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Submission + - ISPs Violating Net Neutrality, Blocking Encryption And Putting Users At Risk (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: In July, VPN provider Golden Frog (creators of the VyprVPN service) debuted front and center in the debate over net neutrality. One of their customers, Colin Nederkoorn, published a video showing how switching to VyprVPN increased his network performance by a factor of 10 on Verizon while streaming Netflix. Now, Golden Frog has filed a brief with the FCC, discussing both this incident and another, more troubling problem for security advocates — the detection of ISPs performing man-in-the-middle attacks against their own customers. According to information cited in the briefing, one wireless provider was caught blocking the use of STARTTLS encryption. STARTTLS is used to encrypt traffic sent over SMTP — email, in other words. Because an email from Point A to Point Z may travel through a number of unsecured routers to reach its final destination, unencrypted email is intrinsically insecure. STARTTLS was developed to mitigate this problem. What Golden Frog documented was the interception and modification of multiple requests to begin using STARTTLS into an entirely different set of commands, thereby preventing the encrypted link from ever being established. The problem of overwritten encryption is potentially far more serious than an issue of Netflix throttling, even if the latter tapped consumer discontent more readily.

Submission + - Stop PulseAudio from changing sound settings ? 3

Submitted by cgdae
cgdae writes: Does anyone know how to stop PulseAudio/Pavucontrol from changing sound settings whenever there is a hardware change such as headphones being plugged in/out or docking/undocking my laptop ?

I recently had to install PulseAudio on my Debian system because the Linux version of Skype started to require it. Ever since, whenever i dock/undock or use/stop using headphones, all sound disappears, and i have to go to Pavucontrol and make random changes to its 'Output Devices' or 'Speakers' or 'Headphones' tab, or mute/unmute things, or drag a volume slider which has inexplicably moved to nearly zero, until sound magically comes back again.

I've tried creating empty PulseAudio config files in my home directory, and/or disabling the loading of various PulseAudio modules in /etc/pulse/*.conf, but i cannot stop PulseAudio from messing things up whenever there's a hardware change.

It's really frustrating that something like PulseAudio doesn't have an easy-to-find way of preventing it from trying (and failing) to be clever.

[In case it's relevant, my system is a Lenovo X220 laptop, with Debian jessie, kernel 3.14-2-amd64. I run fvwm with an ancient config.]

Thanks for any suggestions,

- Julian

Submission + - FBI: backdoors in software may need to be mandatory (nytimes.com)

Submitted by wabrandsma
wabrandsma writes: The New York Times:

The director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, said on Thursday that the "post-Snowden pendulum" that has driven Apple and Google to offer fully encrypted cellphones had "gone too far." He hinted that as a result, the administration might seek regulations and laws forcing companies to create a way for the government to unlock the photos, emails and contacts stored on the phones.

But Mr. Comey appeared to have few answers for critics who have argued that any portal created for the F.B.I. and the police could be exploited by the National Security Agency, or even Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies or criminals. And his position seemed to put him at odds with a White House advisory committee that recommended against any effort to weaken commercial encryption.

Submission + - HBO goes online and it doesn't want net neutrality, what will CBS do? (themukt.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: It seems to be the beginning of the end of the cable television in the US. Yesterday entertainment giant HBO announced they will start offering Internet subscription without requiring any cable subscription. Today CBS, yet another leading TV network, announced their move to the Internet. The most interesting aspect this ‘shift’ is net neutrality. With more TV networks moving to the web, how will it affect the net neutrality? Will they sign up deals with ISPs, similar to Netflix, and weaken net neutrality to dismiss competitors or will they become an ally and lobby for the net neutrality? HBO is owned by Time Warner, the cable company so it was not surprising when Time Warner CEO supported the idea of fast lane and 'paying' ISPs for content. Is it bad news for the internet that traditional cable companies are going online?

Comment Re:Key question (Score 3, Insightful) 108

by Z00L00K (#48148107) Attached to: Oracle Database Certifications Are No Longer Permanent

A certification doesn't make you a good DBA. It only tells the employer that you have understood some basics.

A good DBA is able to see what the best solution is for the company and the product it delivers. It's way more important to understand the demands the product have on the database than anything else.

Submission + - Microsoft, Facebook Declare European Kids Clueless About Coding, Too

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Having declared U.S. kids clueless about coding, Facebook and Microsoft are now turning their attention to Europe's young 'uns. "As stewards of Europe's future generations," begins the Open Letter to the European Union Ministers for Education signed by Facebook and Microsoft, "you will be all too aware that as early as the age of 7, children reach a critical juncture, when they are learning the core life skills of reading, writing and basic maths. However, to flourish in tomorrow's digital economy and society, they should also be learning to code. And many, sadly, are not." Released at the launch of the European Coding Initiative — aka All You Need is Code! — in conjunction with the EU's Code Week, the letter closes, "As experts in our field, we owe it to Europe's youth to help equip with them with the skills they will need to succeed — regardless of where life takes them." Hopefully, life won't take them to a massive layoff, like the one that left 12,500 Nokia workers jobless just three months after joining Microsoft. By the way, the "All You Need is Code" initiative, explained an SAP press release, was conceived at the 2014 World Economic Forum, where EU Commission vice president Neelie Kroes — who yukked-it-up at the event with former nemesis Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith — called on the private sector to endorse the Davos Declaration to deepen support for the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs.

Submission + - If your cloud vendor goes out of business, are you ready?

Submitted by storagedude
storagedude writes: With Amazon Web Services losing $2 billion a year, it’s not inconceivable that the cloud industry could go the way of storage service providers (remember them?). So any plan for cloud services must include a way to retrieve your data quickly in case your cloud service provider goes belly up without much notice (think Nirvanix). In an article at Enterprise Storage Forum, Henry Newman notes that recovering your data from the cloud quickly is a lot harder than you might think. Even if you have a dedicated OC-192 channel, it would take 11 days to move a petabyte of data – and that’s with no contention or other latency. One possible solution: a failover agreement with a second cloud provider – and make sure it’s legally binding.

Submission + - Microsoft Patches SandWorm 0-Day

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is back in fine form this month with eight upcoming advisories affecting Internet Explorer, the entire Microsoft range of supported operating systems, plus Office, SharePoint Server and a very specific add on module to their development tools called “ASP .NET MVC”. The big headline this month seems to be SandWorm, another vulnerability being marketed with a clever name. SandWorm, a.k.a. CVE-2014-4114 is addressed by MS14-060.

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