The PCI Special Interest Group (SIG) announced last week that they have finalized the specification for PCI Express 6.0. And as mentioned previously on the Rundown, the 5G spectrum expansion in the C-Band is starting to heat up. We discuss these stories and more on this week’s Rundown.
Intel Mega Fab Facility Coming to Ohio | 0: 54
What state is round on both ends and has a giant chip facility in the middle? According to reports it’s soon to be Ohio. Rumors are swirling that Intel will be investing $20 billion in a new site in New Albany, OH. The size of the deal lends credence to it being the “mega fab” facility that CEO Pat Gelsinger has talked about before. Proximity to the Ohio State University would be a boon for highly skilled tech workers. New York state is also rumored to be in a bidding war for the facility. The announcement is expected to be made on Jan. 21.
Read more: Intel “mega-fab” coming to Ohio, reports say
DigiCert Acquires Mocana for IoT Security | 4:30
IoT is an area where security is unclear at best. Given the low power of these devices and the way they must communicate with outside services it could be enough to drive your security teams insane. DigiCert is taking a step to resolve this by acquiring IoT security provider Mocana. The move adds significant capabilties to allow for device identification, secure firmware mangement, and device tampering detection. Terms of the deal were not announced. Mocana had raised $95m in funding.
Read more: DigiCert Acquires Mocana
Building Secondary Security for IoT
Google Analytics Illegal in Europe | 7:30
An Austrian lawyer has successfully made Google Analytics illegal in the EU. Max Schrems represented an Austrian user who accessed a health website that forwarded information about them to the US. This forwarding is illegal under GDPR and the 2020 Privacy Shield legislation designed to prevent EU citizen data from being sent to the US where it might be used in mass surveillance operations. While the judgement will likely be appealed by the tech giant other companies are starting to ponder whether or not they’ll need to remove Google Analytics from their sites in order to avoid running afoul of the landmark EU privacy laws.
Russians Rapidly Remove Revil Remnants | 11:20
Two weeks after a tense discussion of global cybercrime with the Russian government in recent weeks, the FSB has decided to undo some evil. Specifically they raided 25 locations last Friday and siezed $5.6m in assets, including 20 luxury cars, from our favorite ransomware gang, REvil. After a summer where the gang made big news here on the Rundown and then disappeared with their ill-gotten crypto gains the question quickly turned to who would replace them and if they would ever face justice for their crimes. Experts had wondered if Russian authorities would ever try to disrupt these gangs inside their own borders. The arrests have received praise from the international community but are they just performance art? Or a shift in strategy to reduce visibility?
Read more: Russian Security Takes Down REvil Ransomware Gang
PCI Express 6.0 Finalized | 15:20
The PCI Special Interest Group (SIG) announced last week that they have finalized the specification for PCI Express 6.0. The short version is that the data rates per lane are doubling, which will allow the x16 slots to reach an incredible 128GBps of bandwidth. The specification has been in development since 2019 and is part of the cycle of doubling the data rates every three or so years. With GPUs getting faster by the day and new developments like DPUs, SSDs, and more consuming bandwidth event faster the new specification came at the perfect time. There are advantages even for devices that aren’t currently saturating their bandwidth, as wider lanes mean fewer are needed, which should lead to a reduction in hardware costs for other types of cards.
Read more: PCI Express 6.0 Specification Finalized: x16 Slots to Reach 128GBps
AT&T and Verizon Spar with FAA Over 5G | 24:58
As mentioned previously on the Rundown, the 5G spectrum expansion in the C-Band is starting to heat up. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been stating for weeks that the deadline of January 19th is going to see flight disruptions as the impact of the transmission medium on aircraft instrument systems is still being evaluated. AT&T and Verizon, the major players in this expansion, were ready to push ahead with the deployment of the new frequency and create exclusion zones around major airports to study the effects. With mere hours to go today until flipping the switch, both providers have agreed to delay the activation of those towers around major US airports to avert disruption to flight schedules. This comes after a number of airlines canceled flights to the US today. The affected aircraft appears to be the Boeing 777, used by many as a long-haul plane. The FAA has claimed that it didn’t have adequate time to test the C-Band interference with the instrument landing systems at airports before it was approved for use and the deployment of the technology could have led to major delays and disruptions or even worse.
Read more: 5G apocalypse is here as major airlines suspend U.S. flights
Networking Field 27 day is January 26-28
Cloud Field Day 13 is February 16-18
WLPC 2022 is February 22-24
The Gestalt IT Rundown is a live weekly look at the IT news of the week. It broadcasts live on Facebook every Wednesday at 12:30pm ET. To watch along, “Like” our Facebook page. Be sure to subscribe to Gestalt IT on YouTube for even more weekly video content.
