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I n f o B u l l e t i n
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January 2003 |
coopsys.net |
CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEMS
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1. Concept-mania: what does it all mean ?
You can tell when something newfangled comes along - it always has new jargon attached. Beware of dismissing it lightly though.
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A good number of the innovations we predicted in December 2000 (dot.EVERYTHING at your fingertips) have matured into reality and many of the terms and ideas seem familiar two years on.
In this, our "Futures" issue, we explore what is likely to come along in the next 12 to 18 months and help you gain a better understanding of which technologies to pursue and which to drop.
What does it mean ?
Sometimes new technical words belie little more than "another way achieving the same thing" - IT is stuffed full of confusingly alternative solutions.
But very often the new jargon heralds more than just a rebranding of an old idea; typically, a new concept lies beneath it too.
| Spot the jargon turkey |
| Instead of a lunch being your usual "sandwich plus a drink", it is relaunched as a "houmini salad wrap plus crankleberry splash with a mocharicano whip" to follow.
All of that means nothing until after you've tasted your first one. Investigation is the key.
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We can now buy petrol, clothes and electronic goods at a supermarket, as well as food. So why not dial in to your bookshop to order your lunch pack, as well as a coffee and something to read?
IT does this to us all the time.
New technologies turn the old conventions upside-down; seem to complicate processes unnecessarily; poke their noses into every corner of daily practice; and don't even work - at first, that is.
However, a quick glance back at a world (not very long ago) without databases and spreadsheets reveals how many concepts we have assimilated and now take for granted.
Jargon-busting
Don't worry, you haven't suddenly lost a few brain cells, but a lack of understanding does mean you have a little background work to do.
So, as a "starter-for-ten" homework session, here are some of the key phrases driving the New Concepts (see panel) that you should bone up on.
Benefits
You'll never look back and even a little understanding of ongoing developments will help prepare your organisation for its next IT project.
How to make it happen
You could plough through the Internet looking for detailed documents, specs and white papers. but you could also simply ring or email us for an overview, we are likely to know "what's coming next" and can explain the concepts to you in plain English.
All the news that's fit to click
And yes, just as we predicted before, we will still be reading newspapers. Some things never change.
Or do they?
Just to keep us on our toes, Gyricon Media may deliver a technology that heralds the end of those too.
It is trialling plastic paper made with tiny beads to create low-cost upgradeable signs. Hey presto! a news sheet that is always up to date. If this doesn't sound any different to a browser on PDA, the take up would certainly driven by that friendly old method of accessing the data - called "turning the pages" ('TTP' technology).
-IB-
Paul Craig
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2. The incredible shrinking computer: a desktop in every pocket
How do you squeeze a mainframe computer into a phone-sized handset?
Simple. Innovate.
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What exactly is it ?
A noisy revolution has happened in the last 18 months. One punctuated by the sound of ring tones and the crash of two industry giants colliding.
Result? Mmmmm, err ...
The difficulty of what to call these devices demonstrates the degree of innovation that has been sparked off. Do we label them as :
- handsets (like a phone)?
- Personal Digital Assistants (like organisers)?
- computers (like PCs, Macs)?
- entertainment centres (like PlayStation, X-Box)?
They are identified visibly by colourful screens and icons, and the ability to capture and transmit digital photos via Multi-media Messaging (MMS), as well as all the SMS texts, email, Web browsing, task lists, calendars, games and, of course, voice communication that we have become used to.
The Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) it ain't!
| Nokia 7650
A photo-messaging phavourite with on-board cam released mid-2002.
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However, by definition of the array of features on offer, this new breed houses real computing power to drive multiple office-type applications and networkability, and all with mouse-like simplicity of operation.
Remember "Pervasive Computing" - a trend pushed heavily a few years ago by Novell. What ever happened to that?
Well it arrived! Sure, we don't have chips incorporated into every mundane device that runs off electrical power, but many devices that are networkable have had the 'chip implant'; to wit - phones, groceries, tickets and even pets.
2003 will be the year when the rather old idea of "palmtops" suddenly became useful- because we networked them. Connecting handhelds to the local area network and Internet has already gone beyond being technologically feasible. These devices are becoming much more user-friendly - the factor that made desktops so universally accepted by all of us, most notably through interfaces like Microsoft's Windows.
Orange Smartphone SPV
(Sound, Pictures, Vision)
Packs in email, browsing, address book task manager, jotter, calendar, video/audio player, voice recorder.
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With the number of fixed (terrestrial) phones lines in the world being surpassed in 2002 by the number of mobile (cell) phone users - over a billion - it's no fad. Nokia expects to sell 50-100 million handsets with colour screens this year.
By contrast, PC design has reached a stage of increasing refinement, but almost a plateau in innovation and, accordingly, rates of PC sales have relented.
The difference between desktops, laptops and palmtops will thus blur (see Dell SX260, Vaio RX series, larger PDA models with keyboards) and the yet-to-be-released HP Agora (bottom of this page), a hardware platform likely to evolve into a small-form-factor PC like a small stereo.
The role of the central processor will veer more towards the handheld devices that accept bolt-on peripherals like cameras, scanners, credit card readers, remote TV/entertainment centre controllers. Because they are in everyday use, we owners find our chosen interface (keyboard, voice, stylus, touchscreen) completely familiar and prefer to operate our world through this, rather than grapple with several devices.
The future's bright ... if you sell mobile services
Just in case anyone out there hadn't twigged by now, we have witnessed the forming of a new alliance in the world of mobile/cell devices. In a re-forging of the classic ol' one-two, the handheld manufacturers build the glitzy, feature-packed eye candy that we all want to buy, while the mobile services companies offer them up (as lost leaders in some cases) to lure us into their contracts with those fruitful monthly payments!
The former are useless without the latter.
Mobile contracts are dull, lifeless tomes of legal speak, until enriched by a flashing gadget.
Perfect symbiosis!
Better get accustomed. With this much innovation in the air, the ol' one-two will be going strong for a while. |
Microsoft's mission of "a computer on every desk and in every home" would appear to be old hat; now they want to get one into every pocket too, via its "Smartphone SPV" specification. This is being implemented on hardware manufactured by Compal, HTC, Mitsubishi and - the largest - Samsung Electronics and communicating initially (if such is your desire) under service contracts with Orange.
| SonyEricsson P800
Everything the SPV does, but faster and with integrated camera in a slightly larger package. As seen on 007 in "Die Another Day".
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However, those expecting a historical repeat performance of the WIntel dominance over PC makers may be in for a surprise.
Co-operative competition
Some of the largest mobile phone makers and chip manufacturers (including the likes of Nokia, SonyEricsson, Motorola, Siemens, Samsung and Panasonic) have formed a consortium in recent years and is, at present, highly resistant to an operating system 'takeover' by Microsoft. Stealing a march over MS with their Symbian operating system (which evolved out of our home-grown Psion platform), they have developed a system that integrates software and hardware tightly to optimise performance, a crucial factor in compact mobile communications devices. This early commercial co-operation has resulted in 80% of the mobile market (2002 figures) being run on Symbian-licensed devices.
At this point you might say that others have failed to stand up to the onslaught of MS competition and acquisition, but the Symbian consortium has a trick up its sleeve: it's called open licensing.
Handspring Treo 270
A range of compact 'personal communicators' (for trekkies?) with a full keyboard, as well as stylus input. Send encrypted email & SMS even behind your firewall, along with Internet browsing.
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A manufacturer reselling a Microsoft operating system (like Windows CE) the isn't allowed to tinker; they bundle it and shift their hardware.
Conversely, Symbian licensees are allowed to modify elements of the platform (like screen menus and graphics) to fit their hardware.
This arrangement builds in flexibility for the consortium members to adapt their products to quirks of the emerging market.
hp iPAQ Pocket PC h5450
A large plus stylus input and remote access wireless LAN and Bluetooth. One of the newest to offer biometric security.
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That said, the market is clearly up for grabs and uncertainty scents the air as illustrated by the fact that Samsung has a foot in both Microsoft and Symbian camps. Another manufacturer, Sendo, suddenly switched development of their Z100 device from the Smartphone to the Symbian platform just before the critical Christmas period of sales and marketing hyperactivity. Their ensuing lawsuit against Microsoft alleges Sendo was exploited by the giant to obtain program code and catch up with lucrative mobile technology it had missed out on.
Palm Tungsten W
A device not dissimilar to the Treo series with access to 8 POP and IMAP accounts.
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Don't palm off the PDA
Just to confuse the picture, Palm have the majority of the PDA market and are spawning devices based on the various Palm operating systems in place, the latest being OS5.
Also coming from the operating system end of the spectrum, as opposed to starting with mobile technology, are "Pocket PC" devices which have a specially tailored Windows OS squeezed into them.
Danger's hiptop
A potential sub-£100 device with GPRS and full keyboard to be released later in 2003.
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Danger signals
A real danger to the pricier competitors looks like it will come from danger.com in the form of the hiptop®. With styling clearly aiming at the younger 007 rather than the current middle-aged Bond, it doesn't disappoint on features and promises to fulfill the specifications of most of the devices above, along witha unique swivelling display. Q would be proud.
Cut the chat
An alternative idea comes from Research In Motion's (RIM) Blackberry. This specification basically defines a phone-less device for logging into organisational email so that you are always in touch when on the move. If you already have your own phone access, you organisation can avoid paying for a redundant airtime phone contract.
Competitors like HP/Compaq are now making compatible devices too.
How much ?
The emerging market is shaping into two distinct price ranges:
- a mobile phone-like £200-ish (with contract) model
Typically contains a phone-size keyboard layout.
- a device that has the proportions and looks of a classic PDA at between £200 and £500 (depending on whether or not you take up a contract)
Typically contains a full Qwerty keyboard in miniature or a stylus plus handwriting recognition. A large screen often covers most of the device.
O2 xda
Phone plus PDA plus GPRS - becoming a clasic combination.
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Beyond this, it's hard to make generalisations in the diverging market. Hardware peripherals and software applications may be bundled or added on later and the complexity of airtime contracts renders decision-making a multi-dimensional process for those looking to buy. So start building your spreadsheet comparator now!
Keep your ear to the ground and your eyeballs peeled!
If you thought photo-messaging was amazing, you ain't see nothin' yet!
A plethora of networking and Web enabling is likely to pervade everyday items, with the emphasis on reaching out instead of self-containment.
Communication and computing will be worn instead of pocketed.
Bluetooth will fragment even these puny devices into smaller parts, each part communicating to the other without wires, eg a wireless ringer or earpiece, a mic on the end of your pen or stylus. Look out for wireless-enabled jewellery - a subtle warble in your ear, cuff link, watch or maybe even nose stud alerts you to an incoming call instead of a screeeeching emanating from your handbag or briefcase.
Built-in or snap on spectacle display screens to render information-gathering a commonplace activity.
Benefits
Data accessible anywhere
No startup delay like a PC - available instantly
Drawbacks
Expensive airtime contracts
Lack of standardisation - so far
Battery life times, still round 10 hours max (talk time)
-IB-
Sources: The Economist, Gartner Dataquest, Symbian, Nokia, Microsoft
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3. Broadbang: Moore speed, less haste
Are we in for an explosion of faster Internet access services?
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A few weeks ago, it fell to me to re-configure our phone exchange system - and a relatively antiquated beast it now feels. The project was effectively to 'divide it in two'. Like so many NGOs feeling the squeeze, we are offering space and services to another sub-letting organisation, for, although we are a 'pally' bunch, this initiative is more in the interests of sharing costs.
How phone exchange technology has evolved
- A very, very rough guide |
| In the ... |
we had switching based on .... |
| 30s - 70s |
mechanics |
| 80s |
hard-wired chips |
| 90s |
processors & firmware
(programmable chips) |
| 00s* |
software operating systems |
| 10s* |
wireless?
browser accessible? |
| * What do we call the first 20 years of the 21st century? Answers on an email please |
So I discovered that, while setting up voicemail boxes compares favourably to configuring the auto-reply on your average email client, creating a new phone group (cf. creating an email distribution list) compares very poorly. In fact, it's so unfriendly that the telecomms company has to create this new "hunting group" for us (even the terms are medieval and slightly predatory), relieving us of £115 plus VAT in the process! Not a bad rate for a remote programming, non call-out job.
Amid several bouts of teeth-gnashing, I was reminded that communication technologies have evolved enormously and that the communications industry is making progress, not only where easer configuration is a goal, but also in terms of sheer speed - the raw bits per second that stream in and out of your network.
At times, it may seem that the Internet never gets any faster, almost the opposite. However a great deal of the slugging effect is a result of developers providing richer content on web sites.
But with a rash of xDSL services coming on stream, won't all this change?
| Internet access speeds - a short history |
| Year |
Speeds in Kilo- or Mega-bits per second |
Moore's index |
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Predicted |
Actually in use |
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| 1984 |
0.3K |
Modem 300bps |
1 |
| mid-1988 |
2.4K |
Modem 2400bps |
8 |
| mid 1991 |
9.6K |
Modem 9600bps |
32 |
| 1993 |
19.2K |
Modem 14.4Kbps |
64 |
| mid-1994 |
38.4K |
Modem 28.8Kbps |
128 |
| 1996 |
76.8 |
ISDN 64/128Kbps |
256 |
| mid-2000 |
614.4K |
ADSL 512Kbps |
2,048 |
| mid-2003 |
2.5M |
SDSL 2Mbps |
8,192 |
| mid 2006 |
10M |
10BaseT |
32,768 |
| mid 2009 |
39M |
VDSL 13-52Mbps |
131,072 |
| mid-2012 |
157M |
> 100BaseT |
524,288 |
| 2017 |
1,258M |
>1000BaseT (Gigabit Ethernet) |
4,194,304 |
Well, yes and no.
Historically, we see that the increase in Internet access speeds has matched the rate predicted by Moore's law - almost exactly doubling every 18 months, except for a glitch in the early '90s when compression was implemented widely in modems (see panel, "Internet speeds").
The flip point will come - and probably soon - when customer demand for commonplace, bandwidth-hungry content is appeased. And the 'killer application' on the horizon is video. When access speeds can easily satisfy those applications, we can indeed look forward to the day when Internet pages and applications pop up on your screen as quickly as they do on your 10Mbps network (in 2006) or on your 100Mbps network (in 2012).
We can be reasonably sure this will come true because "Moore's Law" has so far proved to be a reliable index when it comes predicting processing capacities in electronic products.
| Moore's Law
"Processing power will double every 18 months"
Not actually a law, this corollary led from an observation by Gordon Moore, one of Intel's founders in 1973 and has remained sufficiently accurate as a benchmark of human technical innovation so far. He observed that the density of integrated circuitry on silicon chips doubled every 18 months.
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The end of call charging?
Soon, many more offices and homes will be Internet-connected via broadband, or at the very least, on some sort of flat fee charging basis. If that seems an unlikely scenario at the moment - with so much talk in the past about slow take-up, consider that some ISPs are already winding down their traditional dial-up services and that Oftel, the telecoms regulator, recently reported the rate of broadband connections (installations) reached 28,000 a week - that's nearly 1.5 million a year - a faster acceleration than some of continental neighbours.
To compensate for the demand, BT's soon-to-come "Midband" will be a good option for those seeking a cheaper entry into broadband. Offering a 128Kbps service at a reduction on ADSL rates (though not half the rate, we understand), it's a strikingly similar option to NTL's excellent value entry-level service at just under £15 per month for 128Kbps, as long as you are within their cable-served area.
Broadboom and broadbust
While it's comforting to note from our tables, that ISPs have indeed been keeping up with putting in effort and infrastructure in the recent past, we still have to watch out for those under pressure; 2003 will be a further post dot-com year of consolidation in the ISP market (as we saw for telecoms in the mid-90s) and that means more closures and take-overs.
Security goes soft
However, security is becoming a concern as traditional hard- and firm-wired
systems give way ever more to those based on software - to wit the most recent Alcatel exchange backdoor weakness. Expect more feature-packed Internet services to arrive soon but keep an eye on security and look for rigorous standards implementation in any routers or exchanges you fit within the boundaries of your own building.
-IB-
Paul Craig
Acknowledgements: Lawrence Griffiths
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4. Office 11: the empire bites back
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The two things we all fear about a monopoly in the software market are coming true.
- Eventually there will be no other choice
- The price goes up
Result: we have to accept what we are presented with.
So why do you buy MS Office?
A brief analysis may shock you.
| You say ....
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But have you realised ....?
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| It's the "old faithful" syndrome - "I want an interface that's familiar and tools that work the same as before." |
The fear of the 'unknown' alternative suites is a powerful deterrent to switching but the whole MS package is hardly a bargain price for a 'fashion purchase'. |
| "My users have become accustomed to MS Office and therefore training costs are almost zero." |
If you are going to make use of new features in the latest version, that demands some training for some, if not all, of the staff. |
| "There is no real choice in the market, everyone's buying the same thing." |
Corel's WordPerfect Office has been a long-time player and StarOffice and Open Office availability and support has improved. |
| "We need file formats that we can swap with our colleagues in the same sector." |
More universal and smaller formats are available like HTML (inherent in emails) and Rich Text. Adobe is leading the field in PDF. Graphics formats like JPEG (.jpg) are an open standard. |
| "It's backwards compatible so I can run it all on my machines and upgrade when I like." |
That's now no longer true either. It's a 2000 or XP platform or nothing. Many of us are still running Windows98, maybe Windows Me and, let's face it, even Windows 95 variants, even though that particular species was 'put out to grass' some time ago. |
The competition is gathering
So will Office customers run away from Office 11 or resign themselves to buying extra features they hope to be able to use, some day, maybe?
There have been some major commercial defections from Microsoft Office including HP's switch to Corel's WordPerfect suite and, more recently, Sony's announcement that they will be installing Sun's StarOffice 6.0 on most of its European PCs. The Central Scotland police switched wholesale to StarOffice last year too.
Or will there be a wholesale migration to alternatives, a temporary boost in competition and a drop in Office and other MS prices?
Probably a bit of both - and it's already started ...
Open season on discounts
Microsoft is hitting back with another six.
"Open Value" is the MS part of its controversial Licensing 6 volume licensing programme which it hopes will stem the (presently small) tide of defectors to Linux, Lindows, StarOffice and WordPerfect and the two-thirds of Microsoft customers who have either rejected Licensing 6 or gone for a partial upgrade. Microsoft hopes these small and medium-size businesses will sign up to Software Assurance via "Open Value", launching early in 2003, which will allow them to spread payments over 3 years instead of paying fees in advance.
So why might you buy Office 11 ?
Based heavily on XML, the new Office enables stored documents to be exchanged with databases, displayed as web pages by embedding many meta tags to describe the internal meaning of document parts. You can even create these tags yourself and have rules to show what their data represents - somewhat like formatting a cell in a spreadsheet (formatting for text, numbers, colour, etc).
A few of the enhancements are:
- The reviewer/editor/author roles are enhanced by the ability to section off parts of a Word file dedicated to those roles.
- New improved legibility view in Word but will be of most help only if you have a Tablet PC and stylus.
- View (tile) 2 documents side by side in Word.
- A new Research Pane plugs you quickly into the dictionary and thesaurus, either local or online and, of course, Microsoft's Encarta dictionaries and encyclopaedia.
- Outlook's makeover adds new folders like an "Unread Inbox" and a "Follow-Up Search" folder for flagged messages; a re-designed left-hand side to give a preview window which is more portrait-sized in its aspect and so easier to read; viewing of multiple calendars together and picks up on the Outlook Express feature of blocking external HTML graphics content at will - so you won't be able to see any of the photos in IB!
- Powerpoint boasts a stand alone viewer for your recipients of your .ppt slides who lack it.
Aiming at the corporate market who are more likely to have installed a .Net server, "collaborative authoring" of documents is the big draw of Office 11 and in this sense a "document" could be almost anything:
a task, a meeting schedule, a spreadsheet or any of those files in the Office suite to which we have become accustomed.
Probable shipping time: the end of Summer 2003. If you haven't switched your PC operating systems to Windows 2000 or XP throughout, Office 11 won't run on them.
End of story.
-IB-
Acknowledgements: David Becker, Tim Nott, Joe Wilcox
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5. Viruses - watching digital evolution at work
Anti-virus software is winning the protection battle at the moment, but increasingly, viruses are getting more subtle.
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Spread a little love
Compared to the early days of virus epidemics, like "I love you" Melissa and Bubbleboy, we can definitely declare our networks are now better protected.
Anti-virus software vendors were often caught on the hop by the speed of the spread. The time it took to produce a fix was a contributing factor to the prevalence of an infection, certainly in global terms.
The last 18 months of relative calm since a major attack makes security specialists cautiously optimistic of winning a triumph, if not the whole battle.
A healthy virus is a stealthy virus
However, those early shockers with their startling new tactics for disrupting our work and networks were very showy compared to what is yet to come.
| Out of office clear-out
Internet insecurity is being combined with Web service access to postal addresses in the name of burglary. People with auto-reply or "out of office" auto responders on their email should be wary that burglars are attempting to cross reference the replies from long lists they email, with known address codes. While this isn't a problem for multiple occupancy offices, it could spell bad news for those working in a single Small Office Home Office (SoHo) scenario, where an automatic response would advertise an empty dwelling, and especially where signatures reveal full contact details. |
A common objective for virus-writers thus far has been to spread their creations far and wide in an attempt to achieve notoriety - a form of self-aggrandisement which, in this shady world, is inevitably denied a conventional outlet. After all, to own up is to embrace a criminal record.
In common with Mother Nature's parasites, digital ones don't survive easily if they cripple their hosts (in this case our PCs and servers) too severely. Latterly, viruses have become more adept at staying hidden, and thus spreading undetected, at least where anti-virus protection is not rigorous. Though this means their chances of survival are enhanced, it doesn't do much for the cred of the writers if their labours go completely unnoticed. Virus writers are are on the hunt for new objectives to relieve their boredom.
Penetrating the chamber of secrets
Wrecking will become old hat.
Stealing information and taking control will be the new paradigms.
We are seeing the beginnings of automation at work, with script kiddies writing programs to do the digging for them :
- Password and keystroke loggers already exist, but these crude viruses were easily detected long ago. Newer, cleverer ploys (not unlike Trojans) will be employed to suck out confidential or system information for later use, for instance, to be passed or sold on, or to enable deeper hacking, like elevating privileges within a network.
- The W32/Yaha series culminated with Yaha-K over Christmas 2002, a worm that tries desperately to gain control of a PC and goes straight for the jugular by attempting to knock out a range of anti-virus, firewall and internet services and preventing registry modification, thus making its interference easier and its detection harder.
- The W32/Lioten-A worm attempts to identify and then infect Windows 2000 and Windows XP computers on the internet. By polling random IP addresses and trying to log into shared drives that have weak security, it behaves in some ways just like a human hacker.
Just about every new major IT technology will sooner or later will have its security holes exposed, hopefully by diligent security experts rather than snoopers. Two recent failures in this regard were:
- the susceptibility of newly-configured wireless networks to be hacked by intruders parked outside a building, but within 'tapping' range when armed with a laptop and suitable WiFi connection.
See "Wireless Hacking" Your privacy on the line
In a perverted spirit of generosity, these weak spots have, in certain cases, been geographically chalked-up with special symbols for other similarly-equipped intruders to tap into - so-called 'war-chalking'.
- email viruses capable of jumbling up headers such as To, From and Subject and mailing to random recipients in the local address book. These show us how easy it is to manipulate and abuse information that is commonly sent by all of us.
See Crouching Virus, Hidden Email.
Whither hacking?
As fast as security experts can build defences, hackers will write penetrating viruses - but only just. With Darwin-like reverence, this is electronic evolution in the making. Sometimes this evolution lurches forward in 'fits and starts', but it proceeds ever towards a more refined state of temporary stalemate.
If this sounds depressing, there are good reasons to hope that the Internet won't turn into a poisoned chalice.
In similar vein to the mid-20th century, arguably naļve, atomic scientists, developers of system analysis tools will be less hurried to publish them on publicly-available web sites.
"Well yes, this tool could be used to create Trojans and bring down web servers, but that's not what it's for."
Some 100,000 virus variants later, this kind of digital development sounds less like striking a blow for freedom of speech and more like playing into the hands of ill-doers, but hopefully those early programmers will have learned that freedom to develop programs comes with a responsibility to promote them carefully.
Changing the nature of virus detection
To avoid the need for continual updating of anti-virus signatures, many general purpose tactics have been tried in the last decade. Anti-virus engines containing heuristic analysers, for example, attempt to look for the 'virus-like' tendencies or behaviour in programs, in a not dissimilar way to a human approach. Unfortunately, these techniques don't provide hard and fast yes/no answers to virus presence and can generate frequent false alarms. Used as an additional counter-measure rather than a catch-all, they provide a tangible benefit.
And here lies the key.
The future for hacking-defence will reside in its array of mechanisms rather than the robustness of any one measure.
As if to illustrate this point, a new technique is being developed at Hewlett-Packard laboratories in Bristol. Dr. Matthew Williamson's approach uses general computer behaviour as a method of detection. By observing that :
- uninfected computers make only a few new connections to other computers, whereas
- infected computers suddenly make several hundred new connections to potential new hosts
... Williamson's idea is to clamp your local machines down on the number of new connections they can initiate. By limiting this 'throttle' to one per second, the most virulent infections - like Code Red's global rate of 7 machines per second - can thus be reigned in, even if it's no absolute cure.
This behavioural analysis technique is used by telecoms companies to monitor their large clients to determine whether 'exchange hacking' was taking place. A 'second dial tone hack' to use a firm's lines to make long-distance calls typically produced an uncharacteristic spike of activity in the call logs, so was easy to spot. Again, it doesn't prevent the abuse at the time, but it provides you with information to plug the security leak.
In the meantime, keeping your PCs fully patched and up to date with anti-virus protection will hold off any attacks that can be thrown at your network.
-IB-
Acknowledgements: The Economist
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6. Help becomes redundant
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Where do I want go now ?
If there's anything we can remember about those early computers running some sort of simple DOS (disc operating system), it was that you switched on and got stuck immediately.
"OK, so what do I do next ?"
Nothing - not even a menu.
And the inevitable answer was usually "Go back to my filofax".
Ever so slowly it seems, the environment we work in - nowadays almost universally a graphical one - has poked more and more information at us in an attempt to answer the "What do I do next ?" question.
Indeed, we have subsumed all of these techniques in the last decade:
- Pressing the F1 key for help
- Installation wizards
- Search engines
- Application help
- Predictive menus
- Tegic's T9 text input for phones
- Speech recognition
- Automatic software updates
More and more, software and devices will predict what we want to do next, even if it's our first click into unknown territory.
- Your Human Resources software may in future do more than just assist you to map incoming candidates to job specs; it may build virtual character requirements out of the combinations of vacancies that exist in your organisation.
- Speech and typing predicting applications already exist. So an Internet-linked computer combined with this and a contextual knowledge searcher like Cambridge-based Autonomy could almost work out what you are going to say or type before you do!
- A more 'human form' of help might aid you in discussing a document before you write it. Like it or not, our machines will become increasingly speech-endowed as the years pass and some pundits are predicting the language ability of a 4-6 year-old child within 3 years. This may work wonders for creativity and brainstorming sessions. Or maybe the modern equivalent of an 'Illegal operation' will be a 'tantrum'!
Can our computers cope ?
However, built-in help is expensive, not only in terms of human labour, but also on the hardware requirements, as anyone who has written the briefest of programs or macros will testify; a 10-line program can easily triple in size by the time you have documented it for your co-editors or for uninitiated users.
Fortunately, the giants of the chip and disc industries carry on multiplying the speed and size of their products and thus accommodating writers of expansive software, so there is no limit to processing power visible on the horizon so far.
-IB-
Acknowledgements: TNTY
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7. Camera, camera, on the wall
... link me to that conference call!
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More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away
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What is it ?
Once the Holy Grail of communication, video conferencing was (and still is to some extent) seen as reserved for those with 'money to burn'. Surely it's for corporates and multinationals only.
Rethink that.
It's going to be available (and more importantly affordable) for you, me and maybe even your volunteers.
The two main barriers to mass acceptance - bandwidth and cost - are slowly crumbling. At last in the UK we are beginning to getting the bandwidth for audio and video streaming and the costs are dropping, though in somewhat reluctant fashion.
Video will come bundled with operating systems, everyday devices and in our cereal packets. OK, probably not quite yet. Rumours are that smaller desktops like the HP Agora may be the first package bundles to be commonplace.
What will make it happen
At home, we can build our own cinemas for a song - granted, quite a substantial song, but a fraction of the price for one screen of your local multiplex. The boom in home entertainment - both creation and passive viewing - will be the driver.
Unless you enjoy having your eardrums blown apart by 113 deciBels of Harry Potter playing Quidditch - my recent Odeous experience at a major Leceister Square screen - I foresee crowds of customers flocking to the shops for DVD players and surround-sound systems if only to wrest back control of the volume!
In the office, it will be easier to set up a conference suite. The components - like plasma screens, table-top video conferencing modules and VPN services - are all dropping in price and, gradually, morphing into a coherent installation process.
The drivers here are likely to be prospects of expensive and/or dangerous travelling, a step that would also move us toward Earth Summit objectives.
Electronic outreach
Further into the future, real interaction will arrive. We're not talking about simple communication here, but moving objects around.
Last October's "first virtual handshake on the net" was achieved by Professor Mel Slater from University College London with Dr Mandayam Srinivasan at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. Between them, they moved a computer-generated cube, with each being able to feel the force applied by their associate on the other side of the Atlantic.
Such shared virtual reality exercises clearly pave the way for applications like medical operations, where the expertise of far-flung professionals can be brought together speedily and efficiently. The pencil-like 'feeling' devices, called Phantoms, allow the operator to discern the quality of the object under scrutiny, so learning manual skills remotely and examining textiles and natural products on the other side of the world literally comes within our grasp.
The bandwidth required for such tactile interaction is large, but not inconceivably so and could be in place in 5 years time running via an application bundled with the 20GHz PC that you are likely to have at home by then.
-IB-
Acknowledgements: WorldOnline, Ananova
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8. E-Tea
"Almost, but not quite entirely, unlike tea ..."
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More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away
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What is it ?
My personal favourite e-invention would be a programmable tea mug.
How does it work ?
Normally opaque, the mug turns clear when you have provided just the right amount of milk, sugar and brewing time.
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Benefits
Everyone benefits: more consistent tea for me and a user-friendly process for the tea-maker.
Drawbacks
Since this blend of ceramic, digital and artistic technologies will take at least another decade to mesh - or mash - it seems we'll have to go on putting up with *insipid /milky /stewed /tasteless /cold brown beverage as made by our colleagues since days of yore. (*Delete according to your penance)
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Contacts
Nutri-Matic machine, Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, tea, etc
-IB-
Paul Craig
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