encryption – TechVirtuoso

TV Guide for March 30

March 30th, 2010 at 11:01 AM 1 Comment Michael Stanclift

This is the introduction post to the TechVirtuoso Guide, what we hope will become a daily breakdown of important IT tidbits from the previous day, and what we expect to happen that day.

Yet again, someone has come forward with another rumor that a CDMA iPhone is coming this summer. This time, it comes from the Wall Street Journal. The new iPhone would work on Verizon Wireless, as well as Sprint Nextel in the United States and a handful of carriers in other countries including South Korea and Japan. The current iPhone is designed to work on the vast majority of carriers world-wide, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the US, using a signaling technology called GSM.

It would seem that SSL isn’t as secure as once thought. The problem isn’t the encryption, but the certificate providers. Ars has a breakdown of how governments are working with the CAs to “subvert the entire system to allow them to spy on anyone they wish to keep tabs on.”

Apple has released a major update to OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” — fixes in version 10.6.3 include enhancements to USB, OpenGL, DNS, QuickTime X, AirPort, iCal, Mail, MobileMe, Time Machine, and numerous other areas of the operating system. Choose Software Update from the Apple menu to check for the latest Apple software via the Internet, including this update.

Future versions of the Ubuntu Linux operating system will change the way units are measured in the operating system and enforced throughout applications used in the OS. Starting in Ubuntu 10.10, coming this October, SI prefixes (base-10) will denote 1 kB as 1000 bytes, 1 MB as 1000 kB, 1 GB as 1000 MB, and so on. This is similar to the way OS X started measuring data in Snow Leopard. Neowin has a full breakdown of the measuring guidelines.

You will soon be able to jailbreak an iPhone over the air, instead of having it tethered to a computer. Your move Apple.

Need help running Linux as a guest OS in Microsoft Hyper-V? Sounds strange, but Microsoft has released a best practices guide to do just that. Download it off their website. Don’t blame us if you create a black hole in your datacenter though. In related news, Hypervizor.net has a great article on anti-virus exemptions in Hyper-V. Proper configuration of your antivirus can prevent performance issues, but also keep your VMs from being eaten alive by an aggressive scanning engine.

AT&T, Intel collaborate to strengthen remote PC support for SMB

September 17th, 2009 at 9:53 PM No Comments Don Smith

Intel_logo AT&T and Intel have announced a collaboration which will see the former introduce AT&T Tech Support 360SM, an affordable IT virtual helpdesk that provides live, permission-based remote technical service for small and midsize businesses.

The upcoming option will enable them to simply enter a keystroke sequence on a failed computer – even if its operating system is down – to directly connect the system with technicians over the Internet via an encrypted connection. The Tech Support 360 technicians will then address the PC remotely, even when it has become inoperable due to problems such as hardware or operating system failure, or corruption by a virus or malware. This is made possible by the use of the Intel Remote PC Assist Technology (Intel RPAT), a feature of Intel’s vPro.

“As a result of the current economic conditions, small businesses are even more focused on controlling costs,” said David Tuhy, a general manager in the Intel Business Client Group. “AT&T’s Tech Support 360 in conjunction with Intel vPro technology opens the door for new managed services to address these concerns. By adding support for Intel Remote PC Assist Technology, AT&T will be able to deliver a higher level of service to customers by improving PC troubleshooting and reducing support costs using an encrypted connection over the Internet.”

Those interested can get more info about AT&T’s Tech Support 360 service via tech360.att.com.