Archive for November, 2009
Cybersecurity Starts at Home and in the Office
Mon-Oct 05, 2009
Washington / Associated Press
When swine flu broke out, the government revved up a massive information campaign centered on three words: Wash your hands.
The Obama administration now wants to convey similarly clear and concise guidance about one of the biggest national security threats in your home and office – the computer.
Think before you click. Know who’s on the other side of that instant message. What you say or do in cyberspace stays in cyberspace – for many to see, steal and use against you or your government.
The Internet, said former national intelligence director Michael McConnell, “is the soft underbelly” of the US today. Speaking at a new cybersecurity exhibit at the International Spy Museum in Washington, McConnell said the Internet has “introduced a level of vulnerability that is unprecedented.”
The Pentagon’s computer systems are probed 360 million times a day, and one prominent power company has acknowledged that its networks see up to 70,000 scans a day, according to cybersecurity expert James Lewis.
For the most part, those probes of government and critical infrastructure networks are benign. Many, said McConnell, are a nuisance and some are crimes. But the most dangerous are probes aimed at espionage or tampering with or destroying data.
The attackers could be terrorists aiming at the US culture and economy, or nation-states looking to insert malicious computer code into the electrical grid that could be activated weeks or years from now.
“We are the fat kid in the race,” said Lewis. “We are the biggest target, we have the most to steal, and everybody wants to get us.”
And if, for example, the US gets into a conflict with China over Taiwan, “expect the lights to go out,” he said. The exhibit at the Spy Museum – “Weapons of Mass Disruption” – tries to bring that threat to life.
A network of neon lights zigzags across the ceiling. Along the walls computer screens light up with harrowing headlines outlining the country’s digital dependence.
Drinking water, sewer systems, phone lines, banks, air traffic, government systems, all depend on the electric grid, and losing them for weeks would plunge the country into the 1800s.
Suddenly, the lights go out and the room is plunged into silent darkness. Seconds later as the sound system crackles, a video ticks off a pretend crisis: no food, no water, system shutdown.
That faux threat has become a prime concern for the government, but fully protecting the grid and other critical computer systems are problems still waiting a solution.
Federal agencies, including the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, are pouring more money into hiring computer experts and protecting their networks.
But there are persistent questions about how to ensure that Internet traffic is safe without violating personal privacy.
One answer, experts said last week, is to begin a broader public dialogue about cybersecurity, making people more aware of the risks and how individuals can do their part at home and at work.
Some will find it easier than others.
Much of the younger generation has grown up online and are more likely to know about secure passwords, antivirus software and dangerous spam e-mails that look to steal identities, bank accounts and government secrets.
Older people moved into the digital universe as it began to evolve and most have not grown up thinking about how to protect themselves online.
“Detection and prevention are fast, but crime is still faster,” said Phil Reitinger, director of the National Cybersecurity Center. The key, he said, “is to make sure that we’re all getting the word out about not only the seriousness of the threat, but the fairly simple steps that people can take to help secure their systems and their lives and families from the threats that are out there.”
In the computer world, “wash your hands” is less about tossing your keyboard into the dishwasher – although some have tried – and more about exercising caution.
Those steps include:
* Using antivirus software, spam filters, parental controls and firewalls.
* Regularly backing up important files to external computer drives.
* Thinking twice before sending information over the Internet, particularly when using wireless or unsecured public networks.
ICANN Says Hebrew, Hindi and Other Scripts Get Web Address Nod
Fri-Oct 30, 2009
Seoul / Agence France-Presse
The nonprofit body that oversees Internet addresses approved Friday the use of Hebrew, Hindi, Korean and other scripts not based on the Latin alphabet in a decision that could make the Web dramatically more inclusive.
The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — or ICANN — voted to allow such scripts in so-called domain names at the conclusion of a weeklong meeting in Seoul, South Korea’s capital. The decision follows years of debate and testing.
The decision clears the way for governments or their designees to submit requests for specific names, likely beginning Nov. 16. Internet users could start seeing them in use early next year, particularly in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts in which demand has been among the highest, ICANN officials say.
“This is absolutely delightful news,” said Edward Yu, CEO of Analysys International, an Internet research and consulting firm in Beijing, emphasizing that the Internet would become more accessible to users with lower incomes and education. Yu spoke ahead of the approval, which had been widely expected.
Domain names — the Internet addresses that end in “.com” and other suffixes — are the key monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post.
Since their creation in the 1980s, domain names have been limited to the 26 characters in the Latin alphabet used in English — A-Z — as well as 10 numerals and the hyphen. Technical tricks have been used to allow portions of the Internet address to use other scripts, but until now, the suffix had to use those 37 characters.
That has meant Internet users with little or no knowledge of English might still have to type in Latin characters to access Web pages in Chinese or Arabic. Although search engines can sometimes help users reach those sites, companies still need to include Latin characters on billboards and other advertisements.
Now, ICANN is allowing those same technical tricks to apply to the suffix as well, allowing the Internet to be truly multilingual.
Many of the estimated 1.5 billion people online use languages such as Chinese, Thai, Arabic and Japanese, which have writing systems entirely different from English, French, German, Indonesian, Swahili and others that use Latin characters.
Internet turns 40 with birthday bash
Fri-Oct 30, 2009
Los Angeles / Agence France-Presse
Technology and media stars, pundits and entrepreneurs joined the Internet’s father to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his culture-changing child.
“It’s the 40th year since the infant Internet first spoke,” said University of California, Los Angeles, professor Leonard Kleinrock, who headed the team that first linked computers online in 1969.
Kleinrock led an anniversary event at the UCLA campus that blended reminiscence of the Internet’s past with debate about its future.
“There is going to be an ongoing controversy about where we have been and where we are going,” said Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the popular news and blog website that bears her name.
“It is not just about the Internet; it is about our times. We are going to need desperately to tap into the better angels of our nature and make our lives not just about ourselves but about our communities and our world.”
Huffington was on hand to discuss the power the Internet gives to grass roots organizers on a panel with Kleinrock and Social Brain Foundation director Isaac Mao.
“The Internet is a democratizing element; everyone has an equivalent voice,” Kleinrock said. “There is no way back at this point. We can’t turn it off. The Internet Age is here.”
Kleinrock never imagined Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube that day four decades ago when his team gave birth to what is now taken for granted as the Internet.
“The net is penetrating every aspect of our lives,” Kleinrock said to a room of about 200 people and an equal number watching online.
On October 29, 1969, Kleinrock led a team that got a computer at UCLA to “talk” to one at a research institute.
Kleinrock was driven by a certainty that computers were destined to speak to each other and that the resulting network should be as simple to use as telephones.
US telecom colossus AT&T ran lines connecting the computers for ARPANET, a project backed with money from a research arm of the US military’s Advanced Research Projects Agency.
ARPANET grew into what is known today as the Internet.
“It feels to me like the alumni meeting of the framers of the US Constitution,” Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow said as he addressed the gathering.
“There are a lot of people in this room who are honest to god uncles and aunts of the Internet. What you did is conceivably the most important technological event since the capture of fire.”
Barlow, whose nonprofit legal organization fights for online freedom, maintained that Internet access is on the verge of becoming an inalienable human right.
“The reality today is that the Internet is like a new life; it is organic,” said Regina Dugan, director of what became DARPA when “Defense” was added to the agency’s name.
“It is inherently beautiful. It challenges us all to think about ourselves, about others, about ethics, and about the future.”
To test the power of the Internet, DARPA will release 10 “very large balloons” in the continental US and then pay $40,000 to the first person or team to pinpoint their locations using online tools or networking.
The balloons will be afloat for two days and visible only during daylight hours. “Individuals can make information go viral,” Dugan said. “Then it was an Internet challenge, today it is a network challenge.”
The competition will be tracked on wildly popular microblogging service Twitter, according to DARPA.
Kleinrock, who is now 75, sees the Internet spreading into everything.
“The next step is to move it into the real world,” Kleinrock said. “The Internet will be present everywhere. I will walk into a room and it will know I am there. It will talk back to me.”
Top 3 Computer Cricket Games of All Time
In India, cricket is worshipped and is played in various ways to make do with the small spaces available. From the conventional game played on a cricket pitch to the very popular ‘underarm’ game played in a building compound – both forms are completely satisfying. So have video games done justice by providing a proper simulation of the game? Here’s listing of the top 3 cricket games ever made:
Cricket ’97
Cricket ’97 was the first game to feature in-game commentary by the greats Ritchie Benaud and Ian Botham. It was a welcome change from the DOS-based cricket games and had good looking graphics (for 1997). The game had a kick ass soundtrack too.
Also it was the first cricket game to have multiplayer, which was one of its best features. Two players could play on a single screen (using the keyboard and mouse) or over the network. Another fun feature of the game was the “Appeal system”, where the player had to appeal for his wicket, else the umpire would call it ‘not out’. It was an absolute fun package for cricket lovers.
Brian Lara International Cricket 2005/2007
I know it’s not fair to list four games in “the top 3 cricket games” list. But it was really difficult to choose one over the other, since both games revolutionized cricket simulation.
Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 (BLIC 05) introduced us to a very realistic simulation of cricket. The New and improved batting, bowling and fielding mechanism made the game a must have for all cricket lovers.
The major reason for me to include BLIC 2005 in the list is for its challenge mode. What’s more fun than re-writing the history of cricket and having your favorite team win the event? Great game play and good looking graphics were its USP, but the game still had some bugs and issues.
BLIC 05 was followed up with Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 (BLIC 07). It was mostly a rehash of its predecessor, but with a few welcome changes.
It improved on its game play and a few bugs and issues, which made BLIC 05 infuriating. But BLIC 07 didn’t come with the challenge mode. Instead it came with one ultimate feature for any avid cricket fan — online play.
Ashes 2009
Codemasters finally nailed it with Ashes 2009. Along with the superior game play, the game also boasts good graphics and good audio. Intricate details given to batting and bowling make this game kick ass. The new batting system gives you a feel of how satisfying it would be to execute a shot in an actual game of cricket.
Bowling is just as good, though on higher difficulty levels it’s really difficult to get wickets, but it’s fun nonetheless. It has a mini challenge feature in the form of Legend Challenges. The customization mode gives the game longevity and the Confidence system contributes in making the game more lifelike and it also has online play. All in all, Ashes 2009 is a complete package.
Yahoo! Shuts Down GeoCities
Tue-Oct 27, 2009
San Francisco / Agence France-Presse
Yahoo! on Monday closed GeoCities, a free Web hosting service that it purchased for over three billion dollars at the height of the dot-com boom.
“We have enjoyed hosting websites created by Yahoo! users all over the world, and we’re proud of the community you’ve built,” the California-based Internet pioneer said in a message at the GeoCities website.
“However, we have decided to focus on helping our customers explore and build relationships online in other ways.”
Yahoo! said GeoCities would not be available after Monday and recommended GeoCities refugees set up new online homes at its paid Web hosting service, with an introductory offer of just five dollars for the first 12 months.
The closure of GeoCities comes a week after Yahoo! reported that aggressive cost-cutting helped it more than triple its net profit despite a 12-percent decline in revenue in its third quarter.
Yahoo! said net profit soared more than 244 percent in the quarter to 186 million dollars, or 13 cents per share, from $54 million, or four cents per share, a year ago, easily surpassing analysts’ forecasts.
The better-than-expected performance was due in large part to cost-cutting measures implemented by Carol Bartz since being named in January to replace Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive.
Yahoo! has reduced its headcount by some 2,000 during the past year and presently has some 13,200 employees.
Yahoo! announced the planned closure of GeoCities early this year, saying it was “increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others.”
GeoCities was founded in 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet and bought by Yahoo! during the infamous dot-com boom in Silicon Valley.
GeoCities provided people with tools to build interactive websites and eventually added chat forums and other community-oriented features.
Yahoo! eventually added fee-paying premium services in an effort to make money at GeoCities, which had trouble retaining users and getting profitable.