Posts by Gigabob 80 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Mar 2015
Pretty clear this award was due to Trump intervention vs merits or pricing. Given AWS is already handling confidential CIA material, has a much larger and robust infrastructure platform and more tools - it seems reasonable the review may take a while. Might it take as long as the election? Who says these awards are not politically driven?
If we use the current consumer price of ~$2.50/GB for mid-range performance SSD's these units could push the price barrier. I expect that configurations in proprietary arrays or part of advanced Hyper-Converged Infrastructure platforms will raise the $/GB even as the greatly increase the performance and scalability of these platforms.
Last I heard - everyone was going to still have a laptop - and those are far bigger removable storage depositories. What happens when IBM starts to implement truly embedded technology - like implants? I guess I will be giving my employment contract a much more careful once over to ferret out the section on death panels.
Another point is that if you follow the insurance template and suffer a major mischief due to a design flaw sufficient to sue Apple or Cisco for - a la use of Intel CPU's - then the insurance company will get added to the suit. Insurance companies forte is managing risk. I would thus want to have my flinty eyed lawyers and accountants review their endorsements to understand what constitutes an act of a vengeful digital deity that the insurance company absolves its responsibility for.
Note the effort to ban landmine use throughout the world. With 164 UN signatures - there are a few prominent exclusions - the US, Russia, China, India, the Koreas, etc. I expect to see the same exclusions on a Geneva Code of Conduct for Cyber Behavior. That said - it is still a good idea to codify proper cyberspace behavior. The best thing that can come from it is a series of standards on how to protect your organizations, security standards that need to be in place for network and data traffic including encryption.
If we just trust one another and sit together by the campfire and sing cum bay ya. It worked so well for Donald Trump. When he had an issue with US Electioneering influence - he went right to the source, Vlad Putin and Putin convinced him he had noting to do with it and Russia was not involved. God what I could do with that guy and the great potential for more Florida swamp land.
Given this flaw has been Intel CPU design for over a decade, it is reasonable to assume security agencies with in the US and at least Russia are intimately familiar with this capability and have tools to read the core kernel details as a result and compromise any system previously thought of as secure. I will be applying the patch ASAP - but will now start looking more closely at a new CPU. Perhaps it is time to switch to AMD.
Agree an OS that needs an LTE connection as well as 512GB of storage is less that impressive, but with Win10 the path to rampant commercialization is apparently the only path forward as groups seek to monetize every click.
Previously this type of breach, Home Depot, Sony, Equifax, Target - hit the public and there were no consequences for the actual groups who compiled and lost their client data. Hopefully this hits the 1% in their pocket books and public accountability in such a way they start the process of making those who suffered the data breach as liable for fines, penalties and legally responsible for the aftermath. This will result in significantly greater focus on encrypted documents, new processes, better protection and move the costs of security failure from an externality born by clients (you and me) to a direct cost of business for these organizations.
Already Google is being castigated for removing pages of violence from the Syrian conflict that member of the human rights organizations were using to store video evidence of crimes against humanity. They are working to tweak their algorithms - but given the volume of video data being uploaded to their sites, they are short on eyeballs to review that much data. If it is something that "You'll know it when you see it", it probably will be a while before you can expect real-time.
Profits and sales are up. If you want to complain about profits and sales due to ungodly high prices, how about Apple? Oh Right, most profitable company on earth. I can agree on your VSAN point, it is not for everyone. But then only 36% of the people are needed to make someone President in the US, so what do I know.
The major point is that we are very close to cost benefit favoring SSD for most enterprise workloads today. By 2018, the needle firmly favors SSD. If Spin Sellers must rely on the occasional home user running out to their local grocer for a half off special on 1-2TB drives - they are toast.
In most enterprises I deal with the recovery, replacement and administrivia for spinners is already a full-time job. Changes in SSD reliability and durability, especially for performance tasks are moving the needle faster and higher into the SSD camp. Advanced storage server paradigms like the NGSSD proposed by Samsung (576TB in a single 1U storage server "module") improve reliability, scale and performance while drastically reducing the footprint in a costly data center.
As the Nazi's found in WWII as they sought to disrupt Paris Underground - Its the Metadata that has 80% of the valuable surveillance information. I would expect true spies conversation does not include a phrase like - "We will break into the post office at 0230 tomorrow with our 4 man strike team". I expect to hear phrases like "That was a heck of surprise storm this weekend - maybe there is something to this global warming effects". So why use all those compute cycles and analyst time on breaking through VPN encryption and 2048-bit encrypted email messages when the time and disti list are the critical elements.
Unfortunately - WD DOES have such an agreement as they bought Toshiba's partner Sandisk. This is more like the VC who decides to buy a sleepy pharmaceutical company with a virtual monopoly on a critical drug - then raises the prices 750% the next day. It is legal, but immoral, and only lasts until the local political forces get involved and start changing the rules.
A case could be made before that any app that touched on personal medical data needed personal authorization to sell. Now your service provider can sell it as part of their seeing all the traffic going to and from your devices to the network. With the legal ability of the carriers to monetize your data - without your permission - it becomes impossible to get a court judgment to slow down this process and install safeguards preventing insurance companies from discriminating against a person who health scores drop for some reason - or an employer seeking to remove an employee with health problems.
The standards needed to be in place before the monetization gates were opened. Great time to be a data scientist.
Wish someone would focus their attention on Congress.
Decapitation does not drive communication and coordination.
While Intel has not had much new to announce externally at IDF in recent years - the venue was a focus for the various business units to develop orchestrated messaging around products and road maps. Now we will see the little doggies running free across the prairie - making promises their developers can't cash. Look for an Easter resurrection in three years after new management decides they have reached an untenable level of internal misdirection.
These guys have not been in Congress for 30+ years without knowing more than they le on. In this case it is Republican greed and enrichment at the hands of monied interests. Other countries call them bribes. We have an arcane dance that absolves Congressmen of recognizing what is a direct quid pro quo for their votes - but it is bribes for votes. And that is not supposed to be legal.
I will be waiting anxiously to see what the Congressman's browsing history looks like.
I think you are very close to the mark - note the investors, Intel etc - they are using FPGA's to build new I/O stack for the data center that explosively improve on search times across the cloud storage environment. Stands to reason a new interface and attachment software is required to enable this.
Guys,
The industry betting was that Japan Inc would not allow its Toshiba Jewel to fall into enemy hands just when the flash market was at a peak and Toshiba Inc made a bad bet on Nukes. But now we have an article saying Japan Inc is going to support nationalizing Toshiba. My head is aching, you are starting to sound like Trump.
As noted generally - there is no holistic, regulatory approach to security - and with emergence of IoT and the unplanned evolution of the World-Wide Robot - this can only mean bad things ahead.
http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/01/the-internet-of-things-dangerous-future-bruce-schneier.html
As Bruce Schneier has articulated - until we get a government lead agency to regulate cyber efforts, and this ultimately will have to be an international effort, things are looking grim going forward. The current agencies of the government committed to cyber-defense have no interest in advertising the leaks they can exploit to unlock the keys to the corporate castles. Meanwhile, companies making cyber products find security an externality, they don't pay for problems, their customers do. So if we want to move forward there needs to be a consensus on the problem scope and a will to address this proactively instead of reactively - where we inevitably get very bad knee jerk policies. Obviously our rational and thoughtful response to climate change is a harbinger of bad times ahead for cyber defense.
The software business is less about tools than owning key applications like SAP, EPIC, databases like Oracle, DB2, SQL etc. Those applications owners are moving enterprise customers as fast as they can to the company owned clouds drawing down investment in local data center infrastructure. I fully expect the DELL/EMC merger to be challenged by this trend.
The next two big trends are the increasing density and dropping cost for Solid state memory along with what happens to the network fabric in the growing cloud data centers at Azure, Google, Amazon, IBM and Oracle. With reported gains on search performance at Azure with their FPGA network fabric interfaces - we can see disintermediation of traditional block storage platforms for NVDIMM's distributed across hyper-smart fabrics in highly secured cloud data centers.
I think Cisco and others see this trend moving forward - but are not moving fast enough and are challenged by current integration issues. Let's face it - Software is tough. You don't just cut and paste your way to a new operational model - you have to tear down legacy structures, which means reformatting data, and design new process models that leverage Remote Data Access to distributed NVDIMMS in arrays of servers connected using more efficient networking protocols.
I see Intel, major cloud providers and core applications owners coming out winners. This leaves pure play infrastructure providers working hard to get a piece of the pie before it becomes a crumb. I don't think this is a 20 year transition easily less than 10 but more than 5.
Solving the security problem is like boiling the ocean. It is a huge issue - like manufacturing back in the 60's. Demming laid out a series of rules and process improvements focused on getting a handle on these problems and addressing them systematically. The Japanese took up this practice and in a few years defects dropped. They became so rare that each new discovered defect was considered a cherished guide for management priorities.
Without concerted efforts to test systems and surface defects in our dodgy security systems, we end up with exploitable failures across a broad spectrum - allowing Chinese, Russians and North Koreans waltz in and take truckloads of data whilst our MP's shoot our scouts as they warn us of vulnerabilities. This sound like something Trump would do. We should be paying for these scouts and codifying their observations into specifications on how to build new systems without these flaws.
"SumOfUs" petitions to save whales, Bees, and spotted owl, and is not what I would call real activist investors who own sizable portions of a stock and have voting power in a potential proxy war.
While the conflict of interest is obvious - in business, this sort of conflict of interest is in the overall companies best interest since as Chairman and CEO Zuck's fortune and future are tied to FB.
If "SumofUs" is serious about damaging conflict of interest, they should focus on the White House where person business interests will collide with societal goods.
What ever you call them - Climate Change Denyers, Nationalists, Bible Belters, Creationists - they are proficient at ignoring facts in favor of feelings - and as feelings worsen they fall back on "beliefs and faith" that are at variance with reality. The sad thing is letting these people vote. I subscribe to the notion that we have reached a phase in human existence where activities like voting, procreation and other long term obligations should require a test and you need a credential to participate.
Hitler was a great demagogue. He basically spouted nonsense - but did it with such emotional content that followers were swept up and their feelings changed. To a lesser extent, Trump was able to do the same for his "Denyers" despite their intense reservations for the man himself and his values. Now we get to live with that decision as he works his way into WW3 with the largest economy on the planet, and the owner of substantial levels of our debt - which he threatened to cancel on the campaign trail.
Really? You may think your spidey senses are working overtime, but you are crossing the street naked and the noise you hear is from the horn on the car that nearly hit you.
being black in America.
As FB and GOOG age, their ageism is quite blatant vs when they were younger and sought advice and direction from many experienced sources. Guess they so good they don't needs no hep.
Good luck as they try to penetrate and transform transportation and other industries without contacts in government and experience in manufacturing and regulatory processes that has eluded them so far.
The biggest issue confronting effective addition of wind, wave and solar energy to supplement existing base loads is volatility. They require a substantial investment in smart-grid technologies and power conditioning. They also require significant additions in transmission lines. The UK, a compact island relative to the vast distances in the US, should be able to accommodate increase in transmission lines to Wind Farms, Wave generators etc with a far lower cost. However this leaves the need for a smart-grid to perform three critical functions:
1) Sense volatility in supply and adapt
-identify wind drop offs, impact of clouds on solar etc
2) Condition voltage and current during transitions between supplies
3) Secure against Cyber-attack.
The politics will come down to who has priorities - in the case of oversupply - do we shutdown wind over solar, based on expected changes in weather do we need to bring more gas fired plants on-line? These are often contentious decisions as the regulators and utility providers must now compete, where previously they only had to worry about providing a reliable supply.
Actors are showing their hands early on how easy it is to disrupt normal internet operations by hijacking very unsophisticated IoT devices. This make the need for high level secure control on these devices/systems. We are just on the cusp of major proliferation in medical operations, traffic control on intelligent roads, pumps, valves and key controls at utilities, not to mention financial systems. As they become embedded in our daily lives we enable terrorists and state actors to engineer massive attacks with a mouse.
Is that it happened two years ago and Yahoo is just now finding out about it. Unless they knew about it earlier, in which case I am down with Dewey, Cheatem and Howe. That is another reason for strongly suspecting a state actor. Entrepreneurial hackers want to publicize their exploits, state actors want to keep what they have done secret so adversaries are unaware how badly they have been penetrated.
Help Me O'Donald - your my only hope!
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