| If you are having difficulty seeing this mail or images in it, you can view it in your Web browser. |
|
| Volume 7, Issue 2 |
|
In This Issue:
 Berners-Lee pushes congress on ‘nondiscriminatory’ web
 [Video] Unmasking Ask-A-Ninja
 Can’t touch this
 The business of free software
 Daylight-Saving time change: Bigger than Y2K?
[Video] Rootkit basics
[Video] Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
 2007 Best of the Tests headliners
The 7 best practices for network security in 2007
Mac OS being infused with tools of the corporate IT trade, but can it catch on?
When disgruntled employees get clever
 Microsoft hits Google over book search model
Stock turmoil strikes Gates
Rootkits evade hardware detection
 Wait! Don’t buy Windows Vista!
The top 5 technologies you need to know about in ‘07
The Virtual Desktop is here
IT Executives Rise to the Challenge
 Five Things You Should Know About Fighting Spam
Outsourcing: No [Benchmarking] comparisons
 9 Laws of physics that don’t apply in Hollywood
Predicting rogue waves
|
|
|
 |
Berners-Lee pushes Congress on 'nondiscriminatory' Web
WASHINGTON--World Wide Web father Tim Berners-Lee told politicians on Thursday that it's critical to shield his seminal innovation from control by a single company or country.
A top priority for policymakers going forward must be "making sure the Web itself is the blank sheet, the blank canvas, something that does not constrain the innovation that's around the corner,"
the knighted engineer
told a U.S. House of Representatives panel that writes Internet and telecommunications laws...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Can't Touch This
Working all but alone from his hardware-strewn office, Jeff Han is about to change the face of computing. Not even the big boys are likely to catch him.
Jefferson Han, a pale, bespectacled engineer dressed in Manhattan black, faced the thousand or so attendees on the first day of TED 2006, the annual technology,
entertainment, and design conference in Monterey, California. The 30-year-old was little more than a curiosity at the confab, where, as its ad copy goes, "the world's
leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration." And on that day, the thinkers and doers included Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) gazillionaires Sergey Brin and Larry Page,
e-tail amazon Jeff Bezos, and Bill Joy, who helped code Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW) from scratch. Titans of technology. It was enough to make anyone feel a bit small.
Then Han began his presentation. His fingertips splayed, he placed them on the cobalt blue 36-inch-wide display before him and traced playful, wavy lines that were projected
onto a giant screen at his back. He conjured up a lava lamp and sculpted floating blobs that changed color and shape based on how hard he pressed. ("Google should have
something like this in their lobby," he joked.) With the crowd beginning to stir, he called up some vacation photos, manipulating them on the monitor as if they were actual
prints on a tabletop. He expanded and shrank each image by pulling his two index
fingers apart or bringing them together. A few oohs and aahs bubbled up from the floor. [Six months later, after TED posted the video on its Web site, the blogosphere got wind of Han's presentation. Word spread virally through thousands of bloggers, who either posted the video on their sites or pointed to it on YouTube, where it was downloaded a quarter of a million times.]...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
|
 |
The Business of Free Software
This new reality upends the classic rules of strategy and it's changing the way technology firms approach the development process.
It changes the way we think about business development and alliances.
|
IT vendors including Oracle, IBM, and Sun that traditionally have built offerings based on proprietary technologies are now investing billions of dollars into open source software
—arrangements that are transforming in some ways the fundamental nature of technology strategy development, according to recent research at Harvard Business School.
In "The Business of Free Software: Enterprise Incentives, Investment, and Motivation in the Open Source Community," the authors—HBS professor Marco Iansiti and
Gregory L. Richards of Keystone Strategy—examine what drives companies with large, proprietary software portfolios to invest in open source software (OSS) projects that
can sometimes seem unrelated to their core business...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
|
|
|
Daylight-Saving Time Change: Bigger than Y2K?
Although nobody's crystal ball is clear on the impact that the change in the daylight-saving time rules will have on enterprise IT systems and applications, the problems could be bigger than most people realize.
That's because IT shops have had less notice in dealing with the time change than they did for Y2K, and because the issue doesn't have visibility at the highest levels of an
organization as it did for Y2K. "We are likely to see more issues than we did with Y2K because there is no visibility at the board and the CEO level, yet it's a similar risk
to the business," said Tim Howes, CTO at data center provisioning provider Opsware in Sunnyvale, CA. "Only server administrators and application support teams know what
could happen if time stamps get misaligned...
Read the article. Back to top
Rootkit Basics
Rootkits are programs that hide files, processes and operations from the host system. What should IT managers know to keep systems from getting infected.
...
Read the article. Back to top
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Learn why and how Service Virtualization should play a key role in your next SOA project.
If you've developed any program code in your organization in the past few years you've either been using or heard of SOA – which is a new paradigm for application development, integration, and ultimately delivering applications to the business users. But is all SOA created equal? Learn why and how Service Virtualization should play a key role in your next SOA project. ...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
|
 |
2007 Best of the Tests Headliners [Top 12 products]
A dozen products bubble to the top of the more than 120 reviewed last year by Network World testers.
Flip through this slide show to see our selections. Plus, get full test results, link to our Buyer's Guides for comparative product listings, and voice your opinion on these Best of the Test picks...
Read the article. Back to top
The 7 Best Practices for Network Security in 2007
We all face it - the daily barrage of spam, now infested with zero-day malware attacks, not to mention the risks of malicious insiders, infected laptops coming and
going behind our deep packet-inspecting firewalls and intrusion-prevention systems.
Some even have to worry about how to prove steps of due care and due diligence towards a growing roster of regulatory compliance pressures.
What can you do under so much extreme pressure to make 2007 a better year, not a year loaded with downtime, system cleanup and compliance headaches? I've come up with what
I would consider some of the best network security practices.
Best practices are things you do - steps you take - actions and plans. Within those plans, I'm certain you will include which security countermeasures to budget
for in 2007. Although I thought about going into details about recent security
concepts, such as unified threat management or network admission control, it seems more appropriate to focus on the seven best practices instead of the seven best
security tools you might consider deploying. For example, I consider encryption a best practice and not a product or tool. I'm sure you'll find many commercial and freely available tools out there. You can always evaluate those tools which you find
most suited for your own best-practice model. Here's my best practice list, in order of importance:...
Read the article. Back to top
Mac OS being infused with the tools of the corporate IT trade, but can it catch on?
Users say Intel-based Macs are changing the landscape slowly.
Apple, long a ghost in the corporate-infrastructure mainstream, is beginning to cast a shadow as IT departments discover Mac platforms that are being transformed into
realistic alternatives to Windows and Linux. A number of factors are helping raise the eyebrows of those responsible for upgrading desktops and servers: for example Apple's
shift to the Intel architecture; the inclusion of infrastructure and interoperability hooks, such as directory services in the Mac OS X Server;
dual-boot capabilities; clustering and storage technology; third-party virtualization software; and comparison shopping, which
is being fostered by migration costs and hardware overhauls associated with Microsoft's Vista.
Despite these goodies, however, Apple isn't pushing into corporations with a defined desktop strategy. The company still does not have a formal division focused
on developing software for the enterprise or supporting it. And it refused Network World's requests to discuss its plans for enterprise customers.
Because of the switch to Intel, success of the Mac OS X, the stability and elegance of the platform, the Mac is a very viable alternative, but it would require a dramatic shift in the company's resource allocation to go after the enterprise, says
Van Baker, an analyst with Gartner.
IT shops that have dipped their toes in Apple's pool of desktop and server platforms say others should test the water. Intel Macs have really changed things. Beyond the obvious comparisons that Macs are now speed-parity with Wintel machines
vendors have been able to develop more software for the platform, and where that is impossible, virtual machines are always an option...
Read the article. Back to top
When disgruntled employees get clever
I've heard of disgruntled employees taking company secrets, breaking them into several documents, and e-mailing them to competitors.
Is it possible to capture data if it's leaving the network in multiple formats across different ports?
As many people have discovered, what you describe really is an excellent way for disgruntled employees or other malicious
insiders to smuggle sensitive and secret data out of a network without anyone noticing. That's because traditional network
security solutions don't deal with content per se but with things such as routes and formats and files names-and they rather
naively assume that there are only a few ways in which important data can leave the network. A basic filter set on outgoing e-mail traffic that looks for certain file types or file names known to contain sensitive records,
or for the keywords "company confidential," or that quarantines traffic to competitors' domains, simply cannot provide adequate
protection. These filters will miss confidential data converted to a different file type, data filed under a different name,
data that doesn't contain certain key words, or that is send to a domain that is not quarantined.
Protecting sensitive data and valuable intellectual property (IP) requires a far more sophisticated, multi-pronged approach to security. First, you have to...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
|
 |
Microsoft hits Google over book search model
|
| Microsoft attorney says Google Book Search abuses copyright protection and fair use |
Microsoft attorney says Google Book Search abuses copyright protection and fair use
A Microsoft Corp. attorney will attack Google Inc.'s book search service in a speech Tuesday to the Association of American Publishers (AAP), saying Google is misappropriating principles of fair use to further its own business model.
Thomas Rubin, Microsoft's associate general counsel, will address the AAP's annual meeting in New York, stating that while Microsoft's Live Search Books honors copyright
protection and fair use, Google's Book Search abuses it. "In my view, Google has chosen the wrong path for the longer term, because it systematically violates copyright and deprives authors and publishers of an
important avenue for monetizing their works," Rubin said in a copy of the speech posted on the Web site of The Wall Street Journal. Rubin also addressed the issue in a commentary written for Monday's edition of The Financial Times.
"Google defends its actions primarily by arguing that its unauthorized copying and future monetization of your books are protected as fair use," the speech says.
At issue is Microsoft's contention that Google...
Read the article. Back to top
Stock turmoil strikes Gates
Microsoft chairman sold nearly 1 million shares on worst day market has seen in years
Bill Gates sold over 20 million shares of Microsoft Corp. stock last month, and turmoil in the global stock markets probably shaved a few million dollars off of the money he
made. The Microsoft chairman was still selling off the final block of shares early last week when the world's stock markets began to fall. The decline was prompted by several
factors including a share sell-off in Shanghai and fears that Japan may raise interest rates. The sale of shares by a company executive is not unusual, and the shares sold by Gates were only a small part of his total Microsoft holdings. But the sales were
notable because they coincided with the downturn in the stock market...
Read the article. Back to top
Rootkits evade hardware detection
At Black Hat, researcher shows how advanced rootkits can hide in system RAM
Security researcher Joanna Rutkowska has demonstrated several methods that sophisticated rootkits can use to hide from even the most reliable detection method currently available -- hardware-based products that read a system's RAM. Rutkowska is a
researcher with security firm Coseinc Advanced Malware Labs. She recently outlined several ways of getting around the UAC (User Account Control) feature introduced
in Windows Vista. Several researchers have identified problems with UAC.
The demonstration, given at the Black Hat security conference in Arlington, Va., indicates that if a rootkit is advanced enough, there currently is no way it can
be reliably detected, Rutkowska said. Rootkits are designed to hide some activity from observers and have recently been used to conceal the presence of Trojans and
hacker backdoors -- not to mention Sony BMG's copy-protection software.
Several hardware-based systems exist for acquiring an image of a computer's RAM, the most reliable way to detect the presence of certain kinds of rootkits, Rutkowska
said. Those include...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
|
 |
Wait! Don't buy Windows Vista!
Microsoft's new OS is the best Windows ever. But don't buy it!
January 25, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Unless you've recently emerged from a coma, you know the consumer versions of Microsoft's new Vista operating system ship Tuesday.
Over the next few weeks, NBA star LeBron James will try to convince you to move to Windows Vista as part of Microsoft's massive ad campaign. This column is not a review
of Windows Vista. I'm not here to tell
you what's great
about Vista or what's wrong
with it. This article is for those of you who are about to download or purchase Windows
Vista and install it on a PC. I'm here to talk you out of it. Just say no to LeBron James and Windows Vista -- for now. Here's why...
Read the article. Back to top
The Top Five Technologies You Need to Know About in '07
From next-gen CPU architectures to high-powered personal-area networks, we name the five hottest trends in developing technology.
March 01, 2007 (Computerworld) -- It seems like every month a new technology emerges with the potential to change everything. Technology writers and analysts get
hyperexcited. Everyone starts patting one another on the back and hugging. And two years later, we're still talking about the promise of that technology, with little to
show in the here and now. That's why as we began to look at core technologies that may have the greatest effect on the world of computing over the next 12 months, we paid
special attention to how soon these advances will be available to everyday users, either at the enterprise or the personal level. The result is the following list of
five emerging technologies with groundbreaking potential -- this year as well as in the future...
Read the article. Back to top
The Virtual Desktop Is Here
Streaming virtual applications to users can greatly reduce IT support costs, but there are some caveats.
March 05, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Parsons Corp., a $3 billion construction and engineering company based in Pasadena, Calif., once had hundreds of fat clients on the
desktops of its engineers. That spelled nothing but trouble for the IT staff. “We had cadres of IT folks who would go around with CDs, and they’d push the user aside and
say, ‘Hey, go have a smoke while I download this application,’” says CIO Joe Visconti. That was only the beginning. “If it was something like AutoCAD, it could take an hour to load, then the IT guy would have to configure it,” he recalls. “Then he’d get a call
a few minutes later saying, ‘Hey, this is not running. Help me.’ Then, as soon as there was a patch or new release, someone would go through all the desktops again.” Keeping track of which users had which versions of an application, who had various patches and
so on was a nightmare, Visconti says. And if a user needed multiple versions of software for different engineering projects, the versions had to be installed and
uninstalled as his needs changed. That was the lay of the land in most IT shops as the century turned, and it’s the way things still are today at many companies. But new
models of computing are taking hold...
Read the article. Back to top
IT Executives Rise to the Challenge
Crises and other difficult moments present leadership opportunities
March 05, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Darryl Lemecha’s career-defining moment as an IT executive began on the day in February 2005 when his company, ChoicePoint Inc., had to
notify 145,000 consumers that some of their personal information might have been obtained by identity thieves posing as operators of legitimate businesses. After the
discovery that the Alpharetta, Ga.-based data aggregator had erroneously sold credit and other identifying information to the thieves, internal security and privacy
processes were turned upside down, said Lemecha, CIO and senior vice president of shared services. Darryl LemechaSince then, ChoicePoint has changed how it stores and
handles personal information ...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
|
 |
Five Things You Should Know About Fighting Spam
The battle for your users' e-mail inboxes probably will never end, but it's not a failure of technology. Experienced e-mail and system administrators share the key
points they really, really wish you understood.
When you started your e-mail client this morning, you were prepared for the usual set of correspondence: your daily dose of corporate politics, a dollop of technical
emergencies and the background hum of projects under way. Annoyingly, your inbox also contained a few messages advertising products you would never buy, and perhaps a
phishing notice warning that your account was frozen at a financial institution where you don't have an account. Your company has antispam measures in place; surely, the IT
staff should be able to keep this junk out of your inbox? Perhaps they can, but the task of doing so has become much more difficult in recent years, partly because 85 percent or more of
all e-mail traffic today is spam.
If you haven't been listening closely
to the dark mutterings in your e-mail administrator's office, you may have missed out on significant clues about the nature of the problem and what the IT department can do to address it...
Read the article. Back to top
Outsourcing: No [Benchmarking] comparisons
Benchmarking your outsourcer's prices against the market is the best lever you have to save money. Too bad your outsourcer may be trying to stop you.
When Darius Jackson became ING's head of IT infrastructure support and service delivery in January 2005, his job was to clean up a mess. Two years earlier, the financial
services company had outsourced its IT infrastructure (hardware, software, help desk and so on) to a major service provider in a seven-year, $600 million deal. But now the
business leaders of the company are worried that they aren't getting the value they want out of the relationship. Jackson has a crowbar for leveraging more value out of
the deal, though he hasn't used it. Yet...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
|
 |
9 Laws of Physics That Don’t Apply in Hollywood
Ant writes
"Neatorama lists nine laws of physics that don't apply
in Hollywood (movies and television/TV shows). In general, Hollywood filmmakers follow the laws of physics because they have no other choice. It’s just when they cheat with special effects that we seem to forget how
the world really works.
1. Those Exploding Cars. When you’re watching an action flick, all it takes is a crash, or maybe a stream of leaky gasoline that acts like a fuse, and suddenly, bang! You see
a terrific explosion that’s complete and violent. But gasoline doesn’t explode unless...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
|
 |
Predicting Rogue Waves
|
Tracking monster waves: Scientists from the German Space Agency use satellite data indicating average wave heights to calculate where rogue waves could occur.
Credit: German Space Agency
|
Researchers have used satellite data to create a map showing where massive waves are likely to appear; they hope to use it to save lives.
Scientists from
the German Space Agency
say they have mapped incidents of extremely large waves, known as rogue waves, using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data,
and will soon publish a massive wave atlas for the first time. Such waves can mysteriously surge 100 feet (or about the height of a 12-story building) and sink
massive cargo ships in their wake. The scientific community has been slow to validate the existence of rogue waves...
Read the article. Back to top
|
|
|
Forward to a Friend:
Do you have a friend that would like to receive TechWatchsm?
Perhaps you know a peer within your organization, or associate at a partner company that would
benefit from applying to receive this publication. Inviting a friend to experience the benefits
of joining the BusinessWatch Network is easy! Just FW: this newsletter to the person you know who
may have an interest and ask them to click here http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com Your friend will be glad you did!
|
|
|
If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from TechWatchsm
simply visit this URL,
or send a letter requesting opt-off to:
The BusinessWatch Network Privacy Mailbox, 1321, Marblehead, MA. 01945
DISCLAIMER: TechWatchsm and the BusinessWatch Networksm are service marks of DMS.
All other trademarks or service marks contained in this email are the property of their respective owners.
At the time of publication, all links in this e-mail functioned properly. However, since many links point
to sites other than businesswatchnetwork.com, some links may become invalid as time passes.
DMS Inc. supports the DMA Privacy Promise and
Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice. We are committed to the proper use of
email and to protecting consumers from fraudulent or inappropriate
offers. Privacy Policy
|
|
|
| |
