billso.com

This post first appeared on my old log at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=219

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2006/10/25/microsoft-mozilla-malware-ent-tech-cx_sb_1025smallbizresource.html

From Forbes and SmallBizResource.com, here’s a good article about everyday mistakes that employees make online. How many of these mistakes have you made? Read the article and find out the dangers, and how to avoid these errors.

1. Clicking on e-mail attachments from unknown senders
2. Installing unauthorized applications
3. Turning off or disabling automated security tools
4. Opening HTML or plain-text messages from unknown senders
5. Surfing gambling, porn or other dicey Web sites
6. Giving out passwords, tokens or smart cards
7. Random surfing of unknown, untrusted Web sites
8. Attaching to any old Wi-Fi network
9. Filling out Web scripts, forms or registration pages
10. Participating in chat rooms or social networking sites

This article first appeared on my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=218

 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061031/wr_nm/internet_intelligence_dc

Today, John Negroponte unveiled Intellipedia, a wiki application that lets U.S. intelligence experts and analysts edit and share information through web browsers.

You may be familiar with Wikipedia, the most well-known implementation of a wiki. I often site Wikipedia in this blog as a general reference, although I can’t recommend Wikipedia as a reference for student assignments. Wikipedia entries tend to change in strange ways.

Intellipedia has a top secret system, which requires appropriate levels of security clearance to access over 28000 web pages of information contributed by 3600 users.

Analysts are using Intellipedia to assemble a national intelligence estimate on Nigeria, and the U.S. State Department’s annual country reports on terrorism.

Of course, since this is a web-based system, it could be hacked.

This article was originally posted on my blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=217

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2005/03/31/the_feds_can_own_your_wlan_too/

FBI agents in Los Angeles recently demonstrated how they can hack into a wireless network in under 10 minutes.

This demonstration used publicly available tools to set up a fake wireless access point (WAP) and then harvest enough information from a Windows XP computer to crack or decode a WEP key.

About 30% of wireless access points use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) for encryption. Another 10% use a newer standard called Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which requires more time and trouble to hack.

If you’re in the 60% of wireless network users who haven’t encrypted their access point at home, this article has some good tips for you.

This article appeared in my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=206

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060208_760555.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

Peter Burrows of Business Week reports on Cisco’s recent performance. Cisco is the dominant vendor of networking equipment worldwide. I think of Cisco as the Internet’s plumber. Your packets moved through a Cisco switch or router at some point in their journey.

If you use a Linksys router or network appliance at home, you’re using a Cisco product. Cisco purchased Linksys in 2003, and has been integrating operations and marketing ever since. Linksys is positioned as an entry point for SOHO (small office and home office) users who need networking equipment, and who may need higher-powered Cisco equipment when their business expands. At the same time, Cisco engineers have been remaking the Linksys line, using best practices from Cisco’s enteprise networking equipment.

A virtuous cycle occurs when a company moves from one “favorable circumstance” to another over time. Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, Intel, Google and Apple have all benefited from the creation and maintenance of their own v-cycles.

One might argue that Nintendo and Sony are risking their v-cycles, at least in the video game market. Wii and PlayStation 3 each have their own issues.

Cisco has apparently built its own v-cycle around advanced networking technologies, including VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol). VoIP telephones are connected to an RJ-45 jack, not a telephone RJ-11 jack. Remember that RJ-11 also provides electrical power for telephones.

So how does a VoIP telephone get enough power to operate? Users could plug the telephone into an AC outlet, but there’s a neater way. Through a handy protocol called Power over Ethernet (PoE), special switches can connect these phones to the network and deliver 13 watts of power, which is enough to keep a telephone and a small display screen running.

PoE can’t deliver enough power to keep a laptop computer running, which is one reason why laptop computers need their own power source - either AC current or batteries.

PoE features aren’t built into most older network equipment, so any company that wants to deploy VoIP in its offices has to buy PoE switches from Cisco, Foundry or another hardware vendor.

PoE and VoIP adoption are powering Cisco’s virtuous cycle - at least for now.

This article first appeared on my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman?id=204

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061019/NEWS01/610190341

In this morning’s Honolulu Advertiser, Rick Daysog reports that HECO could have added redundant systems to prevent a blackout, but the project might cost US$1B in current dollars.

That works out to US$3400 per electric customer, using an estimate of 291,000 residential and commercial electrical customers on Oahu. The number of customers is less than the number of people on the island, as there are many households with more than a single resident. A household usually counts as a single customer as far as the electric company is concerned.

Oahu residents are asking questions that Californians have asked over and over after much larger earthquakes. In information systems, vendors, departments and managers sometimes create service level agreements that define service standards, service availability, the kinds of interruptions and problems that can occur, and specify procedures to escalate and remediate the problems when they do happen.

SLAs also define the responsibilities of the multiple parties involved in the agreement. If management decides to add more desktop computers, or implement additional server-based applications, then the agreement should be modified to account for the additional resources and time required.

SLAs often accompany disaster readiness plans (DRPs) and contingency plans, as companies become more reliant on telecommunications and information systems to conduct their most basic operations.

Sunday provided several examples of contingency planning. Some Oahu supermarkets had backup generators ready to power the cash registers and credit card readers. In an emergency, it’s difficult to run out to the bank and get more cash. Hospitals, police and fire departments called in extra staff to assist. The state considered calling out the Hawaii National Guard, which was actually on duty last weekend, but decided against that move.