Paul McNamara
Network World
Massachusetts, United States
Contact Paul
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
| Past: |
|
Past articles by Paul:
IT work gets The Onion treatment
Is it possible that a writer at The Onion has previously toiled as a network engineer … or systems administrator? → Read More
Would Verizon really publish my unlisted landline number?
If I cancel Verizon's extortionary $5.25-a-month privacy-protection "service," will the carrier really punish me by publishing my landline number – unlisted now for 10 years – against my will and even if I first ask politely that they not do so? → Read More
MIT selling 8 million coveted IPv4 addresses; Amazon a buyer
MIT is selling half of its 16 million valuable IPv4 addresses – an increasingly scarce stash it has held since the birth of the Internet. While details of the sale have not been made public, at least some of those addresses have already been transferred to Amazon. → Read More
Twitter’s porn problem is ‘trending’
News that former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez reportedly had committed suicide sent the murderer’s name to the top of Twitter’s “trending” list. Porn purveyors followed. → Read More
It’s ‘It,’ as in the movie, not IT, as in ‘eye-tee’
“I keep seeing posts and advertisements for the movie IT. Every time, I think of it as I-T and have to reread it. … Is it just me?” ... No, it's not. → Read More
‘Find My iPhone’ foils pickpocket who swiped 100 devices: police
You might think that a pickpocket skilled enough to steal 100 cellphones, pictured above, would also be savvy enough to know that at least the iPhones in that haul carry a means to foil his caper. → Read More
Star pitcher willing to join IT team
It’s a standard line of inquiry by sportswriters that until now has always generated answers straight out of the Crash Davis school of interview banalities. → Read More
White House to issue commemorative solar eclipse safety glasses
The White House announced Friday that come this summer it will be issuing commemorative safety glasses in anticipation of the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse. → Read More
Tech giants join effort to save legal services for the poor from Trump budget ax
The biggest names in technology are urging Congress to ignore a line item in the president's proposed budget that would entirely defund the Legal Services Corporation, a non-profit that provides civil legal assistance to the poor. → Read More
Americans value online privacy but voters do not care when it counts
Ninety percent of Americans tell pollsters they believe online privacy protections are important, but far fewer act upon that belief when they go to the polls. → Read More
FedEx offering $5 and all you have to do is, gulp, reinstall or reactivate Flash
Testing the limits of what a customer might do for gettiing $5 off. → Read More
FCC clears path for carriers to block more robocalls
The FCC this morning voted 3-0 to give carriers new regulatory cover to combat annoying and oftentimes fraudulent robocalls. → Read More
Appeals court rules Americans have no legal recourse if hacked by foreign governments
An appeals court in Washington, D.C., yesterday upheld a lower court ruling denying an American citizen the right to sue the government of Ethiopia for hacking his home computer. → Read More
IBM pledge: Not only does Notes/Domino live, there’s no end in sight
It’s interesting to see IBM, which bought Lotus in 1995, pledging to support Domino and Notes for, well, an open-ended long period of time. → Read More
Q&A site Stack Overflow has answer to nagging question
A systems administrator was showering the other day (maybe not literally) when he had this thought: “I’ve never actually seen Stack Overflow’s front page. I wonder what percentage of their traffic requests are to simply .” → Read More
Border agents go all Monty Python on visa-holding software engineer
There have been more egregious episodes of U.S. border agents hassling and/or needlessly detaining valid visa-holders since the White House changed hands, but perhaps none has been more bizarre – or even darkly comical – than this one. → Read More
As third RSA Conference without ‘booth babes’ nears, no one seems to miss them
In March 2015, RSA Conference organizers made news by contractually insisting that vendors pitch their wares without the help of “booth babes,” a first such ban for the technology industry. → Read More
Emoji and hashtag creators scoff at 17th Century pretenders
Archivists in Slovakia have stumbled upon 17th Century examples of what the Daily Mail of London last week trumpeted as perhaps the first emoji and hashtag, claims that are being met with dismissive smiles by the actual creators of the ubiquitous modern-day symbols. → Read More
‘Found a nasty bug in my (Cisco) ASA this morning’
The above headline on a post to Reddit piqued my interest this afternoon because it was in that site’s section devoted to system administration and those people know a bug when they encounter one. → Read More
T-Mobile’s Legere ‘rescues’ volunteer fire department, sticks finger in Verizon’s eye
Ever a social-media showman and tormenter of his competitors, T-Mobile CEO John Legere last night took to Twitter to lambaste Verizon’s decision to ding a volunteer fire company for $73,000 and offered to pick up that tab himself if necessary. → Read More