Security has taken on an aura of mystery to many network engineers—why can’t we approach security in the way we do many other topics, rationally? It turns out we can. Dan Blum joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the concepts and techniques behind rational cybersecurity.
Cable networks account for the majority of the connectivity at the network edge. Given we started with dial-up over plain old telephone lines, and then with DSL, and were promised “ATM to the home,” how did cable networks grab the edge? Rouzbeh Yassini joins Russ White and Donald Sharp to give us the history of cable networks.
Most packet processing in Linux “wants” to be in the kernel. The problem is that adding code to the kernel is a painstaking process because a single line of bad code can cause havoc for millions of Linux hosts. How, then, can new functionality be pushed into the kernel, particularly for packet processing, with reduced risk? Enter eBPF, which allows functions to be inserted into the kernel through a sort of “lightweight container.”
Before the large cable providers came on the scene, most people accessed the Internet through dial-up MODEMS, connecting to services like America Online, across plain old telephone lines. The entrance of cable providers, and cable MODEMs, allowed the edge of the Internet to explode, causing massive growth. Join Donald Sharp and I on this episode of the History of Networking as John Chapman discusses the origins of the cable MODEM, and the origins of the DOCSIS standards.
Brian Trammell joins Alvaro Retana and Russ White to discuss the Path Aware Research Group in the IRTF. According to the charter page, PANRG “aims to support research in bringing path awareness to transport and application layer protocols, and to bring research in this space to the attention of the Internet engineering and protocol design community.”
PTSD is a real thing in the information technology world; it impacts the ability to keep and manage good people. In this episode of the Hedge, Lya Myers joins Eyvonne Sharp, Tom Ammon, and Russ White to discuss PTSD, burnout, and strategies for dealing with them.
The HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) carries the vast majority of all the traffic on the Internet today, and even the vast majority of traffic carried on private networks. How did this protocol originate, and what was the interplay between standards organizations in it’s creation, curation, and widespread deployment? Mark Nottingham joins Donald and I on this episode of the History of Networking to answer our questions.
Nick Carter joins Tom and I to discuss Flock Networks. What is Flock Networks?
AI in networks is a hotly contested subject—so we asked Bob Friday, CTO of Mist Systems, to explain the value and future of AI in networks. Bob joins Tom Ammon and Russ White for this episode.
While identity is adjacent to networking, it is an important part of the network engineering world—and is not well understood. Heather Flanagan joins Donald Sharp and Russ White to talk about SAML, unified identity, and some of the practical aspects of verifying a person’s identity.