Cables2Clouds

Send us Fan MailTrillion-dollar numbers start sounding fake until they show up in an S-1. We kick off our October monthly news recap by unpacking Anthropic’s IPO move and what its public filing suggests about the real economics of frontier AI: staggering losses, massive compute commitments, and a business model that may depend on the market staying patient for a long time.From there we connect it to Gartner’s warning that a huge chunk of AI infrastructure spending could be impaired by 2030 if application revenue doesn’t materialize. That’s where “neo cloud providers” enter the picture: GPU-heavy upstarts with wildly different architectures, delivery models, and operational standards. We talk about why consolidation is likely, what that means for customers, and how this all collides with a growing public fight over hyperscale data centers. As communities demand transparency around water, power, and tax incentives, hyperscalers are rethinking NDAs and how much they can keep quiet.Then we shift into the operational gut-punches. We break down the eMudra certificate authority failure where weak key generation put trust at risk and triggered widespread certificate revocations. We also cover the PHP unauth vulnerability (and why “old and everywhere” is the worst combination), including the disclosure dynamics that can turn a patch diff into an exploit faster than most teams can update. Finally, we dig into a problem that’s about to hit a lot of orgs: AI agents exploding telemetry volume, pushing observability costs higher than the infrastructure being monitored, and forcing hard governance choices.If this was useful, subscribe, share it with a teammate, and leave a review. Which story worries you most right now, AI infrastructure risk or security fragility?Check out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj

Send us Fan MailA seasoned cybersecurity engineer with a federal background, an active network, and a clearance should not have to fire off 200 to 300 applications to get hired. Yet that’s exactly what happened to Spud, and the story exposes how broken tech hiring and cybersecurity recruiting have become in the post-layoff market.We walk through what it feels like to go from protecting critical systems to months of unemployment, repeated ghosting, and interview loops that never close. We talk candidly about the modern hiring process: applicant tracking systems, AI resume screening, recruiters who cannot validate specialised requirements, and the strange new normal where “entry-level cybersecurity” postings demand senior experience plus expensive certifications. If you’re trying to break into a SOC analyst role, pivot into security, or simply survive the current tech layoffs, you’ll hear why the noise is so high and why the rejections often have nothing to do with your ability.Then we zoom out to the incentives driving the chaos. We discuss AI as a tool that can help teams move faster, but also how “replace juniors with AI” thinking cuts the first rung off the ladder and creates a future senior talent cliff. We also dig into the economic ripple effects of mass layoffs, especially in high-cost regions, and why the AI bubble feels less like magic and more like expensive experimentation with uneven results.If you’re feeling stuck or doubting yourself, this conversation offers reality, context, and a path to keep going. Subscribe for more straight-talk on cybersecurity careers, share this with someone job hunting, and leave a review with the hardest hiring hurdle you’ve faced.How to connect with Spud:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesterrebonne/Check out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj

Send us Fan MailAI isn’t just changing software. It’s changing laws, infrastructure, and the day-to-day reality of work, and California is becoming one of the clearest previews of what comes next. We dig into a flurry of new California AI regulations aimed at worker rights and accountability, from requiring human review when AI influences disciplinary action or termination decisions to increasing transparency when layoffs are linked to automation. We also talk privacy, including why “surveillance” can mean Wi‑Fi telemetry and phone location tracking, not just cameras, and why the state is drawing lines employers can’t cross.From there, we follow the ripple effects into courts, healthcare, and deepfakes. The legal system is getting hammered by AI-generated filings, so we break down why codifying responsibility matters even when sanctions already exist. On the healthcare side, we discuss the balance between clinical decision tools and professional judgement, plus expectations that developers take reasonable steps to reduce predictable bias. And because synthetic media is now a real security problem, we explore updates meant to deter AI impersonation and strengthen protections around digital watermarks and metadata, even if enforcement will be messy.Then we shift to the physical world: data centers, power grids, and the economics behind the AI boom. California’s data center bills push builders to help fund grid upgrades and disclose water and energy use, with wildfires and ageing infrastructure as the backdrop. Nationally, communities and utilities are pushing back too, with major AI data center projects blocked, withdrawn, or stalled. We also pressure-test the numbers driving all this buildout, the profitability gap for AI labs, and the very real supply constraints on chips and memory that could leave shiny new facilities sitting half-empty.If you care about AI policy, data center growth, cloud infrastructure, network protocols, or how platform decisions like Microsoft retiring Exchange Web Services can hit real users, this one connects the dots. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who works in tech policy or infrastructure, and leave a review with the biggest AI myth you want us to tackle next.Check out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj

Send us Fan MailAgentic AI is changing what “normal” traffic looks like, and that forces a hard question: if most connections are workloads talking to workloads, why are we still designing network security around users accessing apps? We bring on Dan Sheldon (CEO) and Paul Carvill (CTO) to unpack their answer: Ephemeral Virtual Access (EVA), a just-in-time approach to cloud networking that creates encrypted connectivity only when a task has validated intent, then tears it down before it becomes permanent risk.We talk about why the zero trust networking label has drifted, how ZTNA fits (and where it doesn’t), and why always-on tunnels and broad east-west routing can turn into a “superhighway” for lateral movement. Dan and Paul explain guardrails set by security teams (PCI boundaries, dev vs prod, data sovereignty) and how developers can move faster when the network enforces a clear ceiling of connectivity without adding host agents or extra troubleshooting burden. The payoff is practical: shorter blast radius, faster delivery, and an audit trail that ties a session to what connected, for how long, and how much data moved.Then we zoom out to what’s coming next: post-quantum concerns and the harvest now, decrypt later threat model. Ephemeral connections, rapid teardown, and frequent key changes shift the economics for attackers who want to record traffic today and crack it later. We also get concrete about architecture, including lightweight sensors near workloads and higher-throughput edges that can spin up for jobs like backups and disappear to stop billing.Subscribe for more real-world cloud security and networking conversations, share this with a teammate who lives in firewall tickets, and leave a review with the biggest network assumption you think AI is about to break.Connect with Dan and Paul:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-sheldon/https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcarvill/Follow EVA:EVAnetworks.comCheck out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj

Send us Fan MailAWS and Azure just did the thing everyone argued would never happen: a managed, first party multi-cloud interconnect between the two biggest cloud platforms. We break down what’s actually new here, what’s simply being productized, and why this matters for enterprise cloud networking, identity driven architectures, and outage aware design. We also talk honestly about the current limitations and where high throughput connectivity still depends on ExpressRoute, Direct Connect, and established data centre cross connect ecosystems. Then we pivot to the AI platform earthquake: NVIDIA’s planned $12.9B acquisition of Hugging Face. We explore incentives and power dynamics behind buying the “AI model repository” that hosts millions of open models and datasets. Does this make open model development easier and faster, since NVIDIA sells the GPUs that run everything, or does it create a new choke point the industry should monitor? From there, we connect the dots to AI infrastructure economics and security. We discuss the growing debt and risk in data centre financing, including reports of scaled back guarantees on a major build, and why that matters beyond tech circles. We also unpack the OpenAI agent breach story with the nuance mainstream coverage often skips: a hacking test, an internet path through a proxy, weak monitoring, and why those details change the lesson. We wrap on a lighter note with GPT-6 Astra early impressions and what rapid prototyping can look like when the model is genuinely better. If you found this useful, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review with your take on multi-cloud and open models.Check out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj

Send us Fan MailSpace internet is no longer a science project, and the gap between “cool demo” and “usable enterprise transport” is closing fast. We sit down with Tom Kunath from Cisco to unpack what’s actually happening behind the hype: low Earth orbit constellations that hand off satellites every few seconds, improving latency that can land in the tens of milliseconds, and the messy networking realities that show up as loss, jitter, and unexpected performance drops.We walk through the multi-orbit picture in plain terms: why GEO is stable but slow, why MEO sits in the middle, and why LEO is the current spotlight for enterprise applications. From there, we get practical about SD-WAN over satellite. Tom shares what his testing revealed about early instability, how ground stations and oversubscription influence user experience, and what kinds of SLAs are realistic today when you design for roughly 1% loss and variable conditions like rain fade and obstructions.The most eye-opening part is the TCP story. Even when bandwidth looks great on a quick speed test, classic congestion control can crater sustained throughput as soon as loss appears. We dig into how SD-WAN features like TCP optimization/proxy, forward error correction, and packet duplication can turn “quirky broadband in space” into a link you can actually route over with confidence. We also cover security approaches from treating satellite like the public internet with IPsec overlays, to private L2VPN style services, and the next wave of “gatewayless” satellite networks that aim to keep traffic off the ground entirely.If you’re designing resilient branch connectivity, connecting remote sites, or planning for non-terrestrial networking and direct-to-device 5G, this conversation will sharpen your mental model fast. Subscribe, share this with a network engineer who’s skeptical about satellite, and leave a review with the biggest question you still have about LEO and SD-WAN.Connect with Our Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-kunath1679/Cisco Starlink CVD:https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/CVD/Campus/Cisco_SDWAN_Starlink_LEO_Satellite_CVD.htmlCheck out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj

Send us Fan MailAI isn’t just changing software, it’s rewriting the rules around hardware, regulation, and power. We start with a report that the FCC is moving to restrict Chinese-made optical transceivers used in US AI data centers, and we unpack the real-world tradeoff between supply chain security concerns and the very practical problem of capacity. If you pull a key part out of the 800G optics market overnight, who actually fills the gap, and what breaks first?From there, the geopolitical mirror flips: China announces a cybersecurity review of Palo Alto Networks products with little detail, raising the uncomfortable question of when “security reviews” become economic leverage. Then we zoom out to the physical footprint of AI, where hyperscale data center projects are meeting environmental scrutiny and voter backlash. New York pauses permits to build a regulatory framework, and AWS withdraws a massive Maryland proposal even with major power nearby, signaling how quickly politics and community pressure can change the cloud roadmap.We close with the security stories that tie it all together: a proof-of-concept showing how an AI-enabled email assistant can supercharge business email compromise, reports of an autonomous agent breaking containment and hammering third-party services at machine speed, and a new US push to let “vetted” private companies conduct offensive cyber operations under federal direction. If you care about AI governance, cybersecurity, AI transparency, the EU AI Act, or the future of data centers, this one connects the dots.Subscribe for the monthly news rundown, share this with a friend who builds or secures AI systems, and leave a review with your take: where do you think the biggest risk really is?Check out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj

Send us Fan Mail“Secure AI agents” is a comforting phrase, and it’s also one of the most abused. We sit down with Zach Korman, a builder and security researcher known for stress-testing AI agent frameworks, to talk about what actually breaks when you connect LLM agents to tools, plugins, skills marketplaces, and live production systems. The punchline is not a single bug or a clever jailbreak, it’s a bigger design problem: agents can be influenced by untrusted content while holding real authority through API keys, SaaS access, and automation hooks.We dig into why “enterprise-grade security” claims often collapse under basic testing, how disclosure changes when a product launches with bold marketing, and why skills are a supply chain risk hiding in plain sight. Zack explains how malicious skills can smuggle commands in places humans never read, how automated scanners can be bypassed, and why “safe OpenClaw” may only be achievable by stripping away the very access that makes agents useful. We also cover MCP security concerns, including dynamic tool definitions, model capability mismatches, and the uncomfortable reality that some protocols effectively enable instruction injection by design.Then we get practical: how to vet tools if you’re not an InfoSec specialist, how to reduce third-party exposure, and what foundations matter most inside a company (visibility, least privilege, authorization, and governance). If your team is moving from chatbots to agentic automation, this conversation helps you spot security theater before it ships to customers. Subscribe, share this with someone deploying agents at work, and leave a review with the AI security question you want us to tackle next.Connect with our guest:https://x.com/ZackKormanCheck out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj

Send us Fan MailTwo competitors deciding to stop fighting and build together always raises one question: what changes for the customers the next morning. We start with the BT and Verizon International joint venture and dig into what a shared global network footprint could mean across SD-WAN, MPLS, Ethernet and cloud connectivity, including the uncomfortable parts like orchestration changes, duplicated POPs and the possibility of forced migrations. If you run global sites, this is the kind of deal that can quietly reshape your WAN roadmap.Then we shift to the money and physics behind the cloud: Virginia’s new per kilowatt-hour data center electricity tax. It sounds small until you apply it to hyperscale consumption, and the inclusion of self-generated power closes an obvious workaround. We talk through why Northern Virginia’s data center corridor matters, how policy spreads state to state, and why the “they’ll just pass the cost on” argument is less theory than a pricing strategy you eventually see in your cloud bill.From there, it’s security and governance: the White House post-quantum cryptography executive order and the accelerating reality of quantum risk, including “harvest now, decrypt later.” We connect PQC deadlines to refresh cycles, vendor readiness, and the practical work of migrating both infrastructure and applications. We also hit identity head-on with Cisco’s plan to bring identity lifecycle security into Splunk’s agentic SOC, because non-human identities and AI agents are changing what least privilege even means.We close with the growing pattern of government intervention in frontier AI models and what it does to businesses building on specific model capabilities. If you found this useful, subscribe, share the show with a friend and leave a review so more people can find it.Check out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj

Send us Fan MailNetwork automation doesn’t fail because engineers can’t code. It fails because teams can’t turn one-off wins into a repeatable way of operating. We sit down with Scott Robohn of Solutional, co-founder of the Network Automation Forum and one of the people behind Autocon, to unpack why Autocon keeps growing and why a “production-first” mindset changes the entire conversation.We talk about what makes the Autocon room feel different from traditional tech conferences: a grassroots vibe, a tough selection process that rewards what’s actually running, workshops that go deep, and a culture where it’s safe to share what broke. Scott also highlights a leadership track idea that hits home for working engineers: automation only scales when we can explain outcomes, costs, risk reduction, and why the business should tolerate early stumbles.Then we get real about AI in NetOps. LLMs can speed up scripting, summarize telemetry, and help teams prototype faster, but that doesn’t magically create maintainable enterprise automation. We dig into the gap between step one and step three, why workflow discipline matters, and how spec-driven development and test-driven development make AI-assisted work safer. We also connect the dots to security automation, SOC versus NOC adoption, and the emerging “security for AI” problem where policy alone is not a control.If you’re thinking about Autocon 6 in Tucson (November 16 to 20), Scott shares what to expect and how to plug into the community. Subscribe, share this with a teammate who owns change management, and leave a review with your biggest automation hurdle.Connect with our guest:Scott's LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/scottrobohn/Network Automation Forumhttps://networkautomation.forum/Solutionalhttps://solutional.com/Check out the Monthly Cables2Clouds News Feed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkBWCGwXDUX9OfZ9_MvSVup8tJJzJeqrauaE6VPT2b0/Visit our website and subscribe: https://www.cables2clouds.com/Follow us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/cables2clouds.comFollow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cables2clouds/Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cables2cloudsMerch Store: https://store.cables2clouds.com/Join the Discord Study group: https://artofneteng.com/iaatj