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Given what we already know this TPM integration bodes well and it is very curious timing with President's Obama's 60 day Cyber Security review!Imagine the potential NUCLEAR news from this review!!
The overall situation could move very,very fast!
March 5, 2009, 10:08 am
White House Names First Chief Information Officer
By Brian Knowlton
Update | 12:46 p.m. In a 25-minute conference call, Mr. Kundra discussed some of his plans and interests, including his intention to extend the use of “cloud computing” in the federal government and to create a data.gov web site that
will put vast amounts of government information into the public domain.
He sketched out an ambition that is hardly modest: to shatter the assumption that government technology automatically must lag behind the private sector. Saul Hansell at Bits has more on the conference call.
First Federal Chief Information Officer | 10:06 a.m. Perhaps not surprisingly, President Obama has formed a close friendship with the District of Columbia’s young, Blackberry-addicted, problem-solving mayor, Adrian Fenty. Now, the president has raided Mr. Fenty’s staff to name a youthful, Indian-born techno-whiz as his first federal chief information officer.
The White House said Thursday that it had selected Vivek Kundra, 34, the chief technology officer for the District, to the federal position, where he will be expected to oversee a push to expand uses of cutting-edge technology. He will have wide powers over federal technology spending, over information sharing between agencies, over greater public access to government information and over questions of security and privacy.
But he will also – as Mr. Obama mentioned twice in the space of a six-line comment distributed by the White House – look for ways to “lower the cost of government operations” through technology.
Mr. Kundra’s background seems to suit him well for both aspects of the job. Born in India, he lived in Tanzania until the age of 11, when he moved to the Maryland suburb of Gaithersburg. One of his first memories there, according to a profile last month in The Washington Post, was of seeing a dog-food commercial on television. “I was shocked,” he said. “I was used to seeing people starve in Africa. It was mind-boggling to me that people could afford to feed their dogs!”
He appears to bring a similar tight-fisted mentality to his oversight of technology in 86 District agencies.
In just 19 months with the District, Mr. Kundra has moved to post city contracts on YouTube and to make Twitter use common in his office and others. He hopes to allow drivers to pay parking tickets or renew their driver’s licenses on Facebook.
His office’s Web site offers a “Digital Public Square” with links to information on everything from crime to parking to tourism. It provides a map of free wi-fi hot spots, a public library finder, leaf-collection schedules; even a widget to view live snow-plow progress.
A contest he launched in October – “Apps for Democracy” – brought 47 entries from residents offering applications to give District residents Web and cellphone access to crime reports, pothole-repair schedules and other city data, The Post reported.
Mr. Kundra, who likes to refer to citizens as “co-creators,” estimates he spent $50,000 for contest costs and prize money; he hopes to save $2.6 million over what it would have cost to hire contract developers.
Mr. Kundra, who holds a Master’s of Science in information technology from the University of Maryland, previously served as assistant secretary of commerce and technology in Virginia. InfoWorld magazine has called him one of the 25 top chief technology officers in the country.
Wait a minute....SKS did say that all internal computers at BofA had TPMs.....UHMMMMMM!!!
CyberSecurity and the proposed restructuring of Obama's National Security Council headed by former Marine General Jones.
"New NSC directorates will deal with such department-spanning 21st-century issues as cybersecurity, energy, climate change, nation-building and infrastructure. Many of the functions of the Homeland Security Council, established as a separate White House entity by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, may be subsumed into the expanded NSC, although it is still undetermined whether elements of the HSC will remain as a separate body within the White House".
Nato's cyber defence warriors
An unidentified blogger at his computer
By Frank Gardner
Security correspondent, BBC News
Nato officials have told the BBC their computers are under constant attack from organisations and individuals bent on trying to hack into their secrets.
The attacks keep coming despite the establishment of a co-ordinated cyber defence policy with a quick-reaction cyber team on permanent standby.
The cyber defence policy was set up after a wave of cyber attacks on Nato member Estonia in 2007, and more recent attacks on Georgia - so what are they defending against and how do they do it?
Tower of Babel
Nato's operational headquarters in Mons is a low, drab three-storey building - part of a sprawling complex set in rolling farmland south of Brussels.
Cyber Defence Dentre
Nato officials refuse to say who they think is behind the attacks
The blue and white flag of the 26-nation alliance flutters in the cold breeze alongside the spangled banner of the EU.
Inside the canteen it is like a Tower of Babel with almost every language of Europe competing to be heard above the clatter of trays and dishes.
Our escort, a German army officer in immaculate uniform, leads us down a corridor to a hushed room where 20 or so military analysts sit hunched over computers; their desert boots and camouflage fatigues strangely out of place for a windowless room in Belgium.
This, explains Chris Evis, is the Incident Management Section, which he heads.
"We face the full gamut of threats. It varies from your kiddie who's just trying to gain street cred amongst his friends to say he's just defaced a Nato system to more focused targeted attacks against Nato information".
Cyber attacks are not new - websites were being hacked into and brought down during the Kosovo war 10 years ago.
Cyber attack can bring down a complete national service, banking, media
Suleyman Anil
Nato Security Office
But when Estonia came under sustained cyber attack from Russian sympathisers in 2007, the alliance realised it needed a proper cyber defence policy and fast.
Suleyman Anil, a Turkish IT expert from the Nato Security Office is the man driving much of that policy.
"Estonia was the first time, in a large scale, [that we saw] possible involvement of state agencies; that the cyber attack can bring down a complete national service, banking, media... the other particular trait everyone is struggling to deal with... is lots of cyber espionage going on".
Mr Anil reveals that there has been more than one incidence of Nato officials being socially profiled, and then subjected to "targeted trojans".
He explains how their unseen adversaries gather as much information as possible about the individual then send them an email purporting to come from a friend or a relative.
Trojan horse
If they open the attachment then a sophisticated "worm" or "trojan" can, in theory, take over their computer, scan its files, send them on, delete them, or perhaps most damagingly, alter them without the user knowing.
This sort of activity goes on every day in the commercial world but for a military organisation like Nato there are obvious risks.
Chris Evis is at pains to point out that any material classified as "secret" is transmitted only internally, by secure intranet, rather than using the world wide web.
The gravest cyber threat to Nato is somebody altering the data without our knowing about it and finding out too late in the action
Chris Evis
Incident Management Section, Nato
But what happens, I ask, when someone mistakenly sends secret material over the internet?
The answer, it seems, is sitting in the corner of the room.
An Italian sergeant, who looks young enough to still be at school, is painstakingly scanning emails that have been automatically quarantined because they contain buzzwords like "Nato secret".
A glance over his shoulder reveals emails to and from Sarajevo, Baghdad and Kabul, evidence of Nato's newly expanded horizons.
They look innocuous enough and most of the time, explains the sergeant, it is a false alarm but sometimes even quite senior officers have transgressed and they get a serious talking to about online security.
Serious threats
When it comes to cyber espionage, Nato officials refuse to say who they think is behind the attacks, in fact our escorts can hardly wait to steer us off the subject.
Even if they were certain that they were originating, say, in China or Russia, it would be very hard for them to prove, so tortuous is the trail in cyberspace.
Instead, Chris Evis is happy to talk about how the threat is being tackled, explaining that they have a number of analysts who are constantly reviewing information, looking for the more serious threats.
"We have [about] 100 sensors at the moment deployed at something close to 30 different sites across the Nato countries... one of these sensors could be on the east coast of the United States, one could be in London, one could be in Iraq and a number of them could be in Afghanistan. All that information is simultaneously feeding back to us at the centre here."
So is cyber warfare the future of warfare?
Chris Evis says he believes it will be a factor within any future conflict.
"I think the gravest cyber threat to Nato is somebody altering the data without our knowing about it and [our] finding out too late in the action," he says.
"So when it's quiet it's probably too quiet, because there's always activity out there."
Trojan Attack Masquerades As Airline E-Ticket Notice
Realistic-looking email messages from Northwest, United actually bear data-stealing malware, researcher warns
Jan 22, 2009 | 05:19 PM
By Tim Wilson
DarkReading
Security researchers have spotted a new attack designed to fool users into thinking that airline tickets have been purchased with their credit cards.
The attack, which was first spotted as an email from Northwest Airlines, and subsequently as a message from United Airlines, is a realistic-looking "receipt" that contains an attachment bearing the name Your_ETicket.zip or eTicket.zip, according to researchers at security vendor Sophos.
The idea is to fool the unwitting user into clicking on the attachment to get more information on who purchased it, according to Graham Cluley, a researcher at Sophos. "The file doesn't contain a genuine electronic ticket, of course, and your credit card has not been charged," he says. "The hackers are hoping that you will be so affronted at being charged for an airline flight that you haven't booked that you will open the attachment without thinking."
Users who click on the e-ticket file trigger the download of Troj/Agent-IPS, a data-stealing Trojan horse.
The airline ticket disguise isn't new, Cluley notes. A similar scam was detected early last month, and a broader scam took place in the middle of last year. Cluley warns users who receive the messages to keep their cool.
"Although it's understandable that you might panic into thinking that your credit card has been debited without your permission for a flight you don't want or need, you should be cynical enough to smell this for what it is -- a dirty, rotten scam designed to infect your personal computer," Cluley says.
Telecommunications-equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp. filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware bankruptcy court Wednesday.
Previously
* Uncertainty Weighs on Nortel
12/16/08
* Nortel Told It May Face Delisting
12/12/08
Toronto-based Nortel is reeling from the sudden drop in demand for its voice-only telecom-network equipment and has been trying to cut costs and sell assets to survive the downturn. It is expected to file for protection from creditors in Canada, as well.
Nortel was facing a $107 million bond interest payment this week. The company owes bondholders more than $3.8 billion, according to court filings.
In December, the company had received notice from the New York Stock Exchange that it faced delisting if it couldn't bring its share price above the required $1 minimum in the next six months. It was last trading at 32 cents a share.
Nortel's shares plunged last year as customers reduced spending amid the economic downturn.
The company also filed for protection under Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Chapter 15, added to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in 2005, opens the door for a company or court-appointed administrator to seek a U.S. bankruptcy court's recognition of a foreign bankruptcy case as the main, or controlling proceeding
Security Weathering Economic Storm
Despite a flood of poor financial results, enterprises are finding the cash to fund security initiatives -- and even grow them
Oct 28, 2008 | 04:02 PM
By Tim Wilson
DarkReading
As the global economic situation continues to worsen, companies are looking for ways to tighten their belts. So far, however, cutting computer security does not appear to be one of them.
That's not to say computer security is recession-proof. It isn't. During the past couple of months, computer security companies have rode the market to the bottom while world stock markets have experienced record declines. Industry leaders such as McAfee, whose stock has dropped from more than $40 in September to about $26 today, and Symantec, whose stock has fallen from $22 to $14 in the same period, are hurting. Nor has the IT industry been immune to the effects of the downturn. In a report published last month, Forrester Research said that 43 percent of organizations have already cut their overall IT budgets as a reaction to the economic slowdown, while 24 percent have put discretionary spending on hold. Seventy percent of respondents said they will likely negotiate lower rates with suppliers and vendors, and 16 percent said they have already cut their IT service spending.
But in a world market where all the news is bad, the security industry seems to be faring better than most. In fact, research firm Ernst & Young said in a report earlier this month that the economic downturn is unlikely to affect investment in information security. Only 5 percent of respondents said they intend to reduce annual IT security spending, while 50 percent plan to increase investment in this area as a percentage of total expenditure.
"The economic climate has been challenging for a number of months, so it was a pleasant surprise that security seems to be important enough," said Sheila Upton, director of technology and security risk services at Ernst & Young.
A straw poll conducted by network performance management vendor NetQoS at the Interop conference last month in New York seems to support Ernst & Young's findings. About half of those polled indicated spending on network performance management and security would increase in the coming year, while 15 percent anticipate a decrease in spending on network management disciplines. More than half (54 percent) said overall IT infrastructure and management software budgets will remain the same next year.
What's buoying the security market in an ocean of financial losses? Experts point to two drivers: the continuing need for regulatory compliance, and the real fear that computer crime may increase in a down economy.
Given the advanced nature of security-related compliance projects, you'd think spending in that arena would be on the decline. Most public companies have already been audited for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, while those that handle credit cards have already begun, if not completed, their Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance initiatives.
But spending continues, according to a new independent study sponsored by CA and published last week. In the study, which surveyed some 575 enterprises worldwide, nearly 45 percent of respondents reported an increase in the time and monetary resources required to ensure compliance, with 13 regulations and industry standards found in countries around the world.
In North America, 41 percent of organizations reported the introduction of new regulations as a reason for increasing compliance expenses. In Asia Pacific, where J-SOX was recently enacted, this number was significantly higher at 55 percent, the report states. Europe and Central/South America reported 40 percent and 29 percent, respectively.
Changes to existing regulations also were reported as a cost-raising factor by 49 percent of North American and Central/South American organizations, 39 percent of Asia Pacific businesses, and 34 percent of European organizations, CA says.
The study also showed that most of the respondents rely on manual processes to achieve compliance, although manual processes and a lack of centralized control are "a recipe for spiraling costs," the report says. More than two-thirds of the respondents said they maintain information about the status of their IT compliance controls in multiple spreadsheets, and often within different organizational units.
"This survey verifies what we regularly hear from customers -- that compliance remains a big challenge for them in both direct cost and impact to business processes, and that the issue grows with every regulatory change or addition," said Lina Liberti, vice president for CA Security Management.
But compliance is not the only driver behind increased security spending. A growing flame of malware and security breaches is being fanned by fear that poor economic conditions may spur a new round of cybercrime. PandaLabs, Panda Security's malware analysis and detection laboratory, last week issued a security alert that claims to reveal a direct correlation between the recent stock market volatility and the growth of new threats.
"When we began looking into the specific effects cyber-criminals had on our economy during times of duress, we found a startling connection: The criminal economy is closely interrelated with our own economy," said Ryan Sherstobitoff, chief corporate evangelist for Panda Security. Some experts pooh-poohed the PandaLabs report, but most agree that the downturn will have an impact on cybercrime trends. (See related story, Economic Crisis May Be Boon For Cybercriminals, Experts Say.)
Whether it's compliance, concern of cybercrime, or fear of brand-damaging security breaches, however, it seems that the IT security market is remaining mostly intact, if not actually growing. Less than three months ago, three new security startups -- NovaShield, PureWire, and Zscaler -- entered the market, suggesting that many venture capitalists are still quite interested in the space.
"We'd certainly caution people in times of economic uncertainty that there is usually an increase in crime," Ernst & Young's Upton said. "It's not the time to be cutting security."
Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.
Related
NEWS ANALYSIS
Employees: Security Policies Are Unrealistic 10/28/2008
Economic Crisis May Be Boon For Cybercriminals, Experts Say 10/28/2008
WEBCASTS
Guide to Evaluating Two-Factor Solutions 11/13/2008
Internet Security Patch May Not Do the Job
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: August 8, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO — Faced with the discovery of a serious flaw in the Internet’s workings, computer network administrators around the world have been rushing to fix their systems with a cobbled-together patch. Now it appears that the patch has some gaping holes.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
With Security at Risk, a Push to Patch the Web (July 30, 2008) On Friday, a Russian physicist demonstrated that the emergency fix to the basic Internet address system, known as the Domain Name System, is vulnerable and will almost certainly be exploited by criminals.
The flaw could allow Internet traffic to be secretly redirected so thieves could, for example, hijack a bank’s Web address and collect customer passwords.
In a posting on his blog, the physicist, Evgeniy Polyakov, wrote that he had fooled the software that serves as the Internet’s telephone book into returning an incorrect address in just 10 hours, using two standard desktop computers and a high-speed network link. Internet experts who reviewed the posting said the approach appeared to be effective.
The basic vulnerability of the network has become a heated controversy since Dan Kaminsky, a Seattle-based researcher at the security firm IOActive, quietly notified a number of companies that distribute Internet addressing software earlier this year.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kaminsky described the vulnerability in front of a packed room at a technical conference in Las Vegas. He said that it could affect not just the Web but also other services like e-mail.
The general risk of such a flaw had been known for some years within the insular Internet technical community. But in the last month security engineers have repeatedly stated that it is only a matter of time before financial organizations and others are attacked by computer criminals seeking to exploit the now-public flaw. One expert says this is happening now.
“We have already been seeing attacks in the wild for the past two weeks,” said Bill Woodcock, research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit technical organization. Some of the initial attacks focused on distributing malicious software, he said, and more recently there has been evidence of so-called phishing attacks aimed at stealing personal information.
It is now almost certain that there will be an escalating number of attacks, Mr. Woodcock said. Before the patch, which has now been distributed to more than three-quarters of the affected servers in the world, it would have taken as little as one second to insert false information into the address database. Now, even with the patch, attacks will be possible in a matter of minutes or hours, he said.
Mr. Polyakov carried out his attack using two fast computers, but the same attack could be carried out more quickly using a botnet — an army of hundreds or thousands of Internet-connected computers that have been commandeered by criminals and are centrally controlled.
There is now an intense debate over how to find a more permanent fix for the system’s weaknesses.
“We’ve bought some time,” said Paul Mockapetris, the software engineer who devised the original D.N.S. system and is now chairman of Nominum, a firm that makes a version of the D.N.S. software that is not vulnerable to the current flaw. Mr. Mockapetris described the patch that is now being put in place as the equivalent of “playing Russian Roulette with a gun that has 100 bullet chambers instead of six.”
“The point,” he said, “should be to take the gun out of people’s hands.”
The root of the problem lies in the fact that the address system, which was invented in 1983, was not meant to be used for services like electronic banking that require strict verification of identity.
“They are relying on infrastructure that was not intended to do what people assume it does,” said Clifford Neuman, director of the Center for Computer Systems Security at the University of Southern California. “What makes this so frustrating is that no one has been listening to what we have been saying for the past 17 years.”
A number of Internet security engineers point out that if a solution is found for the deeper problem of identity and authentication on the Internet, it will go a long way toward stopping many of the identity-related crimes that are now commonplace.
Some experts are proposing an encryption-based solution known as DNSSEC. It would give Web surfers high confidence that the Internet address they are being sent to is correct.
So far several governments including Sweden and Puerto Rico have adopted DNSSEC, and the United States government is likely to deploy the system for its .gov domain this year.
“DNSSEC is not an overnight solution for the Kaminsky problem, but it’s the right solution in the long run,” said Richard Lamb, a technical expert at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit organization that oversees Internet security and stability.
Others remain skeptical that the more secure approach is practical for the wider commercial Internet, because it requires more computing power and because it would be hard to get the whole world to adopt it.
One technical expert, Daniel J. Bernstein, a University of Illinois mathematician who has also developed a version of D.N.S. that does not suffer from the current flaw, said DNSSEC “offers a surprisingly low level of security, while at the same time introducing performance and reliability problems.”
Totally agree!The past is gone.Focus and energy should be focused on the future.My expectations will be starting to be realized in the 4th Quarter and 1 st Quarter 2009.
Patience conquers all! We are now in a new ball game not 2007/2006/ etc. That is history.
Excellent analysis!
Jas,
You are absolutely correct!I hope that long-term investors are not bullied by the bashers.Some have invested to secure their family's future.Investing is not day trading!Do not let the schemers rob you of your well-thought out DD!
Those who make real $ on Wall Street is when the Streets are bloodiest!
All the best!
Given all the uncertainties about WXP why not let it rest for a while!I would prefer to do DD/talk about our Security potential and the prospects for a new Govt contract with GD et.al.
The QII CC is at hand.By the 10th of August we should have more data.Until then let us show a little patience unless you are a trader/short/basher.Some people are desperate to manipulate the pricing and they spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt)
I am in for the long run and I have no doubt I will be highly rewarded for my patience.I hold a large position and I do not care about day to day gyrations.
My target date is 1st or 2nd Quarter 2009!In the meantime let Management do their job.If you cannot then remember the words of Harry S. Truman "If you cannot stand the heat then get the hell out of the kitchen"
GLTA
WOW! I have XP and what a Web Site.I truly believe that this will be exploited exponentially!I never thought that it would amount to much.You have to believe!
Barge,
Remember that commom address of WAVX and AAPL! You are right on!
I believe that a very careful analysis of sales vs.retention or future IPO has to be considered.If we do not have the skills in house then we should hire a very competent management consulting boutique to provide the analysis for us.
The worst thing is to sell and then realize we gave away the Golden Goose.It has happened before.Bill Gates and others can verify same.
Patience!
Microsoft Wants Games to Appeal to the Masses
By SETH SCHIESEL
Published: July 15, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Ever since Microsoft waded into the video game wars with the introduction of the original Xbox in 2001, the company has spared little expense in attempting to establish its bona fides with hardcore gamers. From the physical appearance of the first Xbox — hulking, extruded black plastic — to the testosterone-laden, shoot-’ em-up essence of Microsoft’s signature game franchise, Halo, Microsoft’s first, perhaps only, priority has been to reach out to the young men at gaming’s historical roots.
Until now. In a significant shift for the company, Microsoft on Monday unveiled a new strategy for its gaming unit that is meant to help the company’s Xbox 360 console appeal to the mainstream. Lured by games and consoles like Guitar Hero, The Sims, World of Warcraft and Nintendo’s Wii, millions of consumers who would never have thought of themselves as gamers have begun to play video games in recent years. By some projections, the global game industry could approach $50 billion in revenue this year, propelled mostly by gaming’s soaring mainstream popularity.
So on Monday at the annual E3 convention here, Microsoft announced a collection of new games and services for the Xbox 360 that are meant to appeal to the everyday entertainment consumer.
“For the last few years we have consciously and continuously fed the core gamer audience, and now we are reaching that inflection point where we have to reach out to the mainstream consumer and bring them into the Xbox 360,” David Hufford, Microsoft’s director for Xbox product management, said in an interview.
“Everyone plays video games now or has an interest in playing video games,” he said. “So we have to appeal to the mainstream more than ever now. And what really is appealing to that mainstream consumer is that social experience, in the living room or online. Whether it’s the older consumer or the Facebook generation, they see games not as a solitary experience but as something you do with friends and family, and that’s what we want to deliver this fall.”
At the core of Microsoft’s new initiative is a new interface for the Xbox 360 that incorporates humanlike avatars representing each player. Users will be able to customize their avatars and socialize with other Xbox users, even outside of any particular game. Nintendo has been successful using a similar approach with its Wii, where each person creates a more cartoony figure called a Mii. Sony is also working on such a system with a new service for its PlayStation 3 called Home.
In Microsoft’s system, Xbox users will be able to share photos with one another across the Xbox Live network and also watch movies together in real time, even if the consumers are thousands of miles apart.
In addition to the new avatar system, Microsoft announced a partnership with Netflix, so Netflix subscribers can watch any of more than 10,000 movies and television programs over their Xbox 360. Microsoft already offers some films and TV shows for download and on Monday the company announced that its Xbox Live service had generated more than $1 billion in revenue since the Xbox 360’s debut in 2005.
Driving home the company’s new push for mainstream consumers, the company also unveiled new family-oriented games including a new entry in its Viva Pinata franchise and a madcap B-movie simulator called “You’re in the Movies.”
But a video game business cannot survive on family-friendly fare alone. To appeal to more traditionally discerning gamers, Microsoft offered a well-received look at the post-apocalyptic role-playing Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2, sequel to one of the best games of 2006.
Perhaps of most interest to serious gamers, Square Enix of Japan showed a lusciously beautiful trailer at the Microsoft briefing from its coming game Final Fantasy XIII, which is scheduled to be released next year. Previous Final Fantasy games have been available only on Sony consoles, but, in a major coup for Microsoft, Square Enix announced that FF13 would also be released for the Xbox 360.
Later in the day, Electronic Arts, the big United States game publisher, held its own media presentation to show off its lineup for the holiday season and next year. Predictably, Spore, the evolutionary biology simulator from Will Wright, creator of SimCity and The Sims, looked almost frighteningly addictive. Spore is scheduled to be released in September, and Mr. Wright said that players had already created more than 1.7 million fictional species using the game’s demonstration version.
E.A. has long been a leader in appealing to casual gamers. To reinforce that success, the company showed off a new game called SimAnimals, which appears poised to do well among girls and children. The company also moved to reinforce its credibility with core gamers which looks at Dragon Age Origins, from the BioWare studio, and Left 4 Dead, a survival horror game from the Valve studio. Both BioWare and Valve are among the most respected game developers in the world.
In a surprise move, E.A. announced a publishing partnership with id Software, the inventors of the first-person shooter genre and the famous developers of the seminal Doom and Quake franchises. John Carmack, an id lead programmer, showed a brief snippet from id’s coming game Rage.
But the surprise hit of the E.A. news conference was a new science-fiction horror game called Dead Space, which is scheduled to be released for PCs, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in October. Not for children and not for the squeamish, Dead Space takes place on a space station where something has gone horribly, terribly wrong (the combat revolves around what was described at the presentation as strategic dismemberment). The quality of the animation and the evocative tension and fear of its presentation appeared to be of a very high quality, as long as you don’t mind flying body parts.
Nintendo and Sony are scheduled to hold their major briefings on Tuesday.
Instead of worrying about definitions of accounting should we not focus our time on DOD of our core business.Let us leave recognition and timing issues to the CPAs.Snacks has been very liberal with this thread!We have run it into the GROUND!
Barge, Many thanks!From what you have provided and the NBC/Music Giants news I believe that a real breakthrough is at hand!
I also believe that we will be greatly rewarded for enduring the slog.
I hope to have a libation with you someday!
Cheers!
X BOX 360
Just saw a streamer on Bloomberg that MSFT is going to triple the amount of storage on the X Box 360....Could Movbies and other content via TV Tonic be far behind?
Will these Drives be integrated into TVs and other devices in the future> If so, we can eliminate Extenders,X Boxes,etc. Therefore employ the KISS protocol.
This will be a Winner!
Microsoft Reportedly to Cut Price Of Xbox 360 to $299
By REUTERS
Published: June 30, 2008
Filed at 5:41 p.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O> plans to cut the price of its best-selling Xbox 360 Pro model by $50, to $299 in the next few weeks, the Hollywood Reporter reported citing anonymous sources.
The price cut for the Xbox 360 model with the 20 gigabyte hard drive will come before the video game industry's biggest trade show, E3, taking place in Los Angeles on July 15-17, the report said.
Rumors of the Xbox price cut swirled on popular gaming blogs Joystiq and Kotaku last week. The two sites received snapshots of Kmart and Radio Shack flyers advertising the $299 price.
A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.
Microsoft last cut the price of the Xbox Pro in August, from $399 to $349, prior to the release of "Halo 3" the following month.
A cut to $299 would make the Xbox 360 Pro $100 less than one of the console's major rivals, Sony Corp's <6758.T> PlayStation 3 with a 40 gigabyte hard drive.
Microsoft is locked in a three-way competition with Nintendo's <7974.OS> Wii and the PlayStation 3, which comes with a high-definition Blu-ray video player.
(Reporting by Jennifer Martinez; Editing by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Carol Bishopric)
Ditto!
TV Tonic Relevant:
Google's (GOOG) YouTube Disaster
Google (GOOG) paid something around $1.7 billion to buy YouTube, which is by a wide measure the most popular video site in the world. By some accounts, one billion videos are watched at the site each day.
According to The Wall Street Journal, YouTube revenue is only running about $50 million a quarter, which makes the buy-out seem very expensive. Google executives blame some of the poor revenue numbers on the own advertisement placement systems. But, that is only a small part of the problem.
The real drawback to YouTube as a marketing medium is its content. The most popular video of all time on YouTube is called "The History of Dance", a short comedy feature shot in resolution so poor that it is barely visible. It is cult classic for buffoons. And, it has been viewed almost 92 million times. Not far behind that is a clip of a laughing baby. The content is sophomoric and the quality of the video is hideous.
YouTube will never do well until that great majority of the heavily trafficked content is high-quality video with high-quality content. Big TV advertisers like Chevy and Bud really don't want to be found in the company of video clips taken with cell phones and posted for the bizarre amusement of the great unwashed.
For now, YouTube is toast, at least as an ad medium
Whichever Screen, People Are Watching
By BRIAN STELTER
Published: July 8, 2008
SOMEHOW, despite more distractions than ever, we’re finding even more time to plant ourselves in front of screens.
The first in a series of new “three-screen” reports by the Nielsen Company shows an emerging shift toward a more video-centric use of the Internet, but not at the expense of television viewing. The report, an initial effort by Nielsen to “follow the video” as consumer viewing habits shift, is scheduled to be released Tuesday.
The average American spent 127 hours of time with TV in May, up from 121 hours in May 2007; and 26 hours on the Internet, up from 24 hours last year. More than 282 million people watch television in a given month and nearly 162 million use the Internet.
Perhaps most important, the data reaffirms that online video viewing is no longer a novelty. Two-thirds of Internet users in the United States, 119 million people, watched video in May.
The amount of online video viewing is low compared with TV — 2 hours and 19 minutes a month on average — and Nielsen does not have a comparable estimate for last year. But given its popularity, it has attracted much interest from media companies and advertisers. All that viewing, 7.5 billion streams and 16.4 billion minutes in total, amounts to new advertising time for the taking.
“We’ve seen that certain events generate very high video viewing,” said Paul Donato, the chief research officer for Nielsen, citing last March’s N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament as an example. CBS streamed 4.9 million hours of audio and video content during the tournament, up from 2.7 million hours in 2007.
“Obviously those streams were either coming from people at work or from people who wanted to watch multiple games,” Mr. Donato said.
The report also suggests that mobile video viewing is becoming significant. A Nielsen survey of about 2,000 Americans projects that 4.4 million subscribe to mobile video on their phones. With 217 million people carrying mobile phones in the United States, wireless video is still far from the mainstream. But the survey found that the average user watches 3 hours and 15 minutes a month, a significant amount of time to be watching such a comparatively small screen.
With the “three-screen” reports, which will be released quarterly, Nielsen seeks to compile a complete picture of consumers’ media habits. The television networks and Web site operators that are Nielsen’s clients have been demanding three-screen measurement as they try to understand the relationships between TV sets, computer screens and mobile devices. But measuring consumer behavior in an age of convergence is proving to be difficult.
“Every single provider of alternative measurement has disappointed us,” Alan Wurtzel, the president of research for NBC, said last week.
Without a third party to produce multi-platform ratings, NBC will combine Nielsen television ratings, internal Web site statistics, and mobile data to produce a daily report about the total reach of its Olympics telecasts next month.
“What we need is a currency,” a ratings metric to base multi-platform advertising rates on, “and no one’s done that yet,” Mr. Wurtzel said.
Almost two years ago Nielsen announced an “anytime anywhere” measurement initiative, but the tracking of individual consumers from the living room TV to the office computer to the mobile phone is still years away. Before the end of the year, Nielsen will begin a test of combined TV and Internet measurement and will roll out an experimental mobile phone measurement device.
Currently Nielsen fuses together its television ratings data and Internet video measurements to show how the two platforms influence each other. The “three-screen” report was produced in a similar way. Mr. Donato said the three-screen report represents progress and noted that there is increasing interest in knowing how consumers move among different devices.
“If you’re a network today, you’re desperate to know when somebody downloads your program on Amazon or iTunes, were they buying it as a replacement to their broadcast experience or as a supplement?” Mr. Donato said. “Is cannibalization taking place, or do these different platforms work in a harmonic way to support the business?”
To some extent, the report will reassure television executives and advertisers who worry that online video viewing will impact TV consumption. For every hour of online video viewing, consumers spend 57 hours watching TV. “Americans are watching more traditional television than ever,” the report concludes. The average consumer time-shifted — watched TV recorded earlier — almost six hours of programming in May, up from under four hours last year.
At the same time, the Nielsen data shows how pervasive online video is becoming in the lives of younger consumers. Children ages 2 to 11 use the Internet far less than other age groups, but they spend almost one-third of their online time watching videos.
“Their definition of the Internet is being formed by this high consumption of Internet video,” John Burbank, the chief marketing officer for Nielsen, said. “As these kids mature, networks are right in foreseeing that they’re going to use the Internet as a primary source for TV programming.”
Zen....Exactly!
Laptops Lost Like Hot Cakes at US Airports
Agam Shah, IDG News Service
Related Terms:
Monday, June 30, 2008 12:30 PM PDT
Keep laptops close at airports, because they have a startling tendency to disappear in the blink of an eye, according to a new survey.
Some of the largest and medium-sized U.S. airports report close to 637,000 laptops lost each year, according to the Ponemon Institute survey released Monday. Laptops are most commonly lost at security checkpoints, according to the survey.
Close to 10,278 laptops are reported lost every week at 36 of the largest U.S. airports, and 65 percent of those laptops are not reclaimed, the survey said. Around 2,000 laptops are recorded lost at the medium-sized airports, and 69 percent are not reclaimed.
Travelers seem to lack confidence that they will recover lost laptops. About 77 percent of people surveyed said they had no hope of recovering a lost laptop at the airport, with 16 percent saying they wouldn't do anything if they lost their laptop during business travel. About 53 percent said that laptops contain confidential company information, with 65 percent taking no steps to protect the information.
Airports, along with hotels and parked cars. are places where laptops can be easily stolen, said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on its Web site. The confusion of going through security checkpoints can make it easy for travelers to lose track of their laptops, making it "fertile ground for theft," the FTC said.
The FTC recommends people treat laptops "like cash." Like a wad of money, a laptop in public view -- like the backseat of the car or at the airport -- could attract unwanted attention. The FTC also recommends using tracking devices like Absolute Software's LoJack, which can help track down a stolen laptop by reporting its location once it is connected to the Internet. Lenovo last week announced it would offer the LoJack option in its upcoming ThinkPad SL series laptops.
Attaching bells and whistles that sound off after detecting laptop motion could also minimize the chances of laptop theft, the FTC says.
Laptop theft is fairly prevalent in the U.S., said Mike Spinney, a spokesman for Ponemon Institute. In a study conducted by the institute, 76 percent of companies surveyed reported losing one or more laptops each year, of which 22 percent were due to theft or other criminal mischief.
Many people are ashamed of reporting lost laptops as they leave them where they shouldn't be, Spinney said.
The Ponemon survey was commissioned by Dell, which on Monday announced new security services to commercial customers that include tracking and recovery of lost laptops and prevention of data theft.
Dell's laptop tracking service uses technology including GPS (Global Positioning System) to locate and recover lost laptops. The data protection services include the ability to remotely delete data on a hard drive and services to recover data from failed hard drives.
Also do not forget worldwide Concerts of many genre: Classical/Rock/Latino/Academy Awards,etc. ...full lenghth or tailored....Triple Crown Package/......Also full-length coverage of news not just sound bytes,,,,all in HD quality and on demand to the consumer.Subscription packaging can be tied into advertising sponsorship e,g. subscribe and take your choice to 10 see the World Cup 2)obtain Nike Golf products and play with Tiger Woods 3) Discounts to your local golf courses,etc.40 Tie ins to travel agencies (Expedia)etc.hotel chains/air lines.Direct tie-ins to the top 100 advertisers/marketers throughout the world.Participation in world lotteries!Tie ins to movies promotions,et.al. What about Major League Baseball/NFL/NBA/NHL/Boxing/Wrestling? This is a year around calendar
We have a potential gold mine!
The possibilities are only limited to the imagination!
OT
Microsoft (MSFT): Ballmer's Big Plan
The Wall Street Journal has unearthed a memo from Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft (MSFT). In it, he lays out some of his plans for the company.
The program falls into four buckets. The first is that he will more carefully monitor the launch of Windows 7, which will eventually replace the doomed Vista OS. Next, he will set up a structure which allows the operating groups within the company to work more closely together. Third, he wants to build out a consumer electronics group. As the paper writes, "He now is pushing to more aggressively attack the consumer market and compete with Apple's hit iPhone." Finally, he wants to ramp up his internet group and search business.
The memo may be instructive, but is covers ground which has been part of the Microsoft push for over a year.
Ballmer does have a shot at the consumer electronics business, but it is a long one. The Xbox has been a huge success. The Zune multimedia player has been a tremendous failure. Competing with the iPhone is a dream, but not one that will come true.
Search is also a long shot. If Ballmer can pull that off without the Yahoo! deal, it will be a miracle.
The hopes for Windows 7 are the most important hopes, and they are real and realistic. Microsoft has certainly learned from Vista. The product before it, XP, is a fine map for what Windows 7 could be. The OS is where Microsoft makes its money. It should stick to the knitting.
Major security sites hit by cross-site scripting bugs
Thirty XSS vulnerabilities spotted on McAfee, Symantec and VeriSign sites
By Matthew Broersma
June 12, 2008 (TechWorld.com) The Web sites of three of the security industry's best-known companies include security flaws that could be used to launch scams against customers, according to a new report.
The report, from security watchdog site XSSed, verified 30 cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities across the sites of McAfee, Symantec and VeriSign. The flaws could be used to launch scams or implant malicious code on the systems of visiting users, according to XSSed.
Recent research has shown that attackers are increasingly -- even predominantly -- now using legitimate sites to host their malware, a tactic that makes the malware distribution sites more difficult to shut down.
XSSed's results show that even major security firms are not exempt from the problem, according to XSSed.
In January XSSed found that 60 Web sites that had received a "Hacker Safe" certification from McAfee's ScanAlert service were in fact vulnerable to XSS attacks.
McAfee and other major security firms have downplayed the seriousness of XSS flaws, compared for instance to flaws that allow an attacker direct access to customer data stored on a server.
In recent months the real-world exploitation of XSS flaws has boomed, exploiting major Web sites such as MySpace, Paypal and a major Italian bank.
Last week ScanSafe reported that 68 percent of all malware it blocked in May was found on legitimate sites that had been hacked, more than quadruple the level of a year earlier.
Such flaws can be used to steal user cookies, to steal Web site login credentials, and to exploit users' trust of a site in other ways, and in theory can be shut down quickly once the owner of the site is made aware of the problem.
However, the techniques used by hackers are highly automated, allowing them to "colonize" large numbers of vulnerable sites at once, ScanSafe noted. By contrast, the fixes are not necessarily so easy, researchers have noted.
In a research note in May, F-Secure noted that one legitimate site had been repeatedly hacked and used to spread malicious code, and each time it needed to be contacted to fix the problem.
"The site cannot simply be pulled offline without collateral damage to the legitimate business. So the website's administrator must be contacted to repair the damage," said F-Secure's Sean Rowe in the research note.
Post # of 30118
Time Warner Cable tries metering Internet use
By PETER SVENSSON
AP TECHNOLOGY WRITER
NEW YORK -- You're used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance?
Time Warner Cable Inc. customers - and, later, others - may have to, if the company's test of metered Internet access is successful.
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable's subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable's executive vice president of advanced technology.
Just 5 percent of the company's subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.
"We think it's the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure," Leddy said.
Metered usage is common overseas, and other U.S. cable providers are looking at ways to rein in heavy users. Most have download caps, but some keep the caps secret so as not to alarm the majority of users, who come nowhere close to the limits. Time Warner Cable appears to be the first major ISP to charge for going over the limit: Other companies warn, then suspend, those who go over.
Phone companies are less concerned about congestion and are unlikely to impose metered usage on DSL customers, because their networks are structured differently.
Time Warner Cable had said in January that it was planning to conduct the trial in Beaumont, but did not give any details. On Monday, Leddy said its tiers will range from $29.95 a month for relatively slow service at 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for fast downloads at 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the Internet portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap.
A possible stumbling block for Time Warner Cable is that customers have had little reason so far to pay attention to how much they download from the Internet, or know much traffic makes up a gigabyte. That uncertainty could scare off new subscribers.
Those who mainly do Web surfing or e-mail have little reason to pay attention to the traffic caps: a gigabyte is about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But those who download movies or TV shows will want to pay attention. A standard-definition movie can take up 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes.
Time Warner Cable subscribers will be able to check out their data consumption on a "gas gauge" on the company's Web page.
The company won't apply the gigabyte surcharges for the first two months. It has 90,000 customers in the trial area, but only new subscribers will be part of the trial.
Billing by the hour was common for dial-up service in the U.S. until AOL introduced an unlimited-usage plan in 1996. Flat-rate, unlimited-usage plans have been credited with encouraging consumer Internet use by making billing easy to understand.
"The metered Internet has been tried and tested and rejected by the consumers overwhelmingly since the days of AOL," information-technology consultant George Ou told the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing on ISP practices in April.
Metered billing could also put a crimp in the plans of services like Apple Inc.'s iTunes that use the Internet to deliver video. DVD-by-mail pioneer Netflix Inc. just launched a TV set-top box that receives an unlimited stream of Internet video for as little as $8.99 per month.
Comcast Corp., the country's largest cable company, has suggested that it may cap usage at 250 gigabytes per month. Bend Cable Communications in Bend, Ore., used to have multitier bandwidth allowances, like the ones Time Warner Cable will test, but it abandoned them in favor of an across-the-board 100-gigabyte cap. Bend charges $1.50 per extra gigabyte consumed in a month.
June 1, 2008, 10:43 pm
Intel’s Chief on Strategy, Globalization and the Price of Oil
By Steve Lohr
In a wide-ranging conversation with New York Times editors and reporters Wednesday, Intel’s chief executive, Paul Otellini, explained the grand plan behind the chip maker’s new Atom microprocessor, took a gentlemanly swipe at Apple’s iPhone and called on the next president to commit $25 billion to alternative fuel programs to liberate the economy from imported oil and “reinvigorate math and science” education in America.
Audio In a recent interview with The New York Times, Intel chief executive Paul Otellini discussed the company’s approach to globalization. Listen to the excerpt: (mp3)
The low-cost Atom processor, Mr. Otellini said, is Intel’s bid to supply the processing engines that will help vastly expand the reach of the Internet beyond personal computers. He noted “four big new markets for our products” that will total $10 billion over the next few years. The four, he said, were consumer electronics, cellphones, embedded controllers and low-cost computing. The last market includes so-called mobile Internet devices — larger than a cellphone but smaller than a notebook PC — and next-generation laptops called Netbooks, priced below $300.
Audio Mr. Otellini on Intel’s new plant in China: (mp3)
Intel has struggled in the smaller-than-PC computing market in the past. In cell-phone chips, the leader is ARM Holdings, a British company that licenses its technology to many companies. (See Bits’ recent interview with ARM’s chief executive.)
How will Intel fare against the ARM camp in these fast-growing, Internet-fueled markets? “I see this as a race to some extent,” Mr. Otellini said. For Intel, he said, the challenge is “how fast can we shrink down to the smaller form factors” while retaining the company’s prowess in computing and full Internet connectivity.
Audio Mr. Otellini on the new challenge of programming tomorrow’s many-core processors: (mp3)
The hurdles facing ARM licensees like Nokia, NXP Semiconductors and Samsung are high, according to Mr. Otellini. They are coming at the problem from the cell-phone world, adding computing capability and performance to their chips. That, he said, “pushes them to more advanced chip technology, which typically they don’t have access to. They are a generation or two behind.”
Their biggest problem, said Mr. Otellini: “They then have to create a software ecosystem with a common programming model. Or you are going to reprogram the Internet, application vendor by application vendor, to the specific version of ARM.”
Audio Mr. Otellini on the silver-lining opportunity presented by the surge in oil prices: (mp3)
Even ARM chip users, such as Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, have to deal with that issue. “The iPhone is not a full Internet machine,” Mr. Otellini said. “You go where Steve lets you go because they’ve done the transcoding.” Not all of YouTube is accessible, he said, nor is Flash- or Adobe-produced Web content, though he noted that Apple has done an excellent job on this newspaper’s Web site.
The solution, in Mr. Otellini’s view, is streamline the Intel architecture — through its Atom products — to “take the openness of the notebook down to the price point of the cell phone.”
Articles
* Connecticut sues Accenture over Ohio breach
* IBM loses tapes with employee personal info
* Backup tapes can't be neglected
* Backup encryption failures leave data in peril
Related Links
* The Bank of New York Mellon
An unencrypted backup tape holding the personal information of about 4.5 million The Bank of New York Mellon customers disappeared three months ago while in possession of a third-party vendor, the Connecticut attorney general announced Wednesday.
The attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, said in a statement that hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents may be affected.
“This security breach seems highly dangerous, indeed possibly devastating in light of the identity theft threat,” said Blumenthal, a noted privacy advocate.
The storage tape, which contained the sensitive information of The Bank of New York Mellon Shareholder Services customers, was lost Feb. 27 en route to a storage facility, Blumenthal said.
Archive Systems, a New Jersey-based records storage company, successfully delivered nine other tapes. A company spokesman could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Blumenthal said he was upset victims did not learn of the breach until this week, when People's United Bank notified his office. Based in Bridgeport, Conn., People's United Bank provided The Bank of New York Mellon with customer information so it could offer customers “an investment opportunity.”
“I am especially concerned by the delay in informing consumers, possibly heightening the risks of wrongdoing,” he said. “The loss of this tape -- so far unrecovered and unremedied -- is inexplicable and unacceptable.”
A Bank of New York Mellon statement, emailed to SCMagazineUS.com, said the company, upon learning of the lost tape, immediately launched an investigation, contacted authorities and introduced procedures to prevent a similar breach in the future. The bank plans to offer one year of free credit monitoring to affected individuals.
“Shareowner Services has no evidence suggesting that any of the data has been inappropriately accessed or used,” the statement said. “Communications with affected shareowners include that assurance.”
This is why I believe that by September it will be a different story,,,also do not forget VPROIII!
Sir, I am in complete agreement!
Intersting! Very interesting!It almost takes us to the ASM.I am expecting BIG news from now to the ASM.
Fellas!Please get on another DD topic.This diatribe on lying is sickening and is not what I expect of IHUB.
By September we will know the truth!
Let it go!
Gracias
Lost Bank Tapes May Expose Millions
AP
Posted: 2008-05-21 20:16:40
Filed Under: Banking, Identity Theft
HARTFORD, Conn. (May 21) - Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal asked the Bank of New York Mellon Wednesday to explain how it lost computer tapes containing the information of more than 4 million customers.
Bank of New York
Getty Images
The bank told the state that a box with back-up bank tapes were lost in February from a truck that transports and stores tapes in its storage facility, Blumenthal said. The tapes contained Social Security numbers, names and addresses and possibly bank account numbers and balances, he said.
"This security breach seems highly dangerous, indeed possibly devastating in light of the identity theft threat," Blumenthal wrote to Stephen Dolmatch, general counsel of Bank of New York Mellon Shareowner Services.
Ron Sommer, a spokesman for the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. in Pittsburgh, said officials there are cooperating with Blumenthal. He said the bank has been notifying customers and is offering those affected one year of free credit monitoring. It has also posted information about the breach on its Web site and has set up a toll-free number to respond to questions.
"Shareowner Services is monitoring shareowner account activity on its system, and to date these efforts have shown no indication of data misuse," the bank said in a written statement.
Those affected by the loss of the data include customers at People's United Bank of Bridgeport. Brent DiGiorgio, spokesman for People's United Bank, said the Bank of New York helped the Bridgeport bank convert from a depositor-owned bank to a publicly owned stock company.
People's Bank gave information about its customers in 2007 as the Bank of New York tabulated votes on the changeover and processed stock order requests, DiGiorgio said. People's Bank transmitted secure information, he said.
People's Bank has not yet received information about affected customers from the Bank of New York, DiGiorgio said.
John Milgrim, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, said it appears that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers also were affected by the breach.
"The bank will have to - as fast as possible - notify any customers that would be affected," he said.
The bank notified Connecticut customers of the breach six weeks ago, Blumenthal said. He called the bank's response inadequate.
"Neither People's nor its customers were promptly notified," he said in his letter. "Even now, many may be in the dark."
Blumenthal asked Dalmatch to provide information on what Bank of New York Mellon did before the security breach to safeguard sensitive information of the type contained on the back-up tapes and how the bank first learned of the loss.
He also wants the bank to identify the number of Connecticut bank customers who may be affected, what is being done to track down and retrieve missing backup tapes and a plan by the bank to prevent such data losses in the future.
What a coincidence!Low hanging fruit!
According to various news reports, a hacker has exposed the personal information of about six million Chilean people.
The hacker, known as Anonymous Coward, is reported to have penetrated government and military servers to steal data, including ID card numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, emails and academic records.
According to the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, the hacker committed the breach in order "to demonstrate how poorly protected data in Chile is."
Gordon Rapkin, president and CEO of Stamford, Conn.-based Protegrity, an international data security company, said the data was posted on two websites (IT site FayerWayer and community site ElAntro) after the hacker stole the data from sites run by the state-owned telco, an electoral agency and the Education Ministry. The sensitive data was available for around two hours over the weekend before authorities stepped in, he said.
"Chile may seem far away to many computer users, but the scale of this data breach should not be ignored," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "No matter how moral or ethical the hacker's motives, this prank was irresponsible and has left almost 40 percent of Chile's population at risk of identity theft."
Sophos experts note that although the scale of the Chilean breach was much smaller than a similar incident in Nov. 2007, when the details of some 25 million people in the U.K. –- about half of the country's population -– was lost after two computer disks being transported between government departments went missing, the fact that the information in Chile was posted online, however briefly, increases those victims' risk of identity fraud.
Sophos's Cluley told SCMagazineUS.com Monday that the good news is that it appears the authorities have moved swiftly to take down the information on the websites to which it was posted.
"Of course, there's nothing to say that the information won't be posted again to another site -- either by the original hacker or by someone else who grabbed a copy of the information during the 'several hours' it was available," he said.
Further good news, said Cluley, is that it appears bank account information was not stolen.
"However, details of names, addresses, telephone numbers, social and educational information was taken -- and these may provide valuable stepping stones for hackers who wish to commit identity theft."
People possibly affected by this data breach should keep their eyes peeled for symptoms that might suggest they are about to have their identity stolen, said Cluley, adding that examples of what to look for, include:
* You stop receiving bills or other mail -- this could suggest that an identity thief has given a different address in place of your own.
* You start receiving credit cards for which you did not apply,
* You are denied credit for no obvious reason.
* You receive calls from debt collectors about items you did not purchase.
* When checking your credit history, you see items you do not recognize.
* Your bank statements include withdrawals, payments and money transfers for which you cannot account.
Meanwhile, Cluley suggests that organizations that store information about members of the public must make sure they have strong defenses in place to reduce the risk of a data breach.
"That can include having the latest security patches, anti-virus software, network permissions and policy infrastructure, network access control, and so forth," he said.