Web3 — A vision for a decentralized web

By reading this, you are a participant of the web. It's amazing that we can write this blog and have it appear to you without operating a server or writing a line of code. In general, the web of today empowers us to participate more than we could at any point in the past.

Last year, we mentioned the next phase of the Internet would be always on, always secure, always private. Today, we dig into a similar trend for the web, referred to as Web3. In this blog we'll start to explain Web3 in the context of the web's evolution, and how Cloudflare might help to support it.

Going from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

When Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote his seminal 1989 document “Information Management: A Proposal”, he outlined a vision of the “web” as a network of information systems interconnected via hypertext links. It is often assimilated to the Internet, which is the computer network it operates on. Key practical requirements for this web included being able to access the network in a decentralized manner through remote machines and allowing systems to be linked together without requiring any central control or coordination.

Video: Public Cloud Networking Is Different

Even though you need plenty of traditional networking constructs to deploy a complex application stack in a public cloud (packet filters, firewalls, load balancers, VPN, BGP…), once you start digging deep into the bowels of public cloud virtual networking, you’ll find out it’s significantly different from the traditional Ethernet+IP implementations common in enterprise data centers.

For an overview of the differences watch the Public Cloud Networking Is Different video (part of Introduction to Cloud Computing webinar), for more details start with AWS Networking 101 and Azure Networking 101 blog posts, and continue with corresponding cloud networking webinars.

Watch the video

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Video: Public Cloud Networking Is Different

Watch the video

You need Free ipSpace.net Subscription to watch the video

May I ask who’s calling, please? A recent rise in VoIP DDoS attacks

Over the past month, multiple Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers have been targeted by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks from entities claiming to be REvil. The multi-vector attacks combined both L7 attacks targeting critical HTTP websites and API endpoints, as well as L3/4 attacks targeting VoIP server infrastructure. In some cases, these attacks resulted in significant impact to the targets’ VoIP services and website/API availability.

Cloudflare’s network is able to effectively protect and accelerate voice and video infrastructure because of our global reach, sophisticated traffic filtering suite, and unique perspective on attack patterns and threat intelligence.

If you or your organization have been targeted by DDoS attacks, ransom attacks and/or extortion attempts, seek immediate help to protect your Internet properties. We recommend not paying the ransom, and to report it to your local law enforcement agencies.

Voice (and video, emojis, conferences, cat memes and remote classrooms) over IP

Voice over IP (VoIP) is a term that's used to describe a group of technologies that allow for communication of multimedia over the Internet. This technology enables your FaceTime call with your friends, your virtual classroom lessons over Zoom and even some “normal” calls you make from your cell phone.

Fedora Linux declared a ‘digital public good’

Fedora Linux has been recognized as a "digital public good" by the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), a strategy group set up by UNICEF to promote sustainable development through open-source solutions that contribute to an equitable world.The reasons Fedora was recognized include that Fedora: promotes best practices and adheres to standards creates an innovative platform for hardware, clouds, and containers that enables software developers and community members to build tailored solutions for their users is free of charge and comes with permissions to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense and/or sell copies of the software without restrictions other than that the same permissions must be granted to anyone using resulting products adheres to privacy and other applicable international and domestic laws shares personal information in limited and acknowledged ways causes no harm follows privacy policy guidelines and makes privacy policy available to partners Finding installed packages on Fedora Linux systems DPGA also notes that Fedora is actively used in 483 countries.To read this article in full, please click here

Fedora Linux declared a ‘digital public good’

IT Talent Shortage Hobbles Emerging Tech Adoption

The lack of skilled IT workers is hurting the deployment of emerging technology, according to a new survey from Gartner. In areas from cloud to cybersecurity, this crisis is expected to last for years to come.

A First Look at Intel’s Next-Level Neuromorphic Engine

Intel is still placing bets on neuromorphic computing with its Loihi devices. …

A First Look at Intel’s Next-Level Neuromorphic Engine was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

InfiniBand Innovation Is About More Than Bandwidth And Latency

Sponsored Moving more bits across a copper wire or optical cable at a lower cost per bit shifted has been the dominant driver of datacenter networking since distributed systems were first developed more than three decades ago. …

InfiniBand Innovation Is About More Than Bandwidth And Latency was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Symbexcel: Bringing the Power of Symbolic Execution to the Fight Against Malicious Excel 4 Macros

Office macros are a popular attack vector to compromise a user’s environment and deploy additional components. That’s because macros can hide within documents, often under several layers of obfuscation. In recent years, there has been an increase in attacks that leverage Excel 4.0 macros as threat actors have realized the power that this legacy functionality provides to an attacker.

Analyzing Excel 4.0 macros can be a daunting task, because the analysis often requires manual, step-by-step execution of the code to extract behaviors and IoCs such as the URLs from which additional malware components will be downloaded.

In this blog, we present Symbexcel, a novel solution based on symbolic execution for the automated de-obfuscation and analysis of Excel 4.0 macros. Our approach was recently presented at BlackHat 2021 [1].

What Are Excel 4.0 Macros?

Excel 4.0 macros, or XLM macros, are a 30-year-old feature of Microsoft Excel that allows one to encode a series of operations into the contents of spreadsheet cells. Distinct from the traditional functions provided by an Excel spreadsheet (such as SUM), Excel 4.0 macro functions have access to the Windows API and can be used to interact with the underlying operating Continue reading

Briefings In Brief 102: ZPE Systems Melds Universal CPE With Out-Of-Band Management

ZPE Systems presented at a recent Network Field Day. Founded in 2013, ZPE Systems focuses on two markets: providing out-of-band management for infrastructure, and providing universal CPE for remote and edge locations. The uCPE gear can run third-party VNFs, including firewalling and SD-WAN functions from your favorite vendors.

Briefings In Brief 102: ZPE Systems Melds Universal CPE With Out-Of-Band Management

The post Briefings In Brief 102: ZPE Systems Melds Universal CPE With Out-Of-Band Management appeared first on Packet Pushers.

New in NFA v21.09: additional MPLS and pseudowire information elements, BGP community filtering/grouping capability, and more.

We have recently released the new Noction Flow Analyzer v 21.09, offering users a variety of new features and capabilities. Check out

The post New in NFA v21.09: additional MPLS and pseudowire information elements, BGP community filtering/grouping capability, and more. appeared first on Noction.

Launching New Services and Products at the Speed of Cloud: Automating Your Hardware Test Lab

Whether the concept behind a new product is evolutionary or revolutionary, launching new technology and services isn’t for the faint...

The post Launching New Services and Products at the Speed of Cloud: Automating Your Hardware Test Lab appeared first on Pluribus Networks.

Real-Time Communications at Scale

For every successful technology, there is a moment where its time comes. Something happens, usually external, to catalyze it — shifting it from being a good idea with promise, to a reality that we can’t imagine living without. Perhaps the best recent example was what happened to the cloud as a result of the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. Smartphones created a huge addressable market for small developers; and even big developers found their customer base could explode in a way that they couldn’t handle without access to public cloud infrastructure. Both wanted to be able to focus on building amazing applications, without having to worry about what lay underneath.

Last year, during the outbreak of COVID-19, a similar moment happened to real time communication. Being able to communicate is the lifeblood of any organization. Before 2020, much of it happened in meeting rooms in offices all around the world. But in March last year — that changed dramatically. Those meeting rooms suddenly were emptied. Fast-forward 18 months, and that massive shift in how we work has persisted.

While, undoubtedly, many organizations would not have been able to get by without the likes of Slack, Zoom and Teams as Continue reading

Serverless Live Streaming with Cloudflare Stream

We’re excited to introduce the open beta of Stream Live, an end-to-end scalable live-streaming platform that allows you to focus on growing your live video apps, not your codebase.

With Stream Live, you can painlessly grow your streaming app to scale to millions of concurrent broadcasters and millions of concurrent users. Start sending live video from mobile or desktop using the industry standard RTMPS protocol to millions of viewers instantly. Stream Live works with the most popular live video broadcasting software you already use, including ffmpeg, OBS or Zoom. Your broadcasts are automatically recorded, optimized and delivered using the Stream player.

When you are building your live infrastructure from scratch, you have to answer a few critical questions:

“Which codec(s) are we going to use to encode the videos?”
“Which protocols are we going to use to ingest and deliver videos?”
“How are the different components going to impact latency?”

We built Stream Live, so you don’t have to think about these questions and spend considerable engineering effort answering them. Stream Live abstracts these pesky yet important implementation details by automatically choosing the most compatible codec and streaming protocol for the client device. There is no Continue reading

Announcing Cloudflare TV as a Service

In June 2020, Cloudflare TV made its debut: a 24/7 streaming video channel, focused on topics related to building a better Internet (and the people working toward that goal). Today, over 1,000 live shows later, we’re excited to announce that we're making the technology we used to build Cloudflare TV available to any other business that wants to run their own 24x7 streaming network. But, before we get to that, it’s worth reflecting on what it's been like for us to run one ourselves.

Let’s take it from the top.

Cloudflare TV began as an experiment in every way you could think of, one we hoped would help capture the serendipity of in-person events in a world where those were few and far between. It didn’t take long before we realized we had something special on our hands. Not only was the Cloudflare team thriving on-screen, showcasing an amazing array of talent and expertise — they were having a great time doing it. Cloudflare TV became a virtual watercooler, spiked with the adrenaline rush of live TV.

One of the amazing things about Cloudflare TV has been the breadth of content it’s inspired. Since launching, CFTV has hosted over 1,000 Continue reading

NSX-T Edge Transport Node Packet Capture

NSX-T v3.0.1 and v3.1.3 were used to try the stuff described below As always with network engineers, even when working with SDN/SSDC solutions, sooner or later you will be asked to troubleshoot connectivity across your hops. And if working with VMware NSX-T platform, your next-hop for the North-South Datacenter traffic will almost always be NSX-T EDGE Transport Node VM. It will be really useful then to be able to get some packet traces out of that box in order to troubleshoot the traffic issues in detail. One of the examples would be simple routing or some sort of Loadbalancing traffic

The post NSX-T Edge Transport Node Packet Capture appeared first on How Does Internet Work.

Increased interest in Spanish media after the La Palma volcanic eruption

The Internet is a valuable source of knowledge but also a deeply interesting, interconnected, and complex place. And with Cloudflare Radar (our Internet trends and insights free tool for everyone — including journalists, like I was for several years) you get a sense of different trends in the collection of networks that form the Internet.

We saw that over the past week or so in Spain. Radar shows a clear increase in interest in Spanish media outlets (in comparison with the preceding days and Sundays) after the news of the eruption in La Palma (one of the Spanish Canary Islands) broke on Sunday, September 19.

That is particularly clear looking at El País, one of the most well known media outlets in the country. Using our Global Popularity Ranking Trend available on Radar, we can see that ElPais.com jumped several positions in our ranking of most popular domains after September 19. That change is clear in the last seven days, but especially in the last 30, putting El País near the top 3,000 most popular domains in the world.

Elpais.com

A similar trend is Continue reading

Reusing Underlay Network for Infrastructure Services

Boris Lazarov sent me an excellent question:

Does it make sense and are there any inherent problems from design perspective to use the underlay not only for transport of overlay packets, but also for some services. For example: VMWare cluster, vMotion, VXLAN traffic, and some basic infrastructure services that are prerequisite for the rest (DNS).

Before answering it, let’s define some terminology which will inevitably lead us to the it’s tunnels all the way down endstate.