Larry Tesler, Computer Scientist Who Created Cut, Copy, and Paste, Dies At 74 (gizmodo.com) 66
Xerox PARC is also well known for not capitalizing on the groundbreaking research it did in terms of personal computing, so in 1980 Tesler transitioned to Apple Computer where he worked until 1997. Over the years he held countless positions at the company including Vice President of AppleNet (Apple's in-house local area networking system that was eventually canceled), and even served as Apple's Chief Scientist, a position that at one time was held by Steve Wozniak, before eventually leaving the company.
In addition to his contributions to some of Apple's most famous hardware, Tesler was also known for his efforts to make software and user interfaces more accessible. In addition to the now ubiquitous "cut," "copy," and "paste" terminologies, Tesler was also an advocate for an approach to UI design known as modeless computing, which is reflected in his personal website. In essence, it ensures that user actions remain consistent throughout an operating system's various functions and apps. When they've opened a word processor, for instance, users now just automatically assume that hitting any of the alphanumeric keys on their keyboard will result in that character showing up on-screen at the cursor's insertion point. But there was a time when word processors could be switched between multiple modes where typing on the keyboard would either add characters to a document or alternately allow functional commands to be entered.
The 40th Root KSK Ceremony Rescheduled (icann.org) 20
Suspicion and Anger Towards Microsoft Rises After Windows 10 Search Failure (forbes.com) 173
But unfortunately, Microsoft's fix isn't working for everyone -- and that's just the beginning. Long-time Slashdot reader Futurepower(R) shares Forbes' report: Second, and more worryingly, Microsoft's explanation doesn't add up and it has prompted serious questions to be asked about how the operating system works and what personal data it is sharing. Popular Microsoft pundit Woody Leonard led the charge, writing: "If you believe that yesterday's worldwide crash of Windows 10 Search was caused by a bad third-party fiber provider, I have a bridge to sell you."
In an open letter to new Windows head Panos Panay, Susan 'Patch Lady' Bradley was similarly sceptical, noting that today "we all found out that our local search boxes are somehow dependent on some service working at Microsoft." She attacked the company for a lack of transparency and gave it a maximum 'Pinocchio score' for a lack of trust... Similarly, Engadget writer Richard Lawler revealed that users were now trying to hack the Windows 10 registry to disconnect their local file searches from Microsoft servers "and I can't say I blame them after this episode. Microsoft owes users a better explanation than this and should make sure it's impossible for offline features to get taken out when the cloud is having an issue."
In fact, Forbes writes that "the aforementioned Windows 10 registry hack appears to be the only 100% fix for this issue and it also disconnects Bing and Cortana online services from Windows 10 search."
And then on Saturday the Windows Latest blog also noticed that Microsoft's release notes for Windows 10 20H1 Build 19035 reveal that Microsoft is apparently now delaying the roll-out of a widely-anticipated "Optional Updates" option. "It appears that the new Optional updates experience will come out in October/November 2020, not this spring as previously planned."
No Handshakes at Global Wireless Conference as Virus Spreads (bloomberg.com) 34
Windows Search Went Down For Hours Because of a Microsoft Services Outage (theverge.com) 68
Researchers Find Some LoRaWAN Networks Vulnerable to Cyber-Attacks (zdnet.com) 6
LoRaWAN stands for "Long Range Wide Area Network." It is a radio-based technology that works on top of the proprietary LoRa protocol. LoRaWAN takes the LoRa protocol and allows devices spread across a large geographical area to wirelessly connect to the internet via radio waves...
But broadcasting data from devices via radio waves is not a secure approach. However, the protocol's creators anticipated this issue. Since its first version, LoRaWAN has used two layers of 128-bit encryption to secure the data being broadcast from devices — with one encryption key being used to authenticate the device against the network server and the other against a company's backend application. In a 27-page report published Tuesday, security researchers from IOActive say the protocol is prone to misconfigurations and design choices that make it susceptible to hacking and cyber-attacks. The company lists several scenarios it found plausible during its analysis of this fast-rising protocol.
Some examples:
- "Encryption keys can be extracted from devices by reverse engineering the firmware of devices that ship with a LoRaWAN module."
- "Many devices come with a tag displaying a QR code and/or text with the device's identifier, security keys, or more."
Cisco Warns: Patch This Critical Firewall Bug in Firepower Management Center (zdnet.com) 5
The vulnerability is caused by a glitch in the way Cisco's software handles Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) authentication responses from an external authentication server. Remote attackers could exploit the flaw by sending specially crafted HTTP requests to the device. Devices are vulnerable if they've been configured to authenticate users of the web interface through an external LDAP server...
How customers should remediate the issue will depend on which release of Firepower Management Center (FMC) they're running. There is no workaround, but hotfix patches are available for several new releases of FMC, and maintenance releases that address the flaw are scheduled for later this year. "Customers may install a fix either by upgrading to a fixed release or by installing a hotfix patch," Cisco notes...
Cisco also disclosed seven high-severity flaws and 19 medium-severity security issues.
This FMC critical flaw follows updates made available earlier this month for three critical flaws affecting Cisco's Data Center Network Manager software. The researcher who reported the flaw has released proof-of-concept exploit code, but Cisco says it is not aware of any malicious use of the flaws.
What Happens When 'Ring Neighbors' Are Always Watching? (denverpost.com) 98
Ring videos also provide a constant stream of news and news-like material for media outlets. The headlines that accompany those videos portray an America both macabre and surreal: "Screams for Help Caught on Ring Camera," in Sacramento; "Man pleads for help on doorbell camera after being carjacked, shot in Arizona," in Phoenix; "WOMAN CAUGHT ON MEDFORD DOORBELL CAMERA WITH STOLEN GUN," in Oregon; "Alien abduction' caught on doorbell cam," in Porter, Tex. (it was a glitch); "Doorbell camera captures Wichita boy's plea for help after getting lost." And then there are videos like one shared by Rob Fox, in McDonough, Ga., in which his dog, locked out of the house, learns to use his doorbell. Mr. Fox posted the video to Facebook and then Reddit, from which the story drew news coverage. Ring contacted him, too, he said, to ask whether the company could use the footage in marketing materials.
Elsewhere, the footage is billed as entertainment. In early December, "America's Funniest Home Videos," which has been aggregating viewer videos since the 1980s, released a best-of compilation: "Funny Doorbell Camera Fails." It is composed almost entirely of people falling down...
Home surveillance means you're never quite home, but you're never completely away from home, either.
Footage from one Florida camera showed a bearded man who "licks the doorbell repeatedly. Then he stands back and stares," according to the Times.
And they also report that Ring cameras are now also being stolen, "leaving their owners with a final few seconds of footage — a hand, a face, a mask — before losing their connections."
Peter Kirstein, Father of the European Internet, Is Dead At 86 (nytimes.com) 22
"Peter was the internet's great champion in Europe," said Vinton G. Cerf, an American internet pioneer who was a developer of TCP/IP and a colleague and friend of Professor Kirstein's. "With skill and finesse, he resisted enormous pressure to adopt alternatives." Professor Kirstein was so avid a fan of computer networking that he gave Queen Elizabeth II her own email address, HME2. In 1976, while christening a telecommunications research center in Malvern, England, the queen became one of the first heads of state to send an email.
China To Complete Beidou Competitor To GPS With New Launches (apnews.com) 23
Africa's Internet Management Body Mired Again by Corruption Allegations (theregister.co.uk) 25
In both cases, Afrinic's board has attempted to place itself above the issue by ordering an investigation and sending a letter to PwC asking for an explanation. But internet insiders say the rot goes far deeper, and note that warnings of unusual activity at Afrinic, including misdirected organizational funds, have long gone unanswered by a series of CEOs and boards, despite a series of "investigations." In an explosive article earlier this month, the lease and sale of allegedly stolen blocks of IP addresses going back years was traced directly to the organization's second employee, Ernest Byaruhanga, Afrinic's policy coordinator.
'Maximum PC' Magazine Accurately Predicted Apple TV-Like Devices In 2001 (google.com) 44
To be fair, not every feature on his list would come to pass. For example, he envisioned this device as essentially serving as the main "broadband router of a household, sharing your Internet connection with any networkable device in your house". Also, he envisions the media box as providing a "robust web experience" for the whole family, something that today's set-top boxes aren't especially good at (anyone remember WebTV?).
Still, in wanting an "elusive magical box" that "will set on top of our HDTV's and do everything our computers, game consoles, and VCRs do, only better", he was prescient in his descriptions of what would eventually materialize as the Apple TV and other like-minded set-top boxes, impressive for a denizen of the year 2001.
Are you impressed with Smith's predictive ability? Here's what he wrote...
- On networking: "My set-top box will have to have a high-speed broadband connection...sharing your Internet connection with any networkable device in your house via standard Ethernet, Wi-Fi compatible wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth".
- On gaming: "[W]ill include state-of-the-art 3D acceleration and gaming support" and "will include Bluetooth-style wireless connections for all your controllers".
- On media playback: "[W]ill also serve as a media store, handing the duties of both my high-def personal video recorder (HD-PVR) and digital audio jukebox".
- On device collaboration: "integrating the ability to automatically synchronize with Bluetooth-enabled" devices. [Though the original article says "PDAs"]
Cisco Outlines Silicon, Software Roadmap For Next Generation Internet (zdnet.com) 21
In addition to the silicon, Cisco also outlined its focus on the optics space. As port rates increase from 100G to 400G, optics become a larger portion of the cost to build and operate internet infrastructure. To account for that, Cisco said its qualification program tests its optics and non-Cisco optics to comply with industry standards, and invests organically to make sure that its router and switch ports rates continue to increase. Cisco also announced plans to offer flexible consumption models for Silicon One that were first established with its optics portfolio, followed by the disaggregation of the Cisco IOS XR7 software. The Silicon One architecture will integrate into its new 8000 series carrier class routers, which is powered by Cisco's new IOS XR7 operating system. The OS will provide faster download speeds and security improvements, Cisco said.
According to the report, Cisco is currently working with Comcast and NTT Communications on ongoing deployments and trials of the 8000 series.
Facebook Tells US Attorney General It's Not Prepared To Get Rid Of Encryption On WhatsApp And Messenger (buzzfeednews.com) 109
Hyperscale Data Center Spending Hits Record $31B In Q3 (crn.com) 4
The Great .ORG Heist (harvard.edu)
80
1. Do affected parties have recourse?
2. Other than polite letters, is anything being done? (Maybe: Official complaints have been filed, but don't expect results.)
3. Georgia Tech's Internet Governance Project has pointed ideas for ICANN. (You can .. join ISOC as a member to take part in future decisions.)
4. Has anyone currently at ICANN + ISOC made substantive comment? (Yes: Richard Barnes, ISOC trustee and netizen, explains why he voted to sell .org.) Vint Cerf said: 'Hard to imagine $60/year would be a deal breaker for even small non-profits.')
5. How did we reach the point of Net pioneers embracing 95% profit margins? Tim Berners-Lee adds, "I'm very concerned about the sale of .org to a private company. If the Public Interest Registry ends up not being required to act in the public interest, it would be a travesty. We need an urgent explanation."
MediaTek and Intel Team Up To Bring 5G Networking To Laptops and PCs (arstechnica.com) 17
The partnership looks like a sensible one for both parties: Intel has been struggling to get its own 10nm hardware out the door on time, so getting this hardware design task off its plate may relieve some pressure there, while still keeping the company in an emerging market. MediaTek, on the other hand, can definitely benefit from Intel's software development expertise and deep integration with OEM vendors in the PC space. Specifically, the companies will be adapting MediaTek's existing Helio M70 5G modem for use in PC hardware. The M70 modem is already being built into MediaTek's Dimensity family of ARM System-on-Chip (SoC) designs; the new partnership gives MediaTek a whole new platform to market to and gives Intel a foot back into the door in 5G. It also may represent a way for Intel to push back against ARM-based Windows hardware like Samsung's Galaxy Book S, built on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx platform. We can expect to see the resulting hardware shipping some time in 2021, the report adds.
The RIPE NCC Has Run Out of IPv4 Addresses (ripe.net) 172
This event is another step on the path towards global exhaustion of the remaining IPv4 addressing space. In recent years, we have seen the emergence of an IPv4 transfer market and greater use of Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (CGNAT) in our region. There are costs and trade-offs with both approaches and neither one solves the underlying problem, which is that there are not enough IPv4 addresses for everyone. Without wide-scale IPv6 deployment, we risk heading into a future where the growth of our Internet is unnecessarily limited — not by a lack of skilled network engineers, technical equipment or investment -- but by a shortage of unique network identifiers. There is still a long way to go, and we call on all stakeholders to play their role in supporting the IPv6 roll-out.