Weekend Reads 121120

Giant tech companies have come under a great deal of well-deserved criticism from across the political spectrum on a variety of concerns over their actions. On market power, privacy, political bias and disinformation, they are under a microscope. One area where their actions deserve even more scrutiny — and opposition — is their war on the patent rights of inventors and startups.

If we look at previous mobile generations and perhaps start at 3G, we can see that with this technology, it became possible to access the Internet — however that was far from adequate for the technology explosion that happened around smartphones in the late 00s.

The Data Center Frontier Show podcast tells the story of the data center industry and its future. Our podcast is hosted by Rich Miller, editor of Data Center Frontier, who is your guide to the ongoing digital transformation.

Working remotely was growing more common even before the coronavirus pandemic accelerated the trend. As workers increasingly settle into their home offices, they still need access to company networks and office hardware — particularly printers. In fact, the pandemic led to a spike in the sale of home office printers, according to Deloitte.

In a previous blog on Getting Started with Modern Data Center Fabrics, we discussed the common modern DC architecture of an IP fabric to provide base connectivity, overlaid with EVPN-VXLAN to provide end-to-end networking. Before rolling out your new fabric, you will design your overlay. In this blog, we discuss the Collapsed Spine/Core architecture.

Following the pandemic, at least 70% of companies will permit a significant portion of their employees to work from home at least two days a week — requiring a revamped cybersecurity model, according to a new report by Forrester Research.

A recent review of nearly a dozen inexpensive video doorbells sold via online markets such as Amazon and eBay uncovered multiple security vulnerabilities in each device. The most serious among them was the practice by some of the devices to send Wi-Fi names, passwords, location information, photos, video, email, and other data back to the manufacturer for no obvious reason.

HTTPS resource records (HTTPS RRs) are a new type of Domain Name System (DNS) record. The standard is still in progress and covers various intended use cases, mostly around delivering configuration information and parameters for how to access a service.

The rising demand for cybersecurity professionals is fueling the development of undergraduate security degree programs at colleges and universities across the country. Many programs are thinking beyond traditi

For many in the African region, Internet interruptions or service degradations occur frequently, which results in a disjointed Internet experience. In order to help improve this experience, we need to track and measure various Internet characteristics through network telemetry.

Congress last week did something that it rarely does: It passed a meaningful cybersecurity bill.

A group of major telecommunications companies — Vodafone, BT, Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom — recently announced something a bit unexpected. In the Open BNG Operator Position Paper, they call for a fundamental, industry-wide change to the way broadband networks are built.

Privacy is in for a turbulent 2021, with companies facing more privacy regulations, continued attempts to create backdoors in encrypted communications, and the introduction of a variety of privacy-focused technologies.

For a group that works on network technologies it was always a bit odd that the IETF met in person three times a year. Didn’t we have enough trust in the efficacy in the technologies that we work on? I don’t think that is the case. I think the bandwidth of in-person meetings is exceptionally high, and we just cannot cram all that into a virtual world. In this rather exceptional year the IETF has joined its conference brethren in virtual meetings. The latest, IETF 109, was held in mid-November. I’m going to pick just one presentation from each of a small collection of the week’s working group meetings and explore that topic in a little more detail.

Researchers at Huntress Labs have uncovered what they described as a really clever use of Windows batch scripting by the authors of Trickbot to try and sneak the latest version of their malware past automated detection tools.

Every three years, the Copyright Office holds a rulemaking process where it grants the public permission to bypass digital locks for lawful purposes. In 2018, the Office expanded existing protections for jailbreaking and modifying your own devices to include voice-activated home assistants like Amazon Echo and Google Home, but fell far short of the broad allowance for all computerized devices that we’d asked for.

Juniper Networks developed the Junos OS® Evolved disaggregated network operating system (NOS) building on the strengths of the Junos operating system, to bring industry leading routing and switching solutions to a native Linux environment. Junos OS Evolved provides a modern, programmable, highly available and resilient platform and at the same time, delivers a secure execution environment.

The Data Center Frontier Show podcast tells the story of the data center industry and its future. Our podcast is hosted by Rich Miller, editor of Data Center Frontier, who is your guide to the ongoing digital transformation.

The artificial intelligence (AI) ethics field is booming. According to the Council of Europe, there are now more than 300 AI policy initiatives worldwide. Professional societies such as the ACM and the IEEE have drafted frameworks, as have private companies and national governments.

As IT organizations struggle with the security implications of remote working arrangements and the already lackadaisical attitudes about security that permeate across the enterprise user base, now is the time to change how security teams influence their users’ behavior.