We'll be expecting letters to the editor from Antarctica once the more intrepid among you get DeLorme's new inReach, a personal communicator that delivers two-way communication beyond the reach of cell-phone signals and one-way satellite systems. The Iridium Communications-based inReach offers “pole to pole” two-way satellite text messaging, delivery confirmations, SOS capabilities, remote tracking and an Android smartphone interface. The device's core communications component is the Iridium 9602 short-burst data transceiver, which utilizes the company's far-reaching satellite network. The GPS-enabled inReach can be used by itself or paired with either an Android smartphone or a DeLorme Earthmate PN-60w. With the standalone inReach, users can send pre-loaded text messages to designated recipients and activate remote tracking, allowing others to follow one's travels on-line via a “bread crumb” trail. When paired with an Android or the DeLorme Earthmate PN-60w, users enjoy full-featured, two-way text messaging to and from e-mail addresses and cell phones, as well as the ability to post to Facebook and Twitter.
Mellanox recently unveiled a complete end-to-end solution for FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand consisting of adapter cards, switch systems, software and cables, a feat that the firm calls an industry first. The solution consists of Mellanox's ConnectX-3 FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand adapters, SX-6000 series switch systems, Unified Fabric Manager (UFM), Mellanox OS, software accelerators and FDR copper and fiber cables. As a package, it delivers “the highest level of networking performance while reducing system power”, according to the company. The combination enables cost-effective networking topologies for HPC, financial services, database, Web 2.0, virtualized data centers and cloud computing.
Emphase's new S3 Series line of compact SATA modules—that is, the CFast, SATA Flash Module, and mSATA—offers big performance in a small package, combining performance, dependability and longevity with extremely low power consumption and the most compact footprint. When space is an issue, this team of SLC NAND solid-state devices is an ideal solution. Transfer speeds have been increased to 120R/100W; capacities range from 1GB–32GB, with a 64GB capacity in the pipeline. The quick-and-rugged CFast S3 is the solution for data mobility or where hot-swap functionality is a must. The SATA Flash Module S3 weighs in at less than 10 grams and plugs directly, vertically or horizontally, in to a board's SATA port. The mSATA S3 is ideal for a low-profile embedded system, integrating high performance and capacity at less than 4mm thick. All modules now integrate TransferSAFE technology to weather-inconsistent power scenarios and operate off as little as 0.5 Watts, well below the average of 3 Watts.
Here's a recipe for a kick-booty social software solution: download Drupal, stir in Acquia's updated open-source Commons 2.0, mold carefully with your creative vision and skill and voilà—you've got yourself an engaging community Web site. Commons melds rapidly evolving social Web features, including activity streams, social networking, blogs, wikis, badges and events together with enterprise-class analytics, support and management services. The result is a “prepackaged open-source alternative to proprietary social business solutions” that gives companies extensive freedom to extend and adapt their community sites to meet unique business needs. Version 2.0 adds features such as increased style flexibility, access to Acquia Cloud, increased configuration options, more support resources and complete design and theming control, including prebuilt Commons themes. A number of service packages are available from Acquia.
You may be familiar with the the Metasploit Framework, a toolset that makes discovering, exploiting and sharing vulnerabilities quick and relatively painless. The challenge for security professionals is that the documentation is lacking, and it can be hard to grasp for first-time users. Metasploit: A Penetration Tester's Guide from No Starch Press intends to fill this gap by teaching how to harness the Framework, use its many features and interact with the vibrant community of Metasploit contributors. Readers will learn to find and exploit unmaintained, misconfigured and unpatched systems; perform reconnaissance and find valuable information about targets; bypass antivirus technologies and circumvent security controls; integrate Nmap, NeXpose and Nessus with Metasploit to automate discovery; use the Meterpreter shell to launch further attacks from inside the network; harness standalone Metasploit utilities, third-party tools and plugins; and learn how to write Meterpreter post-exploitation modules and scripts.
Jason Andress and Steve Winterfeld's new book Cyber Warfare: Techniques, Tactics and Tools for Security Practitioners explores the battlefields, participants and the tools and techniques used during today's digital conflicts. The concepts discussed in this book will give those involved in information security at all levels a better idea of how cyber conflicts are carried out now, how they will change in the future and how to detect and defend against espionage, hacktivism, insider threats and non-state actors like organized criminals and terrorists. The authors provide concrete examples and real-world guidance on how to identify and defend a network against malicious attacks, dive deeply into relevant technical and factual information from an insider's point of view, and outline the ethics, laws and consequences of cyber war and how computer criminal law may change as a result.
With Likewise Open, recently upgraded to version 6.1, admins can standardize on Microsoft Active Directory in their enterprise networks without losing the flexibility to choose non-Microsoft operating systems. The open-source Likewise Open allows single sign-on for critical enterprise applications, such as Apache Tomcat, IBM WebSphere, Oracle WebLogic and JBoss Application Server. Newly open-sourced integrations include the Kerberos/NTLM JAAS login module and SPNEGO Kerberos/NTLM servlet filter, which can be integrated with any servlet spec2.3-compliant application server. Customers wishing to extend event management, auditing and reporting for compliance with SOX, PCI-DSS, HIPPA and other industry standards to these integrations can do so by upgrading to Likewise Enterprise.
The new 7.0 release of QLogic's InfiniBand Fabric Suite (IFS)—a fabric management software package that enables users to optimize fabric performance and communications efficiency for HPC clusters—is now available. IFS 7.0's leading new feature is the integration of vFabric QoS (Quality of Service) with work-flow schedulers from Adaptive Computing and Platform Computing, making it possible for HPC users to set a priority and QoS level as the message-passing interface application is being scheduled. This reduces management overhead, simplifies cluster scheduling and optimizes use of the fabric. Other noteworthy features include an enhanced Fabric Viewer with Fabric Dashboard, improved static routing performance, an improved Congestion Control Algorithm and support for both NVIDIA GPUs and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6/6.1. The result of this feature set, says QLogic, is an ability for HPC customers to obtain maximum performance and efficiency from their cluster investments while simplifying management.
