10 surprising facts about Microsoft

	Replacing hardware in your PC? Windows 10 will deactivate | Smart refrigerator hack exposes Gmail login credentials
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	10 surprising facts about Microsoft With the release of Windows 10 coming almost exactly 20 years after Microsoft introduced Windows 95, now is as good a time as ever to look at Microsoft's broad impact on the tech industry, particularly the lesser-known facts. Read More WHITE PAPER: Nexsan Technologies Storage Configuration Guide Learn how to meet specific storage requirements ranging from backup to virtual server infrastructures. With the ever-changing and fast moving IT market, it is more critical than ever to efficiently design a storage system as it provides an underpinning for all elements within the IT infrastructure. Learn more. In this Issue Replacing hardware in your PC? Windows 10 will deactivate Smart refrigerator hack exposes Gmail login credentials Amazon Underground offers $10,000 worth of free Android apps Steve Ballmer might be dipping his toes back into tech Anatomy of an IoT hack Brocade brings visibility to the storage area network iPhone 6s camera sounds amazing; Full specs detailed Windows Hello uses your webcam even if you disabled your camera Torrent trackers bring down the ban hammer on Windows 10 users Are wearables dead? This report says consumer interest is declining fast Comcast planning nationwide gigabit broadband in 2 years. What will it cost? Mobile devices pose biggest cybersecurity threat to the enterprise, report says Researchers create P2P Alibi Routing to avoid censorship and government surveillance WHITE PAPER: Dell SonicWall The Triple-A Approach to Network Security As an IT decision-maker, you need to know that your security will protect against cyber-attacks while still empowering employees to do their jobs. Find out the three essential factors needed to attain the coveted "Triple-A" security rating. Read the Brief. Learn More Replacing hardware in your PC? Windows 10 will deactivate Since Microsoft introduced Windows XP's activation feature, Windows has taken a hash mark of your hardware, everything from the CPU to power supply, to get your PC's unique fingerprint for the activation process. Microsoft has always said it doesn't keep the information, but that may have changed with Windows 10.It stems from the bargain of having a free operating system. Windows 10's license lasts for the life of the PC and is not transferable to other PCs. But changing just a motherboard can qualify as a new PC. The first complaint appeared on the Anandtech forums, when a user replaced the motherboard in a Dell PC with another Dell motherboard. Despite having the same BIOS, the user was told Windows was deactivated and the registration key is invalid.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More Smart refrigerator hack exposes Gmail login credentials A team of hackers recently discovered a man-in-the-middle vulnerability in a Samsung smart refrigerator that can be exploited to steal Gmail users' login credentials, The Register reported this week.Hackers from security company Pen Test Partners discovered the flaw while participating in an Internet of Things (IoT) hacking challenge at the Def Con security conference earlier this month. The smart refrigerator, Samsung model RF28HMELBSR, is designed to integrate the user's Gmail Calendar with its display. Samsung implemented SSL to secure the Gmail integration, but the hackers found that the device does not validate SSL certificates, opening the opportunity for hackers to access the network and monitor activity for the user name and password used to link the refrigerator to Gmail.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More Amazon Underground offers $10,000 worth of free Android apps Amazon just launched Amazon Underground, an Android app store where “over $10,000 in apps, games and even in-app items are actually free.” The company’s announcement states, “Many apps and games that are marked as ‘free’ turn out not to be completely free. They use in-app payments to charge you for special items or to unlock features or levels. In Underground, you will find 100% free versions of popular premium titles.” You know what they say about freebies…that you are the product. That may not be the case with Amazon, as it has wanted more Appstore installs for a long time. Most apps have over-reaching permissions, but Underground currently offers 471 free apps from 19 categories which include games, productivity, entertainment, education, kids, photography, utilities and more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More Steve Ballmer might be dipping his toes back into tech Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently rejected a $60 million offer for TV rights to his team's regular-season games and is now considering launching his own over-the-top streaming network, The New York Post reported yesterday. Earlier this year, Ballmer turned down the $60 million per year offer from Fox Sports' regional network Prime Ticket, marking a substantial increase from its current $25 million per year, according to the report. The Post also claims Prime Ticket's exclusive negotiating period ended in June.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More WHITE PAPER: Citrix Systems 2015 State of the WAN Report A discussion of wide area networking is extremely timely because after a long period with little if any fundamental innovation, the WAN is now the focus of considerable innovation. The goal of this e-book is to provide research-based insight into the current state of the WAN. Learn More Anatomy of an IoT hack With Internet of Things penetration set for a trillion devices by 2025, according to recent McKinsey numbers, our thoughts are, or should be, turning to security.One question that could be posed is: Just how could a future IoT attack play out? What route could it take?A security company reckons it has an answer.'Terror in the kitchen' One World Labs, a security outfit that specializes in penetration testing, forensics, and security code review, presented a session at San Francisco's RSA Conference in April, where it attempted to address the question.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More Brocade brings visibility to the storage area network "You can't manage what you can't see" is a popular axiom in the network management industry. The idea is that the foundation of any organization's management strategy should be to maximize visibility across the network. Only by "seeing" traffic flows can IT departments truly understand the IP network and troubleshoot problems quickly. This is one of the reasons visibility vendors like Gigamon have been red hot of late.But what about the Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN)? Despite the rise in IP network visibility products, there hasn't been any innovation in helping organizations understand what's happening on the SAN. So if it's true that "you can't manage what you can't see," then the lack of SAN visibility means that there's really no way to manage the SAN.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More iPhone 6s camera sounds amazing; Full specs detailed Now that we finally have an official date for Apple's iPhone 6s launch event, it's only natural to expect the number of iPhone-related leaks to increase in volume over the next week or so.While we already know a lot about what the iPhone 6s will have in store (Force Touch, 2GB of RAM, A9 processor), 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman on Thursday divulged some new details surrounding the iPhone 6s camera. Suffice it to say, Apple's next-gen iPhone may be even more of a compelling upgrade than previously imagined.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More Windows Hello uses your webcam even if you disabled your camera The newest Windows 10 privacy freak out involves Windows Hello which is supposed to be a convenient security feature turned on or off by selecting Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options.  Windows Hello replaces traditional passwords with biometric recognition, allowing users to unlock their PC with a swipe or glance. You’ve likely seen Microsoft’s 30 second Windows 10 commercial which shows a toddler who “won’t have to obsess over security” as she will be able to unlock Windows 10 with a smile.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More WHITE PAPER: Riverbed Technology How Today's Hybrid Enterprises Thrive in Disruptive Times While hybrid architectures and SaaS applications bring significant cost and flexibility benefits to enterprise users, they're creating unprecedented challenges for IT. In order to prioritize according to business needs, and to deliver an optimal and consistent end-user experience. View Now>> Torrent trackers bring down the ban hammer on Windows 10 users Even before Microsoft’s updated Privacy Statement and Services Agreement kicked in on August 1, privacy advocates from the European Digital Rights group warned the new privacy policy was “bad news for privacy.” Then Windows 10 default settings proved to be skewed toward spying on users by default. The fact that users are opted in unless they take steps to opt out is so bad for privacy that people who do not normally bother to read Microsoft’s Services EULA (end-use license agreement) started doing so.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More Are wearables dead? This report says consumer interest is declining fast A report released today shows that consumer demand for wearables in the U.S. has declined steeply and steadily since the 2014 holiday shopping season, and is now lower than it was at the beginning of last year.Argus Insights based its report based on more than 327,000 consumer reviews to determine interest in the market over time. The research found that the wearables market was briefly captivated by the Apple Watch in September 2014, but instead gravitated toward the less-expensive Fitbit fitness band for the 2015 holiday season. Since then, however, consumers have generally lost interest in wearable devices, as this chart shows. Argus Insights The report acknowledged a similar dip in interest in wearables in early 2014, following a spike during the preceding holiday season, but pointed out that demand eventually rebounded, ultimately peaking by the end of the year. This year, the market for wearable devices has largely failed to recapture consumer interest.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More Comcast planning nationwide gigabit broadband in 2 years. What will it cost? A Comcast executive says the company is currently testing technology based on the DOCSIS 3.1 standard, which can transmit data at rates up to 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) in ideal environments, and is aiming to deploy the technology on a nationwide basis by 2018, according to a Fierce Cable article published last week. Comcast vice president of network architecture Robert Howald told Fierce Cable that the technology will enable the company to offer customers broadband speeds of 1 Gbps "and higher." From the article:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More Mobile devices pose biggest cybersecurity threat to the enterprise, report says Earlier this month, Check Point Software released its 2015 security report which found that mobile devices have become the biggest threat for today's enterprises. I like the fact that more vendors are doing their own studies and sharing the findings. Cybersecurity has so many facets that it's very challenging for IT departments to understand where to focus their energy, so surveys like this help.The survey revealed something that I think many businesses have turned a bit of a blind eye to, and that's the impact of mobile devices, primarily due to the wide acceptance of BYOD. The last Network Purchase Intention Study by ZK Research (disclosure: I'm an employee of ZK Research) showed that 82% of businesses now have some kind of BYOD plan in place. Even heavily regulated industries like healthcare and financial services are putting BYOD programs in place because of pressure from the lines of business. Years ago, CEOs and managers didn't want consumer devices in the workplace as they were considered a distraction. Today, businesses that do not allow workers to use mobile devices are putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More Researchers create P2P Alibi Routing to avoid censorship and government surveillance A team of University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) researchers developed “provable avoidance routing” that they call Alibi Routing; it’s an overlay routing protocol that provides Internet users with a method to avoid sending their data through countries known for their censorship. Users specify where they want their packets NOT to go and Alibi Routing can provide “concrete proof” that users’ data did not pass through “undesired geographic regions.”The researchers unveiled Alibi Routing at the 2015 Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Data Communication (ACM SIGCOMM) conference. The research paper (pdf) “introduces a primitive, provable avoidance routing that, when given a destination and region to avoid, provides ‘proof’ after the fact that a packet and its response did not traverse the forbidden region. We rely on the insight that a packet could provide an ‘alibi’—a place and time where it was—to prove that it must have avoided the forbidden region in transit from source to destination.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
	SLIDESHOWS 10 surprising facts about Microsoft With the release of Windows 10 coming almost exactly 20 years after Microsoft introduced Windows 95, now is as good a time as ever to look at Microsoft's broad impact on the tech industry, particularly the lesser-known facts. JOIN THE NETWORK WORLD COMMUNITIES As network pros you understand that the value of connections increase as the number of connections increase, the so called network effect, and no where is this more evident than in professional relationships. Join Network World's LinkedIn and Facebook communities to share ideas, post questions, see what your peers are working on and scout out job applicants (or maybe find your next opportunity). Network World on Facebook Network World on LinkedIn MOST-READ STORIES 1. Top 25 computer science colleges, ranked by alumni earning 2. Smart refrigerator hack exposes Gmail login credentials 3. Massachusetts boarding school sued over Wi-Fi sickness 4. Vint Cerf: 'Sometimes I'm terrified' by the IoT 5. 10 surprising facts about Microsoft 6. Amazon Underground offers $10,000 worth of free Android apps 7. 19 free cloud storage options 8. How HP used big data to optimize it 9. Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made 10. 7 free Wi-Fi stumbling and surveying tools for Windows and Mac
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