Microsoft confirms free security software ships Tuesday

Microsoft today confirmed that it will launch its free security software suite, which has been in development for almost a year, Tuesday morning. "Microsoft Security Essentials, their highly anticipated no-cost consumer security offering, will be released to the public tomorrow, September 29," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail reply to questions. Earlier in the day, Network World 's John Fontana had been told by Bob Muglia, the president of Microsoft's sever and tools division, that the company would ship the free software Tuesday. The spokeswoman added that the program will be made available Tuesday morning, Pacific time, although she did not have a specific hour for the launch. Security Essentials, which Microsoft offered to a limited number of beta testers last June, is the company's replacement for Windows Live OneCare, a for-a-fee security suite that was retired at the end of June 2009. Microsoft has pitched the software as a basic anti-virus, anti-spyware program that consumes less memory and disk space than commercial security suites, like those from vendors such as McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro.

According to one researcher today, those security vendors have little to fear from Microsoft's giveaway. "It won't be the application that puts Symantec or McAfee out of business," said Andrew Storms, the director of security operations at nCircle Network Security. "...Microsoft still has to prove itself in this arena. Those companies, however, unanimously dismissed Security Essentials - once codenamed "Morro" - as proof that Microsoft couldn't compete in the paying market. Take, for example, Windows Defender, which has been free. If Microsoft starts dipping into the market share of these partners, will it affect that intelligence sharing? It's not necessarily the best anti-spyware product available." Storms also wondered how Microsoft's re-entry into the consumer security space would affect the relationships it's built with antivirus vendors, including those that involve the sharing of threat intelligence. "We've come to learn that Symantec and others have shared their threats and risk information with Microsoft in an effort to better protect all consumers. The free Security Essentials will be available for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 as a 4.7MB download from the Microsoft Web site.

13 hot products from DEMOfall '09

Network World's DEMO conference always features a wide range of flashy new consumer and enterprise technologies and this fall's show is no exception. In this article, we'll run through 13 of the new technologies generating the most buzz and highlight some of the innovations on display at the show. Products from DEMOfall '09 run the gamut, from cloud video surveillance technology to Web 2.0 patent databases to software that helps you scope out your dates for sketchy Internet activity.

Get an overview of the products Company: Third Iris Corp. The company's package includes video cameras that users can manage from a central Web site and that use "intelligent camera" software to provide analytics. Product: VIAAS With IT video surveillance becoming increasingly more complex, Third Iris Corp. has developed the Video Intelligence-as-a-Service (VIAAS) system that outsources analysis to the Third Iris cloud. Company: Armorize Technologies, Inc.  Product: Armorize HackAlert This software-as-a-service automatically scans Web Sites for injected malicious codes and links and also provides users with real-time alerts if their computers are visiting a site containing malware. Company: Intelius Product: DateCheck This is a mobile application that allows you to check up on your potential date any place where they have a presence on the Web.

According to DEMO, this product has had success in Asian markets in recent years and is coming to the U.S. for the first time this year. So for instance, if you have their e-mail address or phone number and their e-mail address or phone number is linked to their Facebook and Twitter accounts you can check up on them to see if they are who they say they are or to find out if they have any sleazy interests. The HP SkyRoom video conferencing service aims to change that by providing high-definition videoconferencing technology that HP says can support "up to four people using rich media content over standard business networks." DEMO says that while the system shouldn't be seen as a strict replacement for high-end conference room equipment, it does provide improvement for people working at individual stations who want to collaborate more easily on projects. The slogan that the company is using for the app is (we're not making this up): "Look up before you hook up." Company: Hewlett-Packard Product: HP SkyRoom If you want to participate in a video conference from your office computer, you typically have to use a puny Web camera that provides low resolution and high jitter. Company: Hashwork Product: Hashwork This is a sort of Twitter for your workplace that can integrate Google Calendar and Twitter to give workers a hub they can monitor throughout the day to see what their coworkers are up to. Company: dotSyntax, LLC Product: Digsby One annoying feature of having multiple accounts with different social networking and instant messaging protocols is the need to keep multiple windows open at once if you want to keep track of them all.

The folks at DEMO claim that Hashwork has become a staple in their daily work environment. Digsby is a program that aims to consolidate all these protocols by merging all instant messaging screen names onto one single messenger and by merging social networking sites to give real-time updates on all of them simultaneously. Company: Article One Partners, LLC  Product: AOP Patent Studies The goal of this technology is to apply Web 2.0 collaborative technology to the field of patent research. For instance, if you had accounts with MySpace, Twitter and Facebook, Digsby would serve as a one-stop hub that would tell you every time a friend wrote something on your wall or responded to your tweets. In other words, if you are a company looking to see if your patent claim will hold up in court, you can use AOP's community of patent advisors to help you out.

The application is now available for the iPhone and it will let iPhone users sync with Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple iCal and Entourage for Macs. Article One says that it charges clients for an annual subscription that will give them "real-time access to validity evidence" and communication "with AOP's scientific community… to optimize their research."~~ Company: Tungle Corp.  Product: Tungle for iPhone Tungle, which debuted last year at DEMO, is a planning application that helps friends and coworkers share their calendars and create schedules for meetings based on availability. Company: Waze, Inc.  Product: Waze Waze combines the open-source editing capabilities of Wikipedia with the real-time immediacy of Twitter to provide users with fast-breaking updates on traffic conditions. This technique can also be used to flag areas that have speeding cameras or areas that are well-known police speed traps. Essentially it works like this: If you're stuck in a traffic jam, you send an update explaining your location and the density of the current traffic.

This mobile app is available on Android phones, the iPhone, RIM devices and Windows Mobile devices. Product: Micello We all love Google maps for helping us get from one place to another on the road. Company: Micello, Inc. But what happens when we're inside a large building such as a stadium and we're looking for a particular restaurant or souvenir shop? This application supports user-generated maps of large public places that will eventually help you find a public restroom no matter where you are. That's where Micello comes in.

Company: Piryx, Inc.  Product: Piryx Think of Piryx as sort of a PayPal for politics. DEMO praises the Piryx platform for bringing "smart payment processing technology to the $300+ billion non-profit sector." Company: Answers Corp. It essentially lets users send contributions to political candidates, action committees and non-profit groups. Product: Answers.com Answers Corp, which already maintains the popular WikiAnswers, is launching this new Web site as a way to provide "one-stop answers about anything, combining the world's best licensed and user-generated content." The site will incorporate similar features to WikiAnswers, where users ask questions and rely upon a team of open-source writers and editors to answer them. Product: Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud This is new approach to cloud storage that Symform describes as a "storage potluck." When users sign up for the Cooperative Storage Cloud, they can get as much storage space as they want within the cloud as long as they contribute an equal amount of storage space on their own premises for Symform to use as storage for other customers.

DEMO says that the new site's strength is that it integrates "the depth of ReferenceAnswers with the breadth of WikiAnswers." Company: Symform, Inc. As Kevin Brown, the vice president of sales and marketing for Symform, explains it, the customer "contributes what they consume." So for example, Brown says that a customer "can contribute from an internal drive or some external drive, e.g., a $100 USB drive, and backup an unlimited amount." This cooperative approach to storage makes Symform's cloud storage cheaper than other kinds of cloud storage.

Senators want to end telecom immunity for spying program

Four Democratic U.S. senators will introduce a bill to repeal a provision protecting telecommunications carriers from lawsuits targeting their assistance to a controversial U.S. National Security Agency surveillance program. The program was illegal under the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure, critics said. The new legislation, supported by Senators Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Jeff Merkley of Oregon would repeal telecom immunity provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, passed by Congress in July 2008. The FISA Amendments Act provides some additional court oversight to the NSA wiretapping program, which former President George Bush's administration launched after terrorist attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11. 2001. The FISA Amendments Act allowed the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, which targets electronic communication of some including phone calls and e-mail, to continue until the end of 2012. Critics of the NSA program said it illegally targeted U.S. residents' communications with people linked to terrorist groups without court-approved warrants.

Current U.S. President Barack Obama supported the FISA Amendments Act, including telecom immunity. The new legislation, called the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act, would allow lawsuits against telecom providers such as AT&T to resume. "I believe we best defend America when we also defend its founding principles," Dodd said in a statement. "We make our nation safer when we eliminate the false choice between liberty and security. Telecom immunity provisions were needed to protect companies that helped the U.S. government fight terrorism in a time of need, supporters of the immunity provision said. But by granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies who may have participated in warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, the Congress violated the protection of our citizen's privacy and due process right and we must not allow that to stand." Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was pleased to sponsor the bill. "Last year, I opposed legislation that stripped Americans of their right to seek accountability for the Bush administration's decision to illegally wiretap American citizens without a warrant," he said in a statement. "We can strengthen national security while protecting Americans' privacy and civil liberties. Restoring Americans' access to the courts is the first step toward bringing some measure of accountability for the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to conduct warrantless surveillance in violation of our laws." The courts, and not the president or Congress, should determine whether the telecom carriers violated the law and rights of U.S. residents, the senators said in a press release.

PayPal Introduces Open API to Put Payments Into Apps

PayPal used its inaugural PayPal X Innovate 2009 conference in San Francisco to officially announce the PayPal X program to release APIs allowing developers to integrate PayPal seamlessly into third-party applications. The new PayPal APIs allow developers to engage customers directly within their own applications rather than forcing them to port users off to the actual PayPal site. The expanded functionality will help PayPal to compete against similar online payment services from Amazon and Google.

Users who don't even use PayPal can actually sign up for PayPal within the third-party application and begin making PayPal payments seamlessly from within the third-party application. Part of the goal of opening PayPal to developers is also to expand the types of transactions PayPal is used for to include things like paying rent, or employee payroll. PayPal wants to make it easier for developers to leverage its payment system, ostensibly making PayPal a sort of de facto currency for the Web. PayPal also has its eye on smart phones and wants to incorporate PayPal payments into mobile applications. PayPal is an established name in online transactions.

Google Checkout is already working on mobile devices, and Nokia is working on its own mobile payment system, Nokia Money. It built a reputation for providing a safe and secure means of making payments for things like EBay purchases. There are fees involved and some users have taken issue with those fees (including recently adding fees without notice for services that were previously free). Rather than adopt PayPal (and the fees that come with it) for online payment, Amazon and Google have developed homegrown online payment systems. It worked so well and got so popular that EBay eventually bought PayPal in 2002. PayPal doesn't provide the service as a charity though. Google and Amazon are both online gorillas, and Amazon is a huge online retail site, so the competition is a threat to PayPal. The new PayPal X API's provide an even more integral and seamless opportunity for SMB's to leverage PayPal for both incoming and outgoing financial transactions.

A couple years ago PayPal introduced the Website Payments Pro program aimed at providing small and medium businesses (SMB) with a platform for conducting secure online transactions. Tony Bradley is an information security and unified communications expert with more than a decade of enterprise IT experience. He tweets as @PCSecurityNews and provides tips, advice and reviews on information security and unified communications technologies on his site at tonybradley.com.

Personal Finance: Manage Your Money Better Online

Let's be honest. When times are good, we probably spend too much. Most of us could do a better job handling our money. When times are bad, too many of us stick our heads in the sand.

The Web has a wealth, indeed a surfeit, of tools and information to help you manage your personal finances. Both, of course, are bad ideas. To get an idea of just how much, simply take a look at Google's personal finance directory. So I've culled the list to find Web sites and tools that you'll find helpful and I find trustworthy. It's overwhelming. This is by no means "a best of the Web" list.

Swiss Army Knives of Personal FinanceKiplinger.com is a very deep site, ranging from short, newsy pieces like "A new ban on overdraft fees" to extensively reported features like this month's "Making the most of your benefits." The site tries hard to be helpful; for example a recent piece called "My Wallet was Stolen" gives bullet points about what to do right away and ends with the phone numbers of three major credit reporting agencies. It's too difficult to make that call, and I've avoided sites that have no free information. The Web site is free, but the eighty-year-old company offers a variety of newsletters and magazines at various prices. SmartMoney also has a well-deserved reputation for excellence and is notable for its wide-ranging information. One big benefit as outlined on the site: "Kiplinger answers the queries of its readers as a regular feature of their subscriptions, filling requests for additional information on any subject its publications cover, by phone, mail or email. Clicking on "personal finance," for example, brings up sections devoted to 13 different topics, including bank notes, debt, elder care, marriage and divorce.

College and Retirement Planning With the price of tuition at even public universities moving into the five-figure range, it's never been more important to develop a plan to afford a college education. SmartMoney also offers a wealth of investment tools, including real-time quotes, analysis and stock screening, but those features are behind a pay wall. Even if the heir apparent is very close to graduating high school there are steps you can take to mitigate the financial pain. Indeed, the site has an entire section devoted to financial planning for college filled with actionable tips, newsy items and generally helpful stuff. SmartMoney, for example, has an informative story about early decision students and financial aid.

Not to be outdone, Kiplinger has very meaty college-focused special report that includes pieces on comparing student loan packages and how best to use 529 (college savings) plans. By entering your personal information, you'll get back an estimate of your (teensy) monthly benefits at various retirement ages. It may be somewhat early for you to file for Social Security, but if nothing else, this government site provides a great reality check. The site has a good deal of related information, including application forms. Best Rates on CDs Finding a financial advisor is not easy and is a decision that has real consequences. There is a also a wealth of information for people approaching retirement on the Web site of the AARP. One feature I really liked that has use for a consumer of any age was called "The All Cash Challenge." As you'd expect it underlines something we all know, but probably don't put to use often enough: People who pay with cash spend less than those who pay with credit cards, because pulling those greenbacks out of your wallet hurts.

One place to start: The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. NAPFA insists that its members be " fee only," which means the financial advisor is compensated "solely by the client with neither the advisor nor any related party receiving compensation that is contingent on the purchase or sale of a financial product." CDs don't pay much these days, but they are a secure place to park your money until better opportunities arise. Its Web site lets you search for advisors by area and by specialty. If that works for you, bankrate.com is a good place to shop. A similar tool on the site allows you to check fixed and adjustable mortgage rates for different durations and localities.

Its simple search tool includes clickable links, so if you see a deal you like, it's to take the next step. Any number of online sites help with basic financial chores, including budgets and expense tracking. After all, you'll be entrusting credit card numbers, bank account and maybe investment account information to a company you don't know much about. But I have to say that security is a real concern. That's not to cast aspersions on anyone; I'm just careful, and I hope you are as well.

Mint.com, which has garnered some good reviews, is now owned by Intuit, so the combined site is worth a look. Certainly Quicken Online, owned by Intuit, is long established, and its Web site is now free. Here's a final tip that I figured out after wasting too much money. When I had a misunderstanding with a credit card company, my account was temporarily suspended. My online life includes many services and publications that renew automatically. Suddenly a number of those automatic renewals bounced and I was prompted to update.

My credit account was quickly restored, and as a result of that little mishap I saved hundreds of dollars. (Thanks to Kathleen Pender, the long-time personal finance columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, for her helpful suggestions.) San Francisco journalist Bill Snyder writes frequently about business and technology. I realized that I wasn't using some of those services and cancelled. He welcomes your comments and suggestions. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline. Reach him at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net.

3 Basic Steps to Avoid Joining a Botnet

Banging the drum for security awareness never gets old. Online, the biggest battle these days is against botnets: networks of infected computers which hackers can use - unbeknownst to the machine's owner - for online crimes including sending out spam or launching a denial of service attack. As much as CSOs try to get folks to bone up on safe practices (both online and in the office), there are always going to be some who need reminding.

Unfortunately, the black-hat techniques employed to snare users into a botnet web have evolved to a level that makes them often undetectable by even the most sophisticated security products. Santorelli, director of global outreach with the non-profit security investigations firm Team Cymru, spends his days monitoring malicious online activity, particularly botnets. Combine that with a lack of user knowledge, and the threat of infection becomes very high. (See: Botnets: Why it's Getting Harder to Find and Fight Them). "The frustrating thing is they can make their chances of getting infected much, much smaller," said Steve Santorelli, who sees how users fall prey to easily avoidable traps every day. Santorelli notes that while just one strategy probably won't cover you, with several tools in the tool box, the rate of infection within an organization significantly drops. They might not realize the importance of working with IT to ensure they are up to date with patching and software upgrades.

Tip 1: Have work AND home machines regularly updated with patches and antivirus software The average user doesn't necessarily have a lot of technological knowledge, said Santorelli. This problem may be especially prevalent among workers who are exclusively remote. Sophos scanned 583 computers for 40 days and found that 81 percent of the machines failed one or more basic security checks. In fact, a study conducted by security firm Sophos last year found most computer users ignore security updates and turn off their firewalls. Most machines, 63 percent, were lacking security patches for the operating system, office application and programs like Windows Media Player and Adobe Flash. Those are exactly the folks that criminals love. "These people are going to go for the low-hanging fruit and unfortunately there is a lot of it out there," said Santorelli. "There are so many machines without updated AV on it." If your patching system isn't automated, your users need to be made aware of the risks they are taking by working with unpatched and out-dated security technologies.

More than half, 51 percent, had disabled their firewall and another 15 percent had outdated or disabled antivirus and anti-spam software. And while security updates are not the cure-all for malware infection, Santorelli said they certainly serve as a strong deterrent. "If you are walking down the street as a burglar and you see a house with a Rottweiler, and a visible sign from a security company, you probably won't attack that house," he noted. Unfortunately, that's less and less foolproof. "It used to be that if you surfed to places like CNN, or the Weather Channel, you weren't going to come across great deal of malware," said Santorelli. "That isn't the case anymore. Tip 2: Use the latest browser versions Staying away from dubious sites and sticking to known brands used to offer reasonable online safety. We've seen a number of cases recently where people have gone to a legitimate web site and there is an advertisement up there hosting some kind of malicious code." That is where the latest safe browsing technologies can help, said Santorelli. There is also a great deal of anti-phishing and anti malware that goes into them now.

The latest versions of today's browsers will often flag potentially dangerous content. "Browsers are so much more secure now that so many of the holes that existed in these browsers have been patched. So if you try and go to a link that contains malware, your AV might not pick it up. You can download the latest version of Internet Explorer or Firefox fairly easily and quickly, too (See: IE or Firefox: Which is More Secure?). "It will only take you five minutes to have the latest browser technology," said Santorelli. "It is just another string to your bow, so to speak." Tip 3: Be a little more careful when you get a link or an attachment. "Don't just blindly click on things and rely on other people to protect your computer," noted Santorelli. "You've got to take some responsibility for your own security." Team Cymru research reveals that the most common attack vectors for installing malware continue to be links in emails, or drive-by downloads. "We know from our recent investigations that there is a great deal of success to be had [for hackers] by just sending links out," he said. But your browser will say: "Are you sure?" The good news is most browsers are free. Just because you receive the email from someone you know and trust, it doesn't mean it is safe. See Five More Facebook, Twitter Scams to Avoid for examples of current attempts to exploit social media sites.

This includes friends and family, whose systems or accounts may have been compromised, and also well-known web sites you use, like social networking sites or banks. And large banks, such as Bank of America, often find their name is used in email phishing scams where thieves send out messages warning that customers their account has been compromised with a link that leads to a fake, but very legitimate-looking login screen. Of course, whether or not you should click any link or attachment also depends on if you have complied with steps 1 and 2 above. "You're going to have to take it on a case-by-case basis," said Santorelli "And my concern would be significantly raised if I didn't have my computer up to date with antivirus and browsing technologies."

Intel CTO: Machines could ultimately match human intelligence

Will machines ever be as smart as humans? The notion of a technological "singularity," a time when machines match and surpass human intellect, has been popularized by thinkers such as inventor and author Raymond Kurzweil, who commonly cites Moore's Law in his arguments about the exponential growth of technology. Intel CTO Justin Rattner thinks that someday, they might. Rattner's views on the singularity are sought after, given that he is CTO of the world's biggest chipmaker and the head of Intel Labs, the company's primary research arm.

So yeah, at some point, assuming all kinds of advances and breakthroughs, it's not inconceivable we'll reach a point that machines do match human intelligence." Already, scientists are working on placing neural sensors and chips into the brain, allowing people to control prosthetic limbs with their own thoughts. In a recent interview with Network World, Rattner said he has "tried to sidestep the question of when [the singularity] might occur," but says machine intelligence is constantly increasing due to laws of accelerating returns, "of which Moore's Law is perhaps the best example." "There will be a surprising amount of machines that do exhibit human-like capabilities," Rattner said. "Not to the extent of what humans can do today, but in an increasing number of areas these machines will show more and more human-like intelligence, particularly in the perceptual tasks. This is likely to become a "relatively routine procedure" in a few years, Rattner said. Rattner's views are also held in high regard in the world of supercomputing, of course, and he will deliver the opening address at the SC supercomputing conference in Portland, Ore. in November. Rattner said that while many commentators are preoccupied with the far-off singularity, he concerns himself more on how laws of accelerating returns "are real" and could lead to amazing advances in technology, including augmentation of the human body. "Assuming that interface technology progresses in an accelerating way, the possibilities of augmenting human intelligence with machine intelligence become increasingly real and more diverse," Rattner said. Nearly 80% of the world's 500 fastest supercomputers use Intel processors.

But Rattner says the supercomputing industry is already looking forward to the era of the exaflop - 1,000 times faster than a petaflop. The world's first petaflop machines, capable of performing one thousand trillion calculations per second, came online just last year. Rattner says the fundamental technologies behind a future exaflop machine could be demonstrated by the middle of next decade, and - depending on government investment - the first exaflop machines could become operational in the second half of the decade. You'd need a 500-megawatt nuclear power station to run the thing." The industry will have to move that number down to something practical, perhaps tens of megawatts, Rattner said. But this still depends on overcoming limitations in today's computing architectures. "Now that we've achieved petascale computing, there's all this interest in getting the next factor of 1,000," Rattner said. "But we can't get there with today's technology, largely because of power considerations.

But the work is just getting started. "We've got a lot of really big engineering challenges," Rattner said. "Today, we just don't know how to get there."

NASA, European Space agency want to go to Mars

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are aiming to cooperate on all manner of robotic orbiters, landers and exploration devices for a future trip to Mars. The program would focus on several launch opportunities with landers and orbiters conducting astrobiological, geological, geophysical, climatological, and other high-priority investigations and aiming at returning samples from Mars in the mid-2020s. NetworkWorld Extra: 10 NASA space technologies that may never see the cosmos The envisioned program includes the provision that by 2016, ESA will build what it calls an Entry, Descent, and semi-soft Landing System (EDLS) technology demonstrator and a science/relay orbiter. Specifically, NASA and ESA recently agreed to consider the establishment of a new joint initiative to define and implement their scientific, programmatic, and technological goals for the exploration of Mars. In 2018, the ESA would also deliver its ExoMars rover equipped with drilling capability.

NASA and ESA will establish legally binding agreements, as soon as feasible, to cover specific activities of this initiative, the agencies said in a release. NASA's contribution in 2016 includes a trace gas mapping and imaging scientific payload for the orbiter and the launch and, in 2018 a rover, the EDLS, and rockets for the launch. The NASA/ESA agreement has been in the works for months and while the agencies have cooperated in the past, budgetary constraints likely helped move the discussions along. In fact one of the findings in the recent Review of United States Human Space Flight Plan Committee report said the US can lead a bold new international effort in the human exploration of space. The idea being they can support the costs of research, development and launch of Mars missions together better than individually.

If international partners are actively engaged, there could be substantial benefits to foreign relations and more overall resources could become available to the human spaceflight program. If humans are ever to live for long periods on another planetary surface, it is likely to be on Mars. The commission also said that "Mars is the ultimate destination for human exploration of the inner solar system; but it is not the best first destination. But Mars is not an easy place to visit with existing technology and without a substantial investment of resources." NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has sent back high-resolution images of about 30 proposed landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory, a mission launching in 2011 to deploy a long-distance rover carrying sophisticated science instruments on Mars by 2012. The European Space Agency recently said to wants volunteers to take a simulated 520-day trip to Mars. The 'mission' is part of the Mars500 program being conducted by ESA and Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) to study human psychological, medical and physical capabilities and limitations in space through fundamental and operational research. Starting in 2010, an international crew of six will simulate a 520-day round-trip to Mars, including a 30-day stay on the Martian surface.

NASA: 2 rocket companies win $1.65M moon lander prize

NASA said it will this week award $1.65 million in prize money to a pair of aerospace companies that successfully simulated landing a spacecraft on the moon and lifting off again. NetworkWorld Extra: 10 NASA space technologies that may never see the cosmos To win the prize, teams had to demonstrate a rocket-propelled vehicle and payload that could take off vertically, climb to a defined altitude, fly for a pre-determined amount of time, and then land vertically on a target that is a fixed distance from the launch pad. NASA's Centennial Challenges program, which was managed by the X Prize Foundation will give a $1 million first prize to Masten Space Systems and a $500,000 second prize to Armadillo Aerospace for successfully completing the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. After landing, the vehicle then needed to take off again within a predetermined time, fly for a certain amount of time and then land back on its original launch pad.

Level 1 required a vehicle to take off vertically from a designated launch area, climb to an altitude of at least 150 feet, remain aloft for at least 90 seconds while traveling horizontally to a landing pad 300 feet away, then land vertically. The Challenge involved two levels of difficulty, with awards for first and second place at each level. The much more difficult Level 2 required a vehicle to take off from a designated launch area, ascend to an altitude of 150 feet, hover for 180 seconds, then land precisely on a simulated, rocky, lunar surface 300 feet away. The challenge required exacting control and navigation, as well as precise control of engine thrust, all done automatically, NASA stated. For both Levels 1 and 2, competing teams had the option to refuel their vehicle before conducting the required return level to the original starting point, all within a two-hour-and-15-minute time period.

The rocket's engine needed to be started twice in a short time with no ground servicing other than refueling. Masten Space Systems met the Level 2 requirements by achieving accurate landings and captured the first place prize during flights of their "Xoie" (pronounced "Zoey") vehicle Oct. 30 at the Mojave Air and Space Port. This represented the technical challenges involved in operating a reusable vehicle that could land on the moon. Masten also claimed a $150,000 prize as part of the Level 1 competition. Armadillo placed second in the Level 2 competition, earning a $500,000 prize. Armadillo Aerospace was the first team to qualify for the Level 2 prize with successful flights of its Scorpius rocket Sept. 12 in Caddo Mills, Tex.

An awards ceremony for the winning teams will be held at noon on Nov. 5 in Washington, DC.

HP equips desktop PCs with SSDs for faster Windows 7 boots

Addressing complaints about slow Windows startup times, Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to introduce a new business desktop PC that comes with a solid-state disk drive (SSD) to speed up Windows 7 and other applications. Available on Oct. 22 - the same day Windows 7 is officially released - the 6005 Pro will also come with a larger conventional hard disk drive connected via SATA interface for storing data and documents, said Martha Rost, worldwide product manager for business PCs at HP. HP calls the combo drive configuration its RapidDrive technology. The 64GB SSD on the HP Compaq 6005 Pro will be used to store and run Windows and commonly-accessed applications. The AMD-based 6005 Pro with RapidDrive costs $774, about $200 more than the $550 starting cost of the 6000 Pro, which lacks an SSD. As for just how rapid the 6005 Pro is, "We didn't run explicit tests.

The SATA-connected PM800 can read data sequentially at a maximum rate of 225.4 MB per second, and write it sequentially at 160 MB per second, HP said. But it boots up pretty quickly," Rost said. "You'll definitely see a difference." She said that the RapidDrive uses the Samsung PM800 SSD based on multi-level cell (MLC) technology. Sequential data rates apply to large files such as movies or songs. However, the PM800's performance - especially when writing small chunks of data - is much less impressive. It is about twice as fast as the zippiest consumer (7,200 RPM) SATA hard disk drives.

When doing random reads and writes, the Samsung drive is rated at a maximum of 27.4 MB per second and 4.2 MB per second, respectively, which is far slower than conventional hard drives. And they inevitably get even slower over time. SSDs are slower than conventional hard drives when recycling old blocks of data and doing other "garbage collection" tasks. Roger Kay, an independent analyst with EndPoint Technology Associates Inc., said this isn't the first time hardware makers have tried technology aimed at speeding up Windows. Intel also introduced a technology called Robson that placed a flash memory cache on notebook motherboards. Samsung and Seagate both introduced hybrid drives for notebooks that combined a conventional spinning disk with a smaller flash SSD that would be used to run Windows and popular apps.

Such technologies haven't taken off, in large part because of lack of need. Microsoft has also tried to speed up Windows. Most laptops can quickly go into sleep or hibernate modes and waking up from suspended modes is much faster than booting a PC. Kay doesn't think RapidDrive, at least in its current form, will spread to laptops, since it requires two drives. A feature introduced in Vista called ReadyBoost allowed users to boot Windows off a flash drive. Microsoft has promised that Windows 7 will boot and run faster than Vista . But performance gains were small, users said.

FAA glitch shines spotlight on troubled telco project

The outage of a computer system used by airline pilots to file flight plans in the U.S will likely prompt a closer look at a $2.4 billion telecommunications system that has grappled with numerous problems in the past. But in a statement, the agency blamed a "software configuration problem" within the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) in Salt Lake City. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) offered few details Thursday about the exact nature of the glitch, which caused major delays and flight cancellations in airports across the country.

That problem brought down a system used mainly for traffic flow and flight planning services for about four hours this morning. There was no indication that the disruption was the result of a cyberattack, the FAA said. The flight management system - it's called the National Airspace Data Interchange Network (NADIN) - was affected because it relies on FTI services to operate, the FAA said. FAA experts were investigating the outage and meeting with Harris Corp., the company that manages FTI to "discuss system corrections to prevent similar outages," the agency said. Safety and security is our highest priority," the company said.

In an e-mailed statement, a Harris spokesman said the company is working to "evaluate the interruption" to prevent future outages. "FTI has proven to be one of the most reliable and secure communications networks operating within the civilian government. A spokeswoman for the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) union, which represents more than 11,000 FAA employees, told Computerworld the problem arose when scheduled maintenance on FTI in Los Angeles corrupted a router in Salt Lake City. The $2.4 billion FTI program was introduced by the FAA in 2002 to replace seven FAA-owned and leased telecommunications networks. A back-up router that should have kicked-in when the primary router went down failed to do so, resulting in the widespread outage, she said. It provides a range of voice, data and video communication services for operations and mission support at more than 4,000 FAA and Defense Department facilities, according to Harris.

The report also noted several technical problems that had caused unscheduled outages to air traffic control operations. "In some cases, these outages have involved simultaneous loss of both primary and back-up FTI services, which not only disrupts air travel but also creates potential safety risks," the inspector general report warned, pointing to several incidents in recent years. The FTI network provides switching and routing services, as well as centralized infrastructure security monitoring services for the FAA. An audit of the program released by the FAA's Inspector General last September cited concerns over delays in the project's implementation and doubts about the promised cost-benefits the network was supposed to yield. On Sept. 25, 2007 for instance, all FTI services were lost at the Memphis Air Route Traffic Control Control Center (ARTCC), disrupting air traffic control for several hours and causing 566 flight delays, the report said. The FAA was vulnerable to the same issues at Atlanta and in Jacksonville. The problem stemmed from a "catastrophic failure" of an optical network ring that was supposed to offer built-in fault tolerance. Another incident occurred on Nov. 9, 2007, when all primary and alternate FTI services were lost at Jacksonville, resulting in 85 flight delays. "We also found that when FTI outages occur, the services are not always restored within contractual timeframes," the inspector general's report said.

Others have been critical of the program as well. In some cases, where services are supposed to be restored within three hours, Harris took twice as long to fix the problem. "Several areas remain critical watch items for decision makers as FAA moves forward with FTI," the report said. PASS, for instance, has in the past voiced concern over safety and efficiency issues related to FTI. PASS spokeswoman Kori Blalock Keller said the FAA needs to hold Harris accountable for the problems. "If they are going to provide service, we need to make sure they are reliable and they are quick" to respond to outages, she said. According to Keller, the incident will likely prompt Congress to ask the FAA Inspector General for another review of the system. Although several FAA technicians were on hand in Salt Lake City today, they couldn't do much to help out because the FTI system is managed by Harris, she said.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NACTA) has also expressed frustration over FTI. After the failure in Memphis, the organization blasted the network as "unreliable [and] lacking suitable backup" and called it a source of "great frustration and deep concern" for FAA technicians and air traffic controllers. Bill Curtis chief scientist at CAST Software and co-author of the Capability Maturity Model used in software development today, said the outage highlights the havoc that can be created when something goes wrong in large, highly interconnected systems such as the FAA air traffic control system. "It's not just one system, but a system of systems," he said. "If one of them starts behaving in a funny way, it starts propagating out and causes problems in other systems," said Curtis.

VMware's Fusion 3.0 release leads to confusion

VMware Inc. is having trouble getting VMware Fusion 3.0 out its download door and is getting customer complaints about timeouts and licensing problems. The alert remained on the Web site early this morning. Shortly after the software was released Tuesday for download by customers, VMware issued a support alert about its upgrade portal, blaming "overwhelming demand" for the upgrade problems.

Fusion 3.0 is virtualization software that allows Windows, and other guest operating systems, to run on Intel-based Mac OS X. VMware Workstation 7 , also released Tuesday, is a virtual machine platform that supports multiple operating systems on a PC. Most of the VMware portal problems appear to be with Fusion. In a blog post , Pat Lee, director of VMware's personal desktop products, posted the 30-day free trial key as a workaround. "Because we've seen even more demand than anticipated, the VMware Fusion upgrade portal is having significant problems keeping up with the demand," wrote Lee, in a post Tuesday afternoon. "While we have already transacted thousands of upgrades today and many people are able to get the product, I apologize immensely to those of you who are anxious to get the product immediately and are running into issues." Responded one user, Miku, in a comment field: "I'm very happy that you posted a temporary serial for us to try it out, the license server problems were driving me insane, I was really thinking I was insane." Rob Enderle, an independent IT analyst in San Jose, said the demand for the product would imply that a lot of people suddenly want to run Windows on a Mac, "so many that it is crashing VMware's servers." "VMware is largely a server company and not really used to the kinds of numbers that can be generated by a popular desktop offering. One problem was difficulty in getting activation codes for the new products. You jump from 100s for a server application to millions for a popular desktop application under load and this looks like VMware wasn't ready for this jump," Enderle said. A VMware spokesman said the company wouldn't provide details beyond what was in the blog post.

The site issues may be an indication that Paul Maritz, VMware's CEO, who was appointed last year and is a longtime Microsoft veteran, may have assumed that the demand was anticipated by his staff, Enderle said. "This should be one hell of a wake-up call for him, not unusual for a new CEO, and it will remind him that he needs to test his assumptions, because what he assumes, and what turns out not to be true, can be very damaging," he said. The company was also addressing upgrade issue via a Twitter account, vmwarefusion .

Novell grabs for big role in virtualization security

Novell this week will lay out an ambitious plan to secure applications across heterogeneous virtualization platforms at customer sites and off-premises, an effort designed to play off Novell's strengths in network and identity management. Under the plan, workloads will maintain security and compliance policies, along with real-time reporting and monitoring capabilities, wherever they go. Novell's Intelligent Workload Management initiative will be designed for the creation of application workloads, described by the company as portable, self-contained units of work built through the integration of the operating system, middleware and application, to run on server virtualization products from VMware, Microsoft and Citrix, among others. The company says it will roll out eight products over the next year to support the plan. "It's somewhat revolutionary," said CEO Ron Hovsepian during an interview with Network World. "[In the core trends around virtualization and the cloud] what's bogging down the CIO? Security." Desktop virtualization cheat sheet  While Novell is taking an aggressive approach, other management vendors such as HP and IBM are also in the mix.

Offerings following that will include the SUSE Appliance Toolkit for deploying and maintaining Linux-based appliances in physical and virtual environments for update, access and configuration. For its part, Novell during the first quarter of next year plans to release a tool simply called Workshop that customers can use to build their workloads on Linux and Windows. Analysts say Novell's initiative is likely to first win adoption among the company's existing customers that are virtualizing their servers and already using products such as Novell's Identity Manager. You might shift it to New York, for instance, if your main usage is there, and traditional firewalling and identity management aren't enough anymore," says James Staten, principal analyst at Forrester. "You want something very lightweight that sets policy and identity in the application." Novell needs its Intelligent Workload Management effort to pay off in light of falling revenue and growing losses, even as the company's Linux-based products business is on the rise (the company last week posted a fourth fiscal quarter-over-quarter revenue dip of 12% and a loss of $256 million, which swelled in large part due to acquisition and other costs). The foundation components for security in Novell's Intelligent Workload Management initiative include capabilities available in Identity Manager 4 for real-time provisioning, reporting and management as well as the already announced Cloud Security Service, also expected to debut in 2010. Novell today offers management products under the brands PlateSpin Workload Management and Business Management, but the company will introduce new products that integrate and extend management capabilities to the cloud. But Novell's approach should catch the eye of non-Novell customers, too, industry watchers say. "Today, the workload is moving around. These will include PlateSpin "Atlantic," a self-service provisioning portal, PlateSpin "Bluestar" for physical server change and configuration management and monitoring, and ZENworks "Workbench," a master repository and change/control system for on-demand deployment of workloads.

Another new product is expected to be Compliance Automation to integrating Sentinel security information and event-monitoring with Business Service Manager for monitoring events. Other Novell products, including Business Service Manager, Business Experience Manager, myCMDB, Sentinel and Sentinel Log Manager, will also be tailored for service-level reporting of workloads across physical, virtual and cloud environments. While there are a lot of unknowns about how exactly the effort will play out, Forrester's Staten says Novell is bringing a strong argument to the table about managing workloads in a virtualized environment. Mary Johnston Turner, research director at IDC, says Novell is addressing a new set of requirements. "As we move into dynamic virtualization, you need to integrate and have a more policy-based approach," she says. He notes this has been a weighty topic for other vendors, including HP with its Orchestrator, though it's not oriented toward heterogeneous virtualization.

However, Turner notes that this approach presents challenges in that organizations have an installed base of management tools and are not set up to run the way that Novell envisions. In a recent survey of about 1,000 organizations, DiDio said almost 40% used multiple types of server virtualization. "They get VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, and a real surprise, Parallels for the Mac," she says. There is also the practical matter of seeing how well Novell delivers on its promises, though she gives the vendor "credit for being early to the game." Laura DiDio, principal analyst at Information Technology Intelligence Corp., points out there's a real need for a heterogeneous approach to container virtualization because companies often do use more than one type of server virtualization. DiDio says Novell's core identity and security technologies are widely regarded as "top-notch" and it makes complete sense to include them in the container approach outlined in the Intelligent Workload Management strategy. She also notes it will probably represent a huge opportunity for Novell to get its foot in the door to woo new customers. This will potentially enable Novell customers to "quickly and safely" go into public and private cloud computing "because it will minimize the risk" at deployment.

Google, Verizon issue joint statement on network neutrality

The following is a joint statement from Lowell McAdam, CEO Verizon Wireless and Eric Schmidt, CEO Google, regarding network neutrality.(Cross-posted on the Verizon Policy Blog and Google Public Policy blog.)Verizon and Google might seem unlikely bedfellows in the current debate around network neutrality, or an open Internet. For starters we both think it's essential that the Internet remains an unrestricted and open platform-where people can access any content (so long as it's legal), as well as the services and applications of their choice. And while it's true we do disagree quite strongly about certain aspects of government policy in this area-such as whether mobile networks should even be part of the discussion-there are many issues on which we agree.

There are two key factors driving innovation on the web today. It enables Macs to talk to PCs, Blackberry Storms to iPhones, the newest computers to the oldest hardware on the planet across any kind of network-cable, DSL, fiber, mobile, WiFi or even dial up. First is the programming language of the Internet, which was designed over forty years ago by engineers who wanted the freedom to communicate from any computer, anywhere in the world. Second, private investment is dramatically increasing broadband capacity and the intelligence of networks, creating the infrastructure to support ever more sophisticated applications. There is no central authority that can step in and prevent you from talking to someone else, or that imposes rules prescribing what services should be available.

Networking's greatest arguments: Network neutrality vs. tiered services As a result, however or wherever you access the Internet the people you want to connect with can receive your message. Transformative is an over-used word, especially in the tech sector. Consumers of all stripes can decide which services they want to use and the companies they trust to provide them. But the Internet has genuinely changed the world. In addition, if you're an entrepreneur with a big idea, you can launch your service online and instantly connect to an audience of billions.

At the same time, network providers are free to develop new applications, either on their own or in collaboration with others. You don't need advance permission to use the network. This kind of "innovation without permission" has changed the way we do business forever, fueling unprecedented collaboration, creativity and opportunity. So, in conjunction with the Federal Communications Commission's national plan to bring broadband to all Americans, we understand its decision to start a debate about how best to protect and promote the openness of the Internet. And because America has been at the forefront of most of these changes, we have disproportionately benefited in terms of economic growth and job creation.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has promised a thoughtful, transparent decision-making process, and we look forward to taking part in the analysis and discussion that is to follow. First, it's obvious that users should continue to have the final say about their web experience, from the networks and software they use, to the hardware they plug in to the Internet and the services they access online. We believe this kind of process can work, because as the two of us have debated these issues we have found a number of basic concepts to agree on. The Internet revolution has been people powered from the very beginning, and should remain so. Second, advanced and open networks are essential to the future development of the Web.

The minute that anyone, whether from government or the private sector, starts to control how people use the Internet, it is the beginning of the end of the Net as we know it. Policies that continue to provide incentives for investment and innovation are a vital part of the debate we are now beginning. So we think it makes sense for the Commission to establish that these existing principles are enforceable, and implement them on a case-by-case basis. Third, the FCC's existing wireline broadband principles make clear that users are in charge of all aspects of their Internet experience-from access to apps and content. Fourth, we're in wild agreement that in this rapidly changing Internet ecosystem, flexibility in government policy is key.

This can have unintended consequences. Policymakers sometimes fall prey to the temptation to write overly detailed rules, attempting to predict every possible scenario and address every possible concern. Fifth, broadband network providers should have the flexibility to manage their networks to deal with issues like traffic congestion, spam, "malware" and denial of service attacks, as well as other threats that may emerge in the future-so long as they do it reasonably, consistent with their customers' preferences, and don't unreasonably discriminate in ways that either harm users or are anti-competitive. Finally, transparency is a must. They should also be free to offer managed network services, such as IP television.

Chairman Genachowski has proposed adding this principle to the FCC's guidelines, and we both support this step. Doubtless, there will be disagreements along the way. All providers of broadband access, services and applications should provide their customers with clear information about their offerings. While Verizon supports openness across its networks, it believes that there is no evidence of a problem today - especially for wireless - and no basis for new rules and that regulation in the US could have a detrimental effect globally. While Google supports light touch regulation, it believes that safeguards are needed to combat the incentives for carriers to pick winners and losers online.

MS won't punish users for switching to hosted software

Microsoft's licensing of internal versions of software vs. their online counterparts won't penalize users for buying on-premises licenses and then switching to online hosted software, according to CEO Steve Ballmer. Ballmer, in a meeting with Network World at the annual SharePoint Conference, said moving between enterprise applications like SharePoint and Exchange deployed internally to versions of that software operated in the cloud by Microsoft will be "seamless." "Customers are saying give me some credit here, this is more like an upgrade than it is like a new buy, give us a little credit,"he said. Ballmer says Sidekick episode 'not good,' but Microsoft ensuring that its online services won't make the same error. Users have been questioning whether they can move licenses online without having to take a credit and renegotiate with Microsoft on licensing terms. "I know it will take them time to get it straight; it is really complicated," said Guy Creese, an analyst with the Burton Group. "They claim software plus services as a mantra and if that is true they need to make it so these two environments [cloud and on-premises] are seamless [from a licensing perspective]." Ballmer said users need to break it down by separating Internet and intranet deployments from cloud and on-premises. "Internet stuff we do is all priced basically per application or per server and it will be priced that way whether it is offered in the cloud, as a service or on-premises," he said. "I think that is pretty clean and I think that is the way that people would like to see things licensed." He said intranet applications are essentially priced by the number of users and that fact is true whether it is in the cloud or on-premises. "So one is user-based and one is application based." But Ballmer said Microsoft will be flexible in the way the company prices cloud versus on-premises.

For example, if a user has a client access license for SharePoint running internally but decides he wants Microsoft to run SharePoint in the cloud, the customer only pays to have Microsoft operate the SharePoint service. "You don't need to convert [the license], you can use your on-premise license and just buy the service capability; that you can do." If you want to transition you can do that too but most of our customers say just let me use the license that I already bought and have you operate this thing for me." Follow John on Twitter: twitter.com/johnfontana He said users that want to come to the cloud can buy the service and use the license they own or they can start in the cloud and buy an integrated license that pays for both the service Microsoft operates and the license. "We designed it to be seamless, in a sense it looks more complicated now because you have two choices." "We have a big enough install base of people that bought licenses that say, 'Hey, when we buy your service we don't want to be re-buying what we have already paid you for in terms of software.' We have to recognize that our customers expect a transition step where we give them credit for the software that they already own," he said.

What's replacing P2P, BitTorrent as pirate hangouts?

Driven by increased crackdowns on BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, software pirates are fast-moving their warez to file-hosting Web sites. Hyperlinks to the software can then be distributed by pirates via Web sites, instant messages, or social media sites such as Twitter, said Vic DeMarines, CEO of anti-piracy software vendor V.I. Labs. "It's incredibly easy to use. Sites such as RapidShare, Megaupload, and Hotfile let anonymous users upload large files such as cracked software for free. And what you get is essentially your own private FTP server," DeMarines said.

These memberships, such as the 30-day premium access for $6.99 Euros at Rapidshare, let users download files immediately and without any caps on bandwidth. While sites such as RapidShare allow free downloads, they make their money by charging heavy downloaders for premium memberships. Trade in pirated digital goods , whether it is movies, music or e-books or software, is what drives the popularity and business model of firms like RapidShare. A spokeswoman for Cham, Switzerland-based Rapidshare declined to comment on the V.I. Labs report, saying she would need more information. The site told The New York Times earlier this year that it hosted 10 petabytes of data and up to 3 million downloaders at a time . The Association of American Publishers estimates that half of the pirated books found by its members were linked to Rapidshare. "There's a lot of money being made," said DeMarines. "Without hosting pirated goods, I'm not sure what their revenue model would be." According to a recent investigation by V.I. Labs into the availability of pirated software from a sample of 43 vendors, 100% were on RapidShare.

The site is already among the top twenty most popular in the world, according to Alexa. Though Rapidshare has faced lawsuits related to piracy, DeMarines says it and other file-hosting sites are tricky to prosecute legally becuase uploaders are not required to register or identify themselves. Uploads and downloads to Rapidshare account for 5% of all Internet traffic globally, says German networking vendor Ipoque. Also, Rapidshare tries to distance itself from any knowledge of the pirated goods by not filtering or monitoring the content on its servers. "For us, everything is just a file, no matter what," a spokeswoman told The Times in March. The company even grants certain organizations direct access into their service, so that they can go ahead and delete the hyperlinks and pirated files themselves, DeMarines said.

DeMarines said Rapidshare does comply with the Safe Harbor Provisions of the U.S.' Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by quickly taking down pirated files when notified by the copyright holders. Peer-to-peer networking (P2P) does still remain the largest channel for distributing pirated software, movies and other digital content. The most popular network remains BitTorrent , which is used by six out of 10 P22 users, V.I. Labs said. Ipoque said it enables between 43% to 70% of piracy, depending on the region of the world. eDonkey is a distant second, with 20% share, despite hosting almost 900,000 users and 77 million files at any given time.

But file-hosting is growing much faster, Ipoque said, already enabling between 15% to 35% of digital piracy, depending on the region of the world. Once-popular Gnutella is ranked third, with a market-share in the single digits. DeMarines said he expects file-hosting sites to eventually supplant P2P. "P2P is on its way down. Other long-running methods for distributing warez are either stagnant or shrinking. They're too visible, and so the copyright organizations are going to take these BitTorrent tracker sites out," he said.

Usenet newsgroups, for instance, have lost popularity due to the large amount of pornography and malware mingled in with the warez, DeMarines said. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is "not favored" as a way to transmit files, though announcements and links on IRC to warez hosted on file-hosting sites is growing, DeMarines said.

Elpida signs on another Taiwan DRAM maker

Elpida signed another Taiwanese DRAM maker, Winbond Electronics, to a manufacturing and technology partnership on Wednesday, putting an end to rumors that the company might join a rival alliance that uses technology from U.S.-based Micron Technology. Elpida will provide Winbond with advanced DRAM manufacturing and product technology as part of the deal. "The outsourcing agreement is the first step of a business partnership the companies intend to pursue further," the statement says. Winbond will begin producing GDDR3 (graphics double data rate, third generation) and GDDR5 for Elpida by the end of this year, the companies said in a joint statement.

Elpida has moved fast to shore up support for its technology in Taiwan, where over-building among DRAM makers led to a glut in DRAM chips and inability to repay loans early this year. Consolidation efforts have caused companies on the island to rally around two main foreign technology providers, Elpida and Micron. The Taiwan government stepped in to help companies delay loan repayments and worked to encourage consolidation among DRAM makers on the island. The agreement with Winbond puts four Taiwanese DRAM manufacturers in Elpida's camp, versus two for Micron. Elpida and Powerchip also operate a joint venture DRAM manufacturer in Taiwan, Rexchip Electronics. Winbond joins ProMOS Technologies, which inked an outsourcing deal with Elpida last week, and Powerchip Semiconductor, a long time Elpida partner.

Micron has signed up Nanya Technology, and together they operate joint venture Inotera Memories. Winbond began seeking a new technology partner early this year when Germany's Qimonda, which previously worked with Winbond, filed for bankruptcy.

Cisco extends security controls to 'dark Web'

Cisco is tackling the so-called "dark Web" of online content that's not easily indexed or categorized by adding new usage controls to its IronPort S-Series Web Security Appliances. The IronPort Web Usage Controls software has an engine that reads a Web page on the fly and analyzes the content to decide if it's objectionable or off limits according to corporate policy, says Vivek Bhandari, a product marketing manager at Cisco. The new technology is packaged as a software blade that works with Cisco's URL filtering database to make decisions about user Web surfing to enforce acceptable-use policies.

Simply categorizing Web sites into lists - such as sports, shopping, hate sites or porn - is no longer sufficient because the Internet is now filled with highly transient and often dangerous sites that comprise the dark Web. "These sites are coming up and down so fast," Bhandari says, noting that the proliferation of blogs and social networking sites, with Web 2.0 technology underpinnings, are also contributing to an explosion in Web content. Cisco's S-Series appliances can perform malware detection and blocking. The dark Web may constitute 80% of objectionable content, outside the 20% of Web sites that can still be put neatly into list form, Cisco says. The new Web Usage Controls software adds the ability to monitor, block or warn users about Web traffic based on a method that combines URL filtering lists with contextual heuristics for analyzing content and checking hidden tags. With the configuration Cisco is advising customers to use, about 90% of objectionable dark Web content violating policy will be detected via IronPort Web Usage Controls without causing the false positive rate to spike, Bhandari says. Cisco's URL filtering database includes 65 URL categories and is updated every 5 minutes through Cisco's security intelligence operations.

IronPort S-Series appliances with Web Usage Controls, available now, start at $8,500.

For sale: Cisco data center rival Brocade

Brocade has reportedly put itself up for sale, a development that portends significant consolidation within the data center IT industry. Likely suitors are HP and Oracle, among others, the WSJ reports. According to the Wall Street Journal, Brocade has enlisted Qatalyst Group to shop the company around. HP, Oracle and Brocade all declined comment for the WSJ story.

HP would be interested in Brocade to fill out its data center switching and storage-area network (SAN) portfolio as it battles former ally Cisco for next-generation data center buildouts. Brocade, which told Network World it does not comment on "rumor or speculation," has a market cap of $3 billion. HP resold Cisco routers and switches for years before ramping R&D in its own ProCurve line.   Slideshow: 2009's hottest tech M&A deals   Cisco countered by developing a data center blade server system to compete with HP's and IBM's offerings. Acquiring Brocade would fill out both its LAN and SAN switching portfolios for the data center, observers note. IBM is also a reseller of Cisco switches and routers but recently agreed to OEM Brocade's equipment, which it obtained from its acquisition of Cisco rival Foundry Networks.   HP resells Brocade FibreChannel and FibreChannel-over-Ethernet (FCoE) SAN switches under an OEM arrangement but is challenged in offering a complete data center switching line via its internally developed ProCurve brand.

Similarly, software giant Oracle would become a more complete player in the data center with a Brocade acquisition. But some analysts say Brocade would be a stretch for Oracle, and perhaps too disruptive near term for HP. "Much has to do with Oracle's long-term growth plans," states Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Ittai Kidron in a bulletin on the Brocade speculation. "If the company truly plans to become a systems company (one-stop shop software/hardware), then Brocade would be a nice fit, especially including Sun Microsystems with no overlap. Oracle is in the process of acquiring Sun Microsystems for more than $7 billion, which gives it server hardware and software; Brocade would give Oracle LAN and SAN switching hardware and make the company a powerful provider of hardware as well as software. We're a bit in the dark on strategy here. That said, there would be massive overlap with HP's ProCurve networking unit, which we believe would be disruptive.

On HP, Kidron writes: "Brocade would add the missing data center switch architecture as well as a strong presence in the SAN switch market. Also, IBM and EMC are 10% customers for Brocade and could be lost as customers (along with HP's 10% business of Brocade)." If HP acquired Brocade, business from IBM and others could swing back to Cisco, according to UBS analysts Nikos Theodosopoulos. Speculation has it the company will flesh out its Project Stratus cloud computing strategy and/or announce a significant alliance or acquisition with a major IT player. A dark horse in the Brocade stakes would be Juniper, according to investment firm UBS. Juniper and IBM are tightly aligned in data center and cloud computing, and a Brocade acquisition would flesh out much of what's missing in the IBM/Juniper data center arsenal - specifically, an FCoE line of switches. "We believe Juniper may be another potential buyer of Brocade, although recent commentary from Juniper suggests it is not looking at large deals now," UBS analyst Theodosopoulos states in a bulletin on the prospects of a Brocade acquisition. "An acquisition of Brocade would make sense for Juniper, in our view, because it is the only other clear networking partner for IBM, while IBM is currently supporting Juniper's development of an FCoE switch, alleviating some of the R&D budgetary constraints on Juniper as it pursues both LTE & FCoE technologies." Juniper has a major announcement slated for Oct. 28 in New York. IBM may also be interested in Brocade but that would dash its Juniper partnership, kill HP and EMC as 10% revenue customers, and get IBM back in the network and SAN hardware business which may not appeal to the company, Kidron notes. Acquiring Brocade would give Dell, a maker of servers for the data center, more credibility in that market with minimal overlap, according to Kidron.

Another wild card is Dell. But Dell just acquired Perot Systems last month for $4 billion so the prospects of making another major acquisition so soon after is remote, Kidron states. No deal is imminent for Brocade and the company could still dash a potential deal, the WSJ reports. That doesn't necessarily rule them out though. "I think Dell could potentially make a play for them; I've heard through some of their channel that there is a big push for capturing some [data center] share," says Frost & Sullivan analyst Vanessa Alvarez. But proactively seeking out possible acquirers may give the company more control over the process and over its destiny, observers note.

New York Times tricked into serving scareware ad

Scammers tricked the New York Times' Digital Advertising department into placing a malicious ad for fake antivirus software on the NYTimes.com Web site over the weekend, the company confirmed Monday. According to the Times, the scammers initially claimed to be Internet phone provider Vonage, and had placed what appeared to be legitimate Vonage ads on the Web site. The newspaper had warned of the scam advertisement Sunday, after receiving about 100 e-mails from concerned readers.

However, sometime over the weekend, they switched these ads for aggressive pop-up advertisements that tried to trick victims into thinking that their computers were infected. When the complaints started pouring in, the Times first suspected that the ad had been unauthorized, and pulled third-party advertisements from the site. The point of the scam was to sell worried computer users a product called Personal Antivirus, a fake "scareware" product that bombards victims with popup ads until they either hand over their credit card information or somehow manage to remove the program. But on Monday spokeswoman Diane McNulty confirmed that the ad had been submitted directly to the company's online ad department. "The culprit masqueraded as a national advertiser and provided seemingly legitimate product advertising for a week," she said via email. "Over the weekend, the ad being served up was switched so that an intrusive message, claiming to be a virus warning from the reader's computer, appeared. " Technology executive Troy Davis was hit with the ad after he clicked on a Times story about Dubai on Saturday night. This gave the criminals a way to include embedded Web pages in their copy that could be hosted on a completely different server, outside of the control of the Times.

After his antivirus software warned him not to visit the article, he performed an analysis of the site and discovered that the Times was allowing advertisers to embed an HTML element known as an iframe into their advertisements. Apparently the scammers waited until the weekend, when it would be hardest for IT staff to respond, before switching the ad by inserting new JavaScript code into that iframe. It was, of course, all just a fake. That code redirected Davis's browser to the Web site that served a pop-up ad designed to look like a Windows system scan that had found security problems on his system.