Sean Michael Kerner

One of most noteworthy open-source stories of 2013 was the audacious attempt by Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu Linux, to crowdfund $32 million in 30 days to fund a next-generation Linux phone. It’s an effort that did not reach its target. In a video interview with eWEEK, Shuttleworth described the Ubuntu Edge campaign as a […]

The big security news of the day is that U.S. retail giant Target had a massive in-store data breach that compromised the information of 40 million credit and debit card customers. It’s a bad situation and one that triggers a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). Target customers are obviously concerned that they could […]

The Red Hat version of the OpenStack is a separate edition of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform that has been customized and optimized for deployment of the open-source OpenStack cloud platform. Red Hat had initially intended to provide an OpenStack solution that would then run on top of existing RHEL deployments, but changed […]

U.S. retailer Target quite literally has a target painted on itself, and it’s one that attackers are now confirmed to have hit in one of the largest data breaches on record. Target admitted today that approximately 40 million credit and debit card accounts are at risk from the breach. The affected accounts were compromised between […]

The White House has officially released a Presidential Task Force report that was triggered by the impact of intelligence leaks by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden. The report titled, “Liberty and Security in a Changing World,” offers 46 recommendations to improve and overhaul U.S. Intelligence activities. The task force report was […]

Since June, the world has been learning, leak by pilfered document leak, the extent of the U.S. government’s cyber-spying operations. National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden stole countless numbers of documents that have had the effect of also reducing confidence in U.S. technology vendors as they try and do business abroad. The tech vendors […]

The open-source Bitcoin (BTC) cryptocurrency is a virtual currency that has gained significantly in popularity and in value over the course of 2013—that is, until today. Bitcoin’s value had been hovering above $1,000 USD per BTC for most of December, but a decision made in China has triggered a collapse in value that is unprecedented […]

After a slight delay, Fedora 20 Linux is now generally available with new features that affect desktop, server and cloud users alike. Fedora is a community Linux distribution that is sponsored by Enterprise Linux giant Red Hat. Fedora 20 had originally been set for a Nov. 26 release, which was pushed back to ensure that […]

Apple released today its first milestone update for the OS X 10.9 Mavericks desktop operating system. Mavericks, Apple’s latest OS X release, first became generally available Oct. 22. The new OS X 10.9.1 release includes both stability and security updates. On the security front, the OS X 10.9.1 update is narrowly focused on Apple’s Safari […]

Dreamhost has emerged in recent years to become one of the world’s most popular shared hosting providers. The company is now expanding its lineup with new cloud compute and storage services, leveraging the open-source OpenStack platform serving as the foundation. Helping to fuel Dreamhost’s expansion is a new $30 million round of financing. In a […]

Accurately controlling and managing users and data in the cloud is becoming increasingly complex and challenging for many organizations. One vendor tackling the problem is CloudLock, though it is taking a bit of a different tack. On Dec. 10, the company made available a free tool called CloudLock GeoFence to help Google Apps users track […]

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is partnering with the Software Assurance Forum for Excellence in Code (SAFECode) in an effort to improve the security of cloud applications. The two groups have published a 27-page document on Practices for Secure Development of Cloud Applications, which outlines the approach for what needs to be done. As more […]