Ever since our own government’s WWI propaganda machine portrayed the Germans as evildoers intent on raping and pillaging the USA, Washington has managed to make the public fearful about one sort of impending doom or another. When I was a kid we were all going to be blown to smithereens by a Russian nuke. “DUCK and cover!” Then came the domino theory of communist takeovers. There were riots, crime sprees, gangsters, Russians, Communists, evil Birchers, Iraqis, Hezbollah, all out to doom the country.
Now looms the horrible cyberattack from God knows who.
Category Archives: Networking
Lone packet cripples telco networks
Telcos the world over were running networks tantamount to “technology sandwiches” where layers of legacy kit had created such high complexity that operators were unaware of glaring holes which Langlois regularly revealed in penetration tests.
“We accessed [an operator’s] systems through their x25 network which they never knew was running because the network vendor never disclosed it — it was just underlying technology.”
Ericsson Adapts to the TV Streaming Challenge
The problem with ABR is that the client device, such as a smartphone or tablet, is in charge of the bandwidth and isn’t fair about how that capacity is allocated. If an iPhone is the first device on the home network to request a video stream, it will typically receive a high bit-rate version — perhaps more than it really needs. Then, when a connected HD television requests a stream, it tends to get the scraps, resulting in a crummy-looking pixel-icious image.
Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) is trying to solve the problem by applying Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ), a data packet scheduling technique, to ABR streams.
From Wikipedia on WFQ:
WFQ is a generalization of fair queuing (FQ). Both in WFQ and FQ, each data flow has a separate FIFO queue. In FQ, with a link data rate of
, at any given time the
active data flows (the ones with non-empty queues) are serviced simultaneously, each at an average data rate of
. Since each data flow has its own queue, an ill-behaved flow (who has sent larger packets or more packets per second than the others since it became active) will only punish itself and not other sessions.
As opposed to FQ, WFQ allows different sessions to have different service shares. If
data flow number
will achieve an average data rate of
It can be proven [1] that when using a network with WFQ switches and a data flow that is leaky bucket constrained, an end-to-end delay bound can be guaranteed. By regulating the WFQ weights dynamically, WFQ can be utilized for controlling the quality of service, for example to achieve guaranteed data rate.
Flaws allow 3G devices to be tracked
Two attacks were conducted using off-the-shelf kit and a rooted — or modified — femtocell unit which broadcasted a 3G signal. The attacks were made by intercepting, altering and injecting 3G Layer-3 messages into communication between the base station and mobile phones in both directions.
The researchers wrote that the attacks could be used to track staff movements within a building.
“[The employer] would first use the femtocell to sniff a valid authentication request. This could happen in a different area than the monitored one. Then the employer would position the device near the entrance of the building. Movements inside the building could be tracked as well by placing additional devices to cover different areas of the building,” they wrote.
An Introduction to Computer Networks
This is an introductory course on computer networking, specifically the Internet. It focuses on explaining how the Internet works, ranging from how bits are modulated on wires and in wireless to application-level protocols like BitTorrent and HTTP. It also explains the principles of how to design networks and network protocols. Students gain experience reading and understanding RFCs (Internet protocol specifications) as statements of what a system should do. The course grounds many of the concepts in current practice and recent developments, such as net neutrality and DNS security.
via Stanford Online | An Introduction to Computer Networks | Preview.
This is a free course for online but the first class starts tomorrow.
Prerequisites
Students need an introductory course in probability, a strong understanding of bits and bytes, and knowledge of how computers lay out data in memory.
Don’t sweat 802.11ac Wi-Fi – because 802.11ad will knock your socks off
802.11ac is a development of the current 802.11n standard, producing improved performance on the same 5GHz frequency bands. Some routers using the 802.11ac have already been deployed, and the experts on the panel agreed that it will become commonplace by early 2013.
via Interop: Don’t sweat 802.11ac Wi-Fi – because 802.11ad will knock your socks off.
Devices using the 60GHz standard could begin to appear in 2014 and become more prominent in 2015. This means that the next major transition is still well over a year away – in part because 802.11ac will not be a particularly testing upgrade for most end users.
Wi-Fi roaming: Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot
Operators faced with overloaded 3G and 4G networks would also like to use Wi-Fi offload for users as well as for backhaul data, which is why both the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Broadband Alliance are working on standards to simplify connection and roaming: Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) respectively.
via Wi-Fi roaming: Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot | ZDNet.
Vidtel teleconferencing
To use Vidtel’s cloud, all you need is a high-speed Internet connection (384k) and video endpoints (room systems, video phones, PCs/Macs, tablets or smartphones). That’s it. No need to hassle with logging into a portal first.
via How It Works.
Junosphere Lab
Junosphere Lab is a first-of-its-kind offer from Juniper Networks that can reduce the costs of network planning and modeling by as much as 90%. Junosphere Lab provides a virtual environment where you can create and run elements and networks running the Junos operating system. You can use these networks to model your network, plan for new services, or examine “what-if” scenarios.
Diameter Signaling Router (DSR), 3GPP DRA
Tekelec’s Diameter Signaling Router centralizes routing, traffic management and load-balancing tasks to create an architecture that enables your IMS and LTE networks to grow incrementally to support increasing service and traffic demands. The Diameter solution provides protocol mediation and interworking functions that allow you to manage 2G/3G-to-LTE and LTE-to-LTE roaming seamlessly.