Monthly Archives: March 2016

Cryptography, keeping on the big lie

So Cryptography would be a National Security Issue? I’m tired to be polite and politically correct when talking about encryption. Let us be clear and honest, all those crypto_war is a pile of crap. Every time I heard someone claiming that we should not enforce strong cryptography I wonder: to they have the slightest idea what they are talking about? Probably not, considering also most of the objections against cryptography I heard. Listening to those “enlighten” minds it seems that without cryptography the world be a sort of heaven where intelligence could have the possibility to solve any criminal case. And…

The IoT Files: The need for cryptography

The IoT Files: The need for cryptography One of the main arguments that should be touched by IoT discussion is cryptography. There is an undisputed consensus that cryptography is a mandatory requirement to preserve security and privacy in the IoT world, but we are far away for a general consensus on how to operate. The need for cryptography in IoT comes from two main aspects: Data security Data privacy The first need is clear; encryption is a mandatory requirement when we want to implement any form of authentication and non repudiation. Encryption is widely used even if we don’t know…

Historical memory, what is this about?

I wrote on memories yesterday. Personal memories and historical memories are the blocks of our life. We live for our memories since, at the end, are memories that create our thinking, our background, our experience, our knowledge. Personal memories are something ease to understand, is what we directly lived through direct experience. but those memories are just a portion of the memories we have and have to deal with. Another great portion of our memories is build into the society we are living, shaped trough communication (media, arts, word of mouth, storytelling), school and other tools. Some of those memories are…

Managers and Leaders are not the same thing

Managers and Leaders are not the same thing There is always a lot of talk about managers and leadership, but I sometimes have the feeling there is a little confusion on the subject. I can agree that a manager needs to have leadership qualities, as some other key soft skills, but leadership, per se, is not enough. Wait, this means that a great leader can’t be also a great manager? Exactly, a manager need leadership skills to be good, but this is only one of the several skills he need. He should be able to understand the job heshe is…

weak manager style

In a previous post ()  I tried to put some rationale on my thoughts about management, designing some of the characteristics a manager usually have (bad ones of course). One of the biggest “Ahas!” new and experienced managers (and the people who work for them) have experienced  is the realization that being a strong manager doesn’t mean being forceful or domineering. It’s just the opposite — strong managers are strong enough to lead through trust, whereas weak managers have to use the force of their job titles to make people listen to them. Most of the management style depicted (not…

Our memories are all we have

I am in China for work, with a few connection to the real world outside, so Italian news usually comes to me late, when I am able to connect to internet from hotel; great firewall allowing. Being isolated from the Italian reality put things into a different perspective, allow you to keep less news with more time to digest and think about. It happened a few days ago I learned of the death of Umberto Eco, one of the greatest Italian tinker of our age. He was a great writer, a great thinker, a truly free spirit. The first thing I did…

What is Openstack

OpenStack is an open source platform for creating and managing large groups of virtual private servers in a cloud computing environment. The platform supports interoperability between cloud services and allow businesses to build and deploy private cloud services in their own data centers. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) worked with Rackspace, a managed hosting and cloud computing service provider, to develop OpenStack. RackSpace donated the code that powers its storage and content delivery service and production servers. NASA contributed the technology that powers their high performance computing, networking and data storage cloud service. OpenStack has a modular architecture…

Management style, common error to avoid

Management style, common error to avoid Being a manager is a hard job, and it deals with cultural, economical, corporate issues and rules. But being a manager is indeed an important job usually performed with a not clear idea on what a manager should do. We can find Bad and Good managers, and most of the times they do not even realize where they stand in the good or bad dashboard, because usually nobody teach you what to be a manger means. Nevertheless there is a world of literature on management, so If someone really want to improve from naïve…

Security and Datacenters

A Datacenter is a collection of several different elements, all working together to offer a platform to our digital needs. A datacenter is actually a mix of different elements, some logic some physical, it is just not a mere collection of elements but a complex systems with a lot of interactions. We can easily see inside the datacenter, cables, racks, servers, network equipments, storage units and so on but all are there (or should be there) for a purpose and are interconnected. A big part of a datacenter is not even visible; it is the software and data running in…

The IoT Files: is a small OS good for security?

The IoT Files: is a small OS good for security? NOTE: I will update this article with images later. One of the key aspects that should be addressed on IoT is the OS security. Many people rules this fear out, when talking about IoT, telling that IoT require so small OS that security isn’t really a problem, or a minor issue. It is a common idea that a smaller OS is less prone to security risks, and could not be more wrong. Security in IoT has in OS one of its Achilles’ heel, let me show why in a few…

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