Posts by sjiveson

Max Schrems launches privacy NGO, wins €60k within first 24 hours

No SSL/TLS

Come on. No HTTPS support for the website.

Kubernetes has won. Docker Enterprise Edition will support rival container-wrangling tech

Re: Rancher

Rancher and Cattle are really good but they too are moving to Kubernetes with v2. Thus their USP, or 'moving up the stack' is the API, CLI, GUI, Catalog and other features which luckily for them they had already developed.

Networking vendors are good for free lunches, hopeless for networks

Cloud

I think everyone so far has missed the point that Peyton Koran said cloud was the 'game-changing' answer. No need for most networking vendors and their over-priced products and support, STP, VLANs, HSRP, IGPs or most of what's been mentioned thus far.

As an aside, where routing protocols are concerned, there are plenty of very good FOSS packages available and in use today (without the need for Google scale). Linux in general now has a highly capable and performant networking stack and feature set. Whilst performance will never match an ASIC, feature wise its comparible with 80% of what most 'top' network vendors provide for silly money running on a low end Intel processor in a green 1RU metal case.

Google: I know we promised not to mix our data silos buuuut...

SMS Collection

So, I thought I'd checkout the privacy policy for Google Messenger (the SMS app) to see if they are collecting anything SMS related. Good luck working that out - bastards: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

Tim Cook: EU lied about Apple taxes. Watch out Ireland, this is a coup!

Re: Just dumb

Apple and other companies should NOT be blackmailing nations with a choice between investment (including jobs) or paying tax. They, like most companies in the world, should be providing the first and paying the second. Anything else IS an unfair advantage.

Where exactly will those investments and jobs go? Is another European country likely to offer a similar deal? If not, and they have no base in Europe I'd imagine they can't do business here. That's the choice they should and hopefully do now face.

Replacing humans with robots in your factories? Hold on just a sec

"It is important ... to ensure that they have contractual arrangements in place with each machine or technology supplier. This will assist the manufacturer in being able to apportion liability and pass back any losses or costs that they incur as a result of any failures or outages."

I have never seen an IT manufacturer, even one earning 20% a year in support fees, ever admit liability or pay losses incurred due to failings in their hardware or software. What a load of shite.

Cisco says CLI becoming interface of last resort

Re: Overpaid arrogant gits

Funny then, that even today most vendor products don't offer an alternative at all and where they do, it's very often unusable (ditto for their APIs). Even the CLIs themselves are rubbish, particularly where Cisco's is concerned.

This is a vendor issue that's a long way from being solved, whatever the interface.

TCP is a wire-centric protocol being forced to cut the cord, painfully

That briefly mentioned work on inproving Linux network performance

Some of it anyway:

http://people.netfilter.org/hawk/presentations/LCA2015/net_stack_challenges_100G_LCA2015.pdf

BACS Bank Holiday BALLS UP borks 275,000 payments

Website Down Too

Seems the website is down for some too. I can login but I can't do anything useful before I get thrown out again.

I, for one, welcome the rise of the Infrastructure Endgame Machines

Terminator

Makes you feel like Sarah Conner; fully aware of the coming armageddon but unable to make anyone believe you. Trevor is spot on where careers are concerned and the readers' denial is very much the norm.

I've written many a blog post on the career related side of this (on a networking blog) and it's clear no-one wants to even consider the possibility that things will change in a significant way. Specialisation is one way to stay relevant but I'd say it's more likely to be a balance, serious skills in a few things, a good knowledge and understanding of many, many more.

I ended the last blog with this:

"Your silo is eroding rapidly, their containers multiply and everything will become software. Only you can decide whether you are a part of that future (take part, add value and be useful), or stay in the past and suffer the consequences."

Telcos' revenge is coming as SDN brings a way to build smart pipes

SDN?

Hmmm, nice to see a steady flow of networking articles on the Reg but there is absolutely no definition of what they mean by SDN. It means many things to many people; it might be helpful if an author provided at least a loose definition. At the moment, the only concrete example I've seen in white box switching and Cumulus.

SDN: It's living the dream – and just using what you've got

Re: SDN is not Openflow

It can be hard to say what does.

Looking forward to the Cumulus review.

SDN is not Openflow

Just need to make that clear, it's been a fair while since that was the case.

Re: been living the dream already for the past decade I guess

Nate,

I don't fundamentally disagree with anything you've said in your comment. However, I think you should state very clearly that you are referring to a very specific architecture, namely, the data centre and 2/3 tier applications, which I think were 'green field' too. I fully agree this can be done simply, relatively cheaply and with minimal ongoing operational overhead. Over-engineering is certainly rampant within the industry and I'm no fan of it. You could probably squeeze most enterprise DCs into a couple of racks these days with a couple of 10/40Gb switches, virtualisation and some hi spec servers.

Equally, few live within that small space and need to deal with many other areas; large campuses with wireless, WAN, trading floors, store branches, diverse enterprises, mainframes, ridiculous security policies and all the rest. Mix in a healthy dose of regulatory oversight, PCI, SOX, ITIL and service management, plus the usual silos and management incompetence and reality is rather more complex for most, through no fault of their own.

Of course, vendors capitalise on all this and gently encourage it too, that's the nature of business and it takes people in the right position and circumstances to beat the status quo. I'm glad you have and can, but perhaps a little more awareness and clarity would make your points more relevant.

Number 5 is alive! VirtualBox the fifth debuts

Vagrant

Those using Vagrant should delay upgrading, Vagrant v1.7.2 won't run;

Vagrant has detected that you have a version of VirtualBox installed

that is not supported. Please install one of the supported versions

listed below to use Vagrant:

4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3

E-voting and the UK election: Pick a lizard, any lizard

Can't be bothered

I've always voted but, really, exactly how does that vote mean I have a say? Ignoring the fact I've never voted for a winner, how can one vote possibly reflect my opinions and views over the following 4/5yr period? How does that vote stand against 'the whip'/the party line? Does that vote mean I support my country going to war, or constantly spies on me? Does it mean I want 3000+ new criminal offences on the books? No it does not.

Should my vote 'count' on the day where an MP may be elected because of it or not; it does not count for anything the day after. Voting is a mass delusion we all accept, a lie we tell ourselves, just like money. At least my money matters.

Cumulus Networks gives network admins a little DevOps loving

Errors

Wow, this must have been a last minute, late night jobbie written on a phone in the pub. How many grammatical and other errors could there be in such a short piece?

Exactly what aspect of this is related to DevOps?

Sony tells hacked gamer to pay for crooks' abuse of PlayStation account

XBOX Live

After reading all this I thought I'd better remove the payment option from my Xbox live account. Seems you can't do it by logging into your account on the Xbox or online. Instead, I have to contact support!

Broadband routers: SOHOpeless and vendors don't care

What I Use

Mainly due to reliability rather than security reasons I 'split' out my network setup.

I now have:

Zyxel Prestige 660R-D1 ADSL modem/router (not vulnerable to the Misfortune Cookie despite Checkpoint claiming that is the case) - £25 from Amazon - all external management access disabled

Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite - main router/firewall, very fast and slick, regular software updates - £80 or so from Amazon - no wireless

Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-LR - wireless AP - again, very impressive - £70 or so.

So, that's about £175 already.

I use TPLink powerline everywhere I can so wireless is just phones and laptop, its a big house so that probably added over another £100.

Regardless, well worth it. Broadband performance is amazing considering my remote location and distance from the exchange. Haven't had a single complaint from anyone in the large family about performance, reliability or Facebook not working since. That used to be an almost daily occurrence, normally resulting in a reboot. Worth every penny.

Cisco tears off gloves, throws copyright and patent punches at Arista

One interesting point to note is that Arista’s eAPI is probably one of the best APIs out there right now. This is one company that is well ahead of the industry and very open to the future; Cisco’s actions will only accelerate that for Arista and others and quite possibly further speed the pace of change to Cisco’s continued detriment.

Trevor contemplates Consumer Netgear gear. BUT does it pass the cat hair test?

Ubiquiti Kit

I can second the Ubiquiti recommendation. I've been through cheap to Draytek £150 routers and none have been reliable. I now have a EdgeRouter Lite, a dedicated and separate ZyXEL Prestige 660R-D1 ADSL modem and a Ubiquiti AP on the way (to replace a TPlink all in one jobbie).

I'd rather not have separate devices for each function but it seems to be the only way.

On the subject of Cisco, the software has been a real problem for many years. For Cisco software testing seems to be a case of shipping and waiting for customer complaints (and expensive outages). Its no surprise FB, Google et al build their own.

Useless 'computer engineer' Barbie fired in three-way fsck row

Feminist Hacker Barbie

Ah, this explains all the great #FeministHackerBarbie cartoons doing the rounds on Twitter.

Panzura's cloudy gear hits others' WAN optimisation kit for six

Huh?

Whilst I agree with some of the figures you quote, the ones from the company itself seem somewhat spurious. How were those figures come to? What was the latency to the actual file source etc. etc. I'm no storage expert but I'd imagine they are removing serialised opens, locks, closes etc. and making everything parallel?

Application delivery controllers tighten the security perimeter

Indeed it seems you are right. Thanks

Juniper?

Never really thought of Juniper as an ADC player since they discontinued the DX line in 2008. They just 'resell' Radware on their edge routers don't they?

Charity: Ta for the free Win 8.1, Microsoft – we'll use it to install Win 7

14,000

Forget Windows versions, why does this charity need 14,000 desktops? Most banks don't have that many.

Shopping list for Tesco: Eggs, milk, bread, tablets (the £60 7in Android kind)

£30 if Tesco clubcard vouchers = £3000 spend at standard rates.

Nothing wrong with using a BT headset for calls right?

Apple reveals payouts for parents of in-app purchase nippers

My Experience

My son managed £450 in a day, mostly buying diamonds in some game - it would have been more but he hit my overdraft limit. He had the password (saves me entering it every time he wants to try another game) but I wasn't aware my card was tied to the account; I've always bought him gift cards. Obviously at some point I must have used my card for some reason and forgot and somehow he hadn't tried to buy anything until that day.

Apple returned the money but again, stated they wouldn't do so next time. We didn't have any cash until the refunds came through and had to live on credit cards for the next week (family of six). If they hadn't refunded the cash it would have been a real problem.

There's no way to manage your account from the device which doesn't make things easy for you.

There's no way to use a card only for one transaction unless you manually delete it.

Deleting/changing your payment method is far from obvious.

Jobs' 'incredibly stupid' prattlings prove ebook price-fix plot, claim Feds

Most favoured nation clauses

Interesting. Amazon prevent me from selling my books cheaper elsewhere by reducing their price (and my income) to $2 below the price elsewhere. So, that's illegal is it?

Software defined networking works up a head of steam

Re: Yes but...

Sounds like something that will keep me employed and interested for a little bit longer!

Re: Microsoft....The company may appear to be a little late to the SDN party?!

It's definitely the incumbent major vendors who are late and who are still mostly attempting to protect their income in some way or another. Networking is almost ‘money for nothing’ for these companies at present (minimal investment, maximum profit). The whole industry has been a wasteland for years. If your interested I blogged about this subject here: http://packetpushers.net/the-man-in-the-white-suit/

Logitech unveils first Google TV box

Boxee Box - Remote

Did I mention the incredible remote with a QWERTY keyboard on the other side?

Boxee Box

Take a look at a much better alternative, the Boxee Box;

*$199 or £199 (shame)

*It does all the same stuff and more

*Plays files from your NAS or any other UPnP/DLNA device

*Looks very sweet

*Has a great interface

*Is truly open source.

It's out worldwide on November 10th, can't wait.

Mini Desktop PCs: Best Buys

Better Choices

Come on, there are far superior, cheaper alternatives to the Viewsonic;

Acer Aspire Revo R3610 - same specification, only £240 at eBuyer

ASRock ION330 - different specs between £200 (only missing the wireless) and £360 with a BluRay drive (but no OS)

Europe welcomes Dell's Mac Mini Zino HD

Better Value ASRock ION 330

I'd say the ASRock ION 330 offers better value than either base version of these, at around £225 with a (overclockable) dual core Intel Atom 330, 2Gb DDR, ION graphics, Gig LAN and similar specs on sound etc.. I'd say it's also bound to be quieter and it is definitely smaller. A Blu-Ray version is also available as is a white version.

On the downside, there are no 'options' to upgrade the CPU, graphics or to wireless. Also, no OS.

I know what I'll have.

Half a million customer records: Zurich Insurance admits big data loss

Late

What use is it telling anyone a over a year after the event?

What's the best NAS-to-TV box?

My Recommendations

If your TV has a PC input, why not just use your netbook?

For £159, the Acer Revo, with HDMI output looks like a good bet: http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/9606798/Acer-Aspire-Revo-Intel-Atom-N230-1-6GHz-1GB-8GB-SSD-Linux-Desktop-PC/Product.html although I've heard they are still a bit noisy.

There is always the overpriced Eee Box.

Aleutia also do an interesting range of silent and small PCs: http://www.aleutia.com/products

Personally, I just buy second hand small form factor PCs for £50 from ebay, but they can be a bit noisy.