We announced the availability of Linux on-premises and cross-region mounting of Azure Files for the first OS distribution – Ubuntu 17.04, in April. Today, we are happy to share that more Linux distributions now include this functionality, which will allow on-premises and cross-region mounting of Azure Files.

For security reasons, connections to Azure Files shares are blocked if the communication channel isn’t encrypted while the connection attempt is not made from the same data center on which Azure File shares reside. Channel encryption is not provided if the user’s client OS doesn’t support SMB encryption, and Linux did not support this yet. We have collaborated with Linux community to implement encryption Linux CIFS. Encryption support was introduced in 4.11 kernel.

This functionality has already been backported to the following Linux distributions:

Ubuntu from 16.04 and above
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3 and above
CoreOS Stable
Debian 9 with jessie-backports kernel

This functionality is coming soon on the following Linux distributions:

CentOS 7.5 (mid-2018)
Next release of RHEL (one after 7.4)

This means that with the above version you can share data access across VMs living in different environments like on-premises, other regions in Azure or even other clouds. You can point it to Azure Files and get an SMB/CIFS share mounted on your Linux VM, or mount the same share on Windows and share data across platforms.

New getting started and diagnostic tool for Linux

We are also making it easy for you to check if your Linux environment is correctly set up, and has all the pre-requisites to use SMB by releasing a brand new troubleshooter tool for Linux, similar to the Windows troubleshooter that we announced in June.

We published a troubleshooting for Linux guide some time ago. Today, we are releasing the Azure toubleshooter tool in order for you to rest assured that your environment is correctly set up.

You can download AzFileDiagnostics from Script Center today and simply run the following command and that’s it. The tool will tell you what needs to be done for mounting your file share. It will then mount the file share for you, if you wish to do so.

chmod +x AzFilesDiagnostics.sh
./AzFilesDiagnostics.sh

Summary and next steps

Azure is a first-class platform for Linux and open source technology. Microsoft has been constantly contributing to the Linux open source community to provide the finest experience for our Azure Linux customers and we look forward to continue doing so.

We are excited to see the tremendous adoption of Azure File Storage. You can try Azure File storage by getting started in under five minutes. Further information and detailed documentation links are provided below.

Use Azure File on Linux
Azure Files Storage: a frictionless cloud SMB file system for Windows and Linux
Inside Azure File Storage

We will continue to enhance the Azure File Storage based on your feedback. If you have any comments, requests, or issues, you can use the following channels to reach out to us:

Stack Overflow
MSDN
User Voice

Quelle: Azure

22. September 2017

da Agency

Social Media Platforms’ In-App Ad Tools Aren’t Good Enough For The FTC

Sorry, celebrities and influencers: In a Twitter chat on Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission said that it’s not enough to rely on the built-in features provided by Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to indicate if something is a sponsored post.

The FTC has not, until now, been specific about the issue, but during the chat (which used the hashtag #Influencers101), it came out definitively against built-in social media disclosures as being sufficient:

Instagram announced a feature in June that would allow influencers to do certain posts with a geotag that says “paid partnership with [Brand].” At the time, the FTC declined to comment when asked by BuzzFeed News if they would accept this as a good enough disclosure for sponsored posts.

The new Instagram “paid partnership with” feature, which is only available to a limited amount of influencers.

instagram.com

Other platforms were already offering similar features. Facebook launched a “tag the sponsor”-type feature at the end of 2016. It says “Katie with [Brand]” and the “Paid” below in a small font. It’s pretty easy to miss.

(I wasn't actually paid to post this to Facebook).

BuzzFeed News

On YouTube, anyone can check a small box in the bottom corner of the “Advanced Settings” that allows you to say it’s a paid ad and you want YouTube to show its disclosure feature. That disclosure feature, which launched in October 2016, is tiny white lettering that appears near the play button for the beginning of the video. It’s… not exactly super easy to see.

YouTube's “Includes paid promotion” disclaimer, which is pretty small.

BuzzFeed News

These built-in features from platforms are kind of a halfway Band-Aid approach: The platforms seem aware that these features are probably not going to pass muster with the FTC and other trade commissions like the UK’s Committee of Advertising Practices, but they don’t offer any warning to their users that using the tool isn’t enough. And that’s probably because ultimately, it’s up to the creators, celebrities, and influencers on these social platforms to be upfront about ads. On Wednesday, the FTC made it clear that it wants to see things like #ad (not vague terms like #ambassador, #hosted, or #collab) clearly placed in an Instagram caption, or superimposed on an image in an Instagram story. For YouTube videos, influencers should say in the video itself that it’s an ad, as well as in the video title and description. Facebook gives you plenty of text space in a status to mention that something is an ad or promotion.

In fact, by providing a weak way of disclosing ads, these social platforms are making things worse for influencers, who might assume that the platform’s built-in feature is good enough. They likely figure that if they check that box, then they don’t need to say #ad in a caption or elsewhere — when in fact, they do. And this means that their fans won’t all be able to discern if what they’re seeing is something their favorite celebrity is genuinely recommending, or if it's something that celeb was paid to promote.

The FTC recently cracked down — for the first time ever — on individual Instagram celebrities who were doing undisclosed advertisements (in the past, the FTC has gone after brands and marketers for undisclosed social ads, but never the individuals). On September 6, they sent letters to 21 celebrities, including Ciara, Scott Disick, Amber Rose, and Vanessa Hudgens, that warned them about undisclosed ads they had posted.

Even before Wednesday’s Twitter chat, the FTC already had guidelines on its website that said that disclosure features from social networks (they don’t get specific) aren't enough on their own. While the guidelines are long and it’s likely that not all influencers have combed through them, brands are also responsible for making sure their influencers are compliant. In the #Influencers101 chat, the FTC did say that if a brand has given an influencer the rules and they continue to flout them, they should no longer advertise with the influencer and would not be held responsible for the influencer's non-compliance.

Judging from the number of questions during the FTC's Twitter chat, influencers are still pretty confused about the rules – what counts as an ad, and how to disclose it. The fact that social platforms have tools that aren't clear enough doesn't help either. With confusion from all ends, it's still as hard as ever for regular people to know when they're seeing an ad on social media.

Quelle: <a href="Social Media Platforms’ In-App Ad Tools Aren’t Good Enough For The FTC“>BuzzFeed

22. September 2017

da Agency

New offers in Azure Marketplace

Last month 31 great new cloud offerings were published to Azure Marketplace. Check ‘em out!

Cloudbreak for Hortonworks Data Platform: Cloudbreak for Hortonworks Data Platform simplifies the provisioning, management, and monitoring of HDP clusters in the cloud environments.

CloudLanes Cloud Backup Accelerator & VTL Gateway: Superfast backups. Send data to the cloud at a much faster rate. Cloud backups and archives require your users to upload and download files and information to and from the cloud.

Workspot Cloud Desktops: VDI and DaaS on Azure: VDI is an infinitely scalable cloud service. Deploy thousands of Windows 10 desktops in a day.

Forscene Edgeserver: Forscene from Forbidden is professional video editing software for collaborative productions and remote workflows.

CloudLanes Cloud Video Accelerator & NFS Storage: CloudLanes Cloud Video Accelerator allows you to rapidly and securely ingest and move your on premise videos to any cloud, leveraging its superior economics and rich set of features to manage massive video archives.

Hanu Managed Services: Our offerings are categorized as standard and on-demand services to cater to the custom needs of every customer.

Optimiz Centos Linux Web Server: For faster web server they build the ready optimizing centos and php 7 server image – OS CENTOS 7 – MariaDB – PHP 7 – PageSpeed.

RapidMiner Server 7.5: RapidMiner Server makes it easy to share, reuse, and operationalize the models and results created in RM Studio.

RapidMiner Server 7.6: Real data science, fast and simple. RapidMiner Server makes it easy to share, reuse, and operationalize the models and results created in RM Studio.

RSA NetWitness Broker 10.6.4: The RSA NetWitness Broker aggregates data captured by other devices and event sources. Brokers aggregate data from configured concentrators.

RSA NetWitness Concentrator 10.6.4: The RSA NetWitness Concentrator indexes metadata extracted from network or log data, and makes it available for enterprise-wide querying and real-time analytics while also facilitating reporting and alerting.

RSA NetWitness Event Stream Analysis 10.6.4: The RSA NetWitness ESA host provides advanced stream analytics such as correlation and complex event processing at high throughputs and low latency.

RSA NetWitness Log Decoder 10.6.4: The RSA NetWitness Log Decoder collects log events from hundreds of devices and event sources, and offers the same extensive features and functionality as its physical version.

RSA NetWitness Virtual Log Collector 10.6.4: The RSA NetWitness VLC is a host that will collect logs from currently supported event sources and protocols.

RSA NetWitness Archiver 10.6.4: The RSA NetWitness Archiver is a host that enables long-term log archiving by indexing and compressing log data and sending it to archiving storage.

SQL Beacon: SQL Beacon monitors SQL Servers across an entire organization from a single instance, allowing DBAs to totally forget about best practice checks they often don’t have time to carry out.

Delphix Dynamic Data Platform for Azure: The Delphix Dynamic Data Platform allows data to be securely delivered to every stakeholder, across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments, at the speed required to enable rapid development and delivery of applications and solutions.

OmniOS Community Edition: OmniOS Community Edition Association (OmniOSce) is a Swiss association, dedicated to the continued support and release of OmniOS for the benefit of all parties involved.

CIS Windows Server 2008 R2 Benchmark v3.0.1.5 – L1: This instance of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 is hardened according to a CIS Benchmark.

CIS Windows Server 2008 R2 Benchmark v3.0.1.5 – L2: This instance of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 is hardened according to a CIS Benchmark. Launching an image hardened according to the trusted security configuration baselines prescribed by CIS will reduce cost, time, and risk to your organization.

CIS Windows Server 2012 Benchmark v2.0.1.5 – L1: This instance of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 is hardened according to a CIS Benchmark. Launching an image hardened according to the trusted security configuration baselines prescribed by CIS will reduce cost, time, and risk to your organization.

CIS Windows Server 2012 Benchmark v2.0.1.5 – L2: This instance of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 is hardened according to a CIS Benchmark. Launching an image hardened according to the trusted security configuration baselines prescribed by CIS will reduce cost, time, and risk to your organization.

CIS Windows Server 2016 Benchmark v1.0.0.4 – L1: This instance of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 is hardened according to a CIS Benchmark. Launching an image hardened according to the trusted security configuration baselines prescribed by CIS will reduce cost, time, and risk to your organization.

Pilot Things IoT VPN: Build a worldwide IoT VPN in a few clicks, thus reducing complexity.

FlashGrid Node for Oracle RAC (based on OL 7): The VM image contains FlashGrid software and can be used for creating Oracle Real Application Clusters nodes.

CERTIFY: Certify smart tools identifies the standards requirement applicable to the Medical Device and automatically creates the corresponding risks and technical requirement.

Solutions templates

Kyligence Analytics Platform 2.3: Kyligence Analytics Platform (KAP) is an enterprise-ready big data product, powered by Apache Kylin and Apache Hadoop.

Parity Ethereum Failover Kovan: This Parity instance is to be used by the Kovan network authorities to ensure high availability.

Versio™ Platform: Versio™ is an advanced, fully IP-enabled, integrated playout in the cloud platform, that is 100% software running on the Azure cloud.

Cloudbreak for Hortonworks Data Platform: Simplifies the provisioning, management, and monitoring of HDP clusters in cloud environments.

Veritas NetBackup™ 8.0: Provides unified data protection for enterprises with large-scale, complex, and heterogeneous multi-cloud environments that want to take their business further on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

– The Azure Marketplace Team
Quelle: Azure

22. September 2017

da Agency

Facebook Will Give Congress The More Than 3,000 Ads Purchased By A Russian Troll Farm

Sean Gallup / Getty Images

Facing mounting pressure from government officials and the public, Facebook will now provide U.S. House and Senate intelligence committees with the more than 3,000 ads it believes were purchased by a Russian troll factory during the 2016 election, a company official told BuzzFeed News.

Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced in a Facebook live that the company will put an end to so-called “dark post” ads on its platform by enabling people to view the ads being run from a page. Currently, a page can target an ad at a specific group of people on Facebook, and only those people are able to view the content.

“Not only will you have to disclose which page paid for an ad, but we will also make it so you can visit an advertiser's page and see the ads they are currently running to any audience on Facebook,” he said. “We will roll this out over the coming months.”

Zuckerberg also said the company will double the size of its election integrity team, and that the company has not found evidence of any Russian-linked ad buys during the current German election.

Prior to today's announcement, Congressional investigators were frustrated by Facebook's unwillingness to hand over more information about the ads purchased by a Russian entity known as the Internet Research Agency. The company's general counsel explained in a blog post shared with BuzzFeed News why they decided to hand over the ads and information.

“We believe the public deserves a full accounting of what happened in the 2016 election, and we've concluded that sharing the ads we've discovered, in a manner that is consistent with our obligations to protect user information, can help,” he said.

Reuters previously reported that the company had handed over the content of at least some ads to special counsel Robert Mueller, and Zuckerberg appeared to confirm that during his brief live video.

“We are in a new world… and we are committed to rising to the occasion,” he said.

Quelle: <a href="Facebook Will Give Congress The More Than 3,000 Ads Purchased By A Russian Troll Farm“>BuzzFeed

22. September 2017

da Agency

These Places Are Thirsty AF To Be Chosen As Amazon's New Headquarters

Cities across North America are showing Amazon how desperate they are to be the chosen location for the company’s next headquarters.

Getty Images/Emmanuel Dunand

Amazon announced earlier this month that it is searching for a city where it will build its second headquarters — to be located elsewhere than its current home base, in Seattle.

It's not asking for much, really: Aside from a city with more than 1 million people, the company wants on-site access to mass transit, strong cell phone service, and easy access to a major highway or road. The company also wants to be within 45 minutes of an international airport.

It also wants the cities that raise their hands to provide traffic congestion figures, crime data, statistics on local workers, and information about local universities. Amazon says it is seeking a city that will give its employees “an overall high quality of life.” (In other words, don't apply unless you have bars, restaurants, and a Starbucks nearby.)

The payoff, obviously, is huge: Amazon says that its new headquarters will bring as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs to the place that it picks — as well as a potential boost of billions of dollars to the local economy.

The potential windfall that Amazon will bring to its city of choice has some places doing some pretty desperate things to stand out:

Tuscon, Arizona, a city of about 530,700 people, sent Amazon a giant cactus as a welcome gift to the company.

AP/Madge Stager

Sun Corridor Inc., an economic development group in southern Arizona working with Gov. Doug Ducey and the Arizona Commerce Authority to develop a strong proposal for the company, sent a flatbed truck carrying a 21-foot Saguaro cactus to Amazon in Seattle last week, hoping to catch the attention of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

“We wanted to make sure Mr. Bezos and his team notice us, and send a message of ‘We have room for you to grow here for the long term’ — nothing signifies that better than a Saguaro,” Joe Snell, Sun Corridor’s president and CEO, told the Associated Press.

@amazonnews / Via Twitter: @amazonnews

Womp, Womp.

@karenaboutgary / Via Twitter: @karenaboutgary

“I know locating to me may seem far-fetched,” the city writes about itself. “But 'far-fetched' is what we do in America. It was far-fetched for 13 scrawny American colonies to succeed against the might of the British Empire. Far-fetched to land a man on the moon. Far-fetched for a business selling books out of a garage to succeed in business and philanthropy. Like Amazon, I am, once again, both a game changer and a unique opportunity.”

People in Stamford, Connecticut, are so desperate to throw their hat in the ring for Amazon’s second headquarters they’ve been flooding the city’s economic development office with phone calls, according to the Stamford Advocate.

Getty Images/Spencer Platt

The calls became so overwhelming that Thomas Madden, director of economic development with the city, drafted a boilerplate response to anyone asking the city to apply.

“We believe Stamford, and the lower Fairfield County region, is well positioned as a desirable location for Amazon’s headquarters,” Madden wrote, according to the Stamford Advocate. “Stamford is one of the few cities that has the workforce, infrastructure, and quality of life that we believe Amazon is looking for.”

Toronto has also expressed interest. And one Toronto resident made a desperate plea for Amazon to bring its billions to update the city’s train system.

@SuzanneHajdu

Hajdu, who says in her Twitter profile that she is a landscape architect and gardener, was complaining to the Toronto Transit Commission about conditions for commuters — conditions that Amazon may not be thrilled to have for its workers.

Applicants have until Oct. 19 to submit proposals. Others cities that have shown interest include Boston, Chicago, Denver, and Philadelphia.

Giphy / Via giphy.com

Quelle: <a href="These Places Are Thirsty AF To Be Chosen As Amazon's New Headquarters“>BuzzFeed