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I don’t know if/where there is an annual shareholders meeting recording, and frankly, I’m not going to waste my time looking for and parsing through it, for points that overall are secondary at best. One last point I would like to bring up though before signing off, is the following, with Ford Motor Co. as case and point.
William Clay "Bill" Ford Jr., the great-grandson of Henry Ford, currently serves as the Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ford Motor Company. Bill Ford, until more recently, used to serve as the President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Operating Officer until turning over those roles to former Boeing executive Alan Mulally in September 2006.
Now we all know how this story ends; both Bill and Allan are now hailed as heroes, Bill because his managerial skills and flexibility endowed him with the ability to recognize when to call in experts, and Allan, because of his corporate governance genius that allowed him to turn the company around and plow through the financial crisis that thoroughly destroyed others.
Steven’s visionary genius cannot be understated for what he has done so far, but, to develop and elevate a company in today’s corporate environment requires an almost entirely different set of skills and talents, to run with the other big boys. And not saying that Steven absolutely cannot pull it off, but rather that with his technical and visionary abilities in this space, the company might excel more with him guiding from a position similar to Bill Ford’s, and by bringing on a corporate maverick and/or team with corporate skill sets similar to Mulallay as CEO. Just something to consider.
Alright, I'm done with my 'bitching';], but I just really hope that Wave comes through soon in a substantive way. Times have been tough overall the last few, and if they don't get better by year's end, I'm gonna have to take a long hard look at my least attractive investments at that point to begin slating for liquidation. Would be a bit heartbreaking to surrender on the wave dream I've had for so long. This year WILL be the tell-tale year, at least for me I think, at least partially...
I’m very well aware, and appreciate, the healthy growth concept versus the rapid growth that can drown companies, but c’mon, if anyone’s been drowning it’s the shareholders, like myself, who’ve been heavily invested for over ten years, and those like my old man for a bit longer (I don’t think we could ever fall into the get rich category at this point, even if SP shot up to $1000 tomorrow). I’m very familiar with the Wave story, strategy, and evolution of this company.
Wave has managed to stay debt free at the expense of diluting my shares many times over, for one, and growth has finally begun to manifest itself only more recently when looking at the entire time horizon of this company. I have stayed long, for over a decade because I believed in the idea. I’m not a basher, on the other hand a realistic supporter, who has been growing weary of what I see as a much less than stellar performance of marketing, and deal closing so far, given the massive amounts of mega breaches exponentially increasing these days. And if the deal closing is progressing much better behind the scenes than what we, the public, can know about, it certainly is not communicated well enough by management, or by the quarterly report figures to make me overly confident (and I know this debate has been going on for a long time, but I think I’m finally picking the camp, in terms of management’s corporate guidance ability {not to be confused with their ability to have grand vision}); that is as share price has hovered in the same place for over a year, while the broader market has more than doubled over the same period.
To insinuate that something like a broad TCG awareness marketing campaign would lead to an unsustainable rapid growth situation that would overwhelm Wave does not speak too highly of management’s ability to anticipate and guide then. I would be more than happy to have my shares diluted once again if I knew it was because of the rapid need of funds to keep up with massive new orders. jmho
I asked SS last year at the annual shareholders meeting why they weren’t allocating more resources and energy into marketing (particularly if there were any efforts of teaming up with someone like Dell for a campaign), because clearly there’s an awareness issue for which there’s hardly an excuse for this day and age. He gave me a wholly inadequate but expected round-about answer about all the efforts they were putting forth towards marketing and what they were allocating towards that end.
But an even bigger question, and perhaps someone here can answer, or maybe has even answered, but isn’t it in the TCG members’ interests to get the word out? Wouldn’t it be a great mass marketing ploy to get a commercial with several of the group’s higher profile members’ CEOs, in a 30 second commercial clip on prime time television to say that we already have the tools to end today’s breaches and hacks; to end the countless billions of dollars lost and identities compromised/exposed? And how the TPM/hardware solution is already here. Perhaps they could have some high profile executives like Bill Gates and a few others say a few words towards this end; And to do it in the general broad-stroke kind of way in which many of today’s commercials are made, bordering ambiguity, but just informative enough to catch your attention and make you curious; Ending with, “please, look at our TCG website, and see how these solutions can potentially save you millions or more.”
Why is the TCG group as a whole not coming up with advertising campaigns for what they’ve accomplished already? Can’t somebody take the lead on this where all members (contribute even, and)stand to profit? Or would this evoke too many questions on what measures the members themselves have adopted?
Just some jumbled late night Sunday thoughts, ideas, and questions (as frustration mounts) on where it’s all gone wrong on the marketing front…
Sorry if posted already: Hacking of DuPont, J&J, GE Were Google-Type Attacks
By Michael Riley and Sara Forden - Mar 8, 2011 The FBI broke the news to executives at DuPont Co. late last year that hackers had cracked the company’s computer networks for the second time in 12 months, according to a confidential Dec. 9, 2010, e-mail discussing the investigation.
About a year earlier, DuPont had been hit by the same China- based hackers who struck Google Inc. (GOOG) and unlike Google, DuPont kept the intrusion secret, internal e-mails from cyber-security firm HBGary Inc. show. As DuPont probed the incidents, executives concluded they were the target of a campaign of industrial spying, the e-mails show.
The attacks on DuPont and on more than a dozen other companies are discussed in about 60,000 confidential e-mails that HBGary, hired by some of the targeted businesses, said were stolen from it on Feb. 6 and posted on the Internet by a group of hacker-activists known as Anonymous. The companies attacked include Walt Disney Co. (DIS), Sony Corp. (6758), Johnson & Johnson, and General Electric Co., the e-mails show.
The incidents described in the stolen e-mails portray industrial espionage by hackers based in China, Russia and other countries. U.S. law enforcement agencies say the attacks have intensified in number and scope over the past two years.
“We are on the losing end of the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of the planet,” said Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who chaired a U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence task force on U.S. cyber security in 2010. Its classified report addressed weaknesses in network security.
Dangers ‘Unappreciated’
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Steven Chabinsky, who works in the agency’s cyber division, said it would be hard to imagine that the scale of the current range of cyber attacks could grow larger.
“It appears that every industry is being victimized by intrusions,” he said.
The companies identified by Bloomberg News from the e-mails never disclosed the security breaches to investors or regulators. Secrecy may be a reason why the dangers of the intrusions are “underappreciated” by investors and regulators, Whitehouse said in an interview.
“The companies don’t want to disclose it,” he said. “They want to just basically eat the harm that was done to them and pretend that all is well.”
HBGary, based in Sacramento, California, is one of a handful of cyber-security firms, including Santa Clara, California-based McAfee Inc. and Alexandria, Virginia-based Mandiant Corp., that are hired by global companies to investigate illegal computer break-ins and advise on how to prevent them. HBGary shares its forensic findings with other security firms and got information on undisclosed break-ins in return, the e-mails show.
Hacker Targets
The targets of the recent attacks included energy, pharmaceutical and defense companies, as well as the high-tech manufacturers of global satellite imagery and smart bombs, according to the HBGary e-mails, which include correspondence with clients or potential clients such as DuPont.
Executives of attacked companies feared the intrusions would spark questions from investors and regulators about what was stolen, according to the e-mails and interviews with cyber- security experts such as Scott Borg, director of the nonprofit U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit and Kevin Mandia, chief executive officer of Mandiant. All said they can’t discuss specific clients because of nondisclosure agreements.
Events considered “material” must be reported to investors under U.S. securities laws.
Google Attacks
Google said in January 2010 it had lost intellectual property assets to hackers based in China. It also said that about 20 other companies it declined to identify then and again on March 7 were victims of the same kind of intrusions. Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) said it had been attacked by hackers based in China. Intel Corp. (INTC) said it was attacked in a “sophisticated incident” around the same time as Google. Others remained silent. DuPont denied it had been hacked.
The attacks on DuPont were disclosed in some of the stolen HBGary e-mails, which Bloomberg News examined.
“DuPont’s concern and comfort factor was puckered when they received external notice of breach by FBI,” Jim Butterworth, HBGary’s vice president for services, wrote colleagues on Dec. 9, 2010, regarding the second attack. “DuPont likes that we have close ties to them and other three letter agencies.”
Earlier, a DuPont internal investigation had discovered that some of its computers were implanted with spyware during a business trip to China where the PC’s were stored in a hotel safe, according to a Feb. 4, 2010, e-mail by HBGary’s Rich Cummings.
‘It’s Personal’
“To DuPont it’s personal,” HBGary investigator Bob Slapnik wrote after a meeting with company managers in December 2009. “They believe their bad guys are the Chinese who want to catch up and leapfrog them in the global marketplace.”
The attacks were done by hackers who represented “people, organizations and countries that strive to do them harm,” in the view of DuPont managers, Slapnik wrote.
A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Wang Baodong, said China is a victim of hacking attacks and “the wrong target of unwarranted blame.” Its government supports international efforts to fight hacking, he said by e-mail.
DuPont spokesman Dan Turner said the company doesn’t comment on “cyber security-related risks.” Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) spokeswoman Carol Goodrich declined to comment. Representatives of Disney and GE didn’t return phone calls and e-mails seeking comment. A Sony spokeswoman declined to comment and asked not to be identified because of company policy.
Energy Company Assault
Among HBGary’s clients was Houston-based drilling company Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI), which said it was hacked recently as part of a wide assault on energy companies. Baker Hughes provides advanced drilling equipment and proprietary techniques for assessing the quality and accessibility of oil reserves.
HBGary Chief Executive Officer Greg Hoglund wrote in a January e-mail that his company had been tracking cyber attacks against oil and gas companies aimed at “stealing competitive bids, architectural plans, project definition documents, functional operational aspects to use in competitive bid situations from Siberia to China.”
Hoglund wrote in the January e-mail that “when dealing with energy bids the potential loss is billions.”
Butterworth, the HBGary vice president, said the company won’t comment on the e-mails, except to say it was the victim of a crime and the e-mails were stolen.
A Baker Hughes spokesman, Gary Flaharty, confirmed in an interview last month that his company’s networks were breached.
Baker Hughes decided the intrusion was not a material event and so didn’t file a disclosure with U.S. regulators, he said.
Proprietary Data
A previous review of HBGary e-mails by Bloomberg News showed hackers also stole proprietary data from Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, ConocoPhillips (COP), and Marathon Oil Corp, as well as Morgan Stanley.
In e-mails mentioning Sony, J&J, GE and other companies, there’s little detail on what was taken or how deeply the hackers penetrated. Much of the e-mail traffic involved the technical work of hunting hackers who have infiltrated computer networks with stealthy tools.
HBGary investigator Sam Maccherola said in an e-mail to two company colleagues that Sony had asked for help in dealing with an attack that “looks relatively nasty.”
In the case of GE, disclosure was enough of a concern that the company’s lawyers reviewed whether to approve the release of malware -- malicious software -- found on their network so that HBGary investigators could analyze it, the e-mails show.
Hackers also appear to be widening their targets, stealing information from vendors or contractors that may have strategic data about their clients, including public relations and law firms, Chabinsky said.
Law Firm Attack
Among those attacked, the e-mails show, was Atlanta-based King & Spalding LLP, the 38th biggest law firm in the country in 2010, according to the National Law Journal. The e-mails don’t indicate what information the hackers targeted. Among King & Spalding’s practice specialties is corporate espionage, according to the firm’s website.
Les Zuke, spokesman for King & Spalding, didn’t return phone calls seeking comment.
HBGary investigators routinely worked 60 to 80 hours a week to plug holes in networks, often exchanging information about the attacks with other cyber-security firms, as companies fretted they were losing secret data, the e-mails show.
‘Battling’ Attacks
“I’ve been battling with APT for the last 6 months,” Matthew Babcock, an employee of the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, a health insurance provider in Maryland and Washington, wrote in an e-mail to HBGary investigators as he sought help with the intrusion. APT refers to an “advanced persistent threat,” a sophisticated form of hacking that is difficult to identify and remedy.
“I am sure they are watching me just as I am watching them,” Babcock said.
Security experts say that the hackers’ techniques now surpass the ability of even the most sophisticated companies to catch them easily. The e-mails show that hackers routinely bypassed firewalls with so-called spear-fishing e-mails that target executives, tricking the companies’ own employees into downloading malicious software and infecting their own networks.
“You can’t buy enough security to match the threat today,” said Anup Ghosh, chief executive officer of the cyber security firm Invincea Inc.
Suspicious Traffic
QinetiQ Group Plc (QQ/), a London-based defense company, found out its secure network had been breached after the FBI noticed suspicious traffic between the Pentagon contractor and an unidentified U.S. government agency, an HBGary report attached to an e-mail shows.
The company’s investigation, which HBGary aided, found that the hackers may have gone unnoticed within the breached network for more than a year.
“Given that we continue to find malware from early 2009 it may be a matter of them never having left,” one HBGary investigator wrote in September, as the company struggled to contain the intrusion.
“We’ve made changes to ensure we secure everything as well as possible,” said Sophie Barrett, a QinetiQ spokeswoman. “We’d rather not continue to give the story life,” she said, declining to comment further.
The investigators followed the hackers’ electronic footprints from QinetiQ to a command-and-control server that appeared to be directing attacks against at least three other Pentagon contractors, including Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK), which makes smart weapons.
A spokesman for Minneapolis-based Alliant, Bryce Hallowell, declined to comment on cyber security matters.
Arms-Related Data
“They only steal ITAR restricted data,” HBGary’s CEO wrote in an October 2010 e-mail to the FBI, alerting the agency to the other possible breaches. ITAR refers to International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which limit exports of critical defense-related technology.
The FBI supervisor responded that he would send over an agent from the Sacramento office over immediately for more information.
“I like to avoid unencrypted e-mail if possible,” the agent wrote back.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Riley in Washington at michaelriley@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Fred Strasser at fstrasser@bloomberg.net
.
Thanks ExP! What I am sure of, is that when Apple starts offering NFC service this year, competing companies will have this technology explode, granted it's secure and viable. Just hope Wave will be involved.
"Samsung Electronics Co.’s Nexus S phone, which runs Android, can read information from NFC tags. Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, has pushed NFC adoption for years, though the technology has been slow to take off.
“Apple could be the game-changer,” Doherty said.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, is considering starting a mobile payment service as early as mid-2011, Doherty said. It would revamp iTunes, a service that lets consumers buy digital movies and music, so it would hold not only users’ credit-card account information but also loyalty credits and points, Doherty said.
Using the service, customers could walk into a store or restaurant and make payments straight from an iPad or iPhone. They could also receive loyalty rewards and credits for purchases, such as when referring a friend, Doherty said."
Can some of the tech specialists here comment on this artucle, Apple development, and competition with Android NFC technology? Which providers might use Wave related software?
Apple Plans Service That Lets IPhone Users Pay for Purchases With Handsets
By Olga Kharif - Jan 25, 2011 12:01 AM ET Tweet inShare53More
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Apple Inc. plans to introduce services that would let customers use its iPhone and iPad computer to make purchases, said Richard Doherty , director of consulting firm Envisioneering Group. Photographer: Tony Avelar/Bloomberg
Apple Inc. plans to introduce services that would let customers use its iPhone and iPad computer to make purchases, said Richard Doherty, director of consulting firm Envisioneering Group.
The services are based on “Near-Field Communication,” a technology that can beam and receive information at a distance of up to 4 inches, due to be embedded in the next iteration of the iPhone for AT&T Inc. and the iPad 2, Doherty said. Both products are likely to be introduced this year, he said, citing engineers who are working on hardware for the Apple project.
Apple’s service may be able to tap into user information already on file, including credit-card numbers, iTunes gift-card balance and bank data, said Richard Crone, who leads financial industry adviser Crone Consulting LLC in San Carlos, California. That could make it an alternative to programs offered by such companies as Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and EBay Inc.’s PayPal, said Taylor Hamilton, an analyst at consultant IBISWorld Inc.
“It would make a lot of sense for Apple to include NFC functionality in its products,” Crone said.
The main goal for Apple would be to get a piece of the $6.2 trillion Americans spend each year on goods and services, Crone said. Today, the company pays credit-card processing fees on every purchase from iTunes. By encouraging consumers to use cheaper methods -- such as tapping their bank accounts directly, which is how many purchases are made via PayPal -- Apple could cut its own costs and those of retailers selling Apple products.
Natalie Harrison, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment.
Adding Features to Phones
“NFC is definitely one of the technologies that’s getting a lot of attention, but ultimately the consumer is going to choose,” said Charlotte Hill, a spokeswoman for PayPal, owned by San Jose, California-based EBay. Elvira Swanson, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Visa, said the company is “excited to see NFC mobile devices coming into the market.”
Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer at MasterCard, said the company is “running the world’s fastest payment network, and that doesn’t need to be re-created.” MasterCard sees NFC “as an opportunity to partner with organizations” and already has run NFC payment trials around the world.
The recently passed Durbin Amendment makes the timing right for a push by Apple, Crone said. The regulation, which will go into effect this summer, may limit debit-card fees paid by retailers and lets them encourage consumers to use one payment method over another.
Competing With Android
Under Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, who’s handling day-to-day operations as Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs takes medical leave, the iPhone is adding features that will help it compete with phones that use Google Inc.’s Android software. Samsung Electronics Co.’s Nexus S phone, which runs Android, can read information from NFC tags. Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, has pushed NFC adoption for years, though the technology has been slow to take off.
“Apple could be the game-changer,” Doherty said.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, is considering starting a mobile payment service as early as mid-2011, Doherty said. It would revamp iTunes, a service that lets consumers buy digital movies and music, so it would hold not only users’ credit-card account information but also loyalty credits and points, Doherty said.
Using the service, customers could walk into a store or restaurant and make payments straight from an iPad or iPhone. They could also receive loyalty rewards and credits for purchases, such as when referring a friend, Doherty said.
Targeted Advertising
Apple also could use NFC to improve how it delivers mobile ads to customers’ handsets and charge higher fees for those ads, Crone said. NFC would let Apple’s iAd advertising network personalize ads to the places where a customer is spending money. That could double or triple the ad rates that Apple charges, Crone said.
Apple has created a prototype of a payment terminal that small businesses, such as hairdressers and mom-and-pop stores, could use to scan NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads, Doherty said. The company is considering heavily subsidizing the terminal, or even giving it away to retailers, to encourage fast, nationwide adoption of NFC technology and rev up sales of NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads, he said.
To help get ready for NFC, Apple last year hired Benjamin Vigier, who worked on the technology at mobile-payment provider MFoundry. It also has applied for a patent on a system that uses NFC to share information between applications running on various Apple devices.
To contact the reporter on this story: Olga Kharif in Portland, Oregon, at okharif@bloomberg.net.
I've been telling some fellow brokers and a few retail clients, piqueing their interest and having them buy. Fairly small amounts for now, but interest is growing, afterall, how can you ignore a stock that's outperforming the rest of the market, with solid balance sheet, growth, and promise lending it serious support...
Oh sorry, and I meant my old post from 2005, 90379, which highlights how IT heads didn't know anything about TPMs back then, and how much has been changing in recent times...
Thanks ExPat. I work out of a remote office outside of Manhattan, and the offices and departments at BAML are quite segratgated so trying to get information from a centralized IT department is much more difficult, than say my experience at SAIC when I worked there, and at the Pentagon, in my former life.
I went straight to the IT head at SAIC headqaurters in NoVA back then, in '05, only to be gravely disappointed at the tech department's zero knowledge of TMPs back then (you can read a detailed account from my post back then if curious:205209). I am pretty sure things are different now.
I have been telling fellow brokers and clients about Wave more and more recently. Just can't be officially promoting it until we have our own BAML analyst covering the company and making a recommendation. I think this may happen fairly quickly with the growing awareness of the company, and its SP climbing out of 'penny stock" territory.
Regards!
Awk, thanks. I went through the motion just now, and unfortunately the TPM was OFF, with no sign of Wave software. I don't think this necessarily has any bearing on whether BofA may be the SE bank that's been alluded and things could change quickly.
I do know, however, that the DoD began upgrading to new Dell machines at least a few years ago with wave software already bundled and visible on either the start menu or the desktop. Have no idea if/when they were activated. If I can find that out I''l of course post, but that might be a stretch at this point. Will try and look into it.
Best!
Thanks Waverider. Considering I'm at a Merrill Lynch workstation that appears fully integrated with BoA at this point, this could be a good preliminary way to see if/where BoA may currently be with hardware security or wave.
I looked briefly at the wave link, I'm just not finding the instructions as readily as I would like. Too busy right now to do in-depth research on it at the moment. Will otherwise try and look it up later. If any techies know right off the bat, would be helpful.
Jayb.'s instructions for the optiplex 900 series diverge from my machine's
Anybody know how to check on TPM (Wave) activation on an Optiplex 755?
Exactly, this is the big takeaway from this article, this news is golden, imo; the dots couldn't be anymore connected, except for maybe just the last one... .
Microsoft Wins Largest U.S. Government Deal for Cloud-Computing Software
By Dina Bass - Dec 8, 2010 4:19 PM ET Tweet inShareMore
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discusses cloud computing. Photographer Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images
Microsoft Corp. won a contract to provide Web-based e-mail and other services to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, making headway in efforts to gain share in the growing market for cloud computing.
The federal agency will move 120,000 users to the company’s Internet-based e-mail and conferencing software, said Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft. The company said it beat out Google Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. for the deal and the department confirmed it looked at all of the available competing options.
Technology companies are racing to lure customers that want computing delivered over the Internet from an outside provider, via the so-called cloud. The contract, which also involves instant messaging and document-sharing programs, is the largest U.S. government adoption of cloud software, Microsoft Vice President Ron Markezich said in an interview.
The department chose Microsoft because half its workers already use Microsoft’s Exchange e-mail software, Chris Smith, chief information officer for the Agriculture Department, said in an interview. Because cloud programs are typically stored on the provider’s server, customers can save money on machines and the cost of maintaining and updating the software.
“It gets us out of the hardware business and ultimately out of the software-refresh business,” Smith said. “It gets us out the business of owning the car, changing the oil, and doing the upkeep.”
Microsoft gained 36 cents to $27.23 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have declined 11 percent this year.
Google’s Recent Win
Smith said the department will pay about $8 per user per mailbox and is aiming to save $6 million next year. Microsoft’s Markezich declined to comment on the value of the deal, which will be administered by Dell Inc.
Google said today it wasn’t given a chance to bid on the contract. “When there has been a full and open competition --as with the General Services Administration, Wyoming, Colorado and Los Angeles -- customers have chosen Google Apps, and taxpayers are saving millions of dollars,” the Mountain View, California- based company said in an e-mail.
Google said last week that it beat out Microsoft for a $6.7 million contract to handle e-mail for the U.S. GSA. In October, New York City and the state of California opted for Microsoft’s cloud software, while Minnesota announced a similar agreement the previous month.
Google Lawsuit
Google sued the U.S. Interior Department in October, claiming it didn’t have the opportunity to compete for a messaging-software contract because the bid request specified a particular Microsoft product.
IBM also said it didn’t bid for the Department of Agriculture contract, according to spokesman Steve Tomasco.
Global cloud-computing sales may reach $148.8 billion by the end of 2014, up from $58.6 billion last year, according to researcher Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut.
The U.S. government has been quick to move programs to the cloud model because Vivek Kundra, chief information officer for the U.S., has pushed federal, state and local governments to look at the option as a way to save money as they update and consolidate systems, Markezich said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dina Bass in Seattle at dbass2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
Defense Firms Pursue Cyber-Security Work Article
By AUGUST COLE and SIOBHAN GORMAN
WASHINGTON -- The biggest U.S. military contractors are counting on winning billions of dollars in work to protect the federal government against electronic attacks.
U.S. agencies from the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland Security have experienced major cyber-break-ins in recent years, even into classified systems. Cyberspies also have siphoned off critical data from Pentagon contractors, including one breach that cost a major aerospace contractor $15 million.
Intelligence officials estimate annual U.S. losses from cyber breaches to be in the billions of dollars, and some worry that cyber attackers could take control of a nuclear power plant or subway line via the Internet -- or wipe out the data of a major financial institution.
Anticipating the demand, defense companies are bolstering training, buying smaller firms and hiring former top government officials. The move into the cyber-security field could offer new revenue streams for the contractors and help offset declines stemming from budget pressures on the Defense Department's traditional weapons systems.
Last year the Bush administration launched a major cyber-security initiative, and 2009 spending is expected to reach $6 billion. Details are classified, but depending on the outcome of a 60-day White House review due next month, people familiar with the effort say spending could range from $15 billion to $30 billion in the next five years.
Major defense firms are eager to get a slice of that pie. But some in the government are worried these firms don't have the necessary expertise and that the ramp-up in spending is a recipe for waste and inefficiency.
"My concern and the concern of a lot of people in the government is: Are we going to dump money like we did after 9/11, or are we going to get something for the money we spend?" said one senior intelligence official. "You're getting people who are not necessarily viewed as experts [in cyber-security] running divisions of these companies."
Northrop Grumman Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Ronald Sugar made his case in an open letter to President Barack Obama this month, writing, "America's defense industry has heavily invested in the tools, techniques and human talent to address this problem."
In August, aerospace giant Boeing Co. hired Barbara Fast, a former senior Army intelligence officer who worked at the National Security Agency, to focus on cyber issues. Ms. Fast is consolidating the capabilities that Boeing has developed to protect its own massive network into a new division.
Lockheed Martin Corp., the top Pentagon contractor and largest government information-technology provider by sales, is constructing a new cyber-security facility at its main network hub in Gaithersburg, Md.
Some intelligence officials worry the government's clunky contracting system will end up awarding contracts to familiar big companies that lack the highly skilled technicians who gravitate toward smaller firms. Contractors also need to watch their own network security, said Tom Kellermann, a vice president at Core Security Technologies, citing a Verizon report last year that found 39% of cyber breaches implicated contractors and other third parties.
"You can't put an IT person out there who doesn't understand the threat or second- and third-order effects," said Bill Swanson, chairman and CEO of Raytheon Co. Raytheon's recent acquisitions, such as Oakley Networks in 2007 and SI Government Solutions in 2008, bolster its cyber capabilities.
Foreign firms are also trying to edge into the marketplace. Europe's biggest defense contractor by revenue, BAE Systems PLC, bought information security firm Detica Group PLC for $1.06 billion in July. It also recently hired a top Bush White House cyber-security official, Marie O'Neill Sciarrone.
As these big defense firms push further into this territory, they are bumping up against consulting firms.
Booz Allen Hamilton has worked in the cyber-security field for more than a decade. One of its senior executives, Mike McConnell, led the National Security Agency and was also director of national intelligence in the Bush administration. He continues to serve on the president's Intelligence Advisory Board. And Deloitte Consulting recently recruited Billy O'Brien, who helped draw up the Bush administration's cyber policy.
Write to August Cole at august.cole@dowjones.com and Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com
Sony Outlines Strategy for Growth
In TV, Videogame Businesses
By YUKARI IWATANI KANE
June 26, 2008 9:18 a.m.
TOKYO – After spending the last three years restructuring the company, Sony Corp. set a new growth strategy centered around video-downloading services and electronics products that can be connected to each other and to the Internet.
The Japanese electronics maker said Thursday that it planned to offer a video-downloading service through all of its key products, such as its televisions, computers, music players, and videogame devices in the next three years.
Associated Press
CEO Howard Stringer outlined Sony's growth strategy in Tokyo Thursday, as the company seeks to regain its lead in TV and videogames.
It also plans to make 90% of its product categories network-enabled and wireless capable in the same period.
"Our mission is simply to be the leading global provider of networked consumer electronics and entertainment," said Chief Executive Howard Stringer in a press conference.
Sony said it plans to first start by offering movies and other video content through the PlayStation 3 videogame console's network service in the U.S. this summer.
It will also begin delivering movies directly to its Internet-connected Bravia LCD televisions in the U.S. this autumn. Sony said it would become the first company to stream a movie directly to a television without a set-top box, or the need for a cable or satellite television subscription.
Mr. Stringer, who was charged with turning around the struggling company when he took over the helm of Sony in June 2005, has been slashing costs, cutting jobs, and getting rid of unprofitable businesses over the past few years.
Now that he has succeeded in those efforts, the latest strategy will be a big test of whether he can also grow the company.
As Internet connections have gotten faster and consumers are getting more of their entertainment online, analysts say that downloading services for movies and television shows could be a big potential market that could be worth billions of dollars in the U.S. alone.
Establishing a dominant position in this area is crucial for Sony after its Walkman music devices lost out to Apple Inc.'s iPods because it didn't have compelling music-downloading software.
Sony, which owns a movie studio and a music company, has an advantage because it has access to both content and electronics devices and can play off the strengths of both industries. For example, the first movie it plans to offer directly to televisions is Hancock, a Sony Pictures movie which it will release before it's available on DVD.
But it is also coming in late to a market that's already crowded with big rivals. Apple, for example, offers a set-top device called Apple TV, which lets users play music and video from their computer-based iTunes library. Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 videogame console also already offers video downloading.
Sony has also had problems in the past getting its notoriously independent product units to work together. A previous effort to create a portable music player and online music service for the Walkman failed in part because of internal in-fighting.
Still, Mr. Stringer has been quietly laying the groundwork to make the latest effort a success. He has encouraged employees to work together and has promoted executives who understand software and content just as well as Sony's traditionally strong area of hardware.
Last year, he enforced a decision to adopt certain digital rights management software that was key to making it possible to offer a common video-downloading service across all of Sony's products.
In addition to laying out the company's future strategy, Mr. Stringer also vowed to make the company's television and videogame businesses profitable in the current fiscal year, ending March 2009.
Sony said it plans to double annual sales overall from Brazil, Russia, India and China to 2 trillion yen ($18.6 billion) by March 2011.
DRM, I agree with you. I think a lot of companies will not go through their upgrade cycle also, for at least another year, until Vista works out its bugs and software incompatabilities. That's the case at SAIC, one of the biggest government contractors, and that's what I was told by the IT department their. They're running Windows NT still, and plan to continue with that for a while, unless the Gov mandates something earlier.
Don't think there were any surprises with earnings this qrt either, we're still going largely on licensing royalties. That should be changing cause of FDE this next qrtr, but I expect a noticeable ramp up 2nd quarter. If not then, then I might start getting a little more concerned.
Curious why you think it might be SAIC? I work for SAIC at HQ in VA/DC, currently on leave of absence, but was there this summer, and was disappointed to find that they adopted a company-wide software encryption solution. Can't think of the name right now, but it's one of the biggest government/DOD endorsed ones around. Anyway, I've been talking to them for a couple of years about Wave, the head office IT folks, trying to get a pulse on possible Wave adoption. And as late as this summer the IT guys, the ones I haven't spoken to, still didn't know about Wave, or even TPMs for that matter if I recall. But anyhow, I can give an IT buddy there a call tomorrow and see if he knows anything about it. I've been telling him about Wave since 03. So can let the board know if that's a positive.
From NY Times; sorry if already posted
August 20, 2007, 12:00 am
A Fourth Way to Deliver TV to the Home
By Brad Stone
Tags: Building B, digital television
One of the most covert startups in Silicon Valley, the temporarily named Building B, is lifting its head up today to announce a round of funding. Though executives at the Belmont, Calif., company still aren’t saying much about their plans, they appear to have sizable ambitions: Building B is aiming to bring both television and other media content, restyled for the Internet age, into your living room in competition with your cable, satellite or telco’s IPTV service.
Today, Building B announces a $17 million round of funding by venture capital firms Morgenthaler Ventures, Index Ventures, Omni Capital and private investors. Andy Lack, the chairman of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, is joining its board of directors. The 14 month-old company was started by longtime investor and entrepreneur Buno Pati and Phil Wiser, the former chief technology officer of Sony Corporation of America. Last week, they offered a few details about their plans.
The company appears to be developing an entirely new experience for the home television. By the end of the year they will start selling a set-top box, either through partners or in retail. The box plugs into your television, in the same dusty space where your cable or satellite box used to chug away.
The service, as I understood it, will get both the popular channels as well as the more niche fare (like overseas cricket matches or user-generated videos) that is now delivered over the Internet. Behind the scenes, the service is a hybrid. It will receive the major channels in high-definition through wireless broadcasts (think rabbit ears). The company won’t say how they’ll broadcast this content, but since the small firm does not own any spectrum itself, one possibility is that Building B plans to lease digital spectrum from local television stations.
Meanwhile, the Building B device will receive less popular content over a broadband Internet connection. Movies, old TV shows, perhaps even music will also be available on demand and delivered in this way as well.
“We see ourselves as delivering the next generation of television without forcing consumers to walk over to the PC to get access to it,” Mr. Wiser said.
“The biggest advantage we have is an advantage that every startup has – no legacy,” Mr. Pati added. “We were able to ask ourselves, if we were to put together a video entertainment solution today, what would it look like?”
The company may not go directly to retailers with the service. The founders hinted the service would be a perfect “video companion” for ISPs or telcos who have not yet made big IPTV investments but are looking to offer comprehensive “triple play” packages to customers. Expect to hear more from Building B this fall.
OT - Beware the "Evil Twin" Wi-Fi Hotspot
Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:17AM EDT
See Comments (40)
Hop into Starbucks or an airport terminal and you may find yourself tempted by the inexpensive Wi-Fi service offered. Fire up your computer, browse the wireless networks available, and maybe you'll jump on a network named "tmobile" or "wayport" or some other common name among Wi-Fi service providers. Sure enough, your browser pulls up a page asking for your credit card information... or maybe you'll find yourself with "free" access to the internet. Surprise: You might have just been punk'd by a hacker.
Such is the case of the "evil twin" hotspot, a rising danger for users who rely on public hotspots for internet access. The trick is simple: A hacker just creates a hotspot with the same name (or a very similar one) as a legitimate hotspot nearby, hoping to dupe web surfers into connecting to the hacker hotspot instead of the legitimate one. The goal is the usual fare: Collect user names, passwords, credit card numbers. All the good stuff.
The Los Angeles Times notes that such lookalike networks are on the rise, and though this scam has been around for many years, it seems to be rising in popularity. My hunch? Wireless routers have better range than ever before, and it's practically child's play to set up a harvesting web site to dupe people into giving up their personal information. And since your laptop will automatically connect to any network you've connected to in the past (Windows thinks any network named "linksys" is the same network no matter where you go), people can be duped by evil twin hotspots without ever knowing it.
So what can you do about it? Sadly, not a lot, and all that security software on your laptop won't help you one bit if you willingly connect to one of these hotspots. As with most scams, diligence is your best ally: Learn what legitimate hotspot web pages look like. Hackers rarely make a perfect copy. If you encounter anything out of the ordinary, disconnect from the hotspot immediately. Tell the manager of the establishment you're trying to connect to that something funny is going on. They may not do anything about it, but hopefully they'll call the cops and encourage them to track down the signal.
Microsoft to make Vista available online
POSTED: 9:38 a.m. EST, January 19, 2007
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(AP) -- Microsoft Corp. will make its new Windows Vista operating system available for sale and download online, marking a new step for the software company, which has previously sold Windows only on packaged discs or pre-loaded on computers.
A relatively low number of computer users are likely to get Vista by downloading it from the Internet. But the mere availability indicates that Microsoft is fiddling with distribution methods for the extremely profitable franchise at the core of its business.
The download program, announced late Wednesday by the Redmond, Washington-based software maker, will also include the Office 2007 line of software when both are released for consumers January 30.
At least initially, the huge downloads will be available in North America only.
Far more commonly, consumers will get Vista already installed on new PCs bought after January 30.
The download process is targeted at people who are running the prior operating system, Windows XP, and want to get Vista without having to buy a new PC. However, Vista imposes hardware requirements that not all Windows XP machines can meet.
For those who do buy Vista the normal way, Microsoft is launching a new program that makes it easier to upgrade from one edition of the operating system to another.
Here's how that will work. For consumers, Vista will come in four flavors, Home Basic, which retails for $199, Home Premium ($239) Business ($299) and Ultimate ($399). Though consumers will pick one version when they buy a computer, higher versions will be embedded on the machine's hard drive or packaged on discs that come with it.
Anyone who wants to move up the chain -- from Home Basic to Home Premium for another $79, Home Basic to Ultimate ($199), Home Premium to Ultimate ($159), or Business to Ultimate ($139) -- will be able to click a new "Windows Anytime Upgrade" function, pay for the upgrade online and then receive a coded license "key" that will unlock the more expensive edition.
Microsoft also plans a promotion that will let buyers of Vista Ultimate get $50 copies of Home Premium for two other PCs.
Bill Mannion, director of consumer marketing for Windows, called these three steps part of an overall effort "to give more flexibility to end users."
Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said the company likely was hoping to increase the incentives for consumers to buy costlier versions of Vista.
Indeed, much of the marketing surrounding Vista will highlight features available only in higher-end versions, such as the new three-dimensional user interface and encryption functions.
Attack of the Zombie Computers Is a Growing Threat, Experts Say
Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: January 7, 2007
In their persistent quest to breach the Internet’s defenses, the bad guys are honing their weapons and increasing their firepower.
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Tips for Protecting the Home Computer
With growing sophistication, they are taking advantage of programs that secretly install themselves on thousands or even millions of personal computers, band these computers together into an unwitting army of zombies, and use the collective power of the dragooned network to commit Internet crimes.
These systems, called botnets, are being blamed for the huge spike in spam that bedeviled the Internet in recent months, as well as fraud and data theft.
Security researchers have been concerned about botnets for some time because they automate and amplify the effects of viruses and other malicious programs.
What is new is the vastly escalating scale of the problem — and the precision with which some of the programs can scan computers for specific information, like corporate and personal data, to drain money from online bank accounts and stock brokerages.
“It’s the perfect crime, both low-risk and high-profit,” said Gadi Evron, a computer security researcher for an Israeli-based firm, Beyond Security, who coordinates an international volunteer effort to fight botnets. “The war to make the Internet safe was lost long ago, and we need to figure out what to do now.”
Last spring, a program was discovered at a foreign coast guard agency that systematically searched for documents that had shipping schedules, then forwarded them to an e-mail address in China, according to David Rand, chief technology officer of Trend Micro, a Tokyo-based computer security firm. He declined to identify the agency because it is a customer.
Although there is a wide range of estimates of the overall infection rate, the scale and the power of the botnet programs have clearly become immense. David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology researcher who is a co-founder of Damballa, a start-up company focusing on controlling botnets, said the consensus among scientists is that botnet programs are present on about 11 percent of the more than 650 million computers attached to the Internet.
Plagues of viruses and other malicious programs have periodically swept through the Internet since 1988, when there were only 60,000 computers online. Each time, computer security managers and users have cleaned up the damage and patched holes in systems.
In recent years, however, such attacks have increasingly become endemic, forcing increasingly stringent security responses. And the emergence of botnets has alarmed not just computer security experts, but also specialists who created the early Internet infrastructure.
“It represents a threat but it’s one that is hard to explain,” said David J. Farber, a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist who was an Internet pioneer. “It’s an insidious threat, and what worries me is that the scope of the problem is still not clear to most people.” Referring to Windows computers, he added, “The popular machines are so easy to penetrate, and that’s scary.”
So far botnets have predominantly infected Windows-based computers, although there have been scattered reports of botnet-related attacks on computers running the Linux and Macintosh operating systems. The programs are often created by small groups of code writers in Eastern Europe and elsewhere and distributed in a variety of ways, including e-mail attachments and downloads by users who do not know they are getting something malicious. They can even be present in pirated software sold on online auction sites. Once installed on Internet-connected PCs, they can be controlled using a widely available communications system called Internet Relay Chat, or I.R.C.
ShadowServer, a voluntary organization of computer security experts that monitors botnet activity, is now tracking more than 400,000 infected machines and about 1,450 separate I.R.C. control systems, which are called Command & Control servers.
The financial danger can be seen in a technical report presented last summer by a security researcher who analyzed the information contained in a 200-megabyte file that he had intercepted. The file had been generated by a botnet that was systematically harvesting stolen information and then hiding it in a secret location where the data could be retrieved by the botnet master.
The data in the file had been collected during a 30-day period, according to Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a San Francisco-based company that sells information on computer security threats to corporations and federal agencies. The data came from 793 infected computers and it generated 54,926 log-in credentials and 281 credit-card numbers. The stolen information affected 1,239 companies, he said, including 35 stock brokerages, 86 bank accounts, 174 e-commerce accounts and 245 e-mail accounts.
Sensor information collected by his company is now able to identify more than 250,000 new botnet infections daily, Mr. Wesson said.
“We are losing this war badly,” he said. “Even the vendors understand that we are losing the war.”
According to the annual intelligence report of MessageLabs, a New York-based computer security firm, more than 80 percent of all spam now originates from botnets. Last month, for the first time ever, a single Internet service provider generated more than one billion spam e-mail messages in a 24-hour period, according to a ranking system maintained by Trend Micro, the computer security firm. That indicated that machines of the service providers’ customers had been woven into a giant network, with a single control point using them to pump out spam.
The extent of the botnet threat was underscored in recent months by the emergence of a version of the stealthy program that adds computers to the botnet. The recent version of the program, which security researchers are calling “rustock,” infected several hundred thousand Internet-connected computers and then began generating vast quantities of spam e-mail messages as part of a “pump and dump” stock scheme.
The author of the program, who is active on Internet technical discussion groups and claims to live in Zimbabwe, has found a way to hide the infecting agent in such a way that it leaves none of the traditional digital fingerprints that have been used to detect such programs.
Moreover, although rustock is currently being used for distributing spam, it is a more general tool that can be used with many other forms of illegal Internet activity.
“It could be used for other types of malware as well,” said Joe Stewart, a researcher at SecureWorks, an Atlanta-based computer security firm. “It’s just a payload delivery system with extra stealth.”
Last month Mr. Stewart tracked trading around a penny stock being touted in a spam campaign. The Diamant Art Corporation was trading for 8 cents on Dec. 15 when a series of small transactions involving 11,532,726 shares raised the price of the stock to 11 cents. After the close of business that day, a Friday, a botnet began spewing out millions of spam messages, he said.
On the following Monday, the stock went first to 19 cents per share and then ultimately to 25 cents a share. He estimated that if the spammer then sold the shares purchased at the peak on Monday he would realize a $20,000 profit. (By Dec. 20, it was down to 12 cents.)
Computer security experts warn that botnet programs are evolving faster than security firms can respond and have now come to represent a fundamental threat to the viability of the commercial Internet. The problem is being compounded, they say, because many Internet service providers are either ignoring or minimizing the problem.
“It’s a huge scientific, policy, and ultimately social crisis, and no one is taking any responsibility for addressing it,” said K. C. Claffy , a veteran Internet researcher at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
The $6 billion computer security industry offers a growing array of products and services that are targeted at network operators, corporations and individual computer users. Yet the industry has a poor track record so far in combating the plague, according to computer security researchers.
“This is a little bit like airlines advertising how infrequently they crash into mountains,” said Mr. Dagon, the Georgia Tech researcher.
The malicious software is continually being refined by “black hat” programmers to defeat software that detects the malicious programs by tracking digital fingerprints.
Some botnet-installed programs have been identified that exploit features of the Windows operating system, like the ability to recognize recently viewed documents. Botnet authors assume that any personal document that a computer owner has used recently will also be of interest to a data thief, Mr. Dagon said.
Serry Winkler, a sales representative in Denver, said that she had turned off the network-security software provided by her Internet service provider because it slowed performance to a crawl on her PC, which was running Windows 98. A few months ago four sheriff’s deputies pounded on her apartment door to confiscate the PC, which they said was being used to order goods from Sears with a stolen credit card. The computer, it turned out, had been commandeered by an intruder who was using it remotely.
“I’m a middle-aged single woman living here for six years,” she said. “Do I sound like a terrorist?”
She is now planning to buy a more up-to-date PC, she said.
Are you all kidding me? Dont't you all know the patern over the last hundred years? Intel and DOD pave the technological way for the masses to follow!!! This is the fact, DOD R&D leads to mass adoption! Not to simplify, but were at the cusp of a new technological adoption!!!!
Just the beginning Brotha!!
This is it!! I can finally sleep soundly, this being The confirmation! I'm not a techie, just a simple lonely contractor in policy in DC with a big DOD contractor, and now, it's just a sure waiting game before the coffers start filling up soon, trust me, I've got friends in DOD, GSA, contractors, life is GOOD, lookin UP!!!!!
Here's a repost from a couple of months ago, don't know who the contractor for this is, but this might have something to do with this new ORC Wave deal. Every gov employee will need a CAC card, and many contractors will then also. And in relation, sounds to me that whoever will need to access computer systems with the new CAC cards will have to access systems that are Embassy Suite enbaled somehow, but anyway here's the article:
11/30/2005 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- A new, standardized identification card is being developed for all federal employees.
The new card will replace the common access cards that military personnel, government civilians and contractors now hold, said Mary Dixon, deputy director of the Defense Manpower Data Center.
The new cards will look much the same as CACs, with a few changes, Mrs. Dixon said. The color scheme will be different and more information will be embedded in the card, she said.
The added information will be a biometric of two fingerprints, to be used for identification purposes, and a string of numbers that will allow physical access to buildings, Mrs. Dixon said.
The biggest change will be the addition of wireless technology, which will allow the cards to be read by a machine from a short distance away, Mrs. Dixon said. This will make the new cards much easier to use for access to buildings than CACs, which must be swiped through a reader, she said.
The new cards themselves will not be enough to grant access to all federal buildings, Mrs. Dixon said. Rather, they will be checked against each building's database to determine if an individual has access.
A prototype of the new card is being developed and will be finalized in the next couple of months, Mrs. Dixon said. The cards will be issued starting in October 2006 to all military personnel, government civilians and qualified contractors. In the Defense Department, all employees should have the new cards within three and a half years, she said. A timeline has not been set for the rest of the federal government.
Regarding this GSA Blanket Purchase Agreement, and I'm just musing aloud, what I understand, in an elementary kind of way, is that ORC will be providing the PKIs or certificates. And Wave will be supplying the software to make it work securely. Now very roughly speaking, let's just say that we will have a 1:1 ratio. For every certificate purchased under the BPA, the Gov will need to purchase one Wave 1.2 Embassy Suite Software unit, which if I remember correctly, appeared to be about $126 on the spreadsheet we had posted recently. (This doesn't include any of the additional Wave pieces that will probably be needed such as servers or what have you). The current going price of a DoD PKI certificate is $50, and I just verified this with our tech folks). Lets say now that the ORC certificates will be in that $50 ballpark. For every certificate that is purchased at $50, and there will be many purchased, if we have a 1:1 ratio, $50 to $126, up to an available $100M, that just might spell alot-a-dolla for Wave. But even if the ratio is 10:1 of needed certificates per Wave units, that's still quite a bit of money. Now of course this is all very speculative, in terms of prices, and ratio, but if my understanding of the ORC-Wave partnership/relation on this is correct, I think we are going big with this. Please, PKI experts, chime in. Dutch and Dory, I hear ya!
Re: DoD Security
11/30/2005 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- A new, standardized identification card is being developed for all federal employees.
The new card will replace the common access cards that military personnel, government civilians and contractors now hold, said Mary Dixon, deputy director of the Defense Manpower Data Center.
The new cards will look much the same as CACs, with a few changes, Mrs. Dixon said. The color scheme will be different and more information will be embedded in the card, she said.
The added information will be a biometric of two fingerprints, to be used for identification purposes, and a string of numbers that will allow physical access to buildings, Mrs. Dixon said.
The biggest change will be the addition of wireless technology, which will allow the cards to be read by a machine from a short distance away, Mrs. Dixon said. This will make the new cards much easier to use for access to buildings than CACs, which must be swiped through a reader, she said.
The new cards themselves will not be enough to grant access to all federal buildings, Mrs. Dixon said. Rather, they will be checked against each building's database to determine if an individual has access.
A prototype of the new card is being developed and will be finalized in the next couple of months, Mrs. Dixon said. The cards will be issued starting in October 2006 to all military personnel, government civilians and qualified contractors. In the Defense Department, all employees should have the new cards within three and a half years, she said. A timeline has not been set for the rest of the federal government.
Re: DOD Contractor Network Security Solutions
I'm writing this as a follow-on to a message I posted several weeks back on DoD network security and that of a mjor Defense Contractor that I work for. At that time there had been internal wrangling and confusion over which network encryption technology to buy into at our head coporate IT level, and that even drew other company departments into the dispute.
The predominant solution was a software one, so I opted to intervene and at least inquire why there was no discussion on the hardware elements and TPMs. The head corporate IT guy from our East Coast headquarters that I was corresponding with did not know anything about this hardware solution or the TCG, but was eager for me to send him some info.
This I did, and asked him to follow up with what his thoughts and actions might be after his schooling. Below is an exerpt of his response today:
"I'm learning more than I ever cared to know about the TPM architecture (just kidding). The information is very interesting.
However the real issue is that the Network Security folks in San Diego have already invested heavily in their software solution. I understand that they bought approximately 10,000 licenses for use. I don't think they ever considered using TPM, they might not even know about it! I know I didn't until you made me aware of it.
Maybe we can sell them on a TPM solution for their next phase of data security."
Unfortunately my Company's West Coast headquarters has the lead on Computer Network elements.
I did respond to him with the following thoughts however:
"I largely suspect that the San Diego folks do not know about TPM technology. I do know that they will end up being forced into MS Vista OS adoption at some point after its official release at the end of 2006. Can’t say how soon after Vista release that adoption will happen of course, but think that no later than the end of 2007, enabling of the TPM, and the purchase of computers embedded with them, will start becoming mandatory. Of course it’d be better if we jumped onboard sooner than later and were a step ahead of the game. Hey, maybe you can get to be the Man, by schooling them on the concept. Thanks for the info. Best regards, and keep me posted if ever you do decided to inform them."
Broadband eyes a quantum leap
Internet access 50 times faster than current speeds could arrive via TV cables as early as '06.
July 20, 2005: 7:48 AM EDT
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Broadband Internet access via TV cables will be able to hit 100 megabits per second as early as next year, 50 times faster than the average broadband speeds now offered to cable TV homes, a Finnish firm said Wednesday.
Similar data transmission speeds are possible over fiber networks, but these cost much more for the operators to build.
"This is a cost-efficient technology as we use the cable TV networks which are already in place," Jukka Rinnevaara, chief executive of small-cap Finnish broadband equipment manufacturer Teleste, told Reuters.
Teleste, whose rivals include big U.S. firms Scientific Atlanta (up $1.11 to $38.31, Research) and Cisco Systems Inc. (up $0.52 to $20.17, Research), said it would early next year bring to the market its ethernet-to-home product, which will give consumers access to 100Mb/s speed.
The sector is closely followed by big technology firms. Last month Sweden's Ericsson (up $0.04 to $34.07, Research) offered $51 million to buy Norwegian firm AXXESSIT, which makes broadband ethernet access equipment for telecom operators. To accelerate the transmission speed Teleste fits ethernet -- a cheap and standard transport method for Internet data over broadband networks -- into cable television networks.
It said it expects first rival technology to be on the market at the earliest in the second quarter of 2007.
Teleste is running a field-trial with cable TV service provider Essent in Netherlands, but not yet at the top speeds it expects most homes will need within a few years.
"Based on our research, 30 megabits per second is the absolute minimum in future homes. Just one TV program would take 10-20 megabits per second of this alone. So, very fast we would reach a need for 30 megabits, and also for 50 megabits per second," Pekka Rissanen, a Teleste executive told a news conference.
Rissanen said the cost of connecting a home with the new ethernet-to-the-home technology can vary between 50 ($60.28) and 200 ($241).
CEO Rinnevaara declined to say how much the new technology could boost Teleste's sales or profits in the next 12 months.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/20/technology/broadband.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
Regarding Defense Department Security:
I work for a major DoD contractor in the DC area, and have just spent over year in the Pentagon. Believe me, internet security is being adopted in a big way, albeit it has been slow to evolve, but the momentum is building rapidly. My company was forced into adoption of PKI over a year and a half ago, but unfortuantely there hasn't been DoD enforcement of this measure, YET!
Just last week Corporate IT sent out a company wide email on the mandated implementation and download of a little know software company for hard drive encryption, until a senior VP blocked this requirement after being informed that it would cost $120 per download.
I called the head IT guy who had disseminated the encryption email and asked him if he was familiar with TCG or TPM, and he in fact was not, but was very eager for me to put a little informational package together for him on the future of hardare based security that he would love to share with corporate IT.
Bottom line, "encryption" and "internet security" ARE quickly becoming very hot buzz words in this industry, and it should be just a matter of time before it is realized that the future is in fact hardware based, and all these new little security software providers are washed away.