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Some quick notes on SDR

I'm trying to create perfect screen captures of SDR to explain the world of radio around us. In this blogpost, I'm going to discuss some of the imperfect captures I'm getting, specifically, some notes about WiFi and Bluetooth.

An SDR is a "software defined radio" which digitally samples radio waves and uses number crunching to decode the signal into data. Among the simplest thing an SDR can do is look at a chunk of spectrum and see signal strength. This is shown below, where I'm monitoring part of the famous 2.4 GHz pectrum used by WiFi/Bluetooth/microwave-ovens:

There are two panes. The top shows the current signal strength as graph. The bottom pane is the "waterfall" graph showing signal strength over time, display strength as colors: black means almost no signal, blue means some, and yellow means a strong signal.

The signal strength graph is a bowl shape, because we are actually sampling at a specific frequency of 2.42 GHz, and the further away from this "center", the less accurate the analysis. Thus, the algorithms think there is more signal the further away from the center we are.

What we do see here is two peaks, at 2.402 Continue reading

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Install Calico to Enhance Kubernetes’ Built-in Networking Capability

Calico, from network software provider Tigera, is a third-party plugin for Kubernetes geared to make full network connectivity more flexible and easier. Out of the box, Kubernetes provides the NetworkPolicy API for managing network policies within the cluster. The problem many Kubernetes admins find (especially those new to the technology) is that network can quickly become a rather complicated mess of YAML configurations, where you must configure traffic ingress and egress properly, or communication between Kubernetes objects (such as pods and containers) can be difficult. That’s where the likes of Flannel, which cannot configure network policies. With Calico, you can significantly enhance the Kubernetes networking configuration. Take, for instance, the feature limitations found in the default NetworkPolicy, which are: Policies are limited to a single environment and are applied only to pods marked with labels. You can only apply rules to pods, environments, or subnets. Rules can only contain protocols, numerical ports, or named ports. When you add the Calico plugin, the Continue reading

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Intel stumbles in supercomputer rankings, delays next-gen CPU

This week the TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomuters found that, once again, Fugaku is number one, benchmarking at 442 Pflop/sec, making it three times faster than the second place machine. Impressive, but also indicative that it might also be the first to break the exaflop barrier if it’s working on the right kind of problem.TOP500 pointed out that Fugaku’s score (and everyone else’s) is based on double-precision benchmarks, the most accurate floating point math calculation you can do. But much of AI and machine learning is single-precision, which can be less than half the compute power of double precision.To read this article in full, please click here

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Intel stumbles in supercomputer rankings, delays next-gen CPU

This week the TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomuters found that, once again, Fugaku is number one, benchmarking at 442 Pflop/sec, making it three times faster than the second place machine. Impressive, but also indicative that it might also be the first to break the exaflop barrier if it’s working on the right kind of problem.TOP500 pointed out that Fugaku’s score (and everyone else’s) is based on double-precision benchmarks, the most accurate floating point math calculation you can do. But much of AI and machine learning is single-precision, which can be less than half the compute power of double precision.To read this article in full, please click here

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The Week in Internet News: U.K. Government says ‘No Encryption for Kids’

Less protection for kids: The U.K.’s Department of Digital, Media, Culture and Sport has recommended that children’s accounts on social media platforms and messaging services should not use end-to-end encryption, TechCrunch reports. In the effort to protect kids against online predators, cyber bullying and other bad stuff, the agency says children shouldn’t be protected against cybercrime, […]

The post The Week in Internet News: U.K. Government says ‘No Encryption for Kids’ appeared first on Internet Society.

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Public Cloud Security Considerations

Who is responsible for infrastructure security in the public cloud? What instruments do users have to control the cloud service provider? How do you know whether you can trust a provider? Let us try to figure out the answers.

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What’s the Most Secure Network of Them All?

You’re standing in front of three doors. Door number one is big, tall, and sturdy. Nothing fancy, but seemingly safe. Door number two has more bells and whistles, fancy engravings, and twice the number of locks. Elevated security for sure, but you suspect more form over function, so you’re not entirely sold. Door number three features a winning combination of practicality and advanced locks. This one has to be the best choice, right?

You can’t see behind any door, so your choice is limited to inference. That’s frustrating. Today, choosing the right security solution for your business is no different. Bells and whistles can distract us from our core objective of ultimate, unwavering security. And old reliable doesn’t seem capable of repelling an onslaught of modern threats and distributed exposures.

Organizations need to make the right network security choice to successfully secure their networks in a highly dynamic, distributed world where it’s not a matter of if intruders will get in, but when. Turns out, the right approach is as much about philosophy as it is about technology: trust no one. But, before we get into the relationship between trust and better security, let’s begin with a review of how Continue reading

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Friday Thoughts on Going Back To the Office

We’re halfway through 2021 and it’s been going better than last year. Technology seems to be rebounding and we’re seeing companies trying to find ways to get employees to come back into the office. Of course, that is being met head on by the desire to not go back at all and continue to do the job from home that has been done over the past year. Something is going to have to give and I don’t know what that might be.

• Working from home is comfortable for sure. And the lack of schedule means that people are unknowingly putting in hours beyond what they normally would at the office. At least in the office you can walk away from your desk at the end of the day.
• Unlimited PTO and flexible work schedules sound great in theory. Except not tracking your PTO hours also means you don’t accrue them. You don’t get paid for time you don’t take off. And a flexible work schedule sounds great in theory but reality says that you’re not likely to get much support if you suddenly decide you want to work noon to 10pm Hawaiian time. Flexible really means “work longer than normal”.
• Continue reading

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Weekend Reads 070221

Many ISPs in the Asia Pacific region use MikroTik RouterOS to provide access to their customers via PPPoE (please get on board with IPv6!), and some use MikroTik for their edge/core routers as well.

In the reorganization that relatively new chief executive officer and formerly not only Intel’s first chief technology officer (in 2001) and also the first general manager (in 2005) of its Digital Enterprise Group, the company’s first implementation of Data Center Group.

Let’s begin with the obvious, uncontested fact: the number of ransomware attacks is going up because companies are paying the ransoms.

The 2020 calendar year will long be remembered as an annus horribilis for most, except for a handful of technology companies that reaped the rewards of a global shift to remote work with successful initial public offerings (IPOs).

In 2021, the high-end TV landscape is just as confusing to new buyers as ever. There’s a bunch of new televisions to consider, a raft of technical-sounding features — 8K, HDR, Ultra HD 4K, 120Hz and HDMI 2.1 — and a stable of familiar brand names competing for your dollar.

Windows 11 adds several unexpected new features, including Android apps, a revised Start Menu Continue reading

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What’s AWS Conveying With Its Acquisition of Wickr?

As it looks to differentiate its service, AWS focuses on privacy and encryption with its acquisition of Wickr, which is known for its privacy features

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Heavy Networking 586: Virtualizing And Accelerating 5G RAN With 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon (Sponsored)

Today's Heavy Networking, sponsored by Intel, dives into 5G, virtualization, and AI. Intel's 3rd Gen Xeon processors can support a variety of use cases, including running virtualized network functions in the data center, at the edge, and in the cloud. They also have built-in acceleration for AI and cryptography, giving organizations a flexible platform for a variety of workloads, including service providers building out 5G networks. Our guest is Cristina Rodriguez, Vice President Data Center Group General Manager Wireless Access Network Division at Intel.

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Heavy Networking 586: Virtualizing And Accelerating 5G RAN With 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon (Sponsored)

Today's Heavy Networking, sponsored by Intel, dives into 5G, virtualization, and AI. Intel's 3rd Gen Xeon processors can support a variety of use cases, including running virtualized network functions in the data center, at the edge, and in the cloud. They also have built-in acceleration for AI and cryptography, giving organizations a flexible platform for a variety of workloads, including service providers building out 5G networks. Our guest is Cristina Rodriguez, Vice President Data Center Group General Manager Wireless Access Network Division at Intel.

The post Heavy Networking 586: Virtualizing And Accelerating 5G RAN With 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

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Restart VMware Network Adapters From PowerShell

I have an annoying issue. After my laptop goes to sleep, the network adapters for my VMware virtual machines stop working. In this post i'll show you how to use PowerShell to kick them in the guts and get them going again. How Open up a PowerShell window as Administrator and run the ...continue reading

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How to Build a Better Security Posture Post-Pandemic

What a whirlwind of a year it has been! Covid has accelerated digital transformation — but also made painfully obvious the data center’s continuing security vulnerabilities. We’ll explore VMware’s data center security insights and solutions at RSA Conference 2021.

Ah, 2020, a year we won’t soon forget. Initially, I know a lot of us had planned to work from home more frequently, given our ability to be physically anywhere with internet access, but who would have thought we would be forced to? I’m thankful we are in an industry that supports and encourages us to be mindful of our health and safety. And so, while conferences like Black Hat and DEFCON (“hacker summer camp”) are moving towards a hybrid model allowing a limited number of attendees to be physically present, I am choosing to stay home and participate remotely.

Why We’re Here

I am confident the underlying theme of the ’cons this year will be how the global pandemic, by requiring us to socially isolate, has forced innovation in the way we work. This has had a profound impact on the industry — accelerating us into a digital transformation that relies on cloud and other technologies. A transformation a lot Continue reading

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CDNs and Centrality

There are a couple of issues with the global CDN market that the June outages in Akamai and Fastly have highlighted. It's time we talked about them.

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Upgrading my desktop PC

I built my current desktop PC in 2014. A second SSD was added in 2015. The motherboard and the power supply were replaced after a fault¹ in 2016. The memory was upgraded in 2018. A discrete AMD GPU was installed in 2019 to drive two 4K screens. An NVMe disk was added earlier this year to further increase storage performance. This is a testament to the durability of a desktop PC compared to a laptop: it’s evolutive and you can keep it a long time.

While fine for most usage, the CPU started to become a bottleneck during video conferences.² So, it was set for an upgrade. The table below summarizes the change. This update cost me about 800 €.

According to some Continue reading

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Cracking WPA/WPA2 Pre-shared Key Using GPU

The WPA/WPA2 4-way authentication handshake between AP (authenticator) and client (supplicant) is used to generate encryption keys. These keys are then used to encrypt data sent over wireless medium. In the previous tutorial, we installed the aircrack-ng suite to capture and crack the 4-way authentication handshake to obtain passphrase needed to access a wireless network. […]
Continue reading...

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10 competitors Cisco just can’t kill off

In compiling this iteration of our list of competitors Cisco can’t kill off, one thing is clear: The competition is fierce amongst the bigger players.Nearly all the networking giant’s competitors have refreshed their product lines or bought into technology to compete more closely with Cisco. But that’s not to say Cisco has been sitting still by any means.The 10 most powerful companies in enterprise networking 2021 The company has expanded and refreshed its core Catalyst, Nexus and Silicon One networking gear and made major strides in security and software. Going forward, it wants to lead the industry in network-as-a-service.To read this article in full, please click here

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10 competitors Cisco just can’t kill off

In compiling this iteration of our list of competitors Cisco can’t kill off, one thing is clear: The competition is fierce amongst the bigger players.Nearly all the networking giant’s competitors have refreshed their product lines or bought into technology to compete more closely with Cisco. But that’s not to say Cisco has been sitting still by any means.The 10 most powerful companies in enterprise networking 2021 The company has expanded and refreshed its core Catalyst, Nexus and Silicon One networking gear and made major strides in security and software. Going forward, it wants to lead the industry in network-as-a-service.To read this article in full, please click here

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IPv6 Buzz 079: IPv6 In The Data Center

In this week's IPv6 Buzz podcast, we explore IPv6 in the data center with guest Jeff Tantsura. Jeff is formerly head of Network Strategy with Juniper/Apstra, and now with Microsoft Azure. We explore IPv6 use cases in the data center, reasons for and challenges of assigning a /64 per host, leveraging IPv6 flow labels to improve data center fabric performance, and more.