WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
A reminder to all my readers: there will be no Winding Down on July 29 or August 6. I'll be back again on August 13.
It's been too hot to even think here in Olde London Town. Of course, since it's never hot in England, we don't have air conditioning in our homes or on the subways (quaintly referred to as 'the tube' over here), either. I understand sizeable chunks of the USA also had high temperatures. I guess that might account for the fact that the news seems to be running into its summer hiatus this week.
Nonetheless, there was some news that seemed to me worth bringing to you - so lets get down to it...
Shorts:
I'm impressed. IBM has brought Lotus Notes to the Linux desktop a full year ahead of schedule. Normally, of course, one would expect it to be a year late! I suspect in the not too distant future this is going to be seen as an important achievement, because quite a lot of smaller businesses use Notes to build custom back office applications when they have a tight budget. By decoupling notes from Windows IBM are offering such companies not merely the opportunity, but an incentive to switch to Linux and avoid Windows license fees.
One of the most interesting aspects of IBM's strategy is that it has made Notes licenses fully transferable. If you run Notes on Windows today, you can re-install Linux on the same machine and use the Linux version of Notes without paying any extra fees. Neat. Very neat.
If you put this together with Novell's new highly polished SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, it's entirely possible that we might be looking at a genuine killer app for small and medium sized businesses. And the irony of the whole situation is that the inventor of Lotus Notes was Ray Ozzie - who is now Microsoft's Chief Software Architect!
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=13136E8:1F69382
The case of SCO v IBM and the rest of the world has not been noted for being a textbook example of how to make money from litigation. Three years ago SCO filed a suit claiming that IBM incorporated part of SCO's copyrighted Unix based operating system into the open source Linux.
Last month the judge hearing the case finally lost patience with SCO's failure to say exactly where the alleged copyright violations happened and threw out two thirds of SCO's claims.
Now, the case - which has not been without bizarre twists already (for instance, Novel claims that SCO doesn't own the intellectual property that it (SCO) says is being violated) - has taken yet another turn in the convoluted story. A new court filing by SCO suggests that the reason SCO is unable to support its claims with evidence is that IBM destroyed the evidence way back in 2003...
SCO claim that they've known about this since last March and it is in a sealed court filing, but it's only now that it's relevant. I'm no lawyer, and I know the law is arcane in nature and language, but it seems to me that bringing in new evidence and new claims in the middle of a case like this smacks of desperation on the part of a litigant with nothing left to lose!
http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/20/sco-ibm-evidence_cz_dl_0720sco.html?partner=daily_newsletter
The FBI is currently making a big push to ensure that they have plenty of work to keep them busy for the rest of this century. They've drafted up some legislation to force the makers of networking gear to add a back door to allow tapping into the traffic passing through the equipment.
I suspect the access to the 'back door' would be compromised before even the first such piece of networking equipment went onto the market. It's a fabulous opportunity for hackers to read and steal digital traffic! One has to wonder when law enforcement agencies (all of them, not just the FBI) are going to start employing technically savvy people to figure out how to combat crime which uses modern communication methods. (See also the short later on about the Greek Wire tapping scandal)
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6091942.html
The rumour is that Borland has a buyer for its tools division. The rumourmongers aren't saying who the buyer is, but if the deal goes through then I'm sure we will find out soon enough. On past experience Borland will probably buy it back in a year or so's time when all the enterprise stuff they're trying to concentrate on goes belly up. The only real surprise is that Borland have lasted so long given their long history of stupid management decisions. I think, this time, in the distance, I can hear the sound of the fat lady singing...
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/07/21/borland_tools_buyer/
The dangers of not having support contracts for vital pieces of software were clearly demonstrated in Berlin during the recent World Cup. The central traffic computer lost touch with the traffic system in the Berlin tunnel at about 1.00 am in the morning. A technician was woken up, but he pointed out that the city had, in an effort to save money, not signed a support agreement, so he was not on call. So he went back to sleep!
Then there was an accident in the tunnel and the car involved caught fire (the fire wasn't serious, and the driver was shaken but OK). Sensors in the tunnel closed the tunnel, or tried to. Since one of the gates didn't close, because it had been damaged in an earlier accident, the system went into failsafe mode and turned all the traffic lights red!
To make matters worse the system then refused to budge from failsafe mode...
Eventually, the technician agreed to come in and sort the mess out. He cut the Gordian knot by cutting through cabling to force the traffic lights on major streets to cold start. I don't know how much he charged them for this low tech solution - but I bet it cost a pretty penny.
[Source: Risks Bulletin 24.34]
And while we are using Risks Bulletin here are some interesting figures of comparative corporate risks:
1 in 6 chances of a laptop or PDA being stolen
4 in 5 data files are stored unencrypted
2 in 3 data files are transferred unencrypted
1 in 2 companies allow users to install whatever they one on corporate desktops
1 in 5 suffered data or network sabotage
1 in 4 do not know if their computers have been illegally accessed
2 in 5 don't keep a log of computer security incidents
9 in 10 suffered a computer security incident during the last year
And all enterprises have some software installed on desk tops that the IT staff don't know about and would not approve of if they did know!
Makes you think, doesn't it...
[Source: Risks Bulletin 24.35]
More information is emerging about the Greek wiretapping scandal earlier this year. For those who didn't spot the story at the time (shame on you - I covered it when it broke) the cell phones of leading Greek politicians, security and military personal were tapped by persons unknown for nearly two years.
It seems that the key piece of software used for the break in was a back door built into the network equipment by the makers, Ericsson. The purpose of the back door? To allow governments to tap into conversations. Vodafone, the operators of the cell phone network say they didn't know about the feature. Ericsson pointed out that it's in the manual! RTFM, my dear Vodafone, RTFM.
Oh, and five senior Vodafone technicians have now been named as being the operational masterminds - clearly they read the manual. Who they were working for has not yet been revealed, but no doubt we will find out soon. In the meantime if you skipped the piece earlier on the FBI's Internet tapping proposals, I suggest you go back and read it, bearing this story in mind...
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/06/greek_wiretappi_1.html
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/07/greek_wiretappi.html
Finally, a story coming out of Australia proves you don't need a computer to deal in lucrative illegal shenanigans. It seems that a worker at the Royal Australian Mint managed to lift Aus$130,000 in Aus$2 coins, using the simple expedient of hiding them in his lunch box and his boots!
Unbelievably, not only did no one notice him clinking out of the door with an average of Aus$600 (300 coins) a day for ten months, but no one even noticed the money was missing. He was only caught when he was discovered trying to change large quantities of coins for notes at various local businesses.
Needless to say, the judge in the trial was more than mildly critical of the Mint's security and expressed amazement at the fact that the Mint didn't know how much had actually been stolen! "I would like to think those working at the other mint factory printing $100 notes might be subject to a better system of security," he said. Difficult to disagree - unless you work there, of course :)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/mint-security-lapse-amazes-judge/2006/06/21/1150845228544.html
Personal Losses:
USA: Western Illinois University announced that a hacker may have copied Social Security and/or credit card information belonging to between 200,000 and 240,000 current or former students.
Homework:
Given the current debate raging - well, stuttering at least - on about Net Neutrality, readers might like to look at an intelligently argued piece from veteran network engineer Richard Bennett. The piece explains why Bennett is opposed to Net Neutrality, and presents a convincing case. In fact this is the best argued case against net neutrality that I've seen.
That doesn't mean to say that I agree with it. I think there is a flaw in the argument, which has nothing to do with the technical and economic issues. That flaw is the unspoken assumption that consumers have a choice about which ISP to use. While that is currently true in most big cities, it's by no means universally the case, and with increased consolidation in the industry, it's likely that even in the cities it won't be the case in the future.
This makes Bennett's argument that if customers don't like the fact that their ISP is favouring their own (the ISP's) programming, they can move to another ISP a moot point. You can only choose if you have a real choice, and for many people there is already no choice...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/17/net_neut_slow_death/
Scanner - Other Stories:
Symantec: Vista probably 'less stable' than XP
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/19/vista_security_analysis/
Microsoft profit down by 24 per cent this quarter - but share price goes up
http://www.physorg.com/news72716764.html
UK National Audit Office say tax department over-sweetened its IT suppliers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/19/nao_aspire/
Microsoft Office and Vista delays complicate partner plans
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=13136E6:1F69382
UK Utilities query smart meter plan
http://Mail.computing.co.uk/cgi-bin1/DM/y/erqm0BsjfA0RP80DHQ30Ep
http://Mail.computing.co.uk/cgi-bin1/DM/y/erqm0BsjfA0RP80DHRA0E5
EU: Town can't build its own fibre-optic network
http://www.physorg.com/news72634597.html
Brennan Center task force says software attacks pose real danger to all electronic voting machines
http://www.brennancenter.org/presscenter/releases_2006/pressrelease_2006_0627.html
Researchers look to predict software flaws
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/10/software_flaw_prediction/
SWIFT: the challenges of being multi-national
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/10/swift_multinational_challenges/
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to readers Barbara and Fi for drawing my attention to material used in this issue. Please send suggestions for material to alan@ibgames.com.
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
23 July 2006
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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