On Oct 7, 2014, a security researcher, Jonathan Hall, posted details of a potential Bash/Shellshock vulnerability on Yahoo’s infrastructure: http://www.futuresouth.us/yahoo_hacked.html https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2ifbjb/yahoo_got_hacked_this_morning_hooray_for/ As it turned out, it was NOT a Bach/Shellshock issue. As Alex Stamos, Yahoo’s chief information security officer wrote, “it turns out that the servers were in fact not affected by Shellshock.” (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8418809). Read More
Is “Transparent” Web Caching Dead?
Over the last few months, I’ve been re-exam the value of web caches in a network architecture. Peers have asked me to write up the results. What follows are the results. The are provided to help operators not get pushed by vendors to make costly mistakes. “Web Caching” has been an effective and productive tool Read More
Weekend Read – Lessons from Heartbleed
Every vulnerability is a security lesson that will either be repeated or used to improve the organization. Lessons from Heartbleed is no different. IMHO “The Matter of Heartbleed” is a mandatory paper for all security professionals! It points out the dynamics of a critical Internet vulnerability and how organizations respond. As a minimum, read the Read More
Does the Internet “End” at 500K routes?
No! Of course, the Internet does not end at 500K routes. On August 13, 2014, there was a lot of “news” about instability issues on the Internet that might have been caused by a surge of new Internet routes (see articles like “Internet routers hitting 512K limit, some become unreliable” – http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/08/internet-routers-hitting-512k-limit-some-become-unreliable/). The most accurate write Read More
Don’t wait, prepare for the Internet Skills Gap
I’m grateful to my peers who spent the time to have coffee over this past week. We all see big changes in the industry and are really worried about the skills needed to capitalize on these changes. What follows are some thoughts that might be useful as we all explore how we can bridge the Read More
Security Questions to ask Vendors
What security questions are you asking your vendors? The Bloomberg article, “How Russian Hackers Stole the Nasdaq,” is a sobering insight into today’s risk. It should be a wake-up call for all organizations in all parts of the world to understand that even the best security teams are facing an overwhelming threat. The focused expertise used by Read More
Korea LTE Operators Drive an Ecosystem to Ensure Profitability
“Little things” matter in the telecommunications business. The difference between profitability and “just getting by” often depends on small focus innovations that increase margin, open new business opportunities, and add to the top line revenue. Attention to the “small things” are easily seen with the big three Korean LTE Operators. Their success has less to Read More
Get the Right People on the Bus and Finding Staff with that Internet Spirit
How do you find the people with the Internet Spirit? How do you ‘get the right people on the bus?’ Top Telecom Companies need people who are can ride the wave of change. Long live the Internet. The Internet Model now dominates all of telecommunications. The Internet’s End-to-End Model puts customers first. It is a Read More
Crowdsourcing as a Tool for Network Tuning
Excellent mobile customer experience is now the #1 factor keeping happy & paying customers. As the network grows in capacity, coverage, and complexity (heterogeneous network = complexity), the cost of constantly tuning the network also increases. The core mobility vendors[1] are putting forward a variety of “customer experience” tools. These tools work as an integral Read More
RIPE NCC Responds to the Rove Digital/DNS Changer Re-allocations
RIPE has publicly responded to the surprise felt by members of the DCWG and others involved with the Rove Digital/DNS Changer clean up community. The statement on their web page is as follows: 15 Aug 2012 — ripe ncc As reported in previous announcements, the RIPE NCC will go to court in the Netherlands on Read More