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**** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes ****
Spam prevalence outstrips viruses
May witnessed an all-time low for virus-laden emails and a record high for spam, according to figures released by security services firm BlackSpider Technologies. While the number of emails containing a malicious program comprised fewer than 1% of all emails seen by BlackSpider, junk emails rose to over 87%. An end of May spike contributed to the surge of spam traffic with UK businesses being flooded with more than 250 million advertising emails and was caused by an automated network of spambots residing on over 150,000 compromised PCs.
BlackSpider statistics
One in 300 PCs compromised
Microsoft's malware removal initiative has now shown definite results. Sadly the MS white paper in which the results are announced indicates around a 1-in-300 malware infection rate for PCs globally. This is no short-term project, having begun last year with the MS Anti-malware team and Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), encompassing 5.7 million Windows computers. The good news is that once cleaned by MSRT, two thirds of the families of malware have a reduced rate of infection, the implication being that cleansing is increasingly permanent. The tool continues to ship detection and removal updates on the second Tuesday of each month. Read the overview and details of Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool: Progress Made, Trends Observed
Anti-everything software
In the race to provide a software security package that covers all current threats, Symantec has partnered up with online portal Yahoo! with its Norton Internet Security provided by Yahoo! package - a name as unimaginative as it is cumbersome - to square up against Microsoft's OneCare Live 6-month old offering. Both suites are aimed at home users and are compilations of firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-spam tools to detect and block of keyboard loggers, personal data theft, viruses and unwanted adware. Also on the list are blocking intruders open computer open ports spam filtering, email and Instant Message scanning attachments to remove viruses, Trojans and worms. Both packages scrape in under the $50 barrier by a handful of cents.
M$ fine
In a long-running dispute between the Microsoft and EU regulators, the US software Giant has been fined 280.5m euros ($357m or £194m) by the European Commission for failing to comply with an anti-competition ruling. Although MS will appeal against the ruling, daily fines of 3m euros a day come into force from 31 July if Microsoft fails to supply "complete and accurate" technical information to rival developers, according to the regulators.
Win 98 ends. Really.
Despite previous announcements of the cessation of Windows 98 support and subsequent reprieves of same following pressure from PC owners in developing countries, this time Microsoft really means it. As of 11th July they are no longer shipping even the limited critical updates to old operating systems, namely Windows 98, Windows 98 SE and Windows ME. Note that users Windows XP Service Pack 1 users are affected as of the same date. Review the End of support for Windows 98 notice. If this is still an issue for your organisation, contact us immediately for options.
Personal profiling penalties
As part of a new government clampdown on the trading of personal data, maximum fines of £5000 for a summary conviction could be followed by prison sentences of up to 6 months to 2 years. The move is aimed at blocking the rising tide of business profiteering in the trade of personal information, a source of data that is increasingly required from individuals, but which can be cross-referenced to build personal profiles. The concern is that information released under the Freedom of Information Act and other 'right-to-know' legislation is being sold to unauthorised organisations. Consultation is being sought on the views of the public and industry prior to framing new laws.
Serenaded by Jessica
Yahoo! have created a music first by offering a downloadable MP3 of Jessica Simpson's single, but one that sings uniquely to the purchaser. For $1.99 you can buy online version of the song with your name embedded in it. While this is twice the typical price of a non-copyable, DRM restricted digital song, one can only surmise that Yahoo! Music have correctly
Get Jessica Simpson to dedicate her Public Affair to you. (You'll need a Yahoo! id first).
Dell 6-year low
One of the biggest manufacturers of the most 'aggressively priced' PCs available, Dell itself recently blamed aggressive pricing in a slowing commercial market worldwide on the back of a poor first quarter. Competitors HP and large firms in China upgraded their management to tackle what many in the industry fear is a flattening market. The company's share price fell to its lowest in 6 years following revelations of earnings 30% below expectations. Both major chip-makers, Intel and AMD, reported lower earnings too, the current industry's reasoning for the falling trend being that, following announcements of the impending appearance of Windows Vista in 2007 consumers in the market are delaying upgrades and purchases until the new operating system arrives.
**** end of NewsBytes ****
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1. Dell 9G PowerEdge server overview
A brand new server series from Dell will become the standard range of choice and boasts user-friendly features and performance benefits. | ||
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What’s new? In short, quite a lot! 
Multiple processorsDell 9G models feature dual-processors. That means 2 actual CPUs rather than than 2 virtual ones (as on Pentium Hyper-Threading models) so that servers can really handle more than one task at the same time. Examples are Dual-core Intel® Xeon® processors with up to two 3.0GHz processors, with a front side bus running at 1066MHz or 1333MHz and 4MB of Level-2 cache. Sizing it upThe new Dell PowerEdge server models come in a variety of case sizes to suit installation in racks, shelves or on the floor. Just 3 of the possibilities are:
Chassis and covers
The new 9th generation chassis eases servicing, inspection and replacements. Triathlon systems feature an LCD panel (top, left, front) for messages. The new cover design facilitates panel removals with an assisting cam/latch to obviate the need to 'bang' the cover plates of old. Die-cast metal carriers to support latest-generation, high-speed SAS/SATA drives, which can be mixed. An example of two chassis options for the PE1950 model:
On Display
The LCD display shows your server's status at a glance. Easyily programmable, you can display whatever default message is required. The ID button can be configured so that when pressed for 5 seconds the last captured Power On Self-Test (POST) code is displayed - especially useful in diagnosis if the system fails to boot. In 9G servers, only the highest priority error message is displayed so that the most urgent fault can be diagnosed first, for example, a CPU error ranks higher than a fan failure error. MemoryNew FB-DIMM modules allow faster data faster than today's standard DDR2 RAM and, by supporting up to 6 channels of 8 dual-layer FB-DIMM modules, makes a possible a whopping 192GB capacity - around 200 times what we are used to in contemporary computers. IP to TOE - the TCP/IP Offload EngineSo much of server and PC activity is now concerned with outside communication on the LAN that it makes sense to include a new module dedicated to TCP/IP. This is extra hardware on a network card that offloads TCP/IP processing from the host CPU, freeing up valuable processor cycles for applications. 
With a standard network card, all TCP/IP processing is done on the host processor (CPU), except for checksums and packet re-assembly. Although this is the most inexpensive solution in terms upfront price, the TCP/IP processing burden is costly in terms of CPU utilisation
The TOE key is a small module with a connector about the size of an RJ11 telephone connector and plugs onto the motherboard in a dedicated socket. One key will enable TOE for both network cards. 
A series of drivers and utilities are available to ensure TOE is actually working and when that's done it is even possible to tweak the Offload Engine to achieve an optimum allocation of resources for best performance. Painting by numbers
It's such a long time since the introduction of those bright green plastic handles adorning the innards of 'pullable' sections photocopiers, printers and computers that we now take them for granted. Bad idea really; parts like heatsinks and printer fusers could land a naive tinkerer in A&E if they grab at the wrong component! Dell 9G servers have refined this crude colour coding into blue handles - indicating a grab point you can touch safely, like a fan handle - and 'burnt orange' or 'terracotta' colour items, the latter not necessarily being physically hot but denoting a hot-plug device like a fan module. Storage: 3 TeraBytes. Bags of it!We may be entering territory than many clients have never heard of. What is a TeraByte? It's where you get to when you run out of ways to describe GigaBytes - 1024 of them in fact. Where today you may commonly have a 500GB drive, that's less than half a TeraByte (0.5 TB). 
Not content with out-storing old drives by a factor of around 6-to-1, the new 3TB devices are faster too. We have already covered Serial ATA (SATA) drives, which are good for external and fibre-channel storage. To complement the increased speed Dell 9G servers support not only SATA but Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drives too, delivering the next generation of SCSI performance and which replaces the old Adaptec parallel SCSI.
The storage layout is now vastly more versatile and allows for either conventional 3.5" drives (up to 6 SATA or SAS) or the smaller 2.5" drives (up to 8 SAS), depending on the chassis size. The Enterprise SAS drives are not to be confused with lower reliability drives as used in many laptops and servers will initially not be able to support a mix of SAS and SATA drives. Diagnostics DistributionFinally a new Diagnostics Distribution package is aimed at customer-level use in creating a diagnostics package on various types of media, such as a CD, Flash memory stick, floppy, etc. Screens and messages are described and once media has been created, the server can be booted from it to enter the diagnostic mode. 
Contacts-IB- Acknowledgements: Zorina Baksh |
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2. Shop online? You'd have to be certified!
Old fraudsters never die, they simply trade their game. | ||
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Stop up one leak and water inevitably runs downhill to find the next one. So it is with criminal fraud. Take away one source of income and the gangs simply move to wherever next is easiest. With a clamp down on old cards and the introduction of Chip-and-PIN cards, the new type of frauds are moving increasingly to the virtual space, indicated by new acronyms such as CNP denoting Card-Not-Present. Old Finger, the man with the lightest touchCard-Not-Present fraud includes fraud conducted over the Internet, by telephone, fax and mail order and, up 20% in 2004, now constitutes the largest type of fraud in the UK. Where criminals can steal card details from discarded receipts or by copying details during a transaction, CNP won't be far behind. Shop till your coppedWhen the physical plastic is no longer part of the financial transaction we are essentially relying on a bunch of digits in cyberspace to do the right thing for us. The trouble is identifying where the numbers representing your virtual wallet end up. While spoofing emails doesn't necessarily have disastrous consequences, doing the same with financial details is a criminal offence, albeit one that's hard to detect. Moreover, consumers have come to trust online transactions like never before. The figures for the value of Internet sales in UK households in 2004 show an increase of 68% on the previous year (£18.1bn, up from £10.8bn in 2003) while in 2005, 3.1 per cent of all retail sales were online ones, a 30-fold increase on 1997. With aid sent to developing countries being out-donated 10-to-1 by remittances sent directly between families and relatives, more money is also transferred via the Internet and sites like PayPal will continue to reinforce this trend. Not just a pretty face Click on the security icon to ensure that the retailer has a valid encryption certificate. The address on the certificate should match the primary address in the address bar, e.g. www.online-electricalgoods.com This tells you that a third party (a Certification Authority like Thawte or Verisign) has verified your connection to the online dealer is valid and ends up where you expect 
Fortunately there is plenty of advice on self-protection. The Cardwatch site is a mine of information on tips for both cardholders and retailers. Apart from all the common sense stuff like not disclosing your PIN, or observing a locked padlock symbol in the browser before committing card details, there are less well understood hints too:
Keep your browser up to date; Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera are all supplied with free downloadable updates whenever a security issue arises. Learn to use the the padlock symbol to verify that the site where you submit card details is genuine - it's not there just for decoration! Whenever you are given the option whilst shopping online, sign up to Verified by Visa (www.visaeurope.com/verified) or MasterCard SecureCode (www.mastercard.co.uk/securecode). New systems from both of these major card providers prompt for a secure code known only to the online shopper and invisible to the online shop. The guarantee of a secure transaction is an accompanying pop-up personal message also chosen originally by the card-registered shopper. ContactsFor more information about how to shop and bank safely online visit:-IB-
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3. ADSL to the power of 8
8M: Taking your broadband to a new level? | ||
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Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are calling it an 'upgrade', some a 'regrade'. Whatever the idiosyncrasies of the marketing spin, there's no doubt that broadband speeds are getting faster. "Up to 8Mbps" as the literature has it, is the new Next Level. The reason one couldn't really label 8M as a 'marketed' service is that, very gradually, this higher speed broadband is becoming available to everyone, and at no extra cost. Indeed several ISPs issued bulletins announcing their 8M rollout to all existing customers as a matter of course in Autumn last year and many Demon subscribers will have recently received letters telling them about their free upgrades. Note particularly that the term "8M" is almost invariably preceded by the catch-all "Up To", certainly among the more cautious ISPs. This caveat exists for 2 reasons, the first being that any broadband user's received line speed depends crucially on the distance from their local exchange, and the second is that a new technique called DLM is being employed to push data ever faster down the ageing copper wires that end up at our telephones. Short of moving your house or premises next to this important data hub (as espoused by recent TV ads perhaps?), there's nothing much one can do about the first, but BT has been busy working on the second. What is Dynamic Line Management? Dynamic Line Management (DLM) automatically tunes broadband performance on a line to match requirements of the users, to reduce data errors and improve connection stability. Historical performance data is collected on a continuous basis and information about speed renegotiation, modem disconnections, drop-outs and so on is used by monitoring equipment to 'learn' the dynamic capacity of the line and build profiles for customers using it. Those customers may be able to choose a profile to suit their needs. See this useful diagram and more facts on DLM. The main reason behind this broadband free lunch is that BT has quietly been tinkering with line stability of its ADSL network behind the scenes with the result that many exchanges and their lines can be 'regraded' using DLM, a technology pioneered on its IPStream Max/Max Premium services. DLM: Doesn't Look Mature yetWith what is basically an intelligent machine looking at your broadband line and fiddling with parameters like gain and interleaving to optimise the speed, one soon gets the feel that there's still a fair degree of experimentation going on here, especially since DLM uses information on disconnections and reconnections for a period of up to several days to optimise the line profile. In fact it's worth polling your own ISP to find out how far they are committed to this path and whether they still offer old non-DLM subscriptions. For some ISPs, this technology is clearly still too 'dynamic' and at least one has put a hold on rollouts for fear of being swamped by new support calls. In the long run the glitches will eventually be sorted out and on the plus side there are other features like 832Kbps upstream speeds regardless of download speed - a real boon to those uploading large files to their web sites or using remote working. As far as Demon are concerned we have confirmed that existing IP address allocations will not change. Demon Express customers will swap any old BT routers for a Demon one (if needed) though support will be limited to the broadband only, not the router, ie a wires-only service. Contact us if you would like help with requesting an upgrade.Contacts
-IB- Acknowledgements: Wayne Toolan, Dipesh Patel, Adrian Hallet, Paul Craig, Andy Humphreys |
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4. Control your server 100ft away - or more
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By their very fund-restricted nature, charities are often squeezed into tiny offices too small for staff, never mind the equipment they use every day. 
The result is that computers and printers get scattered haphazardly around the office, including servers, the latter often sited for sheer convenience on the floor in the corner. Is this your scenario? Such expediency can soon lead to a shortened server life however, as humans and servers don't make a good mix. Our daily movements stir up carpet and floor dust which clogs computer fans, causing them to run at higher temperatures and we all know what happens to the light that burns brightest! 
On an operational level too, the average server occupies more space than necessary where it clings possessively to its own keyboard and mouse and these items may be used only very occasionally. Server control at arm's lengthThe traditional answer to this is a KVM switch to double up the functions of Keyboard, Video and Mouse and distribute them across as many as 16 machines. However this approach is subject to the cable length limitations of these respective peripherals, normally around a couple of metres or so, which still results in the poor abused server living in the same room as its human masters. What if we could move it down the corridor to a cool, quiet, locked space? Happily, devices now exist, starting at around £190, that convert keyboard/mouse/video signals into CAT-5 IP signals - the type that travel down your Ethernet Local Area Network. So anywhere there is a network port on the wall could be the place where you site the server, or more than one if you have plans to create a 'server farm'. Server control from a remote site
Take this approach a logical step further and it becomes possible to operate your server from down the other end of a very long corridor, namely the Internet. Employing a technology labelled generically as KVM via IP, the kind of controller boxes used in data centres are now available so that the precious servers can be located in secure, temperature-controlled isolation, if that level of mission-critical robustness is what your organisation needs. 
A physical product called Adderlink has been created out of a very successful technology developed in Cambridge by RealVNC, that provides remote control of one computer over another via the Internet, but achieves this using very high levels of encryption for security from outside intervention. Benefits
Other products are made by Avocent and Fujitsu. Contacts-IB- Acknowledgements: Belkin.com, Adderlink |
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5. Computing and telephony in a single system
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With computer profiles and online identities becoming an accepted part of office life, so too has the ability to hot-desk or login quickly to another location to work around colleagues' temporary need for space. Only when it comes to phones, they're not so hot; this particular communications arena is dogged by a requirement to assign everyone a number, and more advanced functions like diversion and 'group hunting' are frequently followed by much rifling through arcane handbooks full of 1980s style comms jargon. 
The ongoing development of IT systems and telephony systems, together with the switch by telephony systems to using computer-type IP protocols to communicate, is leading to an inevitable merger of computing and telephony. With the merging of IT and telephony Systems into a single data and communication system, many functions once considered 'advanced' become easier to manage even for beginners largely because a graphical interface on the computer makes them simple to understand. Holding, muting and moving calls around can be a drag-n-drop operation and directories of staff pop up intuitively when needed. These developments offer exciting opportunities for more flexible communication and lower call costs. BT is investing £10 billion pounds to transform the UK’s phone system from an analogue system into an IP-based system. BT have been promoting their initiatives through various business channels and Sunday newspapers. You can get info on their take of convergence on their special convergentsolutions web site. Benefits and features
IP In PracticeHere at Co-Operative Systems our experience in network management has meant that we’ve found taking on installing and managing the new IP office phone systems such as Avaya (Avaya are to IP phone systems as HP are to printers) to be very straightforward. If you would like more information on IP phone systems and how they can benefit your organisation do contact us below.Contacts-IB- |
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6. Q&A: Where are my Outlook pictures?
Question 
Hi Mark, What's happened to the pictures in my Outlook 2003 emails? Since upgrading from Outlook 2002 I don't see them any more. | ||
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Don't worry, it's not a fault. Pictures inside the body of emails in Outlook 2003 are now suppressed deliberately. 
The change has come about because of the possibility that the sender can use externally-sourced images to detect whether you have read the email. While many email newsletters do this as standard practice, perhaps partly to save sending out Gigabytes of picture information which then never gets opened, an unknown sender like a spammer might often employ this technique to determine that the address they send to is valid, and moreover to know that their blurb has been read. 
The solution is simple enough in that you right-click the link and select "Download pictures". Hey - they all appear! To do this repeatedly might become tedious, so of course there is a way to unblock image downloads in Outlook, but you should only do this in an email account where you know you will receive mail just from people you know, or at least one that is well-protected from spam and viruses. Here's how:
Some industry pundits this measure should have been instituted a long time ago, when scams like phishing first started to appear. -IB-
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Clicks of the Trade - Folders: the second most useful button
--- Quick tips for happier clicks! --- | |||
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-IB-
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