Carl Weinschenk – EzineArticles.com Expert Author

• The Hazy World of Ethical Hacking
  [Computers-and-Technology] The use of the term “hacker” to denote a computer expert with bad intentions is a misnomer. A hacker is anyone with a high level of computer expertise, no matter how he or she uses it. Hackers come in three varieties: Black, white and gray. Black, of course, are malicious; white are good hackers; and gray, as the name implies, jump between the two camps.
• Intel Aims Lower-Power Atom Processor Line at MIDs – And Beyond
  [Computers-and-Technology] Electronic communications, like all human endeavors, faces short- and long-term challenges. The more immediate issues are handled on a practical and tactical level. The longer-term challenges grow increasingly ominous as people build plans and businesses atop the infrastructure threatened by problems.
• Rootkits Growing in Number and Sophistication
  [Computers-and-Technology] Microsoft’s acquisition of Komoku both gives it new tools against rootkits and another entry point into the government market. Komoku, according to this eWeek story on the acquisition, deals with the pernicious form of malware that burrows deep into target systems and, unlike traditional viruses, does a good job of hiding itself from detection. Komoku offers hardware- and software-based products called CoPilot and Gammna, respectively.
• The Telcos’ Salad Days Are Over, But They Still Have a Lot on Their Plates
  [Communications] The details are interesting, but there isn’t anything conceptually new in a recent New York Times piece anticipating AT&T and Verizon quarterly reports. Indeed, the tale already is getting a bit old: Landlines are fading antique curios and the cellular market is saturated. To survive, phone companies must move aggressively with fiber, 3G and 4G wireless while grabbing revenue from video and advanced wireless applications.
• Protecting Against M&A, Layoff Vulnerabilities Tricky But Possible
  [Business:Security] I’ve covered this topic more than once since the economy went from very bad to scary awful, but it bears much repeating: There is going to be a lot of chaos during the next few months – layoffs and mergers – and security staffs need to pay a lot of attention to keep data safe. Ideally, it is a good idea to do this long before the layoffs or mergers start.
• Mobile CRM – Do it Right Or Don’t Do it at All
  [Computers-and-Technology:Mobile-Computing] One of the great uses of smartphones in the enterprise is to extend back office customer relationship management (CRM) packages to the field. The ability to do everything (or most things) in planes, trains and automobiles that can be done in the office is talked up by vendors. What they don’t mention is that it creating such a platform isn’t easy, and that a bad one probably is worse than none at all.
• Rumors Foreshadow the Next Chapter in E-Reader Projects
  [Computers-and-Technology] eBook devices represent the ultimate in convergence, marrying millenia-old written language with modern telecommunications technology. Right now, Amazon offers the Kindle and Sony the Digital Book.
• The Promising World of SMB Smartphone App Development
  [Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] The famous sales maxim is that a company is well advised to give away the razor in order to continually sell the blades. While nobody is giving away smartphones – far from it – the real value in the long run is going to be in the applications. There seems no better time to reinforce this notion than this week, as Nokia officially draws the curtain on The Ovi Store.
• Meet GPS – The New Bluetooth
  [Communications:GPS] Last week, I wrote about a couple of pieces of news in the Bluetooth sector. The standard is now able to take advantage of higher-speed Wi-Fi connectivity and a lower power version is coming. I found it odd that Bluetooth, which is so ubiquitous that people hardly notice it, was making news.
• LTE Sector Begins Considering Devilish Deployment Details
  [Communications:Broadband-Internet] The race between LTE and WiMax, intriguing before the economy crashed, now is even more interesting. The basic scenario is that WiMax is already is in commercial deployment – with Clearwire’s Clear service and others – while LTE is rushing into production and had has commitments from powerhouse networks such as AT&T and Verizon. The bad financial landscape makes every move even more critical. The margin of error – never great for an expensive new technology – is even smaller during trying times.
• The Thirty Years War – Everyone Wins As Cable, Telcos Continue to Battle
  [Communications] As the name implies, passive optical networks (PONs) are ways of distributing signals without any active gear. This is attractive to service providers because chucking the lasers cuts costs and makes the resulting network more reliable. Growth in PONs is but one sign that the old battles between the cable and telcos folks are just as active as ever.
• Cloud Computing Looks to Generate Some Thunder in 2009
  [Computers-and-Technology] Cloud computing is a broadly defined concept that is slowly changing the way organizations operate and the way IT thinks about itself. A recent insightful piece by The Associated Press discusses the concept in great detail.
• New and Refreshed Approaches to an Old Problem
  [Computers-and-Technology] IT departments and their parent organizations must make significant decisions on letting employees download and use outside applications. This is a tricky situation: While many of these apps bring value to the business, they are real security risks.
• Security Issues Abound As Social Networking Goes to Work
  [Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Social-Networking] Employees use two types of social networking sites. They bring their Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and other identities to the office. At the same time, they use professional social networking – LinkedIn and others – for more “official” duties.
• DOCSIS 3.0, 4G and Telco Fiber Spell Fast Times For Subscribers
  [Communications] The speed war between the various players in the telecommunications industry goes back years and likely will last well into the future. The big beneficiaries of the competition are vendors, bloggers and, most of all, consumers.
• Skype in the Hot Seat
  [Communications:VOIP] Skype is in a unique position. As a standalone company, it is doing quite well. But its position within the eBay family appears tenuous. This point is made quite well in a recent BusinessWeek story, which says that Skype’s revenue was up 51 percent in the second quarter. That’s pretty good, even considering that the figure was less than half of the year-ago quarter.
• Unified Communications Still Promising, Still Complex
  [Communications:VOIP] A recent Computerworld piece does a good job of previewing the unified communications infrastructure that the New York Mets are creating at Citi Field, the stadium they are moving into next season. Though at the moment they may be willing to trade the Nortel system for a closer who isn’t hurt, the UC system will prove helpful in the long run.
• Easy to Poke Holes in Google Trial Balloon
  [Communications:Broadband-Internet] The ongoing carrier wars feature the telcos, the cable companies and, increasingly, wireless operators. An interesting idea was floated in a recent InformationWeek article: The story quotes the blog of a Google policy analyst who says that some organizations own their own last-mile connections and there is “no law of nature” preventing consumers from doing the same.
• Cyber Security Spending – Protecting Systems Or More Spying?
  [News-and-Society:Politics] Coverage of government cyber security initiatives is a bit disconcerting because there isn’t a lot of information available. The big budget numbers in the news and federal press releases mean little without knowing precisely what the money is being spend on.
• At Last, a Little Good News on Mobile Security
  [Computers-and-Technology:Mobile-Computing] Usually, articles written about mobile security are filled with vague foreboding: Mobility is dangerous, users are in denial, and the industry has only avoided the vast problems that buffeted the wired Internet because of the multitude of operating systems and, until recently, the dearth of valuable data on mobile devices. Our luck certainly will run out soon. These pieces seem to parallel the periodic consumer press stories about the chances of an asteroid hitting earth. So it’s nice to run into some good mobile security news.
• Stealing Wi-Fi – Is it a Victimless Crime? Is it a Crime?
  [Communications:Broadband-Internet] A recent Time.com commentary suggests several things, all of which are food for thought for corporate IT security people. The writer confesses to the theft of Wi-Fi signals in his apartment. Though he acknowledges that what he did was illegal, unethical or both, he kept right on doing it.
• The Future Calls Alltel and Verizon Wireless
  [Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] Alltel was long considered the most attractive of the second-tier cellular companies. This makes its acquisition for $28.1 billion by Verizon Wireless something of a milestone. If the deal is consummated, the new entity will be bigger than AT&T and thus the nation’s largest mobile operator. Of course, as with any acquisition this size, the precise ramifications won’t be apparent for a long time.
• For Laptops, Encryption Isn’t Everything – But It’s a Fine Start
  [Computers-and-Technology:Mobile-Computing] Though it could have been condensed somewhat – several of the items seem to overlap – eWEEK has posted a nice slide show on the problems of laptop security. In this case, “nice” relates to the clarity of the presentation, not the feeling the message is likely to elicit. That message is that there are quite a few ways that a laptop can become a problem.
• Mainframes Win on TCO
  [Computers-and-Technology:Hardware] Mainframes can cut total cost of ownership significantly, says Jim Porell, distinguished engineer for System z at IBM. These platforms, which don’t have to be overwhelmingly large, reduce manpower requirements and cut space, the time it takes to find problems, and other key metrics. The new generation of mainframes is capable of working fluidly with other computing approaches.
• Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid – Cyber Crime
  [Computers-and-Technology] There are things to be concerned about and things to be downright worried about. This story – which outlines what appears to be woefully lax security at The Tennessee Valley Authority, the largest public power company in the United States – fits firmly in the latter category.
• Optical Networking – Never a Dull Moment
  [Computers-and-Technology] A Recent interview with Dana Cooperson, vice president for optical networking for Ovum. This week, Ovum released preliminary quarterly results that said the optical equipment networking marketing will surpass $3 billion for the seventh consecutive quarter.
• Cable Confronts Its Wireless Shortcomings
  [Communications:Broadband-Internet] Perhaps the most often cited shortcoming of the cable industry’s collective business plan is that it lacks a meaningful wireless component. In big and small ways, the industry confronted that old bugaboo in a trio of moves this month.
• Data Loss Prevention Seeks To Define Itself And Find Its Niche
  [Computers-and-Technology] Data loss prevention (DLP) is one of the better category names simply because it does such a good job of describing what the technology is meant to do. The current dynamic in the sector is well framed in a recent InfoWorld story. The first-generation DLP products didn’t get wide deployment and the future direction of the technology is still a bit unclear.
• Mobile Power Challenges are Real, But Solutions Abound
  [Computers-and-Technology:Mobile-Computing] Last week, I wrote about the introduction of low power Atom processors by Intel. The new family – which initially is aimed at mobile Internet devices (MIDs) but clearly is part of the company’s overall road map – is an important step in reducing power consumption on mobile devices.
• Unified Communications – Look at Products, Not Labels
  [Communications:VOIP] Unified communications is a mess. Not the technology itself, of course. That’s in fine shape. Armies of very smart people are working on platforms that get any message to any device wherever the intended recipient happens to be.
• LTE, WiMax, Merging Standards – and Rudyard Kipling
  [Computers-and-Technology] The next year or so will be very interesting. On one hand, the battle for the future of 4G between LTE and WiMax will be fully joined. However, both are IP-based and use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and, experts say, are relatively close on the telecommunications family tree. Indeed, the biggest difference may concern the other IP: intellectual property. Despite the maneuvering today, it is possible that in a few years the two will blend together.
• Change is the Theme in a Roiling Cellular Industry
  [Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] Now comes the hard part. Or, at least, the unwieldy, contentious, cumbersome and frustrating part. In November, Verizon Wireless said that it will open its network to devices other than those it directly subsidizes. The story is well told at BusinessWeek: The company is facing a dwindling number of potential new subscribers and is being pushed by companies itching to create alternate paths to deliver their content to subscribers.
• Hannaford and PCI
  [Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Security] There is little definitive to say at this point about the massive theft of credit and debit card information reported Monday by Hannaford Brothers, a grocery retailer based in Maine. The firm revealed that about 4.2 million credit and debit card records have been stolen over a period of about three months.
• Virtualization Thrives, Security Struggles to Keep Up
  [Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Security] Tall fences make good neighbors. That goes for life in suburbia and, apparently, on the inside of computers.
• Bandwidth Management – A Simple Name for a Complex Discipline
  [Internet-and-Businesses-Online] Segregating traffic in a logical manner makes a lot of sense. There is a political angle to this as well, since the tools to manage bandwidth will play a role in enforcing whatever rules and laws emerge from the contentious debate about limiting peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic.
• Broadband, Policy and the Future
  [Communications:Broadband-Internet] There is no heavy technology in a recent New York Times story on growth of Internet congestion. That’s for the best, since two of the worthwhile points the piece makes would be obscured if readers were knee-high in bits and bytes. The takeaway is that the dramatic stresses on the Internet – in the form of both a higher volume of data and the need to support far more finicky convergence applications – is being met by an equal growth in the technology. In other words, demands are growing, but so are the Internet’s capabilities.
• Never a Dull Moment for Telecom in the Real World
  [Computers-and-Technology] A couple of things happened during the past week that, on the surface, have little in common. They speak to a bigger truth, however: IT managers and their bosses prepare for the unexpected – and realize that it is impossible to have all contingencies covered. The organizations that do the best job of generally protecting their infrastructure will end up ahead.
• Unified Communications Puts On its Traveling Shoes
  [Communications] Unified communications (UC) is an empty slogan – or at least, a sector that is a shadow of what it can be – until it has a strong mobile element. The two endeavors overlap and share the goal of making employees more accessible when they are away from their desks.
• Education Key in Slowing Laptop Theft
  [Computers-and-Technology:Mobile-Computing] Corporations spend billions of dollars each year repeating the same message over and over. It’s called advertising and it works. A similar approach, according to this Processor story, stands the best chance of slowing the never ending tide of stolen laptops: Keep telling employees that they have to guard their machines, and keep telling them how to do it.
• Security Evolution Continues for Vista and XP
  [Computers-and-Technology] A recent Redmond Magazine piece doesn’t give the date – it was August 2004 – that Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). At that point the company committed what, according to the writer, many think was a mistake: The default switching on of the host-based Internet Connection Firewall (ICF). The problem, he says, is that getting the host-based firewall running within an organization is a “Herculean effort” involving high levels of application testing and configuration tuning. The complexity forced many administrators to simply disable ICF.
• Online Banking Grows, But Security Concerns Continue to Accrue
  [Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Security] Customers of HSBC, Bank of America and Washington Mutual may want to think twice about banking online. Quickly. The three banks are identified in a study by a UC Berkeley’s Boalt School of Law researcher as the most victimized by identity theft.
• Industry Ponders How to Best Deliver Services
  [Communications:Telephone-Systems] The telephone industry is facing a very interesting quandary. On one hand, all-fiber builds offer elegant solutions and robust triple- and quadruple-play possibilities.
• Challenges of Virtual Machine Security are Multiplying
  [Computers-and-Technology] Virtualization is a boon for data centers and other scenarios in which concentrated computer resources are necessary. Significant questions about the security of the technology persist, however. Indeed, it seems that the questions are proliferating.
• Think Globally, Attack Locally
  [Internet-and-Businesses-Online] One of the attractions and downright charms of the Internet is its universality. It is just as easy to find a bakery in Charlotte as in Cairo – from a Starbucks in Caracas. For the most part, viruses and malware are universal as well. While their places of origin generally are concentrated, malicious software often spreads evenly throughout the online world.
• Open Source VoIP Continues to Gain Momentum
  [Communications:VOIP] Most people like the idea of open source software. For many, the problem is the execution.
• For Mobility, the Rubber Will Hit the Road in 2008
  [Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] It’s clear when somebody really has gotten something right. A recent InfoWorld story makes a compelling case that 2008 will be the year that smartphones really take off.
• Wireless Still Dangerous Despite the Reduced Hype
  [Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] Perhaps the major overall growth area in networking is wireless. Companies and consumers are putting more data on the air every day. Wireless safety still is a big issue, of course, but it doesn’t seem to be getting quite as much hype as it was a year ago.
• Good News For Telecom Customers – No Peace in Our Time
  [Communications] The race between the telephone companies and cable operators goes on. That’s a good thing, as throughputs rise and prices decline.
• Wireless Jockeying in Full Force as Pivotal 2008 Approaches
  [Communications] The saying is that you have to spend money to make money. That’s undoubtedly true, but understates the enormous risks associated with next-generation wireless networking. The bottom line – as portrayed in stories that appeared this week suggesting potential strategic moves by Sprint Nextel and Google – is that the future is fraught with a tremendous amount of uncertainty.
• IT Infrastructure Increasingly Supports Physical Security Initiatives
  [Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Security] If life in the data center was a musical, the first two songs security and IT folks would break out in song and dance to would be “Let’s Get Physical” and “We’re All in this Together.” If the show was based on a recent story in The Register, it would be a somber production.
• Four More Years (Maybe) – Cerf Says IPv4 Exhautsed by 2010 or 2011
  [Communications] Convergence applications bear some of the direct and indirect responsibility for the massive increase in demand for Internet addresses. The situation is getting critical, and one of the doyens of the Internet – Vint Cert – is worried.
• From Russia Without Love
  [News-and-Society] A piece which ran recently in The New York Times Week in Review section raises an interesting point that often is overlooked. The Internet is a borderless network that is largely impervious to government administration. For that reason, illegal or unscrupulous activity that is the norm in one country can infect the global online community.
• Consumer Move to Mobility Will Transform Telecom
  [Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] Telecommunication is undergoing an historic sea change. Even though that change is driven by the consumer side of the industry, it is so basic and fundamental that its impact will transform the business segment as well.
• Are Good Security and Web 2.0 Compatible?
  [Computers-and-Technology] There are far too many numbers in a recent TechNewsWorld story, which reports results of a survey on Web 2.0 threats conducted by Forrester Research for Secure Computing. The survey, released in conjunction with the introduction of the vendor’s Secure Web 2.0 Anti-Threat (SWAT) initiative, shows that IT folks are unaware, untrained and don’t have consistent policies for this dangerous and increasingly popular way to use the Internet. SWAT aims to raise awareness of the issues, offer tips and in other ways help companies protect themselves.
• EarthLink and Municipal Wireless Have a Really Bad Week
  [Communications] This has been a bad week for municipal Wi-Fi and a very bad week for EarthLink. The ISP cut 900 jobs and closed several regional offices.
• Messaging Compliance Keeps an Eye on the Exits
  [Computers-and-Technology] An Associated Press story, posted at Sci-Tech Today, is an interesting look at the broad area of messaging compliance software. While they vary broadly, these can be defined as software that digs deeply into content to enforce corporate policies.
• What’s Old is New Again as Comcast Passes Vonage
  [Communications:VOIP] It appears a transition that has been building for a long time has reached fruition: Vonage, a pioneer of VoIP services, is no longer number one. This isn’t much of a surprise, but it certainly marks an important corporate milestone.
• Is Apple Tempted By the iPhone’s Potential in the Enterprise?
  [Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] The common wisdom is that the iPhone is a consumer play and Apple doesn’t particularly care about business users. This may be true, but a study from RDA Global is evidence that Apple would be making a big mistake to dismiss this market.
• The Spam Index – A Birds’ Eye View of a Shifting Challenge
  [Computers-and-Technology] Brockmann & Company’s introduction of The Spam Index nailed down quantitative measures for several things that e-mail users intuitively know – E-mail is useful (82 percent of respondents to the online poll on which the index is based said that e-mail is very important to their jobs) but the experience is less than fulfilling (21 percent are satisfied with how their e-mail works).
• Contactless Payments Could Drive Mobile Device Market
  [Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] Carriers and device manufacturers search longingly for killer apps, and it seems that one is just about upon us. One of the next big things may be contact less payments, the ability to use a cell phone or similar handheld device to pay for products and services without actually having to break stride, stop and authorize the purchase
• WiMax, Competitors Vie To Create Powerful EcoSystems
  [Communications:Broadband-Internet] Several very interesting issues are at play in the rollout of wireless broadband technology. Indeed, the landscape that will dominate the next decade and beyond is being created now, as WiMax increasingly consolidates on one of two initial versions and steels itself for competition against other approaches.
• iPhone Security Debate Begs Bigger Consumer Device Question
  [Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] The iPhone phenomenon is yet another reminder to IT that consumer technology can play havoc with the network if precautions aren’t taken. The security questions around the device need public exposure.

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