Facebook Employees Caught Posting Five Star Reviews Of Portal On Amazon

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 17, 2019 by itnerd

You might recall that Facebook in their rather bad 2018 came out with a device called Portal, which I balked at due to the issues that the company had with privacy. Only to be sort of proven right on that front. Well @TheDanLevy posted this tweet a few minutes ago that caught my attention:

The story that he put in his tweet can be found here. And in terms of what Facebook had to say about this… Well, here you go:

According to Facebook’s Bosworth, the reviews were “neither coordinated nor directed from the company,” noting additionally that when Portal first launched, Facebook actively encouraged employees internally to not review products it sells on Amazon, and that it would ask those employees to remove their reviews.

Do I believe that? No. The problem is that the ability to believe Facebook has gone completely out the window. While it is possible for the company to be telling the truth, they’re really going to have to sell me on the fact that there’s nothing underhanded here.

 

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Another Day…. Another Data Breach… 773 MILLION Records Exposed

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 17, 2019 by itnerd

A collection of almost 773 million unique email addresses and just under 22 million unique passwords were exposed on cloud service MEGA. Security researcher Troy Hunt said the collection of data, dubbed Collection #1, totaled over 12,000 separate files and more than 87GB of data. Here’s what Troy Hunt had to say:

What I can say is that my own personal data is in there and it’s accurate; right email address and a password I used many years ago,” Hunt wrote. “In short, if you’re in this breach, one or more passwords you’ve previously used are floating around for others to see.” Some passwords, including his own, have been “dehashed”, that is converted back to plain text. Hunt said he gained the information after multiple people reached out to him with concerns over the data on MEGA, with the Collection #1 dump also being discussed on a hacking forum. “The post on the forum referenced ‘a collection of 2000+ dehashed databases and Combos stored by topic’ and provided a directory listing of 2,890 of the files,” Hunt wrote. The collection has since been removed.

You can visit Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned service to see if you are affected by this breach. I strongly suggest that you that right now.

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Huawei Accused Of The Swiping Of Trade Secrets From T-Mobile

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 17, 2019 by itnerd

Things go from bad to worse for Huawei with the news via the paywalled Wall Street Journal that says that T-Mobile has come forward to say that as far back as as 2014 Huawei had tried to steal plans for a robot developed by T-Mobile to test its phones. The Wall Street Journal also reports that federal charges are inbound on this front as well. What also doesn’t help Huawei is that this was fought in civil court and Huawei lost to the tune of $4.8 million in 2017.

Seeing as the rarely seen CEO of the company came out this week to say that they don’t spy for China and they like Donald Trump, the timing of this sucks for them. And it likely means that more bad news for the apparently shady Chinese telco is likely inbound.

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Sonos Introduces New Shelf, Stands, and Cords

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 16, 2019 by itnerd

Coming out of CES, Sonos some new accessories, including a custom shelf, stands, and power cords in convenient lengths. Here’s the details:

Sonos Shelf – $79.99; available at sonos.com

A custom designed shelf built to bring Sonos One and Play:1 into rooms where sophisticated space-saving design is a must. Beyond providing space for the speaker and a small, everyday objects like a phone, the shelf also features a hidden wraparound solution for excess cord slack for a clutter free aesthetic and is made to exactly match the color (both black and white), material and finish of the Sonos One.

(H x W x D): 0.9” x 10.24” x 6.3” Weight: 1lb

 

Sonos Stand – $249.99 (pair), available at sonos.com

A set of custom designed stands for Sonos One and Play:1, bringing simple cable management, optimized sound and easy assembly to your home theater setup. Like Sonos Shelf, the stands are perfectly matched to the color, material and finish of Sonos One.

(H x W x D): 33” x 11.8” x 11.8”Weight: 12.3lbs for the pair (6.17lbs each)

 

Sonos Power Cables – $24.99 – $34.99, available at sonos.com

Extend the reach of your Sonos or eliminate cluttered cord slack altogether with these new power cables in varying lengths. Available in short (19.7”) and long (11.5’), the cords are built with the same materials as the standard 6’ cord, and are available in black and white. Cords currently available for Sonos One and Play:

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Xplornet Goes Live With Metaswitch & Cisco For New Canadian Mobile VoLTE Network

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 16, 2019 by itnerd

Cloud native communications software leader Metaswitch and networking giant Cisco today announced that leading Canadian service provider Xplornet Communications has chosen their technology for the build out of its extensive mobile service expansion in Manitoba. Deployed in a fully-virtualized private cloud environment, the highly-scalable integrated solution will enable Xplornet to offer one of the most technologically-advanced mobile networks in Canada.

“This is a cloud-native, scalable and redundant solution that will allow us to meet our customers’ expectations of a world-class mobile service,” said Tim Dinesen, executive vice president, Network at Xplornet. “This solution enables us to provide 4G services in addition to VoLTE, while allowing rapid expansion of our mobile service footprint. Bypassing the traditional hardware-centric approach significantly lowers both our capex and opex and is backed by Metaswitch’s and Cisco’s professional services.”

Xplornet Communications Inc. is one of Canada’s leading broadband service providers. For more than a decade, Xplornet has provided innovative broadband solutions to rural customers at work, home and play across Canada. Xplornet offers voice and data communication services through its unique wireless and satellite network that provides broadband in areas of Canada that no other provider can.

The joint solution includes Metaswitch Clearwater Core and  Rhino Telecom Application Server with Cisco Ultra Virtualized Packet Core running on Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS).

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Hack In Paris 2019: Program Is Online

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 15, 2019 by itnerd

Organized by Sysdream, cybersecurity division of Hub One, Hack In Paris will be held from June 16th to 20th and will bring together major IT security professionals and technical hacking ex¬perts to attend high level trainings, talks and workshops.

After the success of the latest edition with more than 750 attendees, this annual event will be held for the ninth time in France, at the Maison de la Chimie, in the heart of the 7th district of Paris. An event for experts and passionate people about IT security field.

The program remains the same, composed of 1 to 3-day trainings and 2-day talks. However, it will be expanded with the creation of an open Wargame, a Jeopardy which will replace the debate and workshops. New releases are under development.

The Call for papers for this edition closed on December 10th. After that, they have discussed to offer a complete and broad program, but also which maintains a high technical level. This time it’s official we have made their choice and the program (14 trainings, 15 talks, a Jeopardy) is online on their website. The 8 selected workshops will be online in a week.

Tickets are also available here, hurry up, seats are limited!

About Sysdream

Sysdream is the cybersecurity division of the Hub One Group. It provides corporate customers, both public and private, in France and abroad, with a wide range of solutions focused on technical and organisational auditing, IT security training and cyber-training.  In terms of infrastructure protection, it has an innovative approach to the implementation of an SOC (Security Operating Centre).

To address the issues of cybersecurity now and in the future, it draws on its research & technology watch laboratory. Since it is independent of any hardware or software solution, it can guarantee perfect objectivity in its recommendations and the technical choices operated for its customers. Sysdream is PASSI (Information Systems Security Auditing Service Providers)-certified by the ANSSI (French National Agency for Information System Security).

Sysdream is the originator of major events such as Hack In Paris, an event dedicated to cybersecurity professionals, and La Nuit du Hack (Hacking Night), the biggest annual convention for ethical hacking in France.

More information can be found here : Sysdream.com

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Huawei CEO In Rare Public Appearance Says It Does Not Spy For China… And He Likes Trump Too

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 15, 2019 by itnerd

I am guessing the pressure is getting to Huawei because the CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei who isn’t known for sitting down for the media had a lot of things to say to the media today. Starting with this:

In a rare sit down with international media, Ren Zhengfei addressed concerns raised by the U.S. government, which has warned that the company’s equipment could allow the Chinese government to have a backdoor into a nation’s telecommunications network. Ren, speaking Mandarin and using a company-provided translator, told the group that Huawei has never handed data to Beijing. “When it comes to cybersecurity and privacy protection we are committed to be sided with our customers. We will never harm any nation or any individual,” Ren told the journalists assembled at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China.

Well. I don’t believe that as I find it highly implausible that if the Chinese government came knocking on the door of a Chinese company asking them to facilitate spying, that the company in question would not comply. Especially since China has laws that pretty much say that they have to comply.

He also said this:

“China’s ministry of foreign affairs has officially clarified that no law in China requires any company to install mandatory back doors. Huawei and me personally have never received any request from any government to provide improper information,”

Sure. Right. I believe that as much as I believe in the tooth fairy as Huawei simply saying that they haven’t been requested to put backdoors into their equipment isn’t the same thing as proving that this isn’t the case. At this point they need to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Then there was this:

Ren added. […] But Ren actually praised the U.S. president. “For President Trump as a person, I still believe he is a great president,” he said. “In the sense that he was bold to slash taxes. And I think that’s conducive for the development of industries in the United States.”

Clearly this guy knows that President Trump loves it when people pay him compliments. So he’s clearly trying to get onto his good side. What effect that will be interesting to see.

The fact that this event happened is very unusual. Thus I fully expect more “unusual” things to happen as Huawei tries to change the narrative on this story.

 

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