THE TECHWRITER

CONTROLSCAN CONTROLLED BY FCC

2010-05-20T08:40:00.000-04:00

By D.E.Levine

ControlScan, whose certification mark or seal guarantees the company has verified Business Background, or the site is a Registered Member or has Privacy Protected or Privacy Reviewed, was recently the recipient of legal action by the FTC.

According to the FTC, ContolScan was not doing what it stated and simply wasn't verifying the Web sites to make certain they were adhering to safe data practices or scanning the sites as frequently as they claimed.

Finding that ControlScan's claims were bogus, the FTC took legal action that resulted in a consent agreement with ControlScan forcing the company to stop doing what it was doing, and the forfeiture of $102,000 in "ill gotten gains" by the founder and former CEO. An additional judgment of $750,000 against the company was suspended because the company has no money.

All of this points to the need for regulation of the Web site certification industry, an industry that has become big business with virtually no regulation. Without regulation and control, certification marks meant to show consumers who they can trust, will mean nothing.

TOPICSCAPE MAPS THE MIND

2010-05-20T08:30:00.000-04:00

By K.C.Bishoppe

TopicScape, software published by 3D-Scape, maps the mind producing a 3D representation of what you're thinking.

It's definitely very 21st Century and innovative but it's also complex and time-consuming to use.

Only personal experience with the product will show you whether the software is worth the time and price invested.

GOOGLE TO DELIVER GIGABITS TO RESIDENTIAL USERS

2010-05-20T08:20:00.001-04:00

By M.S.Welles

While the FCC is seeking to regulate telcos over broadband, Google has rolled out a plan to deliver gigabit/sec connectivity to 500,000 residential users.

The FCC, in rolling out the Broadband Internet Stimulus plan aims to mandate high-speed, low cost universal connectivity which would guarantee every household will have 100Mbps Internet access within the next 10 years.

Carriers say this plan is too aggressive and argue that the FCC has no right to regulate Internet access in order to reach its universal service goals.

Clearly challenging both the FCC and the telcos, Google is going forward with its plans for its own broadband network.

Only time will tell whether Google will be successful or whether it too will find itself in a battle with the FCC.

WILL SOCIAL NETWORKING REPLACE E-MAIL?

2010-05-18T23:20:00.000-04:00

By M.S.Welles

Social networking via Facebook, Twitter and other applications is growing rapidly. Will social networking replace e-mail?

Surely e-mail is no longer the center of the communications universe, although it is still widely used and it's doubtful it will ever disappear.

However, providers such as Microsoft, Google and others recognize how powerful social networking and collaboration tools are and how they are endangering e-mail.

As a result, the vendors are looking for ways to merge social networking tools with traditional e-mail and make e-mail the center of the communications universe once again.

Microsoft and Google actually envision a world where e-mail becomes a hub for all electronic communications. By merging all contacts into one location and allowing you to interact with others on social networking sites without ever leaving your e-mail client or service, all communication would be aggregated into one location.

Microsoft has already released the beta of the Outlook Social Connector, linking Outlook to social networking sites. There's an individual connector for Facebook and another for LinkedIn. One for Twitter is anticipated.

Google released Google Buzz which is designed to integrate social networking with Gmail.

There are other, independent connectors, but all are rudimentary. None allow for full integration with social networking sites.

That may be a good thing because right now there are significant privacy and security concerns regarding all the popular social networking sites. There have been major instances where information on Facebook and Twitter subscribers has been made public without permission and consent.

Even in this day of increased social networking, many people are opting not to sign up for social networking sites and to receive their information through e-mail, which they consider more secure and better tested.

How fast social networking and collaboration applications will be completely linked to e-mail, and whether there will be an opt-out function for those who don't want to be linked, remains to be seen.

FBI EMBEDDING AGENTS IN EASTERN EUROPE

2010-05-18T20:57:00.001-04:00

By D.E.Levine

In an effort to catch cybercrooks in Eastern Europe, the U.S. FBI has begun embedding agents with law enforcement agencies in Estonia, Ukraine and the Netherlands.

For several months the embedded agents have been helping local law enforcement agents crack international cybercrime investigations.

Virtually all cybercrime crosses international borders so the cooperation between FBI agents and local law enforcement is crucial.

Inspired by a successful operation begun in Romania in 2006 that resulted in 100 arrests, the FBI cyber division decided to expand its program to other areas of Eastern Europe.

Ukraine is known to be home to numerous online scammers and presents a huge problem. It's currently ranked as a higher threat than Russia and is home to the creators of Zeus Trojan malware that can empty bank accounts.

SECURITY CONCERNS WORLDWIDE

2010-05-18T08:42:00.000-04:00

By D.E.Levine

Identity theft ranks very high among American security concerns. In fact, along with national security, this is the number one concern of Americans.

The twice-annually published Unisys Security Index says that 65% of Americans are extremely concerned about the identity theft issue.

Americans are not alone in their concerns. Germans claim bank card fraud and identity theft as their second most important security concern.

Almost 100% of Spanish citizens are concerned about bank card and identity fraud and 66%+
claim it's their major security concern.

In the UK, 51% claim identity theft and misuse of bank and debit cards is their primary security concern.

Among Belgians, the misuse of credit and debit card information is the number one security concern, although only 36% of Belgians are seriously concerned and this is a significantly decrease from previous extremely concerned figures.

IBM PLANS FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGIES

2010-05-13T08:27:00.000-04:00

By K.C.Bishoppe

Planning to expand into a new line of business, IBM sees the possibility of incorporating futuristic technologies for managing energy used in cities.

Some of the technology is already in development such as the use of paint infused with nano-sized sensors which has been used successfully in development of new types of batteries at Stanford University.

While sensors are already widely used to monitor environmental conditions and to pinpoint specific problems in server racks and data centers, IBM has laid out an ambitious plan to extend the use of sensor technologies outside of the data center.

IBM's expectations are that it will be possible to adopt sensor technology to cover an entire city or office complex.

Such use of sensors could gather and relay information on the state of physical systems, discovering leaks by detecting changes in the nearby environment. Storm water flows could be monitored by sensors in manhole covers.

If it sounds improbable, it's not. While it's definitely doable now, the possibility of setting up networks of microscopic sensors is enhanced through improvements in nanotechnologies.

IBM is envisioning even more as it plans centralized management systems via Tivoli software. These systems will be capable of gathering and analyzing sensor data and issuing alerts warning of pending problems which can then be fixed before they actually occur.

In its quest to speed up development and deployment, IBM plans to collaborate with vendors who develop infrastructure systems.

It's possible that such collaboration could propel a closer working relationship between IT and facilities managers if environmental systems in office buildings and data systems are monitored in one system.

U.S.CENSUS BUREAU PLANS FUTURISTIC CENSUS

2010-05-12T08:46:00.000-04:00

By M.S.Welles

With a just finished 2010 census, U.S. Census Bureau is gearing up for the 2020 census. From everything we've learned it seems that the census and the way data is collected may be modernized to eliminate paper forms.

Indeed a report from the National Research Council commented on the fact that the 2010 decennial census was conducted using techniques from the 1970s. These techniques consisted of mailed in forms and follow-ups using pencil and paper after the plan to use handheld computers was scraped.

Since filling out and filing tax forms online is now commonplace and highly successful, the report urged the Census Bureau to adopt the Internet and automated telephone systems techniques for data collection.

After collecting initial data, handheld computers could be used for follow-up information.

Besides the fact that the postal service is currently experiencing financial difficulties, by 2020 snail mail may be passe and actually be ignored by addressees.

It was additionally suggested that the Census Bureau might benefit by using the data that other agencies have already collected and filed on U.S. residents. Although, that suggestion raised questions about privacy and security issues.

SECURITY EXPERTS URGE HOLDING VENDORS LIABLE

2010-05-12T08:12:00.002-04:00

By D.E.Levine

Security experts from more than 30 organizations are urging enterprises to exert increased pressure on software vendors to ensure the use of secure code development practices.

Led by experts from the SANS Institute and Mitre Corporation, the coalition offered enterprises draft contract language requiring vendors to adhere to s strict set of security standards for software development.

Adherence would essentially make most vendors liable for software defects that lead to security breaches.

The SANS Institute spokesmen made the point that nearly every security attack results from a programming error, unnoticed by the vendor, that permits attackers to gain a foothold in the breached system.

Claiming that holding software vendors liable is the only way to eradicate the errors, SANS and Mitre released an annual list (this is the second) o the top 25 security errors made by programmers.

The 25 errors noted have been at the root of almost every major type of cyber attack in major companies (i.e. Google) and government agencies.

The problems are not new. They've been well-known for years and continue to occur on a regular basis. The coalition of security experts feel strongly that by imposing liability on the software development vendors it will be possible to stop the recurring errors.

IS A PAPERLESS SOCIETY REALISTIC?

2010-05-06T08:47:00.000-04:00

By M.S.Welles

Remember the hype several years back when the IT industry was pushing a "paperless society" and advocating e-signatures, online storage, and online submissions of legal documents?

The idea was that without all the paper files there would be a huge amount of space free up in offices. Added to that was the concept that while paper files disintegrate over a period of time, digital archives could be maintained indefinitely, with other digital copies being maintained at additional locations.

Yet another positive feature of online files and archives is the ability to follow medical, financial and tax records easily online without the necessity of having to hand carry a physical paper or digital file.

Simply put, it hasn't happened yet. The paperless office and the paperless world is still a dream consisting of a lot of wishful thinking and very little actual action.

Despite an increasing rise in the number of sales of scanners and electronic document management systems (EDMS), these devices and software are being used in addition to the previously constructed and maintained paper files.

AIIM, the Association for Information and Image Management, an industry association representing vendors of scanners and EDMS, finds that 62% of important documents are still maintained in paper form.

Even when scanning and archiving takes place, 25% are photocopied on paper "just to be safe in case anything goes wrong online".

Initially, there were federal and state restrictions requiring that paper be maintained for a certain number of years in case records were needed for legal purposes. However, as technology has advanced, laws have been modified and new ones passed to allow the legality of electronic documents and archives as admissible in a court of law, when needed.

These laws regarding admissibility have been in effect for nearly two decades and is in effect in standards and legislation around the world.

Despite all of this, users still feel insecure and fear that they will be asked to produce the original paper copies at some point. In fact, AIIM found that documents frequently start in digital form, are then printed out on paper and signed and then scanned into digital form again, with the paper copies being kept indefinitely.

Office workers don't want to fgive up their paper files.

PRIVACY TRAINING IS LAGGING

2010-05-05T08:54:00.003-04:00

By D.E.Levine

There seems to be a misunderstanding regarding what privacy requirements are all about and what constitutes adequate privacy training.

Currently, when the Internet and social networking has presented multi-faceted communications to everyone worldwide, companies are failing to devote the time, effort and money to maintaining privacy and security programs.

Part of this is due to a misunderstanding on the part of management regarding what truly constitutes privacy and security issues and programs. There are five basic mistakes that are made

Training and awareness are essential. But training and awareness about privacy is different from training and awareness of security, and training and awareness of ethics. Privacy, security and ethics are related but different. Generally these areas are handled by different company executives who fail to explain the difference and to administer separate training in each of the areas.

Awareness and training are separate and unequal. While a training program undoubtedly will include an awareness portion, awareness is only a segment of necessary training, an awakening to outstanding issues. Awareness addresses different aspects of security, privacy and ethics, all of which require training.

A campaign doesn't equal a program. A campaign consists of messages addressed to employees and focused to heighten their awareness of an issue, get the message across about the existence of an issue, or give them some fundamental understanding of the issue. A program is broader in scope and may encompass a campaign but will generally also include other, multiple issues and campaigns.

Failing to use multiple communications channels. In an era when we are bombarded on a daily basis with news and announcements from multimedia sources and presentations, many companies fail to take this into account and utilize the broad range of multimedia resources available to the company in order to get their campaigns and training done successfully.

Measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of security and privacy training programs. No matter how much money and resources are poured into security and privacy training programs, the majority of firms fail to measure the effectiveness of these programs. As a result, there is a definite lack in understanding regarding where in security and privacy training programs money needs to be applied, cut or redirected and frequently serious mistakes are made in the allocation of financial resources and thus in the effectiveness of the programs.

CONCERN OVER LIABILITY FOR FRAUDS GROWS

2010-04-20T08:55:00.001-04:00

By D.E.Levine

Under the Sarbannes-Oxley act, CEOs and CFOs of public corporations are required to sign off on their companies' financial statements.

Over the past few years the increasing number of frauds has raised alarm among public company executives that they will be held liable for frauds of which they're unaware.

Up until now few corporate fraud cases have cited those executive signatures. However, that may be about to change.

Currently, the SEC is suing Maynard Jenkins of Scotsdale, Arizona. Now retired, Jenkins was the CEO of auto-parts dealer CSK Automotive and received $4 million in bonuses during years when CSK fraudulently overstated its earnings.

CSK admitted to filing false statements and settled in 2009, but Jenkins was not held accountable until now.

Although the SEC doesn't allege that Jenkins was involved in the fraud or even knew about it, the agency claims that as "captain of the ship" and the individual who certified the company's 10K filings and restatements, Jenkins is liable.

The papers Jenkins signed overstated company income by $66 million.

Attorneys and government agencies admit that this is a test case for the SEC. If the SEC is successful in its efforts to "claw back" Jenkins' bonuses, there will probably be many other cases brought to trial.

But attorneys who specialize in SOX compliance argue that the SEC would have to both win the case and survive the appeals in order for claw back cases to become popular.

On his part, Jenkins, represented by attorney John Spiegel of Munger Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles, is arguing that he's an innocent party and that ruling against him for the return of the money would be overreaching the law.

Especially interested in SEC vs Jekins are former Lehrman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld and CFO Erin Callan who may have criminal charges filed against them by Brooklyn and Manhattan federal attorneys because of "Repro 105", an accounting gimmick that was used to removed avout $50 billion dollars of worthless debt from Lehrman Brothers books.

While Fuld and Callan claim they knew nothing about the gimmick, if the SEC wins against Jenkins, it may open the door to prosecuting the two Lehrman Brothers executives.

ELECTRONIC FRAUD EXPLOSION

2010-04-20T08:32:00.000-04:00

By D.E.Levine

A recent survey by Ponemon Institute and Guardian Analytics found an explosion of electronic fraud among smaller businesses during 2009.

Among the businesses surveyed, 55% experienced electronic fraud and 58% of that involved online banking.

San Francisco-based Guardian issued a statement through its CEO Terry Austin stating that there was a marked increase in the level and severity of fraud attacks on the small business community.

Both the FBI and the FDIC are among agencies that issued warnings to the small business community and companies and agencies doing business with them.

According to Terry Austin the increase in electronic fraud indicates the shift in focus of hackers to small business accounts and away from consumer accounts. Hackers are also becoming increasingly more sophisticated.

Guardian, which provides fraud detection software to banks, found that cyber criminals generally introduce viruses into business computer systems in order to harvest banking passwords which they then use to transfer funds.

Hackers are using sophisticated spear phishing email attacks to introduce viruses into companies. Additionally, when employees click on infected Web sites, company computers can also be infected.

According to the survey, companies were unable to recoup stolen funds in 87% of the fraud cases.

In 57% of the cases companies were not fully compensated for their losses and in 26% of the cases were not compensated for any of their losses.

Necessary steps that need to be taken is maintaining up-to-date virus checking and elimination software, education of finance staffers about bank policies on reimbursement and the extent of the threats, and regular monitoring of accounts for missing funds.

AUTOMATING DATA STORAGE

2010-04-08T08:51:00.002-04:00

By K.C.Bishoppe

As data reserves grow, the need for storage grows simultaneously.

Storage administrators always move data between tiers by manually initiating the process or classifying their data and creating tiering policies.

Now, numerous automation products are designed to reduce or eliminate the need for staffers to monitor storage systems and find specific blocks, files or volumes that need to be retiered and manually moved.

The newest automation tools still require some policy creation. Necessary considerations in choosing an automated tool are which criteria the software can consider, whether it can evaluate and move individual blocks or files, how quickly the software can detect and react to change, and whether the administrators can override the automated tiering if it interferes with application performance.

Of course, there's also the psychological consideration of how comfortable administrators feel in turning over control to an automated tool.

Some companies claim to be recognizing significant benefits with the automated software currently available. Moving less utilized data to slower, less expensive storage can reduce hardware costs. Putting the most frequently accessed and most important data on more expensive, faster drives can boost performance.

Automation of the entire process prevents it getting bogged down in the data classification and policy-setting that hampered earlier "tiering" efforts like Information Life-cycle Management (ILM).

However, automation isn't effort free. The automated data tiering software requires upfront effort classifying data and setting policies regarding the determination of the movement of certain types of data.

Automated tiering is still immature and as it matures it may well help to drive the tuning of the highest performance for storage medium and thus resp the maximum benefit.

Pricing for automated-tiering software varies based on the abilities of the software while vendors like EMC and Compellant strive to make the software more "application-aware", standards viable and subsequently more expensive.

P&G GAINS IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO HP EXECS

2010-04-01T08:14:00.001-04:00

By K.C.Bishoppe

Because of a 10-year, $3-billion dollar outsourcing deal, The Proctor & Gamble Company, a Cincinnati-based consumer product maker has immediate access to top levels of Hewlett-Packard's executive ranks.

The contract, signed in 2003, carries high stakes for the bottom lines of both companies.

By taking over P&G's IT infrastructure and hiring 2,000 of the company's IT workers, a relationship was established that necessitates constant communications between the executives of both companies.

HP has regular joint reviews with its client about the vendor's performance. Top HP executives are involved and make promises for delivery of services for which they are held responsible.

Analysts agree that having access to top executives is extremely critical to the success of an outsourcing relationship.

Contracts normally state that specific executives of the service provider will meet regularly with senior management from the client firm.

Top-level access should be agreed upon and instituted before a contract is even signed.

At P&G, when HP manages the IT infrastructure allows data center personnel to focus and concentrate on other tasks, including designing and developing tools in-house.

INDIA'S WORKERS WASTE TIME SOCIALIZING

2010-03-18T08:56:00.005-04:00

By K.C.Bishoppe

Studies by a large Indian industry association the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) show that even though employers are outsourcing jobs to India, they are actually losing productivity to social networking.

On a daily basis, 12.5% of the productivity of Indian workers is lost to time spent on social networks such as Facebook and Orkut.

In a random survey of 4,000 employees in large cities and towns in India, 77% of workers admitted to using their social networking accounts during working hours, while on the job. And that's just among workers who admitted the use of social networking.

ASSOCHAM's Social Development Fund found that in addition to the 77% who admitted social networking during company hours, 83% saw nothing wrong with surfing the Web during office hours.

Unless companies crack down on employee behavior, the number of hours and the number of employees who spend work hours doing social networking is expected to rise.

ARE BUDGET CUTS PUSHING FIRMS TO CLOUD COMPUTING?

2010-03-18T08:30:00.004-04:00

By M.S.Welles

The economy has been depressed for some time and IT departments have suffered severe budget cuts and layoffs.

As more and more positions are vacated and left unfilled, IT managers are looking at the possibility of cloud computing to maintain popular services.

The City of Miami has seen cloud computing successfully allow it to maintain popular services. With 20% of its positions cut or unfilled it looked like services would have to be cut.

Instead, cloud computing has allowed the city to offer Miami 311, an online application allowing residents to monitor the status of requests for services.

The city is also looking at the viability of developing revenue-producing online applications that could include custom data aggregation and mash up services that would be sold to businesses.

However, despite potential savings, IT departments are encountering resistance by users to accept cloud computing.

Google's Gmail hosted e-mail service is proving popular and being accepted by numerous businesses as the cost benefit (it's costs 25% of other popular email services) is evaluated by companies.

About one third of users however, find that they are dissatisfied with Gmail. On the other hand, surveys find that about two thirds of Gmail users are satisfied and find it equivalent or better than other, hosted, more-expensive services.

It's importance to recognize that there's user resistance whenever migration takes place, so even if another, expensive email service was adopted, there would still be a certain amount of resistance.

It still remains to be seen how cloud computer will fare against offerings by IBM, Microsoft and other major software firms. One thing is certain and that is that companies are looking at cloud computing to save money and cut overall expenses on software while maintaining a high level of functionality.

THE CHANGING FACE OF THE DATA CENTER

2010-03-12T09:20:00.006-05:00

By M.S.Welles

Data centers are changing as they adopt new and improved technology. While smaller computers have significantly more power and distributed computing and networking is an established norm, data centers still exist.

How and why are data centers changing? There are four main drivers.

I/O VIRTUALIZATION

I/O virtualization or aggregation splits interconnections across either IO gigabit InfiniBand or Ethernet links. Once you connect the pipe it's possible to get as many virtual Ethernet and Fibre Channel connections as you want out of it.

I/O virtualization simplifies the hardware scenarios , reduces the number of connections running to each device, and increases flexibility.

DATA AND STORAGE CONVERGENCE

Data centers currently have distinct and separate data and storage networks. The effort is now underway to recombine the two networks.

Currently, Brocade and Cisco have Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capable switches that fully support all prioritizations and new mechanisms on Ethernet for delivering Fibre Channel-like service levels.

It's expected that other vendors will jump on the bandwagon and that the tipping point in the data center will happen over the next 12 to 18 months when 10G replaces 1G Ethernet on server motherboards.

FASTER PROCESSORS AND GREATER CONSOLIDATION

As virtualization grows and enterprises become more comfortable with it, they are more willing to put more VMs on a single system. According to spokesmen from IBM Power Systems, the IBM Power 750 will support 320 VMs and the Power 770 and Power 780 will support up to 640 VMs.

Faster processors are what make the ability to support higher and higher numbers of VMs per physical server.

INFRASTRUCTURE OPTIMIZATION

Are there alternatives to building out new or extending current data centers?

Many experts think that there will one day be a "data center in a box."

Currently in practice is the use of pods or trailers outside of business facilities. Using the pods or trailers allows the optimization of server, storage, networking, cooling and power distribution resources.

While it's not anticipated that pods or trailers will replace the data center, it is anticipated that the trend of performance-optimization will move inside the data center.

CARBON TRACKING SOFTWARE POISED FOR TAKEOFF

2010-03-12T08:30:00.003-05:00

By D.E.Levine

At recent "green expos" and conferences a new form of software made an appearance and appears poised for phenomenal growth during 2010.

Enterprise Carbon Accounting (ECA) software is headed for explosive growth according to studies done by market research firm Groom Energy Solutions in Salem, Massachusetts.

Currently SAP, Johnson Controls, Hara Software, His Inc., Enviance and Enablon are the leading manufacturers among 60 identifier ECA vendors.

It's expected that ECA software customers will increase fivefold by 2011 because of three basic factors driving demand:

1) Customers and investors are exerting pressure to create a greener public image
2) Sustainability project investments are fueled by the desire to save money
3) Buyer mandates to hundreds of thousands of suppliers to track the carbon emissions of their goods.

REDACTION PITFALLS EXIST

2010-03-11T08:45:00.004-05:00

By D.E.Levine

A few months ago a Transportation Security (TSA) contract employee posted an improperly redacted security manual on a public Web site for federal procurements.

This is a perfect example of the existing pitfalls of trying to react or hide sensitive text.

In the TSA case the posted manual disclosed TSA airport screening methods designed to thwart terrorists.

While such lapses frequently result from inexperience and a misunderstanding of how electronic redaction works, HSBC and Facebook are other organizations that have had similar embarrassing and potentially damaging experiences.

Using word processing software allows deleted material to be recovered, and blacking out portions of documents from view still allows that material to be retrieved through indexing, searching, retrieving, cutting and pasting.

As a result, the major advise given to all individuals and businesses is to never use word processing software for redaction.

Instead, strong redaction software such as Redact-IT, Rapid Redact and ID Shield are preferable when attempting redaction.

RSA CONFERENCE DOMINATED BY CYBERWAR AND CLOUD SECURITY

2010-03-10T08:37:00.003-05:00

By D.E.Levine

White House and FBI officials were at the RSA Conference to encourage private participation in government efforts to defend communication and information networks.

Because the majority of the U.S, cyber infrastructure is privately owned, government simply can't institute all of the necessary controls itself. In fact, Janet Napolitano, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, announced she's actively recruiting to fill government security posts from outside of the government because the outsiders are more knowledgeable about the problems and solutions.

Howard Schmidt, Cybersecurity coordinator and the top White House security adviser, told the audience that it's possible to be FISM (Federal Information Security Management Act) compliant and still not be secure because the FISM Act is flawed.

The government is addressing this problem by scheduling the meeting of performance metrics rather than sets of regulations. With the new metrics the government will move towards continuous monitoring capability.

Brian Snow, a former NSA director stated that he doesn't trust cloud services because the shared nature of the cloud leaves doubts about attack channels through other users of the cloud.

RSA is now the security arm of EMC and spokesmen stated that because of financial benefits they fully expect cloud computing to be widely adopted. But, the same spokesmen admitted that unless service providers can guarantee effective compliance, policy enforcement and multi-tenancy management, companies will avoid moving to the cloud.

Since trust is a major issue, RSA is partnering with Intel and VMware to enable measurement of cloud providers' security. Cloud computing users would be able to weigh the security of the service and receive metrics to deliver to auditors seeking to determine whether the companies are in compliance with government and industry security standards.

Other concerns include whether the cloud infrastructure can be used as a platform from which to launch botnets.

According to the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), a consortium of users and vendors, there are also vulnerabilities in the access means provided to users to access and manage the services they purchase.

The CSA is advocating strong authentication and access controls combined with strong encrypted transmission. Despite these techniques, vulnerabilities still exist and must be considered carefully prior to committing to cloud computing.

Attendees heard about security threats and solutions, the ongoing efforts of the federal government to upgrade its intrusion protection system (IPS) deployed in numerous agencies and communications carriers, and the growing menace provided by more sophisticated attacks.

GARTNER PREDICTS IT ASSET OWNERSHIP ON THE DECLINE

2010-03-07T08:52:00.001-05:00

By M.S.Welles

Gartner analysts predict that by 2012 one out of five businesses will own absolutely no IT assets.

According to Gartner the actual need for computing hardware, either on an employee's desk or in a data center, will not disappear.

However, through gaining momentum with cloud computing, ownership of hardware will shift to third parties triggering major shifts throughout every facet of the IT computer industry.

It's anticipated that IT budgets will shrink as will IT staff. The question of course, is what's going to happen to all of those IT employees? Will they be hired by outsourcers or will their jobs simply disappear?

JUMPING ON THE MICROBLOGGING BANDWAGON

2010-03-07T08:11:00.002-05:00

By D.E.Levine

It's not just Ashton Kuscher who's microblogging nowadays.

During 2009 celebrity microblogging on Twitter and social networking sites was solidified as thousands of people started communicating about everything online.

While some people may be bored by knowing every action of the person whom they're following, other "followers" hang onto every word and character that's posted.

The U.S. government has been known to urge Twitter to delay a planned service outage so that tweets could continue from Iranians who were protesting the results of the national elections.

It's true that celebrities tweet, but ordinary people tweet too.

Now there are Tweeting or Twitter conferences. I attended a few where marketing and communication directors from both large and small businesses reported on how tweeting on a daily basis enhanced and improved their customer relationships and improved their revenues.

In several instances where companies were small, on a shoestring budget and didn't have any storefront, tweeting several times a day allowed the company to tell customers and potential customers where the mobile vans selling their wares could be found at particular times of the day.

There seems to be nothing that isn't tweetable, but remember, tweets are short and to the point.

Twitter and tweeting has become such a widespread universal phenomenon that there are suggestions of including and archiving tweets in the U.S. Library of Congress.

JOOJOO STARTS SHIPPING

2010-03-02T07:45:00.002-05:00

By M.S.Welles

The JooJoo computer, a slate that started out being called the Crunchpad, started shipping. The question now is whether the original market still exists.

FusionGarage and TechCrunch have had a messy split and that affected the sales and distribution of the JooJoo.

At $499 the JooJoo runs a Linux operating system and has an easy intuitive user interface that lets users tap into Internet applications, music, videos, Web services, social media and high definition video.

With a built-in rechargeable lithium battery and a large 12.1-inch screen, it's ultra-thin and ultra-portable. It supports Flash 10.1 and Java but instead of offering apps it recommends going directly to the source on the Internet.

With a 4GB hard drive, fingerprint resistant coating, and 5 hours of Wi-Fi per charged battery, the JooJoo is meant to be used as an Internet tablet, not for downloadable applications.

For more information go to www.thejoojoo.com.

VIRUSES MULTIPLY SIGNIFICANTLY

2010-02-25T08:08:00.003-05:00

By D.E.Levine

During the past 18 months, Symantec wrote antivirus signatures equal to the number it wrote during the last 18 years.

Figures like this show that while once viruses were created as a game perpetrated by bright programmers looking for ways to outwit the "system", now the plague of viruses is malicious in nature and growing more rapidly than ever before.