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NBC Olympics Application Not for Metered Broadband Subscribers
The Olympics is going to be a giant case study in digital entertainment distribution in more ways than one. The latest example? Chris Albrecht over at GigaOM points to a warning notice posted next to the download instructions for NBC Olympics on the Go. The application flags Olympic events you want to watch and downloads them to your computer for later viewing. However, NBC is not recommending the software for people with metered broadband plans. In other words, NBC is worried that automatic downloading of massive video files could put some people over their bandwidth limit, and add up to additional fees from some ISPs.
Just to inject a note of reality here, the NBC warning is probably overstated and certainly only applicable to a tiny portion of viewers today. The NBC Olympics software is only available to US residents, and most (if not all) metered broadband here is happening solely on a trial basis.
That said, the warning from NBC is an important signpost for consumers. Should we start measuring our own broadband use? Do we start planning for the day when we need to pick and choose what we do online? Should 2200 hours of Olympic coverage really be free?
Whatever the answers, and there’s a long continuum of thought on these subjects, it’s abundantly clear that bandwidth demand is only going to continue to grow. Today it’s the Olympics online. Tomorrow it’s 3D concerts on the Web. Good thing operators continue to work on ways to expand bandwidth capacity. Clearly we’re going to need it.
Juniper Enhances Standards-Based Access Control Solution
http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/UAE/233489
A Uniquely Flexible and Open, Standards-Based Solution
Juniper Networks UAC 2.2 is based on open industry standards, including those defined by the Trusted Network Connect (TNC) Work Group of the Trusted Computing Group (TCG). It supports the TNC Statement of Health (SOH) standard protocol, which extends UAC support to the Microsoft Windows® Statement of Health (SOH) and Embedded NAP Agents, allowing customers to interoperate with Juniper Networks UAC through the Microsoft Windows Vista and/or Windows XP (SP3) clients. This allows customers to leverage existing network infrastructure and components, ensuring cost-effective and flexible access control and simplified deployment for organizations of all sizes.
NBC Olympics.. from Microsoft's website!!!
Oh.. and seeing this is on the site is nice!:
Frequently Asked Questions
Was NBC Olympics On The Go created by Microsoft?
No. NBC Olympics On The Go was developed by Wavexpress, the makers of the TVTonic Internet video service. For questions about the service, contact Wavexpress.
NBC Olympics Coverage on Windows Media Center
The 2008 Summer Olympics takes place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24. With a free download service1 called NBC Olympics On The Go,2 you can catch up on TV coverage from NBC Sports. Select your favorite sports and NBC Olympics On The Go will automatically download the right events to your Windows Media Center-based PC. You can watch your selected events in up to HD quality, even when offline, and you can pause, rewind, or fast-forward the video.
Download NBC Olympics On The Go
To get NBC Olympics On The Go, start Windows Media Center and scroll to the Online Media menu. You'll see an NBC Olympics graphic.
Select the graphic and follow the instructions to install the service on to your computer.
Launch NBC Olympics On The Go and read the User Tips to get started.
What you'll get
An easy-to-use service that lets you watch your favorite Olympic sports
200+ hours of catch-up TV programming over the 17 days of the Olympics
Coverage of approximately 24 sports, the full opening ceremony, and a closing ceremony montage
Up to HD quality video
Frequently Asked Questions Expand All
Is NBC Olympics On The Go free?
Yes! This is a free download for Windows Media Center, included on Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate. Broadband Internet service is required; service fees may apply.
Can I use this service in my country?
NBC Olympics On The Go is available only in the United States.
How do I start Windows Media Center?
Click the Start menu, type "Windows Media Center" in the Search box, and then click the green button. When you launch Windows Media Center for the first time, you'll be asked to choose "Express" or "Custom" setup. Express is the quickest way to get started.
What are the exact steps to install NBC Olympics On The Go?
Click the Start menu, type "Windows Media Center" in the Search box, and then click the green button.
Use your mouse, keyboard, or remote to scroll to Online Media.
Select the NBC Olympics graphic and click Install Now.
Your two choices are Easy Install or Full Install. Choose Easy Install if you are using an Extender for Windows Media Center or if you'd like to use the defaults for the service.
Click Open Website, and then follow the instructions to download the service to your computer.
Click Continue, and then click Activate to get started.
Follow the User Tips to learn how to personalize your channel lineup.
Do I have to be online to watch Olympic events?
Your PC needs to be connected to the Internet to download the event videos, but you can watch them while you're offline. This means you can take the games with you wherever you go.
Can I use NBC Olympics On The Go with an Extender?
Yes! You can use an Extender for Windows Media Center, such as an Xbox 360 or other device, to watch your customized Olympics on your TV. When you install NBC Olympics On The Go, be sure to select Easy Install if you are using Windows Media Center through an Extender.
How do I get NBC Olympics On The Go if I don't have Windows Media Center?
A different version of NBC Olympics On The Go is available via NBC Direct for people who do not have Windows Media Center. Visit NBC Direct to learn more. To check to see if you have Windows Media Center, click the Start menu, type "Windows Media Center" in the Search box, and then look for the green button.
Was NBC Olympics On The Go created by Microsoft?
No. NBC Olympics On The Go was developed by Wavexpress, the makers of the TVTonic Internet video service. For questions about the service, contact Wavexpress.
Notes
1 Broadband Internet connection required. Service fees may apply.
2 NBC Olympics On The Go for Windows Media Center is available only in the United States.
NBC aims for marathon Olympics
By Joshua Chaffin in New York
Ten years ago, when CBS held the television rights for the winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, the network managed to broadcast 170 hours of coverage over 17 days.
Beginning with Friday’s opening ceremony in Beijing, NBC Universal, this year’s Olympic rights-holder, will attempt to churn out 3,600 hours of coverage over a similar period.
Mar-11It will feed everything from its flagship television network to English and foreign-language cable channels and a collection of websites. That comparison offers just one measure of the Olympics’ exponential growth in recent years and the challenge facing NBC Universal as it embarks on what may be the most complex multimedia broadcast in history.
“There’s nothing that compares to the Olympics,” said Rick Gentile, who produced CBS’s coverage of Nagano and two other games.
In narrative terms, these Olympic games have been cast as China’s entry on to the world stage. But in the media world, at least, they may be just as momentous for NBC Universal.
The General Electric-owned media and entertainment company paid a record $894m for the rights.
It is hoping to prove both its international and digital prowess at a time when both are crucial in an industry facing an uncertain future.
The spotlight will be all the more intense amid stubborn speculation that GE may try to unload NBC Universal after the games.
For Jeff Zucker, chief executive, a successful performance could provide a crowning moment.
Mr Zucker began his career at NBC as a researcher for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Now he will be leading a 2,900-strong NBC Universal army to Beijing.
Leaving nothing to chance, the company has taken out an insurance policy – said to be worth $1bn – in the event that its telecast is disturbed.
So far, in spite of concerns ranging from polluted skies to political protests and terrorism, the network claims to have sold 96 per cent of its advertising inventory and is expecting revenues to surpass $1bn.
Some advertising executives say that NBC achieved this, in part, by offering discounts to its Olympic customers on other business. “They were willing to take a hit elsewhere to make the Olympics look good,” one said.
NBC Universal has been forced to contend with a slowing economy that is forcing many marketers to pull back.
Moreover, the Olympics – as a television property – have seen better days. While its ratings dominance was once absolute, the 2006 Torino winter games were upstaged repeatedly by American Idol.
Critics point to Olympic fatigue since the games are now held every two years, with the winter version held in the middle of the four-year cycle of summer games, rather than in the same year, since 1994.
There is also the same fragmentation of television audiences that is affecting the rest of traditional television.
A significant culprit, though, has been the time difference, which has forced the networks to air coverage on tape delay.
“Every Olympics that has ever been held in the Far East has been befuddled by ratings problems,” Dick Ebersol, head of NBC Sports, told analysts a year ago.
NBC has addressed that by convincing organisers to schedule swimming, gymnastics and other marquee events in the Beijing morning so that they will appear live in US primetime.
It is also promising live coverage of all sports on its NBCOlympics.com website.
“I think it’s going to be an extraordinary spectacle,” said Neal Pilson, former president of CBS Sports. “I think this may be the most watched games in years.”
Political controversies leading up to the games would only heighten viewers’ curiosity, Mr Pilson argued.
A budding rivalry between Chinese and US athletes might also inject a dramatic tension missing since the break-up of the Soviet Union and the retirement of feuding figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.
Still, nervous NBC Universal executives will find plenty to worry about this week. A looming question is whether a restrictive Chinese government might clamp down on its ability to cover stories away from the sports arenas.
“Without that, you really can’t capture the colour that is so vital behind the scenes,” Mr Gentile said.
You're welcome svenm!! e/
Let the games begin
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10004340-92.html
The Olympic Games in Beijing begin next week, and more than 2,000 hours of live content and 3,000 hours of on-demand video will be available from the PC via NBCOlympics.com. And while it's a huge opportunity for Olympics fans, it is also a big test for both Web video and for the companies behind the site, in particular for NBC Universal and Microsoft, whose Silverlight technology is being used in the video player, and for Limelight Networks, whose network is being used to route all of those streams to Internet service providers.
Microsoft is hoping that its role in the Olympics will both prompt downloads of Silverlight in the short term, as well as help give the video-streaming technology a needed boost. However, those who can't get or don't want Silverlight will still be able to watch video from the NBCOlympics site, just without access to some of the cool features, such as the control room.
What you won't find is a lot of help if your computer runs into trouble during the Games. NBC is putting up online FAQs and other help, but there won't be e-mail or phone technical support. The good news is you can try things out now, with the video content already on NBCOlympics.com.
However, while there will be thousands of hours of content available live, you won't be able to watch some of the marquee events, like women's gymnastics and track and field, until after they have aired on the nightly TV programs.
SummerB...Michael Sprague on your blog:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/31/nbc-launches-on-demand-olympic-coverage-in-hd/
Michael Sprague - July 31st, 2008 at 6:41 pm PDT
NBC is doing a tremendous effort this year delivering the Olympics online through many different platforms and experiences. There’s something for everyone and more coverage than has ever been available online before. By enabling different platforms they can engage the best features each has to offer. My company operates the service described in this article and our speciality is Vista Media Center. Media Center gives us the environment for a very engaging, reliable and even portable media experience for the Olympics. We think the experience will be excellent, but like the future of video, there is no single tool to reach all users in all environments. Better that each platform leverage the best it has to offer and the user decides the experience he or she wants.
thanks weby, appreciate the comments e/
BlackArmor? More Like Black Box
http://tylerfogarty.blogspot.com/2008/07/blackarmor-more-like-black-box.html
While I was reading the Wall Street Journal a couple days ago I stumbled upon a full, back page ad for a relatively new "secure", portable hard drive from Seagate called BlackArmor. But, first off, allow me to make a disclaimer: I don't actually understand that much about encryption technology, but it is something I can get excited about (for example, I read every page of the NIST's 116 page long (warning: PDF) AES Report [csrc.nist.gov]) twice, and enjoy learning about it. For some reason it is fascinating to me, but I'm a newb, so please keep that in mind. Anyway, what caught my eye was that Seagate alleged that this was the world's first external hard drive with complete disk encryption. I started wondering what type of encryption they used, but, as one may have expected, the ad was short on technical details. This surprised me though because the main, advertised selling point of this drive was the encryption, so why didn't they at least post in small print the specifications. So, I followed the link provided in the ad to the page linked above which also didn't reveal anything, so I clicked "Learn More" and clicked on subsequent "Specifications" tab. This only listed the physical details about the drive, such as storage capacity, disk rotation speed, dimensions and the like. On this page, however, I did note that the drive only worked with Windows XP or Vista. This disappointed me mainly because I use a combination of Mac and Linux operating systems at home. I further learned that a special program had to be installed on the computer that would act as the go-between for the drive and the computer it was attached to. I had hoped, perhaps naively, that no installation would be necessary and thus be based off an other method that would allow for greater system portability. Oh well, but I was still interested in learning about the encryption algorithm and implementation itself because otherwise how could one know the strength of the "cable" that was holding your data. I then downloaded the (warning: PDF) datasheet [maxtor.dom] and a little more information was revealed but this too proved to be a disappointment. It only mentioned that it was, "Hardware-based full-disc encryption technology". Ok... So, what? The page did give a hint though, stating that that the encryption was "government grade" with a little asterisk next to it which lead to a footnote noting it uses, "Government-grade AES encryption certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)." Now, while a step in the right direction, this was not super helpful. AES, as you may know, stands for "Advanced Encryption Standard" which replaced DES on November 26, 2001, so it's the newest standard available which is what I expected. However, this didn't make mention of the block cipher size or key bit length. At a minimum, I guessed it was going to be 128 bit block cipher. After searching the support documents and searching the user manual on the Seagate's support site without finding anything my curiosity was piqued even more.
So, I when to their support contact page and called their pre-sales support team at 1.800.SEAGATE. I got a pleasant fellow named Matt who seemed happy to answer any question I had. So, I asked if he could tell more about the the encryption the drive used, such as number of encryption rounds, block cipher or key length. He said no problem and that he could look that up immediately. Fifteen minutes later, after being mostly on hold, nothing else was revealed except that he could confirm that the encryption was 128 bit, he didn't say this but I took that to mean the block cipher, which is about the minimum available. I was quietly hoping it was more than that, like 256, but, then again, that would most likely decrease the read/write performance of the drive notably because of the extra encrypt/decrypt computations required by the host's CPU. Still, I was curious. So, today, I tried again; this time by tech support chat. This worked out a little better as I again got a courteous tech but who was able to point me in the direction of newly created FAQs, here and here. This solidified my confirmation about the 128 bit block cipher but mentioned nothing else in particular; it did give a good 101 overview of the different types of full disk encryption (FDE) available and how they work from a users perspective. As an aside, I also questioned whether the BlackArmor drive will ever work with Linux or Mac OSX and he said that it does not currently work with anything besides Windows and he wasn't sure if development was being done to expand their OS portability (my hunch is a strong no). I then asked if there were any portable FDE drives that worked with OSX and he said there was one, the FreeAgent Pro, but it's just an external hard drive sans any method of encryption (granted, I could do it myself, but that's not the point as I've already built my own external hard drives - I'm looking for a consumer level, ready solution). Still, it was a good discussion and the tech was helpful, so kudos to Seagate for that, but I still don't know much about the algorithm behind their promises for security. My thinking is that if the technical info is contained in a black box, how am I supposed to know that the data is actually secure? Interestingly, the phone rep I spoke with before actually mentioned something about how the FBI wasn't happy about their BlackArmor product offering and wanted to try working with Seagate to establish some back door entry method. Wow. So, yeah, talk about a black box. For this reason, I think that it is justifiable to know the technical details behind any product whose primary function is data security. But, hey, that's just me. Ok, moving on...
I wanted to post my whole IM conversation with Seagate here but it was too long to post comfortably in outright text format. I thought of various ways of condensing it but none seemed to fit the bill (wouldn't it be nice to have the ability to collapse and expand a portions of text in blogspot? Wait, maybe it has already been done?). So, I got this crazy idea to post a picture of the BlackArmor drive and embed the conversation as a plain text document with 128 bit AES encryption, in cipher block chaining mode pseudo seeded by the password to further protect access. Yeah, pretty nuts. Why go to all this work? Because I care about you. Or something like that. Anyway, it's late and I'm tired so here is the picture, and the password is contained within the alt text. Have fun and good luck.
What it takes to bring the Olympics to the PC
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10003752-56.html
Posted by Ina Fried
Stage 8H is best known as the place where Saturday Night Live is filmed. This week, though, it's been turned into an ad-hoc data center as part of NBC's efforts to stream thousands of hours of live Olympic coverage over the Internet.
Instead of the usual crop of comedians, NBC will have dozens of people watching every hour of the games, looking for highlights that it can chop up and make available on-demand. It's just one piece of an elaborate arrangement that shuttles the events in Beijing back to the U.S.
From each of the dozens of Olympic venues, a high-definition video feed is delivered over fiber-optic cables to the International Broadcast Center that has been set up in Beijing. A bunch of encoders and Windows Media servers get the video into an Internet-ready format. From there, it travels via satellite to NBC's headquarters in New York.
There, NBC actually adds a one-minute delay, allowing its cadre of live bloggers in Stamford, Conn., and elsewhere to write their text and have the video and commentary synchronized. Once ready, it goes from NBC to Limelight Networks, a content delivery network, which has 1,000 servers just for the live events sending the content to various Internet service providers, who then shuttle the content directly to their customers. (See chart below)
Making it play
Limelight Chief Strategy Officer Mike Gordon said his company is prepared for this to be the biggest live event the Internet has ever seen. "I would not be surprised at all to get 1 million viewers," he said. "We're certainly prepared for whatever the audience turns out to be."
That said, there is clearly an element of risk in all this, considering NBC's history of live Olympic streaming has been limited to broadcasting a single game, the gold medal ice hockey match in Torino, Italy, two years ago.
"NBC has always taken risks and is always trying to do more than it has in the past," said Perkins Miller, the NBC senior vice president in charge of the Internet push. "It does keep me up at night when I think about streaming 2,200 hours (of live coverage)."
The massive effort has come together in a remarkably short amount of time. Microsoft's deal to power NBCOlympics.com dates back only to January.
NBC had a pretty good idea what they wanted to do and had built some mock-ups of the player prior to deciding to partner with Microsoft.
Initially, they expected to use Adobe's Flash, given that is the standard for video delivered over the Internet these days. But, as they began to hash things out with Microsoft during a series of all-day meetings at NBC's 30 Rockefeller Plaza headquarters, Microsoft was able to show NBC some ways it could do more using its homegrown Silverlight technology.
Silverlight, Microsoft said, would be key to enabling NBC's vision of a "control room" in which a viewer could watch multiple live streams at once.
Even within Microsoft's team, though, there was some apprehension of whether it was doable.
"Can we actually pull this off?" Senior Technical Evangelist Jason Suess recalled thinking. "Is the user's machine going to be able to maintain four connections at one time?"
The key, Suess said in an interview at Microsoft headquarters last week, is using an approach known as adaptive streaming in which the player has the ability to customize the bit rate of the video stream based on a computer's connection and processing power.
By Valentine's Day, they were ready for a test. It was pretty important that the test work out, given that NBC was getting ready to crate up the gear to ship it off to Beijing.
"That was the first time the player came to life," Suess said. "Obviously the player was extremely crude."
Making it pay
One of the last pieces to fall into place was the advertising. Initially, NBC and Microsoft were hoping to be able to insert full video ads into the live streams, but doing so is tough work.
"You don't have any way to pause a live stream," Suess said. "Trying to deliver a video ad on top of that, you hit the limits of a user's bandwidth."
As of mid-April, they were still struggling with what to do and began considering that perhaps they would have to just rely on companion advertising around the video stream. Then they came up with an idea. Rather than insert full videos into the live streams, what if they stuck a display ad into the video, particularly during dead times in the action.
That, approach, which is ultimately what's being done, solved several issues. It was less bandwidth-intensive than video ads, but still got the advertiser directly in front of the viewer, all without interrupting any of the coverage. The amount of advertising will vary, Suess said; "It depends what is happening in the sports. We just wait for a dead space."
By early May, NBC made the basic player available on the Internet, using a variety of prerecorded Olympic video, and by early June the enhanced Silverlight player was made public as well. The Olympic Trials, at the end of June, offered the companies and the public a chance for a test drive.
At this point, it's come down to a triage of the few remaining known bugs. Each day, the bar is being raised in terms of what is a big enough deal to warrant such a late change. Suess, meanwhile, sent his wife and kids to visit family in New York so he could work 18-hour days.
In an interview last week, Suess said he had been at work until 1 a.m. the night before and gets in every morning by 8 a.m., so he can chat with the folks in Beijing before they sign off for the night.
"If I am not online and pushing things along, then I am introducing delay," Suess said.
An admitted type-A personality, Suess is a stickler for organization--the kind of guy whose desk is always clean. (His wife would probably use the word "compulsive," Suess said.)
Suess said he hopes things will be enough under control that he can actually watch some of the games, particularly sailing, of which he is a big fan. "I sure hope so," he said. "When I got involved in this project, that was one of the reasons."
Mig, I think your complaint is w/ NBC.
I don't know why they haven't spent some time and money promoting NBC Olympics On The Go... but I'm very glad Wave didn't spend anything promoting it. Especially if, as you believe, we won't see much money from it. Besides, they won't have any content until next Wednesday... unless they could broadcast their demo feeds.
As New Wave noted, Olympics on the Go lights up on Monday. You will see TVTonic/Beijing Olympics icon appearing on NBC.com, MSNBC.com, nbcolympics.com, and Microsoft's website. Users don't have to "figure out if their computer can handle it." The system will detect the presence of VISTA and automatically install. It is seamless, it is high-quality, and it is something I think will be wery successful.
So, let's unload it!!!
Trusted Computing, Take Two
http://www.darkreading.com/blog.asp?blog_sectionid=428&doc_id=160463&WT.svl=blogger1_4
JULY 31, 2008 | 10:30 AM -- A recent Dark Reading message board post in response to my previous blog was both articulate and intelligent. Nonetheless, I feel it missed the mark. (See Why Isn't Trusted Computing Taking Off?)
Here's what he/she said:
Perhaps it’s because trusted computing resolves just a small part of the data assurance problem. The ultimate goal is total control over business data flow, including regulation of data use by authorized users. A true trusted system protects data from all users on the systems... Information-centric security requires access authorization at the data-file level, post-authentication.
This is all true -- trusted computing does not solve all your data security woes. Still, I don’t think it claims to, nor do I think it needs to.
The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip built into so many desktop and laptop computers these days does indeed provide whole-disk encryption, should you wish to use it. This certainly slides into the data security category somewhere, and perhaps the confusion about trusted computing’s true purposes derives from there.
Whole-disk encryption doesn’t solve all of your data problems because while trusted computing can be used to authenticate users, devices, and applications during the start-up process, it sits back and leaves the post-authentication stuff to other security products. So if an authorized-but-naughty user starts emailing a bunch of confidential files to a competitor, the TPM won’t know. Further, if any data-hungry malware should come through the Internet to root through your databases, trusted computing won’t do a thing to stop it... until the next reboot, at which point the TPM chip will realize that this malicious application has not been whitelisted, and thus won’t be given the authority to run. So malware does get a shot at grabbing your data, but it only gets one shot.
Instead of thinking of trusted computing as a data security solution, I suggest thinking of it more as an endpoint security solution.
If your company has as many mobile workers toting laptops across the world as ours does, you're probably worried that one of those laptops will walk off or be left behind. And you’re probably worried that if that laptop wasn’t encrypted you’re going to get bashed by data breach disclosure laws (and morals) and have the news sites proclaim to the universe that you probably weren’t in compliance with other standards and regulations.
Whole-disk encryption via a TPM chip solves this problem.
You very well may also be considering a NAC solution, to both authenticate users before granting access to the network, and to check the “health” of the endpoint -- to make sure it’s equipped with up-to-date antivirus software and the like. Yet, by marrying NAC to The Trusted Networking Group’s Trusted Network Connect standards -- which build upon the TPM chip -- trusted computing can accomplish both these things, but it can also disallow a user access to the files stored on the endpoint machine, not just disallow access to the network. (However, I’m not certain how one deals with guest users -- their hardware might not have a TPM and might not be recognized. I’m looking into this.)
Further, as mentioned previously, trusted computing does what the typical antivirus software -- using blacklist systems -- cannot do, and bolsters your anti-malware protections. Further, since it only gives Web-borne malware one chance to do their worst, it makes bot code far less worrisome.
So while trusted computing doesn’t solve all your woes -- and indeed, what does? -- it seems to me that its contributions to endpoint security, anti-malware, compliance, and ROI efforts have earned the right to your consideration.
Internet,
I thought Q2 had to be reported by Aug 10, which falls on a Sunday. That's why I was looking for a report on the 5th, 6th, or 7th. My hunch is the 6th, since they'll be able to highlight tvTonic's broadcast of the soccer games. jmo.
Army looks for common IT ground
http://www.gcn.com/print/27_18/46753-1.html
Despite making strides in expanding network-centric operations, the Army still must address the challenges of network standardization by working with other armed forces to establish interoperable tools and promote information sharing, Army officials said last week at Army IT Day in Vienna, Va. AFCEA International sponsored the conference.
Most expeditionary capabilities are network-dependent, and the establishment of the Army LandWarNet has been a major step toward more network-based operations, said Brig. Gen. Brian Donahue, director of the LandWarNet Directorate in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff.
LandWarNet is the Army’s contribution to the Defense Department’s Global Information Grid (GIG), a network for delivering information on demand to warfighters, commanders and support personnel worldwide.
The Army Signal Corps has been a main conveyor of LandWarNet as it supports warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown us that the network is flat, it is inextricably linked,” said Maj. Denise Brown, III U.S. Corps operations officer in the 3rd Signal Brigade.
“Everybody has the ability to touch the GIG,” said Brown, who has served two tours in Iraq. “What that means is that we need to start looking at network tools that provide us with shared situational awareness from the lowest level to the highest level.”
“I’m not saying we need one toolset that everybody has to use,” she said. “But my recommendation is that if it is plug-and-play, it has to be interoperable.”
Network standardization continues to be a challenge. For example, the Air Force has one standard for information assurance, the Army another, Brown said.
“The problem is the difference in our vision,” she said. “How they secure their network from the beginning and how we secure ours is different, and it creates a problem when you try to connect the two.”
Brig. Gen. Susan Lawrence, commanding general of the Army’s Network Enterprise Technology Command/9th Signal Command, echoed those sentiments in a later presentation at the conference.
The Air Force and Army have two different biometric programs that are not compatible, which made it difficult to interact in Iraq using Common Access Cards.
Lawrence also said there is a growing need for multilevel security because on any given day Army personnel on the battlefield could be dealing with different coalition partners at a moment’s notice. “Instead of building new boxes, we need to get [more] rulesbased solutions,” she said.
Given that scenario, there is a need for more SIPRLite networks, she said, referring to the Secure IP Router Network used by DOD and the State Department to transmit classified information.
In fact, the Army’s III U.S. Corps G/6 Multinational Corp-Iraq had to build such a network to give partners in the Iraqi Army access to information, said Col. Gerald Daniels.
The Army is moving to a smaller and more powerful footprint to better meet the needs of the battle command, Lawrence said.
On any given day, the Army might have to deal with a hurricane hitting the U.S., an earthquake in Pakistan, or a pre-emptive strike by one country against an ally — with all activities supported by the same network.
That means the transformation of all the armed services, combatant commands, other government agencies and multinational enterprises into a whole greater than the sum of its parts, Lawrence said.
For the Army, that entails adopting a culture of information sharing.
“Sharing is not something we do,” said Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army’s chief information officer.
However, the Army is looking to change that culture with a greater emphasis on knowledge management.
The Army has established knowledge management centers such as the Warfighter Forum sponsored by the Army Forces Command, Sorenson said. The Heavy Brigade Combat Team in Freeport, Texas, and the Stryker Warfighter Forum in Fort Lewis, Wash., are forums that anyone with access to Army Knowledge Online can access to learn what warfighters are doing, he added.
Microsoft using Beijing Olympics to boost Silverlight takeup
Webcasting of the Bejing 2008 Olympic Games by NBC and MSN could be the Trojan Horse that gets Microsoft's Silverlight 2 onto a large number of PCs in America.
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/19744/53/
Silverlight is Microsoft's software for delivering rich Internet applications. It competes with Flash, which Adobe claims is installed on 99 percent of Internet-enabled PCs worldwide.
Perhaps the most significant difference between the two is that Silverlight was designed to appeal to Windows developers by providing a subset of the .NET framework. Silverlight projects can be coded in C#, Visual Basic and JavaScript.
NBC and MSN will be showing more than 3000 hours of live and on-demand content during the games, with up to 20 simultaneous streams from at least 34 sports. Individual users will be able to watch up to four streams simultaneously, and Silverlight automatically and dynamically adjusts the delivery bit rate in accordance with network conditions.
"NBCOlympics.com on MSN will give sports fans an Olympics experience online like never before, allowing them to watch what they want, when they want," said Perkins Miller, senior vice president of digital media for NBC Universal Sports & Olympics.
"Microsoft’s Silverlight 2 technology will give users a remarkable online Olympics experience. The combination of MSN and Silverlight will truly put the users in control," he added.
The coverage will include results, statistics and athlete information. Users will be able to set alerts for particular events, and share the feed they are currently watching with a friend.
Is SIlverlight essential for watching the NBC/MSN Olympics coverage?
While Silverlight is required for the full user experience, it is not essential for watching Olympics coverage online.
"There will be a basic Web experience available for PC users who opt not to install Silverlight," said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Microsoft's developer division.
That's a sensible plan, as there is considerable resistance to Silverlight in some quarters. For example, the debut of the New York Times' Times Reader application for Mac OS X drew vocal criticism for its use of Silverlight.
According to some analysts, Silverlight needs to be on between 50 and 80 percent of Internet-enabled PCs before it will be a mainstream choice for web developers. Microsoft's Silverlight strategy appears to be based on getting it adopted by high profile sites such as Discovery Channel, Entertainment Tonight, World Wrestling Entertainment, Major League Baseball and now NBC's Olympics coverage as a way of encouraging the public to install the player.
Silverlight 2 is currently in beta, and is expected to be released later this summer.
NBC Olympics On The Go!
By Andy Anderson
We’re happy to report that NBC Olympics On The Go has launched! TVTonic is powering this new service that allows Vista Media Center viewers to subscribe to their sports of choice and watch in up-to-HD quality. ...
TVTonic News - http://www.tvtonic.com/news
Snackman,
In my mind, I see SKS trading the potential for large ad revenue for the ability to showcase the capabilities of WavExpress/tvTonic in preparation for an eventual partner infusion or sale. JMO
Mig, there will be something
but just how much is the $64,000 question:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3id4bf6e72d9d5fd61993ead5928d1835e
The video downloads, called NBC Olympics on the Go, will be available for people who are running Microsoft Vista Media Center through TVTonic.com, a broadband media service from New York-based Wavexpress.
"Watching on TVTonic is a much more TV-like experience than streaming video online," TVTonic president Michael Sprague said. "Olympics on the Go is an extension of NBC's already breathtaking plans for online coverage."
TVTonic users will be able to cache video of Michael Phelps swimming to his first gold and watch it at their leisure, much in the way they have been able to download content from more than 100 video channels since Wavexpress partnered with Microsoft at the launch of Vista in 2007.
Using TV Tonic requires Windows Media Center, an application included in 80% of the 100 million Vista PCs shipped, Wavexpress said.
NBC Olympics on the Go is advertising supported and will have major sponsors, said Sprague, who declined to disclose the cut Wavexpress gets from the ad sales NBC controls. TVTonic users will be able to select from among the most popular sports including beach volleyball, swimming, gymnastics and basketball, all of which they'll be able to organize, pause, rewind, fast forward and rewatch videos with the click of a mouse.
Q&A: Micrsoft, NBC,Silverlight, and the Olympiccs:
http://www.prdomain.com/companies/M/Microsoft/newsreleases/200873060307.htm
Microsoft and NBC Deliver Groundbreaking Online Olympics Viewing Experience
Q&A: Executives from MSN, NBC and Microsoft offer details behind the largest online broadcasting event in history
29 Jul 2008 , Redmond, Wash : Earlier this year Microsoft and NBC Universal announced plans to make NBCOlympics.com on MSN the official online home of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The partnership is expected to result in the largest online broadcasting event in history, offering viewers a new level of choice and flexibility in Olympics coverage.
To get the story behind how Microsoft and NBC are working together, what advantages viewers will experience from this partnership, and an innovative new Web application developed for the event based on Microsoft Silverlight 2, PressPass recently spoke with Erik Jorgensen, corporate vice president of MSN, Perkins Miller, senior vice president of digital media for NBC Universal Sports & Olympics, and Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft.
PressPass: What can users expect from online coverage on NBCOlympics.com?
Miller: NBCOlympics.com on MSN will give sports fans an Olympics experience online like never before, allowing them to watch what they want, when they want. At its peak, NBCOlympics.com will broadcast 20 simultaneous streams online in the richest video format available on the Web today. To put this into perspective, if you made watching the 2008 Summer Olympics a full-time job, it would take you more than two and a half years to watch all the content.
Jorgensen: NBCOlympics.com on MSN will give Olympics fans exclusive access to more than 3,000 hours of live and on-demand video content, all through an immersive and interactive video experience that will redefine how sports fans consume content online. This partnership builds on the momentum MSN achieved with Live Earth and demonstrates the value of the MSN Network as an online media distributor to content partners looking to gain maximum exposure online.
PressPass: Why did NBC choose to work with Microsoft to broadcast Olympics coverage online? What makes this project unique?
Miller: We first approached MSN after the tremendous work they did on the Live Earth event last year. That was a huge undertaking for MSN and our goal was very similar: making the 2008 summer games the most widely watched Olympics online. MSN’s significant distribution and massive audience reach were critical to our decision-making. In addition, Microsoft’s Silverlight 2 technology will give users a remarkable online Olympics experience. The combination of MSN and Silverlight will truly put the users in control.
Jorgensen: When you factor in the live streaming requirements, we believe that only Windows Media can deliver the necessary scalability, reliability and return on investment (ROI) for large events such as the Olympics. Through this partnership, Microsoft and NBC are going to raise the bar for Internet broadcasting. NBCOlympics.com on MSN will be available free to MSN visitors and will offer users direct access to over 34 Olympic sport categories and more than 300 times the video content that was available for the 2004 Olympic Games. Video content will be available in both short and long formats, and at multiple bit rates.
PressPass: How does NBCOlympics.comexperience use Silverlight?
Guthrie: Microsoft’s Silverlight technology will allow NBC to deliver Olympics content to a broad U.S. Internet audience through an immersive and interactive video experience that includes not only some of the highest-quality video on the Web today, but enhanced data such as results and athlete information that can be overlaid on the video stream. NBC has been using Silverlight to broadcast content since the Olympic trials earlier this summer, and all live and on-demand content will be viewable via Silverlight during the games.
Silverlight enables new types of functionality, such as the “control room” view, which allows multiple streams of video to be previewed simultaneously, enabled by the playback performance of Windows Media video on PCs and Macs. The picture-in-picture feature will allow viewers to watch multiple feeds simultaneous and quickly switch to the current feed that interests them most, all in high-quality video. Other features enable users to set alerts so they won’t miss their favorite event, and the ability to share a feed they’re watching with a friend. Adaptive streaming provides the best possible streaming experience for the viewer, regardless of network conditions, via sophisticated techniques that adjust the delivery bit rate on the fly.
PressPass: Will users be required to download Silverlight to watch content on NBCOlympics.com on MSN?
Guthrie: There’s been some confusion about what’s required to watch the Olympics online. There will be a basic Web experience available for PC users who opt not to install Silverlight. However, for those users who do not already have Silverlight installed, it takes just four to 10 seconds to download. Silverlight will power a great user experience on both Macs and PCs, and these users will experience many unique features.
PressPass: What else can viewers expect when they log on to the NBCOlympics.com on MSN?
Miller: When we set out to develop NBCOlympics.com on MSN, it was a priority to provide users with the opportunity to watch their favorite sporting events and athletes at the most convenient times, as well as to provide them with additional content to enhance their viewing experience. The user has the power to make his or her own choice about what to watch and when. They can choose live Ping-Pong at 3 a.m., gold-medal swimming highlights during their lunch hour, full-game basketball replays during dinner — the options are virtually endless. We’re also providing additional content and information, so viewers will see a video window flanked by athlete bios, related videos, medal counts and other relevant statistics. For live events, users will also get live play-by-play commentary directly from Beijing.
PressPass: What are the general advantages of Silverlight for developing these kinds of rich Web applications?
Guthrie: Silverlight 2 delivers much more than just media scenarios. One of the key advantages of Silverlight 2 is that it includes a cross-browser, cross-platform version of the Microsoft .NET Framework, specifically optimized for rich Internet applications (RIAs). That means you can build Silverlight applications using .NET languages. The large talent pool of more than 4 million .NET developers worldwide is now able to create RIAs using their existing skills. Today, Silverlight supports JavaScript, Visual Basic, and C#, so developers can write code for any client, platform or browser, with any of those languages.
Silverlight 2 also includes a rich user interface (UI) framework, which is a subset of the full Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) UI framework that we ship on the desktop as part of the .NET Framework today. This gives developers a really rich foundation to build applications. It provides advanced features like layout management, so that as pages or controls are resized, it can automatically adapt and modify the layout of the content within. It includes data binding support, to enable rich data scenarios while maintaining model/view separation. It also includes a very rich skinning, styling and animation system, which allows developers to customize the look of the applications.
There are a number of other great features developers can get excited about, but what it really boils down to is that Silverlight is a modern platform expressly built for developing RIAs.
PressPass: Will NBC's Olympic coverage be the first outing for Silverlight?
Guthrie: While the NBCOlympics.com on MSN will be the largest Silverlight application to date, it is by no means the first. Silverlight 1.0 was released in April 2007, and since then it has been deployed by many leading innovative media and enterprise customers, such as AOL, Aston Martin, Cirque de Soleil, Entertainment Tonight, Hard Rock International, Home Shopping Network, NBA and Universal, just to name a few. In addition, next month the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) will use Silverlight 2 to bring live, gavel-to-gavel convention video coverage of the highest quality to a worldwide audience via the DNCC’s Web site at DemConvention.com. Silverlight multimedia applications will provide an all-access pass for the convention’s online audience, offering an unprecedented opportunity for viewers to individually tailor their convention experiences.
NBC's Digital Olympics Unveiled
Olympics fans will have a bevy of opportunities to get content from NBC Universal next month -- 2,200 hours of live online coverage, live events on their mobile phone and even a way to download coverage to computers with Microsoft Vista. The network announced plans that will encompass many of the digital platforms in use today. It also will include fantasy and casual gaming, VOD and interactive TV. Major partners include Microsoft, Amazon Unbox, Schematic and many others. One of the many features in the Schematic player is a continuous closed caption stream of live commentary, which viewers can read and navigate even if they have the sound down. For the first time, mobile is a big part with NBC Olympics Mobile. That includes a mobile Web site, text and e-mail alerts plus mobile video and NBCOlympics 2Go, a mobile channel with event coverage that runs on NBC, USA, MSNBC and CNBC. The video downloads, called NBC Olympics on the Go, will be available for people who are running Microsoft Vista Media Center through TVTonic.com, a broadband media service from New York-based Wavexpress.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3id4bf6e72d9d5fd6182230c3a368a8b
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-10-days-and-counting-nbcus-digital-olympics-the-full-slate-of-offerings/
trustco, check out 4Xcsl's post:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=31034296
Must read: NBC Unveils Comprehensive Digital Olympics Plan
"Breathtaking Plans!!!!!?"
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i9154afd0680ec28a96abc322ec78e630
Video streaming, mobile and Microsoft Vista are the star players on network's team
July 29, 2008
-By Paul J. Gough and Jonathan Landreth, The Hollywood Reporter
The video downloads, called NBC Olympics on the Go, will be available for people who are running Microsoft Vista Media Center through TVTonic.com, a broadband media service from New York-based Wavexpress.
NEW YORK Olympics fans will have a bevy of opportunities to get content from NBC Universal next month -- 2,200 hours of live online coverage, live events on their mobile phone and even a way to download coverage to computers with Microsoft Vista.
The network announced plans that will encompass many of the digital platforms in use today. It also will include fantasy and casual gaming, VOD and interactive TV. Major partners include Microsoft, Amazon Unbox, Schematic and many others.
NBC's digital Olympics coverage has evolved quickly, beginning with one hockey game streamed on the Web in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Now there's not one Summer Olympics sport that won't get the full treatment, not only blanket video coverage but also audio play-by-play and commentary and live blogging by NBC Sports experts. That's quite a change for fans of fencing or kayaking, for example, where the sports got comparatively short shrift compared to other disciplines.
NBCOlympics.com's player was built by Schematic on the foundation of Microsoft's Silverlight 2 platform, an alternative to Adobe Flash. The Schematic player will be used for viewers who want to choose from coverage of four live events totaling 2,200 hours or the 3,600 hours of on-demand coverage, including what was on TV sometime after it was aired. Schematic has vast experience with video players, designing ABC.com's as well as CNN Pipeline, among others.
"What we're trying to accomplish with the NBC Olympics site is to allow people to watch as much of the Olympics as they care to," Schematic CEO/founder Trevor Kaufman said. "Every minute of every event is available through the player."
One of the many features in the Schematic player is a continuous closed caption stream of live commentary, which viewers can read and navigate even if they have the sound down.
There's a few minutes of time required for the user to get up to speed with the player, but Kaufman said it's well worth learning. Matthew Rechs, Schematic's chief technology officer, said that one of the player's features would easily allow users to see the top video streams and on-demand coverage.
"It'll be fun to see what people enjoy watching," Rechs said. "This is a way of browsing through the stuff that was on television without having to try to dig it out elsewhere."
For the first time, mobile is a big part with NBC Olympics Mobile. That includes a mobile Web site, text and e-mail alerts plus mobile video and NBCOlympics 2Go, a mobile channel with event coverage that runs on NBC, USA, MSNBC and CNBC.
The video downloads, called NBC Olympics on the Go, will be available for people who are running Microsoft Vista Media Center through TVTonic.com, a broadband media service from New York-based Wavexpress.
"Watching on TVTonic is a much more TV-like experience than streaming video online," TVTonic president Michael Sprague said. "Olympics on the Go is an extension of NBC's already breathtaking plans for online coverage."
TVTonic users will be able to cache video of Michael Phelps swimming to his first gold and watch it at their leisure, much in the way they have been able to download content from more than 100 video channels since Wavexpress partnered with Microsoft at the launch of Vista in 2007.
Using TV Tonic requires Windows Media Center, an application included in 80 percent of the 100 million Vista PCs shipped, Wavexpress said.
NBC Olympics on the Go is advertising supported and will have major sponsors, said Sprague, who declined to disclose the cut Wavexpress gets from the ad sales NBC controls. TVTonic users will be able to select from among the most popular sports including beach volleyball, swimming, gymnastics and basketball, all of which they'll be able to organize, pause, rewind, fast forward and rewatch videos with the click of a mouse.
The breadth and depth of coverage online, as well as the three-week-long games, invites comparisons to the other big online sporting event, CBS Sports' March Madness on Demand. There's no comparable "boss button" like on the CBS Sports online player, but the same potential question is there. How many workers are going to be tuning in to see their favorite Olympic sports live over the Web?
It probably won't be a problem in terms of wide traffic because unlike MMOD, NBC isn't streaming every event live. Several of the key primetime events are going to be only available live on TV. That means that it's still unclear about how much of an impact it will have on workers' productivity, said Jason Kint, general manager of CBS Sports Interactive who runs MMOD. Kint thinks that the productivity dampening aspects of March Madness on Demand are more overblown, anyway.
"This is three weeks, which is a lot different" than the heavy demand CBS Sports gets for the first weekend of MMOD, Kint said. "But again, if it's not the finals or gymnastics, it's not the major events that are live on TV, I don't know what kind of effect it'll have on the workplace." Not all of it will be live, however.
Yes, you should encrypt your drives…
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/30428
Submitted by tkopczynski on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 8:12pm.
Yup, I can agree with that statement... After all, I consider FDE as a default pillar in any good information loss protection framework.
Yet for some reason, it seems that most IT shops have now become entranced within the data loss protection (DLP) hype. Thus, DLP has now become everyone's favorite silver bullet. And, a lot of DLP companies are preying on this fallacy by pushing their products as end-all solutions to IT shops desperately seeking to fulfill, regulatory compliance needs, an executives whim, or even possibly used to correct holes found after their latest security incident.
Whatever the case, FDE should also be a default standard in all IT organizations. If it's not, then you are behind. Or even worse, if you fear FDE or don't understand why if should be part of your information protection strategy. Then feel free to start a conversation. Your fears or doubts should be addressed.
On another note, I was a little bothered that the author of the FDE post, only seemed to focus on software based solutions. In my opinion, Software FDE's days are numbered. If you are currently deploying it continue. Heck, even use the open source solution TrueCrypt. If you don't have FDE deployed or in the pipe then please take a gander at what is coming down within the Hardware FDE space.
Sunday Night Football to be streamed LIVE
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/25885336/
'Extra' football to be available on NFL.com and NBCSports.com
NBC Sports
updated 7:16 a.m. PT, Mon., July. 28, 2008
The 17-game Sunday Night Football schedule will be available to fans on NBC as well as streamed live on NFL.com and NBCSports.com, the NFL and NBC announced today. The new Sunday Night Football Extra marks the first time complete NFL games will be widely available in the U.S. via live online streaming.
The live NFL.com and NBCSports.com coverage will come from NBC’s TV coverage of Sunday Night Football. Complementing that stream will be a number of extra features to enrich the viewing experience including additional camera angles, in-game highlights, picture-in-picture technology, live statistics and other interactive elements. Sunday Night Football Extra will also include in-game studio updates from the NBC Football Night in America team and NFL Network talent.
Sunday Night Football Extra will debut with NFL Kickoff 2008 on Thursday, Sept. 4 at 7:00 PM ET (Washington Redskins at New York Giants). NFL.com and NBCSports.com will feature the audio from NBC’s Sunday Night Football team: Al Michaels (play-by-play), John Madden (analyst) and Andrea Kremer (sideline reporter).
“This is an exciting step forward for us as we offer our fans a new way to consume NFL games,” said Steve Bornstein, NFL Executive Vice President of Media. “We are combining NBC’s outstanding Sunday Night Football telecast with extras that will enhance the fan enjoyment of the game.”
“In the first two seasons of 'NBC Sunday Night Football,' we created a new destination to reach viewers and changed traditional primetime football viewing habits,” said Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Universal Sports & Olympics. "Now, together with the NFL, we are adding the live streaming element where users can interact with the broadcast to enhance their experience while watching the NFL’s premier primetime game.”
Following is a look at the highlights of Sunday Night Football Extra on NFL.com and NBCSports.com:
Alternative Camera Angles – Fans can choose from multiple extra camera angles, including cable cam and “star cam” (camera following a star player).
Picture-In-Picture Technology – Fans can watch multiple video streams at the same time.
In-Game Highlights – If they missed anything earlier in the game, fans can access highlights on-demand.
Live Stats – Up-to-the minute game data along with player and team statistics.
Live Interactivity – Fans can interact with NBC’s Football Night in America cast and NFL Network talent via a live blog.
Complete Sunday Night Football Schedule
(Kickoff, 8:15 p.m. ET preceded by “Football Night in America,” 7 p.m. ET)
Thursday, Sept. 4 – Washington Redskins at New York Giants
(* 7 p.m. ET start due to Republican National Convention)
Sunday, Sept. 7 – Chicago Bears at Indianapolis Colts
Sunday, Sept. 14 – Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns
Sunday, Sept. 21 – Dallas Cowboys at Green Bay Packers
Sunday, Sept. 28 – Philadelphia Eagles at Chicago Bears
Sunday, Oct. 5 – Pittsburgh Steelers at Jacksonville Jaguars
Sunday, Oct. 12 – New England Patriots at San Diego Chargers
Sunday, Oct. 19 – Seattle Seahawks at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sunday, Oct. 26 – No game scheduled due to World Series Game 4 (FNIA airs 7-8 p.m.)
Sunday, Nov. 2 – New England Patriots at Indianapolis Colts
Sunday, Nov. 9 – New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles
Sunday, Nov. 16 – Dallas Cowboys at Washington Redskins (Flex Week, Teams Subject to Change)
Sunday, Nov. 23 – Indianapolis Colts at San Diego Chargers (Flex Week, Teams Subject to Change)
Sunday, Nov. 30 – Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings (Flex Week, Teams Subject to Change)
Sunday, Dec. 7 – New England Patriots at Seattle Seahawks (Flex Week, Teams Subject to Change)
Sunday, Dec. 14 – New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys (Flex Week, Teams Subject to Change)
Sunday, Dec. 21 – San Diego at Tampa Bay (Flex Week, Teams Subject to Change)
Sunday, Dec. 28 – (Flex Week, Teams TBA)
© 2008 NBC Sports
URL: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/25885336/
You say Express Gate, I say Palladium
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Futures, Silicon, virtualisation, Hardware, Laptop, Mobile, Security, Intel, Microsoft on July 28, 2008 at 12:41 pm
http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/maryb/2008/07/28/you-say-express-gate-i-say-palladium/
Imagine a second, simpler operating system on your PC with fixed features, so it’s more secure - after all, if you can’t add more programs you can’t add a virus either. It would have to start up quickly, so that Windows wasn’t waiting for it, so it would be ideal for listening to music and watching video. I’m not thinking about virtualization per se, although that’s one way to achieve something similar; this is two operating systems side by side, both with access to the PC hardware, but one of them does much more limited and circumscribed things.
Can you tell what it is yet?
No, actually, I’m not talking about Palladium - sorry, Microsoft Next Generation Secure Computing Base. That grew out of an attempt to reassure Sony that it would be OK to allow DVD movies to play on a PC without piracy becoming endemic and turned into a much more useful and visionary idea about using public key cryptography not to identify people but to secure machines. It would have been a good way to implement the DRM it was associated with in the public eye, though wouldn’t have forced it on anyone who didn’t want to run it. Palladium loaded a secure piece of software called the TOR that acted as a secure area that could only run trusted code (written to public APIs), where the apps would be invisible to the main OS - all secured by the machine-specific key in your TPM and some new technology from Intel.
Ironically, trust was the issue with Palladium; nobody trusted Microsoft to either be building a secure system that didn’t impact on a very robust interpretation of free speech or if it was, to do it right. The smallest part of the concept made it in a couple of versions of Vista as BitLocker; whole disk encryption secured by the TPM.
But the Palladium concepts are showing up in a lot of other places, including the NSA’s Security Enhanced Linux and Citrix’s Security Enhanced Xen - a small OS that runs as a secure virtual machine with isolated applications, using the TPM and Intel’s new hardware virtualization technology …
Intel even uses the words Trusted Computing Base, which might be a hostage to fortune given the fate of Palladium. The DRM discussion hasn’t started yet, but there’s a trusted channel to the keyboard, mouse, memory - and the graphics subsystem, which is what some thought would allow copy-protected DVDs to be watched in the secure area of Palladium, without the option to copy them. This time around it’s more likely to be copy-protected downloads: killing off HD DVD has actually made Blu-Ray less likely to get mass adoption, as player and disc prices stay high.
There are far more benefits to Palladium-style secure computing than protecting the movie industry or saving the banking industry from having to upgrade anti-fraud backends. You may keep your AV up to date and your company documents secure, but one in six of all PCs that touch the Google site has a bot and they’re all sending you spam.
And while the systems that look so much like Palladium that I get déjà vu are still a little way off, Asus is already selling machines with Express Gate. Granted, this is more like the embedded operating systems you see on a lot of media notebooks; it boots up in eight seconds and lets you see your photos and play your music. It has an Internet connection, so you can browse the Web without waiting for Windows. But it also uses the TPM in Montevina and you can treat it as an isolated operating system, says the press release: “Friends and family can use your notebook to nip online, use IM, listen to music, play and view without having access to your data, the system or the Windows environment.” Very Palladian.
dreamer, what you're saying is "I'm willing to pay up tp $22 per share, but not a penny more." If the stock is trading anywhere under $22, that's what you'll pay. If the stock gaps down to $19, you'll fill there. If it gaps up to $22, you pay $22. Basically, you'll pay whatevet the market price is up to your $22 limit.
Are you dreaming about Wave?? LOL
barge, interesting consumer application!!
Car PC puts Atom in single DIN slot
Further internal expansion includes a PCI Express x 1 slot, a Compact Flash socket, and space for a 2.5-inch hard disk drive. In addition, the device can accept a TPM (trusted platform module) and USB-based SSD (solid state disk), according to the company.
Portwell has introduced an interesting Intel Atom-based PC aimed at in-car entertainment. The PCS-8230 fits into a single DIN slot, offers TV tuner, WiFi, and GPS modules, has a SDIO slot and a 2.5-inch hard drive bay, and delivers six channels of analog audio, says Portwell.
The PCS-8230 measures 7.5 x 7.1 x 1.96 inches, which enables it to fit into the single DIN slot offered on many vehicle dashboards, according to Portwell. And it appears to cram a lot into that footprint, beginning with Intel's 1.1GHz Atom Z510 processor and SCH (system controller hub) US15W companion chip. Via a single 200-pin SO-DIMM slot, the fanless device accepts up to 1GB of DDR2 memory.
Portwell's PCS-8230 provides six channels of analog audio output
As the above photo shows, the PCS-8230 sports a SDIO slot and two USB ports on its front panel. At the rear, there are four further USB ports, a VGA output, and an RS232 port. In addition, there are six discrete analog jacks, providing 5:1 surround sound. These jacks presumably need to be connected to a car's audio amplifier; still, they're a welcome and comparatively rare addition, since some PCs that claim surround sound provide it only via a digital output.
Other "infotainment" features on the PCS-8230 are said to include a DVB-T (digital video broadcasting terrestrial) TV tuner, Bluetooth, WiFi, and GPS. Not necessarily standard in all configurations, these features are added via modules that connect to two internal SDIO slots.
Further internal expansion includes a PCI Express x 1 slot, a Compact Flash socket, and space for a 2.5-inch hard disk drive. In addition, the device can accept a TPM (trusted platform module) and USB-based SSD (solid state disk), according to the company.
The PCS-8230 includes an internal DC-to-DC converter, allowing it to accept input power ranging from 6VDC to 24VDC. Its back panel also has an antenna input, usable either for WiFi or for the TV tuner, the company says.
Features and specifications listed by Portwell for the PCS-8230 include:
Processor -- Intel Atom Z510 clocked at 1.1GHz
Memory -- Up to 1GB of 553MHz DDR2 RAM
Storage -- includes 2.5-inch hard disk drive bay and Compact Flash socket
Networking -- WiFi (optional module)
Other I/O:
2 x USB 2.0 (front panel)
4 x USB (rear panel)
1 x VGA
1 x RS232
6 analog audio outputs (5:1 surround sound)
Expansion:
Compact Flash slot
PCI Express x 1 slot
3 x SDIO slots (1 external, 2 internal)
Operating temperature -- 0 to 50 deg. C (-40 to 80 deg. C "available by request")
Dimensions -- 7.5 x 7.1 x 1.96 inches
Portwell did not provide any explicit word about operating system choices, but the PCS-8230 is said to support both Windows and Linux. Pricing was not listed, but more information may be available from the company's website, here.
Why Isn't Trusted Computing Taking Off?
http://www.darkreading.com/blog.asp?blog_sectionid=428&doc_id=159949&WT.svl=tease2_2
JULY 24, 2008 | 1:45 PM -- Authentication measures are generally built with the purpose of limiting/granting access to users. Trusted computing -- based upon the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), a hardware-based cryptographic processor developed by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) -- doesn’t just authenticate users, but also authenticates applications and devices.
Most security measures -- access control, encryption, etc. -- are generally achieved through software. Yet trusted computing achieves many of these same security measures through hardware (thus, requiring an attacker to attain the harder-to-attain physical access).
The TPM chip can protect data (and satisfy a lot of compliance requirements) through whole-disk encryption and provides a secure environment for storing encryption keys.
By marrying the TPM with some components of network access control (NAC) solutions (this is what TCG’s Trusted Network Connect series of standards is all about), you can go further than simply verifying the “health” of a device -- you actually authenticate it. Thus, just knowing credentials isn’t enough to gain access -- an attacker must also have physical access to the device.
Trusted computing reduces reliance on passwords and takes the responsibility for many security controls out of the hands of end users -- both so they can’t accidentally/ignorantly do insecure things and so that they can’t intentionally circumvent security controls.
And it does all this inexpensively, using hardware you’ve probably already got. TPM chips are in somewhere near 200 million computers, including Macs.
Yet actual use of the TPM is limited -- how limited is unclear, since those numbers are hard to get. So we’ll be gathering our own numbers. In August, we at the Computer Security Institute will survey our member base on their trusted computing practices and perspectives. (Trusted computing will also be the topic of one of our new summits at the Computer Security Institute (CSI) , is a well-rounded geek-at-large with particular enthusiasm for Web 2.0 security, vulnerability disclosure law, and cartoons about ninjas.
Recycling Drives - Update
from a blog.........
http://storagearchitect.blogspot.com/2008/07/recycling-drives-update.html
Last week I posted about wasted hard drives, removed from arrays and crushed to prevent the leak of sensitive data.
I contacted HGST and Seagate to get some additional background. Here are their responses, slightly edited to correct any spelling mistakes but otherwise intact.
Seagate
(a) when will the technology be deployed in Enterprise FC drives? Our OEMs are currently developing with the Cheetah 15K.6 FDE, a drive that Seagate has already in production.
(b) is the technology proprietary to Seagate? - No, this will becompliant with the Trusted Computing Group's spec. All hard drive vendors are participating in this Trusted Computing Group and we expect that they will have self-encrypting drives that will be inter-operable with ours.
(c) is DriveTrust accepted by the US Government and other similar organisations as secure enough to treat a drive as "wiped" if the encryption keys are removed? Endorsement from National Security Agency (NSA) has already been received for the 1st Self-Encrypting Drive Model-the Momentus(r) 5400 FDE hard drive, for protection of information in computers deployed by U.S. government agencies and contractors for national security purposes.
(d) are any of the "big" manufacturers (EMC/HDS/IBM) looking to deploy DriveTrust enabled drives in storage arrays? IBM and LSI have both publicly announced that they will do so. Note that Hitachi has also just announced a self-encrypting drive, the Deskstar E7K1000, a drive designed for business critical storage systems.
(e) Where do the drives go when they're wiped for final disposal? Extra shipping is involved to ship a drive to a special data destruction service facility, where it can be degaussed or shredded, and then the drive must be shipped to [be] environmentally disposed of. Alternatively, a drive may be over written, a process that takes hours and hours, using energy and tying up system resources, and then may be re-purposed.
HGST
My name is Masaru Masuda, working on product planning for Hitachi GST. Let me try to answer your question. Like Raj mentioned below, we have already supported bulk encryption feature for 2.5" and 3.5"and will support it to Enterprise product next year. With the bulk encryption feature, user data on the HDD media is automatically and always encrypted by the SoC inside [the] HDD. The security feature has two basic functions. One is active protection of data (encryption with secret key) and secure erase of the drive by deleting the encryption key for repurposing or disposal. As you pointed out, Standardization is a key for security. Therefore, a non profit security organization called TCG (Trusted Computing Group) was formed as described in the page 5 and 6 of the attached package. We have been very actively involved in the activities of TCG and plan to pick up security feature based on TCG standards which will be implemented from next year.The security market is still small but it has been growing steadily due to the data security concern and also as a fast and cheap solution for repurposing of drives in Server applications or disposal of failed drives. Also we have had a recycling process for drives failed in the internal testing and for drives returned from the field.
Thanks to both companies for their responses.
Full disk encryption spreading!!!!!!!
http://blocksandfiles.com/article/6135
All hard drive vendors are taking part in the Trusted Computing Group's work. It's expected that all encrypting hard drives will interoperate with a separate key management function.
Could encourage drive re-use instead of scrapping
UK storage expert Chris Evans has unearthed full disk encryption (FDE) information from Seagate and Hitachi GST which indicates that FDE could become a staple enterprise hard drive requirement in some markets.
Seagate said its OEMS are developing enterprise systems (drive arrays) using its FDE Cheetah 15K.6 drive. IBM and LSI have said they will deploy FDE drives in some array products. The FDE Seagate uses is compliant with the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) disk encryption specification (presentation downloadable below). Hitachi GST has announced a FDE drive. All hard drive vendors are taking part in the Trusted Computing Group's work. It's expected that all encrypting hard drives will interoperate with a separate key management function.
The US NSA treats a Seagate Momentus FDE hard drive as having had its contents deleted if the encryption keys are deleted.
A Hitachi GST representative said: "We have already supported bulk encryption feature for 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch (drive products) and will support it to Enterprise product next year. ... We have been very actively involved in the activities of TCG and plan to pick up security feature based on TCG standards which will be implemented from next year. The security market is still small but it has been growing steadily due to the data security concern and also as a fast and cheap solution for repurposing of drives in Server applications or disposal of failed drives."
Chris Evans goes into the green implications of this in terms of the energy needed to dispose of hard drives.
[Chris Mellor.]
Download file: Trusted Computing Group storage security presentation June 2007.pdf
Cooler, I think they've been there awhile...
read more: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=30884121
tkc, why so anxious?
Wave isn't required to file. How many times have we seen deals announced with the statement "Financial terms were not disclosed"? This is a breakthrough deal for WavExpress and it is in their interest now to telegraph to other potential media partners what the details of the NBC deal are.
There won't be anything new until the "NBC Olympics On The Go" website lights up next week, then nothing until the soccer games on August 6th, prior to the Olympics' beginning on August 8. Relax.
keV: "in actuality misleading"?
You have this nasty habit of prodding people for their sources and goading them to "explain their position."
Then, you write: "so that the statement you were fed is grammatically true, but in actuality misleading."
How do you know this? What's your source? Care to explain your position?
barge..."other operating systems"....
I think also means XP. From what I've been told, Olympic feeds will be delivered over XP, but they'll only have about 10% of the content available through VISTA.
Sometime next week, we should see a link to NBC Olympics On The Go from the nbcolympics.com website. If you click on the link, the system will detect if you have VISTA and will automatically install the icon and you'll be able to watch immediately. I've also been told there will be a link from msnbc.com. The games being on August 8th, but soccer starts on the 5th or 6th, so the first broadcast will start then.
I think the most interesting aspect of this deal isn't really the Olympics, but what comes after the games. I understand the seamless nature and picture quality (what helped WavExpress nail this deal in the first place) are very compelling and that this just might be the beginning of a longer relationship with NBC, fwiw.
barge, did you see this? Apple getting ready for 'product transition'
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9996169-37.html
Posted by Tom Krazit 28 comments
Is it time for a price cut on the iPod Touch?
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News)Let the guessing begin.
Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer's decision to warn financial analysts Monday that Apple's fourth-quarter gross margins will be negatively impacted by a "product transition" should be enough to get the rumor wheels turning: of course, it doesn't take all that much. The remark came within yet another Apple's earnings report that produced stellar numbers for the previous quarter but an outlook below what Wall Street had been expecting.
Oppenheimer deftly avoided several questions from analysts who tried to get a little more information on just what that "product transition" might involve. He used the exact same phrase last year in July during an earnings call to warn analysts of pretty much the exact same situation: that the transition would cause lower profits for the upcoming quarter. The result? New iMacs in August, and the iPod Touch in September.
There are two obvious scenarios that would cause a CFO to warn shareholders that his profit margins might be a little light heading into the upcoming quarter: lower prices, or more expensive production costs.
We already have a pretty strong suspicion that Apple is planning to introduce new notebooks during the quarter. It's been quite some time since the design of the MacBook has received an update, and with Apple's other notebooks sporting an aluminum enclosure these days, it's not hard to envision a similar design in the works for the MacBook based on Intel's new Centrino 2 technology.
But how would that change the margins on the MacBook? The MacBook seems to be the most popular segment of Apple's notebook lineup (the company doesn't break out the details), and perhaps switching to the aluminum enclosure for such a high-volume product would increase Apple's production costs for the MacBook.
Could Apple be considering overall pricing changes in the Mac lineup? One financial analyst seemed to suggest that with a line of questioning that Oppenheimer parried. Apple offers a smaller degree of customized options for Macs on its Web site than other PC vendors do on theirs, and the markup on some of the extra components (like $200 for an extra 2GB of memory) is pretty steep.
New MacBooks are also expected to arrive this quarter, which could affect Apple's product margins.
(Credit: Apple)
The trouble with that theory is that there doesn't seem to be any real reason for Apple to change the pricing of the Mac at this point: the company just sold the highest number of Macs in a quarter in its history. Price doesn't seem to be an object to sales, so why take the margin hit?
Likewise, the iPhone pricing isn't likely to go anywhere in the quarter with the iPhone 3G just making its way out to the public. The subsidized pricing courtesy of AT&T isn't going to change that quickly: Apple COO Tim Cook admitted that the company's internal surveys revealed that a lot of people who liked the iPhone weren't going to pay $399 for it. Apple and AT&T are likely to give the $199/$299 pricing scheme at least the remainder of the year before revisiting things.
The most likely bet for a price cut is the iPod Touch, which sticks out like a sore thumb at $499 for the high-end model compared to the new pricing for the iPhone. Apple wants the iPod Touch to be the future of its iPod lineup, but it's a pretty pricey option compared with the rest of the iPod lineup right now.
Consumers responded very well last quarter to the February price cut for the iPod Shuffle, Oppenheimer said. Obviously, those people buying the Shuffle and those buying the Touch are looking for two very different things in a portable music player. But still, in a economically tepid (at best) year, every dollar matters more than usual.
An iPod Touch price cut makes perfect sense: drop the low-end 8GB model, move the 16GB down to $299, and the 32GB down to $399. And if the company is feeling a little more daring, it could double the capacity of the iPod Touch at those price points.
One scenario that was not addressed by any of the initial questions from the financial community was that involving a brand-new product. There has been lots of speculation over the past year or so that Apple has a minitablet/UMPC/MID type device in the works that would take the Cocoa Touch interface found in the iPhone to a larger screen. But that has always seemed like a more far-fetched notion, given all that Apple has had on its plate this year.
If I had to bet, I'd pick new Centrino 2-based MacBooks and a significant price cut for the iPod Touch as the most likely causes for a gross margin decline next quarter and into next year.
Both of those products could take some time to ramp up to volumes that could make the margins more palatable, although it's important to remember that Apple's margins will still be 30 percent after the decline. That's still pretty healthy for a company in its category.
NBC Hedges Its Olympic Bets:
Buy A TV Ad, Get A Web Banner, Too
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/nbc-hedges-its-olympic-bets-buy-a-tv-ad-get-a-web-banner-too
NBC U (GE) has has sold at least 85% of its online ad inventory for the Olympic Games. How? By selling TV ads.
NBC is bundling its Web inventory along with broadcast buys. The move suggests advertisers are getting a bargain on the online ads, but it also helps NBC sell TV at a premium in a very tough ad market.
NBC U has already said it will report a combined viewership number for TV, online and mobile as one number, signalling it believes the impressions on different platforms are interchangeable.
It plans to follow through on that belief, too: It is going to try to use Web inventory to fix any shortfalls in its TV performance. NBC is airing thousands of hours of TV coverage--some of it with extreme niche-appeal. While the men's swimming final on NBC primetime will deliver predictable ratings, it's hard to know how many people will tune in for badminton and greco roman wrestling on MSNBC. NBC can make up any shortfalls by promising additional online impressions.
Is the strategy working? NBC says ad rates are up 10% since from the 2004 Games, which isn't terribly impressive given that it was four years ago. A 30-second spot in NBC's primetime coverage is running $750,000. NBC is predicting a $1 billion advertising haul for the Games, $850 million from national TV and $150 from local.
Whatever NBC U ends up attributing to online ad sales, it won't be keeping all the cash. NBC shares revenue with MSN, which is providing the infrastructure for NBC's Webcast of the Games online, as well as distribution on MSN.com. MSN also gets compensation from NBC U for traffic delivered to NBCOlympics.com.
A side statistical bonus: traffic from the games will accrue to MSN, just like traffic from the NBC U-MSN joint venture, MSNBC.com.
One thing seems certain: the Games will surely set a new viewership record for live sports on the Web and may become the most-watched Webcast, ever.
That's what MSN's GM of Entertainment and Sports Rob Bennett is expecting. He told us Microsoft (MSFT) has spent the last eight months building a system to accommodate demand, built around Microsoft's Silverlight media player and bandwidth from Limelight (LLNW).
Because it shares in revenue, MSN has incentive to push the Games. To that end, MSN is working on a redesign to accomodate editorial content from the Games. An Olympics "super-banner" will be stripped across MSN's homepage, with news from the games, a live medal count, and video from NBCOlympics.com.
Buffalo Ensures Data Protection With New Ministation Datavault
http://www.hardwarezone.com/news/view.php?id=11230&cid=9
Buffalo Technology announces the ultimate in data security with its new MiniStation DataVault. This tiny yet powerful portable storage solution is designed to make data protection and security effortless. At the core is a hard drive with hardware-based full disk encryption (FDE) that uses 128-bit AES technology to automatically encrypt all data saved to the drive-- the best way to guard against unauthorized use in the event of loss or theft.
kiwi, you're such a kidder! I'm going to
let your post stand so others can see just how funny you are!!
LOL
FM
Researchers: Partially Encrypting Disks Leaves Data at Risk
Posted by Carl Weinschenk on July 17, 2008 at 5:12 pm
When news of a technical problem that could have significant impact on businesses breaks, all executives can do is wait until the experts tell them whether it truly is a big deal, if a fix is imminent, or if the industry is in the soup.
The news in this case, as reported in InfoWorld, is that partially encrypting hard drives is problematic. The worst kind of security is the security that an organization inaccurately thinks it has. This could be one such case. The issue is that bits and pieces of files are stored on various parts of the disk. The problem, which was found by the University of Washington and British Telecommunications, is that segments of files meant to be encrypted are being stored in unencrypted areas, making them vulnerable.
The story provides a good deal more detail on how the researchers found the problem. There doesn’t seem to yet be a consensus on what this means for partial encryption. The takeaway, though, is clear: Given a choice, full disk encryption (FDE) is more prudent than ever.
FDE seems to be getting more accessible. This week, for instance, Hitachi GST introduced the Deskstar 7K1000.B SATA II interface hard drive. Hitachi says the GST is the most power-efficient 1-terabyte drive available. The system employs Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption, but the story doesn’t say what level.
The takeaway from this Jon Ostik column at CNET is that FDE has made tremendous headway and, indeed, has become a commodity item. Smart vendors are providing additional functionality in efforts to deal with this environment. Two examples, Ostik says, are that FDE is being teamed with data leakage prevention in products from McAfee/Safeboot and with port blocking in packages from PointSec. Ostik says that the market is developing in two directions: Big security vendors are making FDE a feature of general suites and others are making it an element of more specialized packages.
The overall topic of this Securosis piece is when to use different types of encryption. Rich Mogull suggests that there are times that FDE is not enough, since multiple people may have access to the machines and its encryption keys. It also doesn’t protect data in motion. File-level encryption is useful, but also doesn’t protect data in certain circumstances. Thus, Mogull says, there are instances in which simultaneous file and full-drive encryption are appropriate.
Data can leak from partially encrypted disks
Robert McMillan
July 16, 2008 (IDG News Service)
If you're using encryption software to keep part of your computer's hard drive private, you may have a problem, according to researchers at the University of Washington and BT Group PLC.
They've discovered that popular programs such as Microsoft Corp.'s Word and Google Desktop store data on unencrypted sections of a computer's hard drive, even when the programs are working with encrypted files.
"Information is spilling out from the encrypted region into the unencrypted region," said Tadayoshi Kohno, an assistant professor at the Seattle-based university and a co-author the study.
Kohno said there are probably many other applications and operating system components that leak information in a similar way. "I suspect that this is a potentially huge issue. We've basically cracked the surface," he said.
The researchers say that people who are using full-disk encryption, where every piece of data on their hard drives is encrypted, do not have to worry. However, the issue pops up when users create an encrypted partition or virtual disk on their hard drives, leaving part of the drives unencrypted, or when they store data on encrypted USB devices, Kohno said.
Nobody really knows how much data can be recovered from a partially encrypted disk, but the researchers say that they were able to recover copies of most of the Word documents created for their experiment from the software's autorecovery folder, even though the documents themselves were being saved to an encrypted part of the disk.
"We just don't know how much data is leaking out, but it's enough to be worried about," Kohno said.
With Google Desktop, the researchers were able to read snapshots of encrypted files when the program's Enhanced Search option was enabled.
The issue is not a bug in Word or Google Desktop, Kohno said. Rather, it's "a problem with the way these applications interact with these encrypted virtual disks," he said.
Kohno and his team, which includes noted cryptographer Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer at BT, made their discovery while looking at so-called deniable file systems. These are encrypted file systems that require two passwords before they reveal their full contents. They give the user a way to reveal a first encryption password without necessarily divulging the full contents of the hard drive because a second hidden section is protected by the second password.
Looking at the TrueCrypt 5.1a deniable file system, they found that this same kind of data leakage occurred, exposing information that should have been protected by the system's second password. The researchers say that the most recent TrueCrypt 6.0 software does fix some of these problems, but that their work shows just how hard it is to protect a partially encrypted hard drive.
Their paper is set to be presented at the Usenix HotSec Workshop on July 29 in San Jose.