Docsis 3.1 Targets 10-Gig Downstream

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ORLANDO — SCTE Cable-Tec Expo — The Docsis 3.1 platform will support capacities of at least 10Gbit/s downstream and 1Gbit/s upstream, a move that will certainly prolong the industry’s need to deploy fiber all the way to the home.

via Light Reading Cable – Cable – Docsis 3.1 Targets 10-Gig Downstream – Telecom News Analysis.

To hit its capacity targets, the cable industry wants to increase its spectral efficiency by about 50 percent. As expected, the new specs will do away with 6MHz- and 8MHz-wide channel spacing and instead use smaller (20KHz-to-50KHz-wide) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers; these can be bonded inside a block spectrum that could end up being about 200MHz wide. (See Docsis 3.1 Will Change Cable’s Data Channels.)

The definition of ofdm from wiki.

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a method of encoding digital data on multiple carrier frequencies. OFDM has developed into a popular scheme for widebanddigital communication, whether wireless or over copper wires, used in applications such as digital television and audio broadcasting, DSLbroadband internet access, wireless networks, and 4G mobile communications.

And the primary advantage using ofdm is:

The primary advantage of OFDM over single-carrier schemes is its ability to cope with severe channel conditions (for example, attenuation of high frequencies in a long copper wire, narrowband interference and frequency-selective fading due to multipath) without complex equalization filters.  Channel equalization is simplified because OFDM may be viewed as using many slowly modulated narrowband signals rather than one rapidly modulated wideband signal.

Verizon draws fire for monitoring app usage, browsing habits

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Verizon Wireless has begun selling information about its customers’ geographical locations, app usage, and Web browsing activities, a move that raises privacy questions and could brush up against federal wiretapping law.

via Verizon draws fire for monitoring app usage, browsing habits | Politics and Law – CNET News.

Verizon Wireless’ marketing literature acknowledges that it sells “mobile-usage data that offers insights on the mobile-device habits of an audience, including URL visits, app downloads and usage.” (Not all carriers do: Google guarantees that its proof-of-concept Google Fiber project “will not engage in deep packet inspection” except when necessary to fend off network attacks.)

Apple loses UK tablet design appeal versus Samsung

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Apple still needs to run ads saying Samsung had not infringed its rights.

The US firm had previously been ordered to place a notice to that effect – with a link to the original judgement – on its website and place other adverts in the Daily Mail, Financial Times, T3 Magazine and other publications to “correct the damaging impression” that Samsung was a copycat.

via BBC News – Apple loses UK tablet design appeal versus Samsung.

Apple declined to comment. It can still appeal to the UK Supreme Court, otherwise the ruling applies across the European Union.

Hackers Exploit ‘Zero-Day’ Bugs For 10 Months On Average Before They’re Exposed

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One aspect of zero-day exploits use that’s made them tough to track and count has been how closely targeted they are. Unlike the mass malware infections that typically infect many thousands of machines using known vulnerabilties, the majority of the exploits in Symantec’s study only affected a handful of machines–All but four of the exploits infected less than 100 targets, and four were found on only one computer.

via Hackers Exploit ‘Zero-Day’ Bugs For 10 Months On Average Before They’re Exposed – Forbes.

Unsurprisingly, the study shows that hackers target common software like Microsoft Word, Flash and Adobe Reader. Sixteen of the 18 zero-day exploits discovered and analyzed in the study affected Microsoft and Adobe software.

The New Microsoft Walled Garden

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For the first time in the history of the PC, Microsoft is rolling out a new Windows ecosystem for which they will be the sole software distributor. If you buy Windows 8, the only place you will be able to download software that integrates with its new user interface will be the official Windows Store. Microsoft will have complete control over what software will be allowed there.

via Critical Detail.

This article has a very lengthy description of Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS describing  past evolution of the PC to where it is now going.  In essence, Microsoft want to be like Apple.  It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the next year.  Here’s another blurb:

Now, this is apparently a point of some contention. Perhaps because Microsoft has not made a bigger deal about it in their press releases, not everyone believes that distributing software for the modern UI will require developers to get Microsoft’s permission. But they are wrong. In order to set the record straight once and for all, a complete, thoroughly researched analysis of Microsoft’s official publications on the subject is included as Appendix B to this article. It demonstrates that there is no method for developers to distribute modern UI applications to the internet at large without receiving explicit approval from Microsoft.

Pirate Bay Moves to The Cloud, Becomes Raid-Proof

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“If one cloud-provider cuts us off, goes offline or goes bankrupt, we can just buy new virtual servers from the next provider. Then we only have to upload the VM-images and reconfigure the load-balancer to get the site up and running again.”

via Pirate Bay Moves to The Cloud, Becomes Raid-Proof | TorrentFreak.

The load balancer and transit-routers are still owned and operated by The Pirate Bay, which allows the site to hide the location of the cloud provider. It also helps to secure the privacy of the site’s users.

Next-Generation Malware: Changing The Game In Security’s Operations Center

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In a nutshell, the process of malware analysis and defense has evolved from a “set it and forget it” task into a skills-intensive, do-it-yourself research project. And that shift is having a profound effect on the staffing and day-to-day activities of the enterprise security department.

via Next-Generation Malware: Changing The Game In Security’s Operations Center – Dark Reading.

In the meantime, however, the best strategy for stopping next-generation malware is not to rely too heavily on any one technology, Manky advises. A combination of signature-based tools, behavior-based tools, traditional perimeter defenses, and next-generation application defenses can create such a muddle of problems for attackers that can discourage them — and send them looking for easier pickings elsewhere, he says.

Chips Race to Absorb the Line Card

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EZchip and Netronome both sell network processors — chips specifically designed for networking equipment — and both say they’re expanding their scope to cover Layers 2 through 7, thanks to their new chip designs. That means they can target switching, routing, security, deep packet inspection — pretty much all the intelligence in a network element.

via Light Reading – Optical Networking – Chips Race to Absorb the Line Card – Telecom News Analysis.

Trolls filed 40% of patent infringement lawsuits in 2011

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A new study helps to fill the gap by providing systematic data on the growth of patent troll litigation. Robin Feldman, a professor at UC Hastings College of Law, teamed up with Lex Machina, a Stanford Law spinoff that collects data on patent litigation, to compile a systematic survey of patent litigation. Their results are striking: the fraction of lawsuits filed by troll-like entities grew from 22 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2011.

via Trolls filed 40% of patent infringement lawsuits in 2011 | Ars Technica.

Is a Wireless Data Center Possible?

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In a new paper, a team of researchers from Cornell and Microsoft concluded that a data-center operator could replace hundreds of feet of cable with 60-GHz wireless connections—assuming that the servers themselves are redesigned in cylindrical racks, shaped like prisms, with blade servers addressing both intra- and inter-rack connections.

via Is a Wireless Data Center Possible?.

Although many 60-GHz technologies are under consideration (IEE 802.15.3c and 802.11ad, WiGig, and others), the authors picked a Georgia Tech design with bandwidth of between 4-15Gbps and and effective range of less than or equal to 10 meters. Beam-steering wasn’t used because of the latencies involved in reinstating a dropped connection, although both time and frequency multiplexing were. (Because the team couldn’t actually build the design, they chose Terabeam/HXI 60-GHz transceivers for a conservative estimate.)