeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hacked French broadcaster’s passwords revealed in TV broadcast

The hacked French-language TV network TV5Monde might have made it easier for hackers to compromise its systems and social media accounts. One of its employees was interviewed about the hack on TV—in front of a wall of posters that appeared to contain usernames and passwords for the channel’s social media accounts.TV5Monde was hit by a crippling cyberattack on Wednesday when Islamist hackers managed to disrupt broadcasting across its channels and hijacked the station’s website and social media accounts.In the wake of the attack the offices of TV5Monde were visited by reporters of another French TV station, which broadcast an interview with one of TV5Monde’s reporters, David Delos. Behind Delos in the shot however, several printouts stuck to a wall appear to reveal the usernames and passwords for social media accounts including Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ASA Prompt Customisation

I occasionally run into Cisco ASAs that don’t identify their status (active/standby). This is rectified by configuring the “prompt “. These are:


asa-1-pri(config)# prompt ?

configure mode commands/options:
context Display the context in the session prompt (multimode only)
domain Display the domain in the session prompt
hostname Display the hostname in the session prompt
priority Display the priority in the session prompt
state Display the traffic passing state in the session prompt

“state” will tell you if the device is active or standby.

You can check what’s currently on the ASA with:

asa-1-pri# show run prompt
prompt hostname context


UK government’s spying practices challenged at European human rights court

The U.K. government’s mass surveillance practices will be challenged at the European Court of Human Rights.Human rights and civil liberties organizations Amnesty International, Liberty and Privacy International have filed a joint application with the court, they announced on Friday.The groups assert that U.K domestic law governing the U.K. intelligence agencies’ interception of communications and its intelligence sharing with the U.S., are in breach of fundamental human rights to privacy, freedom of expression and non-discrimination guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights. The challenge is based on documents disclosed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden revealing mass surveillance practices by intelligence agencies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Transforming robot probes Fukushima reactor vessel

Tokyo Electric Power on Friday sent a robot where no machine has gone before—inside the highly radioactive heart of a reactor at the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant.The robot, developed by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy and the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID), was inserted into the primary containment vessel (PCV) of reactor No. 1 at the plant, which was heavily damaged by the 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that devastated northern Japan.Tokyo Electric is taking the unprecedented step to better determine the state of melted-down fuel in the reactor as part of plans to dismantle the plant, a spokesman said. The No. 2 and No. 3 reactors also suffered meltdowns.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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