Russian extradited to US for hacks that stole 160 million credit card numbers

A Russian man accused of high-profile cyberattacks on Nasdaq, Dow Jones, Heartland Payment Systems and 7-Eleven has been extradited to the U.S. and appeared in court in Newark, New Jersey, Tuesday.Vladimir Drinkman, 34, of Syktyykar and Moscow, Russia, was charged for his alleged role in a data theft conspiracy that targeted major corporate networks and stole more than 160 million credit card numbers, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release. Drinkman was arrested in the Netherlands in June 2012 and had been detained there.Drinkman appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and entered a plea of not guilty to 11 counts he faces. His trial is scheduled to begin in April.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wireless carriers aren’t complying with cellphone unlocking agreement

Sina Khanifar, a technology fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a long-outspoken advocate for cellphone unlocking, recently reviewed the major U.S. wireless carriers' policies and practices since they reached a voluntary agreement to unlock former customers' smartphones so they can switch carriers.You might be surprised to learn that most carriers are not sticking to the agreement very well.A little background on the policy – after years of criticism from relatively niche technology and privacy advocates, by late 2013 the wireless carriers found themselves the targets of mainstream criticism for their refusal to unlock former customers' smartphones. This, of course, prevented customers from switching carriers and often forced them to sign new contracts with them. Even the White House called for reform on the issue, and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler threatened to impose new regulations on the practice if the industry didn't voluntarily change its unlocking policies. The carriers chose the latter and, through a letter from wireless trade organization CTIA, promised to reach an agreement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Competition, new rules to spur West African electronic financial services

New regulations, competition and product diversity are likely to help boost digital financial services across the eight West African Economic and Monetary Union countries.Making financial services available and affordable to all segments of the population, especially those excluded by income level, political instability, gender, location, or education, has been a major topic over the past few years in Africa.The availability of financial services to those who historically not had access to them—so-called financial inclusion—is essential for widespread economic growth, according to the African Development Bank (ADF). However, Africa has been lagging behind other continents in this area, with less than one out of four adults holding an account at a formal financial institution, according to an ADF report, “Financial Inclusion in Africa.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Competition, new rules to spur West African electronic financial services

New regulations, competition and product diversity are likely to help boost digital financial services across the eight West African Economic and Monetary Union countries.Making financial services available and affordable to all segments of the population, especially those excluded by income level, political instability, gender, location, or education, has been a major topic over the past few years in Africa.The availability of financial services to those who historically not had access to them—so-called financial inclusion—is essential for widespread economic growth, according to the African Development Bank (ADF). However, Africa has been lagging behind other continents in this area, with less than one out of four adults holding an account at a formal financial institution, according to an ADF report, “Financial Inclusion in Africa.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM puts software and cloud at the center of storage

The future of storage may not be in storage itself, but in the intelligence to manage it.Major storage vendors and startups alike are now pushing software-defined systems spanning anything from a set of arrays to a whole enterprise. On Tuesday, IBM placed a big bet on this trend, announcing the first product in a portfolio called IBM Spectrum Storage and saying it will invest $1 billion in storage software over the next five years.The strategy will see IBM offer its traditional storage systems in software form so customers can choose to buy them as appliance, software or service. The first Spectrum Storage product out of the gate is IBM Spectrum Accelerate, software that’s based on the company’s own XIV high-end storage appliance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Arabic cyberespionage group attacking Middle Eastern, other targets

An Arabic cyberespionage group has attacked thousands of high-profile targets in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and other countries for the past two years, cybersecurity vendor Kaspersky Lab said.The cybermercenaries, which the vendor dubbed the Desert Falcons, has stolen more than 1 million files from 3,000 victims in more than 50 countries, Kaspersky Lab said Tuesday. The group, likely native Arabic speakers, began in 2011, with the first infections coming in 2013, the company said.Targeted countries include Algeria, Lebanon, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East, and the U.S., Russia, France and Sweden beyond the region, Kaspersky said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

From the Desk of Jarrod Mills :: Updated R&S Material is on the Way!

Over the next few months, several enhancements and upgrades to the CCIE Routing and Switch product line will be rolled out. I am currently doing a thorough review of the Volume 1 Workbook to ensure that every topic within the Version 5 Blueprint is thoroughly tested and validated. Shortly thereafter, I will be editing and compiling the complete Volume 2 Mock Lab workbook with 5 full 8-hour labs. These labs will fully prepare students for success on the rigorous Cisco CCIE lab exam.

After listening to the feedback of current and prospective students, I realized that the Troubleshooting and Diagnostic Sections were a stumbling block for many and that these sections were under-represented in the current training program. As a result, new Troubleshooting and Diagnostic workbooks are currently under development with a target completion date within the next 2 months. The Troubleshooting workbook will contain 50 tickets that are similar in difficulty to the tickets the student will experience in the Cisco lab exam. Similarly, the Diagnostic workbook will also contain 50 issues and be designed to allow students to hone their skills, and become confident in their ability to identify and choose the correct solution(s) in this section of Continue reading

Vagrant Box for Learning Open vSwitch

As you may have picked up from some of my recent posts, I’m focused on building content and tools that will help others learn new projects, products, and technologies that I think will be very relevant in the future. One such project is Open vSwitch (OVS), which I’ve written about quite a bit (you can see all OVS-related posts here). To help others work with and learn about Open vSwitch, I’ve published a new Vagrant base box.

(In the event you’re not familiar with Vagrant, take a look at this quick introduction.)

The new Vagrant box I’ve created is running Ubuntu 14.04.1 and has Open vSwitch 2.3.1—the latest available release—pre-installed. To install this Vagrant box for use in your Vagrant environments, simply run this command:

vagrant box add slowe/ubuntu-1404-x64-ovs

Vagrant will download and install the box. (Note that this box is formatted for the “vmware_desktop” provider, which means you’ll need VMware Fusion or VMware Workstation as well as the Vagrant plugin for VMware.) Once the box is installed on your system, then you can begin using it in a Vagrantfile by just referencing the box name. As with the other Vagrant boxes Continue reading

Twitter improves security for shared accounts

Twitter is giving users what it thinks is a safer way to handle shared access to an account without compromising the login.Users of TweetDeck, the popular dashboard system for the site, will be able to share access to Twitter accounts without sharing passwords. That adds a useful layer of security for businesses that use Twitter, by eliminating the need to disseminate passwords among employees.Some high-profile Twitter accounts like those belonging to Newsweek magazine and the U.S. military’s Central Command have been hacked in recent months. Shared passwords are an obvious weak point for corporate social media accounts, as they increase the likelihood of unauthorized access.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tell us what you want from Docker.com!

Most memorable SNL tech skits & bits

In the wake of SNL celebrating its 40th anniversary this past weekend (complete with a free SNL 40 iOS app), we take a trip back through some of Saturday Night Live's most memorable techie skits and bits. Feel free to hit me up if there are good ones I missed (I purposely left out a few NSFW ones).With smartphones, computers and the Internet going mainstream in recent years, tech has become a much more prevalent subject on the late night show.Google Glass Tech's diversity problemTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: Nvidia’s Android-powered Shield tablet is actually great for gaming

Over the past few years, I have become increasingly reliant on Android-powered tablets for a large majority of my daily activities: general browsing, social media and email, and even for the majority of my entertainment (music and movie watching).But gaming…gaming is the one area in which Android has just never really embedded itself in my home. Sure, I play some Android games here and there, but I still own dedicated, non-Android powered consoles. Part of the reason is the lack of big, Triple-A quality games available for Android; there are some, but not as many as competing gaming platforms. The other part is the lack of great gaming hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Networking Field Day at Cumulus Networks – Recap

Networking Field Day is not your typical event; it is an interactive forum where vendors present to selected networking industry experts.

Feb 11, 2015 was our first Networking Field Day at Cumulus Networks and as many have commented, it was “very informational” and an “excellent” presentation. So, for those of you that could not make it, here is the recap with the recordings.

Being an atypical event, #NFD9 had to start off differently with…. a grandiose entrance from the delegates in a limo and some first-class espressos powered by the Cumulus Networks team before getting off to an exciting 2hours forum.

Cumulus Networks Overview

Kicking off the session was JR Rivers (@JRCumulus), Co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Networks for a straight conversation and great anecdotes on Cumulus Networks and what makes Cumulus Linux different. “Cumulus Linux is fundamentally & unashamedly Linux!” What sets Cumulus Networks apart from others? The responsibility to take patches upstream, the real partnerships, being an enabler rather than a gatekeeper.

Data Center Architectures

What architectures are best suited for today’s date center network? And how does Cumulus Networks make it easier to build networks? Dinesh Dutt (@ddcumulus), Chief Continue reading

Let’s Meet at Interop Las Vegas 2015

The Buzz About NetBeez

Microsoft adds HTTP Strict Transport Security support to Internet Explorer

Starting with Windows 10, Internet Explorer will allow users to access some websites only over SSL-encrypted connections, if those websites have opted into a new security mechanism.Users can test the new feature, known as HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) in Internet Explorer on Windows 10 Technical Preview. In the future, it will also be added to the Project Spartan browser, said Microsoft program managers Mike Bell and David Walp in a blog post.HSTS is a standard defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force in RFC6797. It was designed to prevent SSL stripping attacks, where hackers in a position to intercept a user’s traffic can downgrade connections from HTTPS (HTTP and SSL encryption) to plain HTTP.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft adds HTTP Strict Transport Security support to Internet Explorer

Starting with Windows 10, Internet Explorer will allow users to access some websites only over SSL-encrypted connections, if those websites have opted into a new security mechanism. Users can test the new feature, known as HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) in Internet Explorer on Windows 10 Technical Preview. In the future, it will also be added to the Project Spartan browser, said Microsoft program managers Mike Bell and David Walp in a blog post. HSTS is a standard defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force in RFC6797. It was designed to prevent SSL stripping attacks, where hackers in a position to intercept a user’s traffic can downgrade connections from HTTPS (HTTP and SSL encryption) to plain HTTP.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A Quick Thought About Mesos-DNS

A colleague recently pointed me to the recent Mesosphere announcement of Mesos-DNS, a DNS-based service discovery mechanism for Apache Mesos clusters. A comment made in the announcement got me thinking, and I wanted to briefly share my thoughts.

The comment that got me thinking was this:

Mesos-DNS is simple and stateless. Unlike Consul and SkyDNS, it does not require consensus mechanisms, persistent storage, or a replicated log.

If you’ve been following along here on my site, you know that I’ve written about Consul before (see here), and I have more Consul content planned. I’m reasonably familiar with Consul’s architecture and requirements. Likewise, although I haven’t specifically written about SkyDNS, it’s based on etcd, which I have talked about (see here). The Mesos-DNS article seems to imply that Mesos-DNS is somehow less complex than either of these two solutions because it doesn’t require consensus mechanisms, persistent storage, or a replicated log.

However, in my mind that’s a misleading statement. Yes, Consul does require a consensus mechanism (it uses Raft, like etcd). SkyDNS (as I understand it, at least) simply leverages etcd, so technically SkyDNS itself doesn’t require a consensus mechanism. And the assertion that SkyDNS itself Continue reading

Apple orders 5-6 million Apple Watch units; Gold model may cost more than $4000

The Apple Watch will finally hit store shelves in April and we're finally starting to get more information regarding a) Apple's expectations for the device and b) just how expensive some of the models might be.Earlier today, The Wall Street Journal published an article relaying that Apple has ordered upwards of 6 million Apple Watch units from suppliers for the device's initial run. Apple has asked its suppliers in Asia to make a combined five to six million units of its three Apple Watch models during the first quarter ahead of the product’s release in April, according to people familiar with the matter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Peering with Route Servers

Original content from Roger's CCIE Blog Tracking the journey towards getting the ultimate Cisco Certification. The Routing & Switching Lab Exam
As your network grows bigger and your internet traffic grows, it starts to make sense to peer directly with other networks rather than simply pay an ISP to deliver all that traffic. Peering is one of the areas in life where the Pareto principle, also known as the 80-20 rule applies: 20% of your potential... [Read More]

Post taken from CCIE Blog

Original post Peering with Route Servers