09.24 $ 1.38 300
08.49 $ 1.35 2000

Can't help feeling that the Micro road demo is happening in the right place at this time, might just attract a bit media/press interest, as world security madness begins to bite.
Wavx market price at present doesn't give many clues to what maybe occuring behind the scenes - who know govermental ghostly hands may have pushed this public demo forward.

I wish! ;?) eom/

Send in a Wavx hit team! e/

04/05/04; Vol. 23 No. 7

A few steps forward at DHS, a few steps back

By Wilson P. Dizard III
GCN Staff

As the government’s homeland security operations mature, its IT functions appear less like a helpless newborn and more like an energetic if fumbling toddler.

The agencies assigned to defend America against terrorism have made serious missteps identified by lawmakers and other federal overseers, but they also are making strides.

The Homeland Security Department, now in its second year of operations, has made progress in consolidating its gaggle of overlapping systems, shoring up its frail systems security and creating an enterprise architecture governance authority. And the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center has deployed an early version of its long-awaited consolidated watch list.

But DHS’ own inspector general has criticized the department for a long list of IT weaknesses. And a congressional panel offered criticism and caveats for the screening center.

“IT remains a major management challenge for the department,” the IG’s office said in its report.

The problems include weak systems security, the lack of a detailed enterprise architecture, difficulties providing consolidated IT and administrative support to component agencies, and uneven financial management.

“DHS has also struggled to prepare a detailed and accurate listing of its procurements,” the IG noted. “The data DHS has received to date has come from 22 different sources, does not provide total contract award information and has not been independently validated.”

But DHS officials, while acknowledging plenty of work ahead, point to some success in consolidating systems and shoring up security.

DHS plans to buttress its compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act by deploying a commercial application for reporting security data, finding security weaknesses, monitoring fixes and managing self-assessments.

The department’s CIO, Steve Cooper, last month described the security application as “Trusted Agent FISMA” in testimony before the House Select Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and R&D.

FISMA deployed

DHS already has deployed the FISMA application across the department, and officials have used it to generate an initial quarterly report, Cooper said.

To improve IT oversight, DHS last week held the first meeting of its Enterprise Architecture Board, which will review the nearly 300 projects to be included in the fiscal 2006 budget. “That is a daunting task for an organization,” Cooper said.

Meanwhile, the FBI’s screening center last month deployed the first version of the Terrorist Screening Database.

The center plans to create a real-time, integrated edition of the database by December, said its director, Donna A. Bucella.

The database now contains more than 120,000 names gleaned from more than 12 government databases maintained by nine agencies, Bucella said at a joint hearing of the House Homeland Security Select Committee and Judiciary Committee.

Lawmakers greeted Bucella’s description of the database project with varying degrees of praise for the work accomplished, criticism of delays and alarm about the lack of a clear way to correct watch list errors.

Bucella said center officials still are sifting through data and have not fully populated the list. Outside agencies can’t yet access the database, and the center’s response time can stretch to 20 minutes or longer as officials check highly classified databases.

Rep. Jim Turner (D-Texas), ranking member of Homeland Security, said delays in fielding the watch list mean that “someone could still slip through the cracks because the government is not able, in real time, to check a name against every available watch list of known or suspected terrorists. ... This is put together with spit and baling wire.”

Bucella said the center has been responding to inquiries from police dispatchers, border patrol agents and other officials since December. It advises callers to arrest suspects, question and release them, record information about them or let them pass freely.

The center has developed methods for removing names from its database, Bucella said. But there’s no way for members of the public to challenge their inclusion in it or other government terrorist databases.

ASISEEIT P'raps this one? -

04/05/04; Vol. 23 No. 7

GPO gets a grip on its glut

By Jason Miller
GCN Staff

Only a fraction of the more than 6,000 bills the 108th Congress produces this summer will be signed by the president, but all of them will receive a digital signature.

The Government Printing Office will start assigning digital signatures to congressional bills, as well as the hundreds of documents agencies produce each month, to address its problem of preserving electronic documents.

By midsummer, the office will authenticate government documents using a public-key infrastructure and digital signatures on records submitted to www.gpoaccess.gov.

With agencies creating hundreds of thousands of electronic documents annually, GPO, the National Archives and Records Administration and the Library of Congress have faced two challenges: assuring the authenticity of documents and guaranteeing that they can be viewed five, 10, even 100 years from now. GPO’s digital signature initiative will settle the authentication issue. “By digitally signing the documents, we are beginning to manage digital information,” GPO CIO Reynold Schweickhardt said. “As hard-copy print runs get shorter and shorter and technology shifts, we are most worried about long-term preservation.”

The growth of GPO’s document library has made preservation and authentication a growing problem. The agency received 487 new documents in February and more than 3,800 between October and last month. On its Web site, GPO lists more than 157,000 files.

Ultimately, the agency plans to apply signatures to all the documents it has stored electronically, but it has no timetable for doing so. From here on out, GPO will attach signatures to all new documents it receives, Schweickhardt said.

While NARA works out a governmentwide approach for e-documents through its Electronic Records Archive project, the printing office will use the digital signature as at least a short-term fix for authentication.

“We want to mark content as it comes in and to take the final product and digitally sign it so others can determine it is authentic,” said Judy Russell, GPO’s superintendent of documents and managing director for information dissemination.

“It is essential to use these technologies and others so people can evaluate the authenticity of the information and rely on it,” she said at the recent Federal Library and Information Center Committee Conference in Washington.

Russell said GPO and other agencies are concerned about how to make sure users know information is authentic after it leaves an agency or trusted Web sites. Users must be able to discern whether government information is original or has been changed, she said.

Schweickhardt said GPO often receives calls from librarians and others about how the office assures authenticity.

GPO hired Entrust Inc. of Addison, Texas, to implement the PKI infrastructure, which includes creating databases for a certificate authority, certificate directory and registration authority. All the databases reside on servers inside GPO.

Other agencies are using digital signatures, mostly for e-mail. But this is the first widespread use of the technology for authenticating large volumes of documents, said Margaret Hayhurst, Entrust’s account executive for GPO.

Cross-certifying signatures

GPO also is cross-certifying its signatures on the Federal Bridge Public-Key Infrastructure, which lets agencies accept other PKI certificates. Russell said GPO is “fairly far along” in the process of cross-certifying, but she didn’t know when the process would be completed.

Agencies either will digitally sign documents before sending them to GPO or will send hard copies that GPO will digitally sign. When the office receives a digitally signed document, Schweickhardt said, GPO would digitally sign it again after editing or making other minor changes to it.

Authorized GPO employees will apply the digital signatures to the documents from their desktop PCs or through batch processing, Schweickhardt said. His office is still settling on the exact information each signature will include.

“We are standing up our own authority based on the business driver of permanent public access,” Schweickhardt said. “If we can control the authentication piece, we can provide end-to-end management of these documents.”

A digital signature is a hash, or mathematical equation, that is encrypted onto the document, said Peter Bello, vice president of Cygnacom Solutions Inc. of McLean, Va., Entrust’s subcontractor on the project.

“Once the digital signature is placed on the document, the certificate will always be a part of it,” Bello said. “If the document is altered, a new hash is created and the certificate will not be able to verify the new hash to the certificate directory.”

Citizens can check the authenticity of the document by downloading any free reader that follows the X.509 protocol for digital signatures.

GPO also is working with NARA and other federal agencies on electronic preservation and verification policies and techniques generally.

“We have overlapping missions so we are working on common business processes,” Schweickhardt said. “The goal is to support agencies in permanent preservation.”

Certainly a fairly buoyant day for Wave followers! e/

This just might hit a nerve or two! .... said Jeff Jones, Senior Director for Trustworthy Computing
at Microsoft Corp. "We are pleased to work with companies like Wave at
our Security Summit events to help customers learn more about options
available to help them protect computers and networks from the threat
posed by malicious software code." e/

Sun And Microsoft Bury The Hatchet
Sophia Banay, 04.02.04, 10:00 AM ET

NEW YORK - Topping the news this hour, Sun Microsystems said it has resolved its long-term legal dispute with Microsoft and under the settlement will receive $1.6 billion from its rival. But Sun also said that its fiscal third-quarter loss will be much wider than expected and that it will prune 3,300 jobs, amounting to 10% of its workforce.

Sun (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) said the agreement includes a $700 million payment from Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) to settle antitrust issues and $900 million to resolve patent disputes. Sun also named Jonathan Schwartz its chief operation officer under Scott McNealy, who remains chairman and chief executive.

dhamster - Yes and hopefully brighten up my wavx portfolia! havn't dared look just lately!
Regards B

goinup - on top of main page, hit offerings - then search - then 'IT Product Look up' it'll give you a signup offering. e/

eamonn! - Have to signup to techscaler! - you'll gain access to their online search supply page. e/

Techscaler.com has our favourite motherboard for sale
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Save Cancel


[ Products ]

Search By: Category / Manufacturer

Filter Your Results
Keyword(s)
Search
Filter by Category
Systems - Motherboards ( 4 ) Filter by Manufacturer
Any Intel (4)
Header / Product Line
any Intel Desktop Board (4) Header / Model
any D865GRH (2) D865GRHLK (2)
Header / Compatibility
any PC (4) Mainboard / Chipset Type
any Intel 865G (4)
Mainboard / Compatible Processors
any Pentium 4 (4) Mainboard / Form Factor
any Micro ATX (4)

Select up to four products and click the button to create your own comparison.
Add to Cart Compare Clear All In Stock Only
Add to
Favorites Description Part Number Sell Price In
Stock Add to
Cart
Intel - Intel Desktop Board D865GRHLK
Mainboard - micro ATX - i865G - Socket 478 - LAN EN, Fast EN, Gigabit EN - Serial ATA BOXD865GRHLK $160.00 62

Intel - Intel Desktop Board D865GRHLK
Mainboard - micro ATX - i865G - Socket 478 - LAN EN, Fast EN, Gigabit EN - Serial ATA (pack of 10 ) KD865GRHLKPAK10 $1,566.00 1

Intel - Intel Desktop Board D865GRH
Mainboard - micro ATX - i865G - Socket 478 - Serial ATA BOXD865GRH $132.00 105

Intel - Intel Desktop Board D865GRH
Mainboard - micro ATX - i865G - Socket 478 - Serial ATA (pack of 10 ) KD865GRHPAK10 $1,273.00 1
Found: 4 Display: 1 - 4
Add to Cart Compare Clear All


For product support, please send requests to : info@techscaler.com

Little + large! - we gotta' 108 cent stock thats just 'bout to hit the road with Microsoft! - something's not quite right here! e/

Oh well! - gotta' gather myself for another exciting day on this rollercoaster! e/

1.18 climb back? e/

Looks like IT product online agency! e/

MEMORY
Select a Product Type Cameras Desktops/Servers Laptops Motherboards MP3 Players Network Hardware Other Devices PDAs Printers Products Quotes & Orders •Multi-Part Search
•Additional Search
Edit Favorite's List Name

Edit the Favorite's List name for this item if desired.


e.g. Instead of the default of C4110A#ABA, use HP LJ5000.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Save Cancel


[ Products ]
Use the "Expert Search" above or browse by categories or manufacturers below to find and add products into a quote. Products may also be saved to your favorites.

Search By: Category / Manufacturer
Systems
Desktops & Servers, Notebooks, Handhelds, ... Memory
RAM, Cache Memory, Flash Memory, ...
Storage Devices
Hard Drives, Disk Drives, Tape Drives, ... Input Devices
Keyboards, Pointing Devices, Game Controllers, ...
Output Devices
Monitors, Projectors, Printers, ... Networking
Modems, Video Conferencing, Concentrators & Multiplexers, ...
Software
Operating Systems, Software Service & Support, Application - Computer Based Training, ... Learning Resources
Reference Material, Training Courses
Video
Televisions, DVD Players, Camcorders & Digital Cameras, ... Audio
Home Audio, Portable Audio, Speakers, ...
Cameras & Optical Systems
Cameras, Lenses, Flashes, ... CE Options
Antennas, Tripods, AV Blank Media, ...
Office Machines
Multifunction & Office Machines Communication
Telephones, GPS Kits
Additional Products
Additional Products


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For product support, please send requests to : info@techscaler.com

24601 appologies!!

http://www.netscaler.com/news/releases/release031604.html

NetScaler Attracts $20 Million from Leading Investors in Oversubscribed Expansion Round
Focus Ventures and Granite Global Ventures Join Existing Blue-Chip Investors as Company Continues Expansion into Enterprise and Internet Properties


SANTA CLARA, CA (March 16, 2004) - NetScaler, Inc., a pioneer in application delivery systems, today announced that it has raised $20 million in an expansion round of funding. Led by Focus Ventures, this oversubscribed round also included Granite Global Ventures as well as existing investors Sequoia Capital, Goldman Sachs & Co., Gabriel Venture Partners, and Bay Partners.

"We feel fortunate to have found a rare company such as NetScaler that combines all of the business and technology ingredients needed for success in today's highly competitive, sometimes uncertain marketplace," states James H. Boettcher, general partner, Focus Ventures. "NetScaler's highly disciplined management team has led the company to a solid, sustained growth path by focusing on the long-term success of its stellar base of enterprise and public web site customers, while taking advantage of its highly differentiated technology through strong, continued innovation."

NetScaler achieved a record year for new bookings in calendar year 2003 with year-over-year growth in net revenues soaring to over 400 percent. The company is addressing and defining the market for application delivery, a rapidly emerging new category that represents the next generation of secure traffic management devices and for which market opportunity will exceed $2.2 billion by 2005 and approach $3.6 billion by 2007 according to market research firms IDC and Infonetics Research. Over the past year alone, NetScaler has reached significant company milestones, including:



· More than doubling of its worldwide customer base, with strong penetration into the enterprise sector;
· Expansion of product family to address full market opportunity, from SMBs (small-to-medium sized businesses) to Global 2000 enterprises;
· Addition of key feature sets such as SSL VPN to extend its leadership in bringing to market an integrated application delivery platform;
· Winner of both the application-layer content switching group test and the industry’s most comprehensive SSL VPN group test independently commissioned by Light Reading;
· Gartner lists company in the visionary quadrant of its Magic Quadrant for Web-enabled Application Delivery pointing to its ability to "now deliver strong solutions to optimize enterprise applications."

"We continue to see very strong demand both domestically and internationally for application delivery products," says B.V. Jagadeesh, president and C.E.O., NetScaler. "This late stage funding will primarily serve to support our continued success in penetrating Global 2000 enterprise accounts by further solidifying our already strong financial position and accelerating our plans to expand globally."

NetScaler is a late stage, privately-held networking company backed by a stellar list of some of Silicon Valley's most respected venture capitalists. The company has received considerable attention from both press and analyst communities for its technology innovation and success at large-scale deployments with high-profile customers such as Google, Amazon.com, 7-Eleven, MLB Advanced Media LP (site of Major League Baseball), ShopNBC, and many more.

NetScaler's customer base represents three of the top five Internet properties in the world and approximately 75 percent of all domestic (U.S.) Internet searches run through NetScaler 9000 Series products, according to CyberAtlas. NetScaler's demonstrated leadership in accelerating and securing application delivery for content providers and e-commerce operations has been a significant factor in attracting major enterprise customers from all vertical markets.

About Focus Ventures:
Focus Ventures is the leading expansion stage venture capital firm that invests in emerging market leaders in the software, semiconductor and communications industries. Focus Ventures currently manages $570 million, having closed its first fund in October 1997 and Focus Ventures II in December 1999. Focus Ventures offers its portfolio companies access to high quality partners in Asia and an extensive network of resources focused specifically on driving top line revenue growth through customer introductions and by establishing distribution channels, joint ventures and licensing arrangements. Since the firm's inception, Focus Ventures has invested in 75 companies and has had 20 IPOs and seven acquisitions by public companies. A select number of portfolio companies that have gone public include: Active Software, Agile Software, Alteon WebSystems, BroadBase Software, Chordiant Software, Commerce One, Copper Mountain Networks, Corio, CoSine Communications, Interwoven, Loudcloud, Niku, Pixelworks, and Verisity. For more information on Focus Ventures, visit www.focusventures.com or call 650.325.7400.

About Granite Global Ventures
Granite Global Ventures is a leading expansion stage investor focused on information technology and healthcare investments and was founded in partnership with Venrock Associates to bring differentiated value to entrepreneurs. Operating from offices in Menlo Park, CA, Singapore and Shanghai, Granite Global Ventures has created a strong global network to provide business development assistance to its portfolio companies. For more information, visit the Granite Global Ventures Web site at http://www.ggvc.com.

About NetScaler
NetScaler provides networking systems that enable the fast and secure delivery of applications by integrating a unique suite of optimization, security and switching capabilities. NetScaler's 9000 Series products deliver improved application performance and hardened security for many of the world's largest enterprises, content providers and e-commerce vendors while greatly reducing total cost of ownership.

NetScaler headquarters are in Santa Clara, California. For more information, visit http://www.netscaler.com.

Contact NetScaler Contact:
John Oh
NetScaler, Inc.
(408)987-8712
joh@netscaler.com


NetScaler, Request Switch and Request Switching are trademarks of NetScaler, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other companies and products mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective holders.

Somebody loves us!!! e/

1.30 yeah!!!!!!!!e/

Snackies train to Vegas! - I boarded 1st class some little time ago, along I guess with many others, as we moved along albeit slowly at times - and at various stations, wavoids get on and sadly some get off.

Over the many years that I've followed Wavx's ups + downs pretty closely, the question that bothers me I suppose is 'how many of us 'oldies' here will actually survive this round trip' 'cus the total length of journey has always been fairly hazy, in other words am I gonna live long enough to see it! e/

ps - and I'm only 28.

OK so I lied!

;?) e/

i love wavx i love wavx i love wavx i love wavx i love wavx i love wavx i love wavx i love wavx

UncleverName - One helluva piece of editing work, in clarifying last 10k and more power to your elbow in these unselfish efforts. Regards B

Brussels' Muscle Won't Kill Tech
Claims that EU sanctions against Microsoft will stifle innovation and hurt the U.S. are sheer folly.
By Paul R. La Monica, March 25, 2004

NEW YORK - The EU accomplished something Wednesday that the U.S. government failed to do in 2001: it issued a meaningful punishment to Microsoft (MSFT).
Sadly, it only took a few hours after the European Commission, the EU's antitrust arm, announced its sanctions before a prominent U.S politician began whining about how mean those big, bad, bureaucratic bullies from Brussels are.

"I now fear that the U.S. and the EU are heading toward a new trade war -- and that the Commission's ruling against Microsoft is the first shot," said U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, in a written statement Wednesday.

Frist went on to play the jobs card, asserting that the EU's ruling "threatens the vitality of America's IT industry" and that the EU showed "complete indifference to the negative impact of its ruling on American jobs, American consumers, and the U.S. economy."

The U.S. Department of Justice weighed in with a worry about the ruling's effect on innovation: "sound antitrust policy must avoid chilling innovation and competition even by 'dominant' companies," its statement read.

Such grandstanding is not surprising, but also is misleading.

End of innovation? Please

It's tough to see how the EU's ruling -- which could thwart Microsoft's ability to bundle new products into Windows -- would slow innovation.

Let's flash forward a few years. By 2006 or 2007, Microsoft should be coming out with its next version of Windows, Longhorn. And it is widely believed that one of Longhorn's "killer apps" will be a new search engine.

But if Microsoft comes to dominate search in the same manner (i.e. bundling) that it has other areas of tech, then couldn't that possibly marginalize Google and Yahoo! (YHOO), two highly successful and innovative U.S. tech companies?

In turn, if Microsoft no longer can rely on bundling, isn't it reasonable to argue that Microsoft would need to work harder in order to build a product that's truly better than the competition? If anything, Microsoft would need to be more innovative, not less.

Jobs: Several U.S. companies could benefit

As for Frist's claims that the ruling could negatively impact U.S. jobs, let's examine the facts further. Forcing Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without its multimedia player bundled into it could be good news for Real Networks (RNWK) and Apple (AAPL). Last I checked, Real Networks is based in Seattle and Apple is headquartered in Cupertino, Calif.

The EU also told Microsoft that it must share more code with competitors that make software for servers. That could be a boost for Sun Microsystems (SUNW), perhaps the most vocal Microsoft critic. By the way, Sun is based in Santa Clara, Calif.

Several other U.S. companies, ranging from Linux software sellers Red Hat (RHAT) and Novell to anti-virus software firms Symantec (SYMC) and Network Associates also may benefit from the decision. Why shouldn't the future health of these techs matter?

Some of Frist's other comments were quite the doozy as well, such as this one. The ruling "also requires Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without multimedia functionality - i.e., one that cannot play audio or video."

That's simply inaccurate. The EU's ruling does not mean that Windows won't have multimedia functionality. It means that Windows won't have Windows Media Player built in to it. Consumers would be able to still use Real's RealPlayer, Apple's Quicktime ... or even download Windows Media Player from Microsoft's Web site if they so desired.

Finally, Frist had this to say about Microsoft's fine. "As a result, money that rightfully belongs to Microsoft shareholders will instead be filling the coffers administered by Commission bureaucrats."

Are you kidding me? A more than $610 million fine to a company with nearly $53 billion in cash doesn't even register as a slap on the wrist. It's more like a love tap.

And even if Microsoft were fined the maximum penalty, which would have amounted to over $3 billion, it would still have plenty left over to use to increase its dividend, buy back more shares, make acquisitions and invest heavily in R&D.

This ruling may in fact set a precedent that changes the way Microsoft does business in the future. Frist is right about that. But it does not signal that the end is nigh for the U.S. tech industry.

Nice find Doma! - keep up the good work. e/

Jeeeeze!! - Just had a spin thro' that Yahoo Wavx board, unbelievable - they're something else! - I've always wondered who the people are, that write stuff on lavatory walls. e

I think you fellows are right! - the Wavx wheels are turning, market may not realise as yet, OK and maybe the spokes 'aint blurring! perhaps - but it's rolling. e/

test

Not sure this severe Wavx keelhauling we're receiving from the markets at the moment is anywhere need deserved, it's not doing too much for our loyal wavoids morale, p'raps we need some titillating dancing girls or an upward movement or sumsuch to break out of this revolving redness. e/

1.38 - snakes & ladders!! eom

Keep the faith bro's! - buttocks firmly clenched in downturns, Booms just bought himself another 1.5k @ 1.2 - so OK p'raps I'm stooopid, but I happen to believe in this Tech' and will continue to buy (when I can afford) on the slides, as there's gonnabe more yet. e/

Wavx 1.28 duh!- Oh well!- musn't looka gift horse in the mouth I 'spose damnit, here goes this years tax rebate. e/

After few weeks of absence - Nice to see trueblue wavoids holding the fort against the usual naysayers ect, thro' a apparently 'interesting' price fluctuation period, will catchup on CC + boards. e/

eamonnshute - maybe a little forward movement!!! e/

Keep it coming Wave! - we surely need some reinforcements. e/

'At this business partner conference Wave will highlight the newest addition to the EMBASSY Trust Suite portfolio - a version of the Key Transfer Manager - an enterprise software solution that is designed to help backup and protect the hardware encryption keys used to protect valuable personal computer data. Key Transfer Manager is designed to work with all Trusted Computing Group (TCG) -compliant secure hardware Trusted Platform Modules'

test

Seems strangely odd! - that the only real Wave news release, we've had in a while, was immediately jumped on with 3 legal notices.

Don't tell me thats a coincidence! e/ B

BCaSE Great post! - Thanks for your humour. e/

The Arrogance of the Present
============================
I am at the RSA conference this week, and it is an interesting
benchmark to listen to the various vendor messages and how they
have changed from a year ago. RSA CEO Art Covielo summed up how
there is far more business value yet to come from IT than all
that has been so far with his reference to the Arrogance of the
Present. This view that "what we now know and understand" keeps
us from being able to speak a vision that is a break from the
present is clearly a driving force today that is inhibiting the
realization that current methods don't encompass enough of the
distributed networked computing picture to ever get the job done.

This in turn creates the sensation that IT is dead, that computing
has reached some end-state and won't contribute much more value.
His presentation was a well done "where and when the business
value of technology emerges" history lesson (it's been a few years
since I've seen the railroad and auto cycles reviewed - he did it
very well.) It ended wondering what is the new vision that will
get us past the current roadblocks and how do we find it. If you've
been a reader for awhile, you can probably guess what my answer is.

I love Art's term, the arrogance of the present, because it nails
both why it is so difficult for people to see the big picture and
why they continue to pursue failing approaches with ever more
energy. This year it is clear that the world of security is
hitting the wall of the fortress paradigm of network defense.
Jonathan Swartz, Sun's EVP of Software, said it colorfully,
"It's time the industry admitted that the defensive approach
to PC security with bigger moats, taller walls and memos from
the CEO has clearly failed."

Every security focused vendor felt the need to indicate that
they were now pursuing a "higher level" approach that integrated
more things and were more focused on making things manageable in
addition to just playing defense. No one in high tech really
wants to build a Soviet-style auto factory, and they are
starting to see that's where many current techniques are headed.
Nearly every serious thinker at the conference this year was
finally willing to admit that a new paradigm is needed. Many are
even starting to see part of what it must become - even if they
don't see how to get there yet. Here's a hint - Identity is Center.

A year ago, the word identity came up in maybe 20% of vendors'
messages, this year it is nearly 50% - although it is still often
quite simplistic and a bit confused. Federated identity sessions
filled up with attendees eager to figure out what it was all about.
In many cases they left the sessions with not much more of an idea
than they came with of what identity federation really was - but
were sure that they had problems only identity federation could solve.

Meanwhile, those that do "get" federation are no longer just talking
about it abstractly. Rather they are comparing notes on how their
early deployments of federated identity are leading to successful
solutions, sharing lessons learned, and discussing how SAML 2.0 will
incorporate Liberty ID-FF so that a Liberty 1.1 implementation will
interoperate with a SAML 2.0 deployment when that standard completes.

I fear we may be in danger of creating a pack of people that understand
federation who are breaking off from the rest of the technology world.
Having spent so much time to understand and develop the concepts,
they no longer have any ability to relate to the world view of the
vast majority who have yet to see what it is all about. They thus
cannot talk about federated identity in a way that allows entry for
those just arriving who need to understand it. I am working hard on
the May/Jun print magazine issue - which will focus on federated
identity - to create just such entry paths. We are at the time
they are critically needed.

A topic I will call the network paradox came up in different forms
in many of the discussions I've had this week. I'll be writing about
it more as I think of reasonable ways to express it. It turns out
that those enterprises that have established architecture offices
and begun to manage their IT infrastructure from an architecture
viewpoint are today far more aware of identity and the principles
that lead to it (like loose coupling, orchestration, management vs.
control, etc.) than those that haven't. The fact is, however,
that far less than 10% of enterprises have created architecture
offices, and even fewer have given those offices more than
consultative authority.

The process a typical company goes through to understand the need
for an architecture office and deploy it is a microcosm of
the bigger trends underway, and it may turn out to be a useful
predictor and tracker of successful solutions to track the
formation of architecture offices in IT in the enterprise. It
is clear from the conversations I had this week, that those
enterprises that have created and empowered architecture offices
are today far ahead of the pack in understanding and starting
to deal with the big picture of the transformation that is
underway in computing today.


=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Don't Miss a Single Issue!
Subscribe to the Digital ID World Print Magazine
http://www.digitalidworld.com/magazine

Just cannot believe that! – With all these dogs of litigation chasing poor Wave Systems, who are apparently intimately rubbing shoulders with these gorilla types and other partnerships, surely it wouldn’t be a totally unthinkable notion, that this association would find a serious downward move massively unacceptable, especially at this logistical period of this company.

There are no doubt certain pressures existing of many forms, (and governmental is a very good word) revolving around this scenario, that we can only guess and maybe hope for, but who at times of ensuing problems may provide a back / front door support of sorts, that can perhaps help unravel this bag o’ tricks soonest. Eom

Notwithstanding needing money for my next wk ski safari!!!! ;?)

Movie piracy legislation war, hotting up! eom

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1536846,00.asp

Courts Shut Down DVD X Copy
By Cade Metz
February 23, 2004

The battle against digital piracy continues apace. On February 3rd, the country's major movie studios, music publishers, and recording studios asked a U.S. appellate court to shutdown Grokster and Morpheus, two Internet file-sharing services used to trade copyrighted songs and movies. A week later, the studios launched civil suits against two factories in China, accusing them of illegally copying and distributing copyrighted movies on DVD. And then, late last week, digital pirates received not one, but two significant setbacks.

On Thursday, the FBI joined forces with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) to announce a new initiative designed to combat the theft of copyrighted material. Then, little more than twenty-four hours later, a federal court ordered 321 Studios, a privately-held software developer, to cease making DVD X Copy, an application that lets users make copies of DVD movies.

At a press conference at the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office on Thursday, the bureau's cyber division discussed its recent efforts to address complaints involving copyright infringement and released a new "education letter" meant to inform the public about the risks of exchanging files online. In the future, the FBI will place an "Anti-Piracy" seal on copyrighted materials, providing further warning against digital piracy.

"The theft of copyrighted material has grown substantially and has had a detrimental impact on the U.S. economy," said Jana Monroe, assistant director of the cyber division. "The FBI's Cyber Division recognizes the importance of the problem and stands ready to meet the challenge. Through working partnerships with other law enforcement entities, the Department of Justice, and industry, we will continue to devote significant resources in pursuit of those who steal copyright protected data." Managed from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., the cyber division oversees sixty different task forces in various parts of the country, each designed to investigate violations involving fraud, identity theft, child pornography, and copyright infringement.

Friday's ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California was even bigger news. Judge Susan Illston ordered 321 Studios to stop selling DVD X Copy by the end of this week, deciding the application was illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which prevents the sale of software designed to break the copy-protection schemes used by digital media.

321 Studios immediately announced that it would appeal the decision, requesting a stay that would allow it to continue selling DVD X Copy during the appeal process. The company claims that the DVD X Copy buyers use the software to make private backup copies of DVDs and feels that the law should protect such use.

"Despite today's ruling, 321 stands firm in our vow to fight the Hollywood Studios in their effort to take away our customers' digital rights," founder and president Robert Moore said in the company's press release. "There is no difference between making a copy of a music CD for personal use and making a backup of a DVD movie for personal use. We are so firm in our belief in the principle of fair use that we will appeal this ruling immediately. And we will take our fight all the way to the Supreme Court, if that's what it takes to win."

321 has claimed that the DMCA allows individuals to make copies of DVDs for their own personal use, but, according to Evan R. Cox, an intellectual property attorney and a partner in the San Francisco office of the international law firm Covington & Burling, this is not the case. "The statute prohibits using something to circumvent access controls [on a DVD] and allows the copyright office, in periodic review, to decide if there should be exceptions to that," Cox says. The copyright office just recently finished another periodic review, he explains, and to date, it hasn't created any exceptions to the statute.

Cox feels that Judge Illston's ruling is in line with all past rulings involving DVD copying and does not expect 321 Studios to win an appeal. "This was a pretty unsurprising result," he says. "The judge really couldn't come out any other way without standing the statute on its head and, basically, rendering it meaningless."

If 321 Studios is not granted a stay this week, it will begin offering a version of DVD X Copy that does not include a so-called "ripping" engine, the software that pulls the data from a DVD disk. In theory, users could download another ripper from the Internet, such SmartRipper or DVD Decrypter, and use it in tandem with DVD X Copy's compression software to make copies of digital movies. Unlike SmartRipper and DVD Decrypter, DVD X Copy is sold in retail stores as well as on the Internet, and it's far easier to use.