Dan Kaminsky has had quite a month. Early in July, it was announced that months earlier he had discovered a major security problem with DNS, the addressing system of the Internet. But he didn’t make the news public. Instead he worked for months behind the scenes with major technology providers so patches could be programmed […]
This weekend my 2001 530 got a lot of attention. It was a very productive day — a vibration issue related to new rims purchased in late April was finally resolved, and I replaced both front ABS/speed sensors. Before I dive into the details, a word about owning a BMW out of warranty. Unless you […]
Really interesting article from Tim Lee of Ars Technica about customer owned residential fiber. Yes you read that right — a pilot program in Ottawa ran fiber to 400 homes, and the residents own the last mile. Sure gives Fiber to the Home (FTTH) a whole new meaning: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/customer-owned-fiber.ars While this could insert a fascinating […]
Last night I attended a very interesting presentation by Dan Pink, best selling author of “A Whole New Mind” and “Free Agent Nation.” Dan is a definite free agent himself, with his last “real” job being chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore. The event was held at Merrill Lynch’s HQ on K Street and organized […]
This weekend Gabriele and I got back from a short vacation at Whistler Mountain, in British Columbia. It was a bit of a family reunion, with a lot of aunts, uncles and cousins I don’t see enough of — can’t wait until next year everyone! We flew into Vancouver, and then drove about 2.5 hours […]
For a couple of years Gabriele and I have frequented a cheese shop in the Del Ray area of Alexandria. I lived in Del Ray from 1993 to 1998, and the neighborhood has undergone quite a renaissance in the past few years: http://www.weta.org/community/neighborhoods/delray/ The cheese shop we like is Cheesetique, a place that offers a […]
Tuesday a big story broke that could have impacted millions of web users. A researcher discovered a major security flaw involving the Domain Name System (DNS), and instead of selling the information or using it to market himself he went to major internet vendors and discussed the vulnerability with them. Today Microsoft, Cisco, Sun and […]
Last week stories broke about a significant change in the way Internet addressing will be managed. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has opened up the process of assigning new top level domains (TLD’s), such as .com and .net. Potentially any string of letters could be a TLD — maybe we’ll see […]
Saturday night Gabe and I had a very enjoyable experience at Restaurant Eve in Old Town Alexandria. Eve is the crown jewel of the restaurant group owner Cathal Armstrong and his wife Meshelle have built in Alexandria over the past three years. http://www.restauranteve.com/home/index.html We’ve eaten there once before, and originally intended to just have a […]
Last night I attended a big social media gathering at MCCXXIII (1223 for those not into roman numerals) on Connecticut Avenue. It was pulled together quickly by Robert Scoble, noted tech blogger and roving fastcompanyTV producer. He hooked up with Andrew Feinberg of Capitalvalley.net to preach the gospel of new media to Capitol Hill. Gary […]
An interesting survey came out of the telecom industry’s NXTComm show last week in Las Vegas. It’s been getting a lot of play in trade publications. Attendees to the show were asked a number of questions, including whether they thought the Internet could ever “break” due to increasing traffic levels. The study was conducted by […]
It’s been a few days since Microsoft reportedly walked away for good from discussions with Yahoo, and the vitriol being hurled at Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is really something to behold. There certainly are facts to back it up, but the uniformity of the conventional wisdom and the level of anger puzzles me. Some of […]