Speaking at IBM ConnectED 2015

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IBM ConnectED 2015 is a little over a month away and it is shaping up to be a busy week for me.  Here are my sessions looking forward to seeing you there.

Scott Souder and I will attempt to answer all your questions about IBM Verse

MAS102: Mail As You’ve Never Imagined It Before: IBM Verse

At a time when organizations are striving to be more efficient, we are faced with an overwhelmingly large volume of email that outpaces productivity. But IBM is changing all of this by re-imagining what mail should be and transforming the way we work. Enter “IBM Verse.” Optimized for web and mobile, Verse gets to know you — by identifying the people and patterns of how you work — and draws your attention to the messages, meetings and tasks that you care about. Join Scott Souder and IBM Champion Mitch Cohen for a candid discussion, overview and demos as we kick-off a great week where Verse is sure to be one of the hottest topics!

Interested in provisioning users into IBM Connections Cloud? I will share my experience and tell you everything you need to know to get started

BP210: Sunny Days, (Smart)Cloud-y Users (this title was better when SmartCloud was still the branding, but the content is good)

Learn how you can leverage the data in your existing on-premises or cloud systems (LDAP, Profiles, Active Directory, and others) to automatically provision users in IBM Smart Cloud for Social Business. This session will provide a basic introduction to Tivoli Directory Integrator, and how to connect to multiple data sources to create users in IBM SmartCloud. We will cover user the automation of user creation, changes, and deletions, as well as explain different enrollment and log in methods available to your users.

Finally I will also be participating in this customer panel

INV402: Strategies for Connecting the Global Workforce through Cloud – Customer Panel

Hear directly from companies how they’re using social cloud to connect employees to each other, to partners and to customers to energize their work. This customer panel will discuss their experiences in starting their social cloud journey, their insights on how to best use cloud to drive social adoption across diverse workforces globally, and share best practices for what works and what doesn’t. Gain insights on how to be successful using cloud to connect employees so they can be more effective in their daily work and learn where these companies are going next.

Should be a fun, busy, and hopefully warm few days in Orlando, what are you waiting for Register Now.

 

IBM Updates on SHA-2 and POODLE

Two new Technotes have been published

How is IBM Domino impacted by the POODLE attack?

The Short version it is and IBM will provide Interim Fixes for the following Domino releases:

    • 9.0.1 Fix Pack 2
    • 9.0
    • 8.5.3 Fix Pack 6
    • 8.5.2 Fix Pack 4
    • 8.5.1 Fix Pack 5

Planned SHA-2 deliveries for IBM Domino 9.x

The Short version

SHA-2 support for Domino 9.x is planned to be delivered over the next several weeks via an Interim Fix.

  • With this Interim Fix, Domino administrators will be able to configure Domino 9.x to use a SHA-2 certificate over HTTP, SMTP, LDAP, POP, and IMAP. With a SHA-2 certificate in place, users will be able to use a browser to connect to iNotes, XPages, traditional Domino Web apps, and Sametime (based on Domino HTTP).
  • Once the Interim Fix is applied, browser users will not receive a security alert since Domino will be configured with SHA-2. Domino administrators will be able to import a 3rd-party SHA-2 cert or generate SHA-2 certs with the Domino Administrator client with Domino 9.x running the Interim Fix on all supported platforms.
  • As mentioned in the above section, the cryptographic infrastructure needed to provide these features was new to Domino 9.x. For this reason, we will not be able to support SHA-2 on Domino 8.5.x.

IBM Domino, Google, and SHA-1

There is a lot of talk these days about Google’s decision to accelerate the deprecation of SHA-1, and IBM Domino’s lack of support for SHA-2 .  Right off lets get this straight IBM absolutely should have plans to add SHA-2 support in Domino and an implementation date should be communicated ASAP.  At the same time the pressure should really be on Google to back down from what is an arbitrary deadline they announced out of the blue, and to support the previously announced 2017 date for the deprecation of SHA-1.

While it is easy to blame IBM here (and again IBM needs to communicate a date they will support SHA-2 in Domino) the immediate deprecation by Google is an arbitrary move that does not have a lot of support.

Some facts

  • Microsoft previously announced their plans to deprecate SHA-1 in 2017
  • Currently 92% of certificates on the Internet are SHA-1 signed
  • Google then decided to begin deprecating SHA-1 in November of this year
  • SHA-1 has not been compromised or hacked
  • Google as an Intermediate CA is issuing them with SHA-1 (but their deprecation policy exempts their own certificates)

 

Here is a statement from the CA Security Council 

Although the CA Security Council (CASC), comprised of the seven largest Certificate Authorities, supports migration to SHA-2, members are concerned about the impact on website users and administrators alike. Considering many users may still use software lacking SHA-2 support, primarily Windows XP SP2, and the still unknown impact on a complete SHA-1 migration, this 12 week timeline is aggressive. In addition, many devices still lack SHA-2 support, making necessary possibly unplanned and expensive upgrades.

With fall shopping season nearly here, this policy may be particularly concerning for small internet stores, which could be impacted just before the holiday rush. Because many large sites have lockdown periods leading up to the end of the year, companies that have not transitioned may find themselves restricted from making the move until January, or beyond, due to lack of SHA-2 support. Although a migration to SHA-2 is necessary as computing power increases, because of the significant impact in migration and the lack of a practical attack until 2018, the CASC members recommends thetimelines announced by Microsoft in November 2013, which deprecate SHA-1 in code signing certificates by January 1, 2016 and in SSL certificates by January 1, 2017.

If you want a clear explanation on all this, listen to what Steve Gibson has to say about it on Security Now (If it does not begin there automatically pick up the podcast at 48:37 for the SHA-1 discussion)

IBM ConnectED 2015 Call for Abstracts is now open

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The Call for Abstracts for IBM ConnectEd 2015 has gone out.  You have until October 8th to submit your abstract for the upcoming event.   You can see the seven available tracks and their descriptions here, and the Agenda overview here.

IBM ConnectED 2015 Call for Abstracts

IBM Notes Traveler and support for iOS8

If you support an IBM Notes Traveler environment this question should be on your mind

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Looks like good news if you are reasonably current in your Traveler environment.  We have had a beta device connected to a 9.0.1 IF4 Traveler server and it worked with out any issue, I know I will be watching closely when Apple releases iOS8 to make sure everything keeps working.

See the technote fo the Full Q&A including updates on Traveler Companion and To Do .

Nice job by IBM getting this document published in advance of today’s Apple announcements.

Technote 1683614: Q&A about IBM Notes Traveler support for Apple iOS 8.x

IBM SmartCloud rebranding to IBM Connections Cloud

We heard last January at IBM Connect that the IBM Collaboration Solutions would all be rebranded under the IBM Connections name.   IBM SmartCloud for Social Business is no exception and will be changing later in September.

Current Name New Name
IBM SmartCloud Engage Advanced IBM Connections Cloud S1
IBM SmartCloud Engage Standard IBM Connections Cloud S2
IBM SmartCloud iNotes IBM Connections Web Mail Cloud
IBM SmartCloud Archive Essentials IBM Connections Archive Essentials Cloud
IBM SmartCloud Connections IBM Connections Social Cloud
IBM SmartCloud Docs IBM Connections Docs Cloud
IBM SmartCloud Meetings IBM Connections Meetings Cloud
(New Offering) IBM Connections Chat Cloud

Looks like they are holding off on changing the Notes Mail product names until Mail Next launches.

The URLs will not be changing, just the product names.

Nominations are open for the next class of IBM Champions

IBM Champion

 

 

It is that time of year again, nominations are open for the next class of IBM Champions.  Take a few minutes and nominate yourself, or even better nominate someone else to show appreciation for their contributions to the community.

Nominate an IBM Champion

Making Two Factor Authentication (even) easier

If you pay attention to the news you know you should be protecting your accounts with strong unique passwords, and two factor authentication wherever it is supported.  Two factor authentication improves your security by requiring (as the name implies) as second piece of information to authenticate which is usually a number generated by an app on your phone or received via text or email.  A while ago I posted this tip to make two factor authentication a little easier, now I want to follow that up with another tip.

I recently moved all my two factor authentication from Google Authenticator  to Authy.  The big difference is Authy will let you sync your two factor authentication between multiple devices as well as serve them up via a Chrome App.

I recently replaced my phone and instead of having to open up all my QR codes I was able to simply authorize my new phone in Authy and decrypt all my sites in seconds

I’m Looking Forward to this

From my Inbox last night

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IBM Mail Next 

Nominations are Open for the IBM Mail Next Design Advisory Program

Interested in IBM Mail Next? Want a voice in shaping the product? Nominate yourself to participate in the Design Advisory Program for Mail Next.

You need to be an IBM SmartCloud Notes Customer, or a Business Partner with a SmartCloud Demo Account to participate.

Kramer Reeves: IBM Mail Next – Design Advisory Program – Open for Nominations!

IBM Design Advisory Program for IBM Mail Next – Nomination Form