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Massive solar eruption bombards Earth
WASHINGTON - The sun is bombarding Earth with radiation from the biggest solar storm in more than six years with more to come from the fast-moving eruption.

 

The solar flare occurred at about 11 p.m. EST (0400 GMT) Sunday and will hit Earth with three different effects at three different times. The biggest issue is radiation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado.

You can track the storm via a map put out Tuesday morning by the National Weather Service's Space Weather Prediction Center showing the solar radiation storm touching the upper atmosphere in the Earth's poles.

The radiation is mostly a concern for satellite disruptions and astronauts in space. It can cause communication problems for polar-traveling airplanes, said space weather center physicist Doug Biesecker.

Radiation from Sunday's flare arrived at Earth an hour later and will likely continue through Wednesday. Levels are considered strong but other storms have been more severe. There are two higher levels of radiation on NOAA's storm scale - severe and extreme - Biesecker said. Still, this storm is the strongest for radiation since May 2005.

 

The radiation - in the form of protons - came flying out of the sun at 93 million miles per hour. (150 million kph)

Meanwhile, NASA scientists said that astronauts aboard the Space Station are not in any danger.

"The whole volume of space between here and Jupiter is just filled with protons and you just don't get rid of them like that," Biesecker said. That's why the effects will stick around for a couple days.

NASA's flight surgeons and solar experts examined the solar flare's expected effects and decided that the six astronauts on the International Space Station do not have to do anything to protect themselves from the radiation, spokesman Rob Navias said. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

A solar eruption is followed by a one-two-three punch, said Antti Pulkkinen, a physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Catholic University.

First comes electromagnetic radiation, followed by radiation in the form of protons.

Then, finally the coronal mass ejection - that's the plasma from the sun itself - hits. Usually that travels at about 1 or 2 million miles per hour, (1.6 or 3.2 million kph) but this storm is particularly speedy and is shooting out at 4 million miles per hour, Biesecker said.

It's the plasma that causes much of the noticeable problems on Earth, such as electrical grid outages. In 1989, a solar storm caused a massive blackout in Quebec. It can also pull the northern lights farther south.

 

But this coronal mass ejection seems likely to be only moderate, with a chance for becoming strong, Biesecker said. The worst of the storm is likely to go north of Earth.

And unlike last October, when a freak solar storm caused auroras to be seen as far south as could see an aurora but not until Tuesday evening, he said.

For the past several years the sun had been quiet, almost too quiet. Part of that was the normal calm part of the sun's 11-year cycle of activity. Last year, scientists started to speculate that the sun was going into an unusually quiet cycle that seems to happen maybe once a century or so.

Now that super-quiet cycle does not seem as likely, Biesecker said.

Scientists watching the sun with a new NASA satellite launched in 2010 - during the sun's quiet period - are excited.

 

9 Photos

Spectacular solar storm reaches Earth

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"We haven't had anything like this for a number of years," Pulkkinen said. "It's kind of special."

 

Arlington, Virginia – An email scam using the Better Business Bureau’s name and logo continues to proliferate across North America, and even to some overseas addresses. Most of the emails carry the famous BBB torch logo and come with the subject line “Complaint from your customers.” The emails have a link or an attachment containing malicious phishing malware that steals information, often with devastating results.

Larry Andrus is a member of the board of directors of BBB Western Michigan and also the CEO of Trivalent Group, Inc., a BBB Accredited Business that helps its clients manage, access, protect, and store their data. One of his firm’s clients opened the affected attachment, which launched malware that quickly found the accounting office’s computers, accessed bank numbers and passwords, and nearly completed a fund transfer from the company’s account.

“We had to completely wipe the computers in order to contain the damage to our client,” said Dawn Simpson, Trivalent’s vice president of marketing and business development.

Because of experiences such as this one, BBB has updated its advice and recommends the following to anyone who receives the email:

• Do not open any attachments
• Do not click on any links
• Delete the email from your inbox, and then delete it again from your trash or recycling folder
• Run a full system scan using reputable virus software

Previously, BBB had recommended running a full system scan only if the recipient had clicked on the link or opened the attachment. But due to the virulent nature of the virus, the new recommendation is for everyone who receives it to do the scan. In offices or homes that are networked, all computers should be scanned.

Chris Garver, Chief Information Officer at the Council of Better Business Bureaus, recommends that all domain owners set up a sender policy framework (SPF) and set their spam filter to use it. “Using the SPF standard helps fight spam and phishing attacks by allowing your email servers to verify whether an email is legitimate…or not,” he says.

Microsoft offers a simple, four-step process for setting up an SPF: www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/

If you receive an email saying your business has a complaint filed against it with BBB, there are several things you can do to authenticate it:

• Look for typos, grammatical errors, etc. in the text that could indicate it originated overseas.
• Check to see who it says it is from. Complaints go out from the local BBBs, not from the headquarters office.
• Hover your mouse over the link to see if its destination is really a bbb.org address.
• Copy and paste the link into Notepad (not Word). Notepad does not support html, so if the link is a fake bbb.org address, the real link will show up.
• If you still are not sure, go to www.bbb.org to find your local BBB, and send them a new email to ask if you have a complaint (do not Reply to the email you received, or forward it to them). They have been swamped with requests, so you may not hear back immediately.

CBBB is working with federal law enforcement agencies to identify the perpetrator of this fraud, and is also looking into other measures it can take to help prevent future phishing scams from spreading.

Megaupload users who stored backups and personal data on the site protested the loss of their files, highlighting the risks of using a consumer file-sharing service for business purposes.

After law enforcement agencies authorities shut down Megaupload, a popular file sharing service, for violating copyright laws, Internet users took to Twitter and online forums in protest, calling it a form of censorship.

For many users, the shutdown had nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with the fact that their backups and data were now gone.

The Department of Justice executed more than 20 search warrants in the United States and in eight other countries to seize servers and domains belonging to Megaupload, according to a 72-page federal indictment unsealed Jan. 19. Megaupload is an online "locker" service in which users can anonymously upload large files to the company servers and share the content via a unique URL.

While users may have used Megaupload to illegally share music, TV shows, movies and software, as the indictment claimed, there were plenty of people who used the service to store personal and private files, including work documents, videos and photographs. After the shutdown, these users complained on Twitter that they had been using the service to store their own content.

"I & many other musicians use #MegaUpload to store & share files created & owned by us. Surely their access & deletion by the FBI is illegal?" Suzanne Barbieri, a musician and writer, posted on Twitter.

Other users described having used Megaupload as a backup service to store images and personal recordings they'd created themselves. Websites and forums that linked to content stored on Megaupload found themselves with broken links on their sites. Xda-Developers, a community of over 4 million users who discuss Windows Phone, Android, Bada and WebOS development, now have over 200,000 broken links on their site, Extreme Tech reported.

"Who will store their data in the cloud if foreign Govs indiscriminately takedown entire services? Megafail for cloud computing," wrote Twitter user Jon Isbell.

There appear to be three types of Megaupload users, the actual pirates, those who relied on the site for backups, and those who stored their core work on the cloud, said Gant Redmon, general counsel of C03 Systems. The situation is not "too bad" for the group with backups, since they presumably still have their data and can put backups somewhere else. The ones suffering are the ones who had embraced cloud storage and kept their data online, he said.

Organizations should be evaluating online hosting, backup and collaboration providers to figure out which ones are trustworthy before moving their data outside of their networks. It's becoming increasingly clear that individuals need to be doing similar research and making sure they understand who they are giving their data to, Redmon said.

"Do we have to be evaluating where we put our data? I think these days, the answer is yes," Redmon said.

Organizations probably don't need to worry about the prospect of losing data stored on cloud services because of a federal take down, provided they'd picked a business-focused provider, said Geoff Webb, director of product marketing at Credant Technologies. While the Megaupload shutdown doesn't mean organizations should stop using cloud-based services, they do need to consider the very likely possibility their employees are using consumer-oriented services to store corporate data, he said. The increasing usage of consumer-oriented services opens the enterprise to risk of data loss.

According to a recent Palo Alto Networks report examining applications that were running on enterprise networks, 57 percent of the organizations had someone accessing Megaupload. The number was higher for Dropbox, with 72 percent.

Employees are moving protected, sensitive or valuable content up into a cloud provider without oversight or controls and the "compliance implications alone can, and do, keep CIOs up at night," Webb said.

If employees had stored data on a cloud provider that got shut down, the likelihood of the company getting that data in a timely manner is practically nonexistent, Redmon said.

Organizations should take the incident as a reminder that they should be evaluating online hosting, backup and collaboration providers to figure out which ones are trustworthy, said Neil Roiter, research director at Corero Network Security. If the provider has a reputation for open file sharing and providing access to obviously pirated digital content, "proceed at your own risk," Roiter said, adding, "Better, just don’t do it."

IDG News Service - A new phishing attack that's spreading through Facebook chat modifies hijacked accounts in order to impersonate the social network's security team.

The attackers replace the profile picture of compromised accounts with the Facebook logo and change their names to a variation of "Facebook Security" written with special Unicode characters, said Kaspersky Lab expert David Jacoby in a blog post.

Facebook claims that changing the profile name can take up to 24 hours and is subject to confirmation. However, in Jacoby's tests the change occurred almost instantly and required only the password. This was also confirmed by a victim whose profile name was modified within 5 minutes of their account being compromised, he said.

After the victim's profile name and picture get changed, the attackers send out a chat message to all of their contacts informing them that their accounts will be suspended unless they re-confirm their information.

The rogue messages appear to be signed by "The Facebook Team" and contain a link to a phishing page hosted on an external domain. The Web page mimics Facebook's design and asks for name, email, password, security question, country, birth date and other information needed to hijack the account.

However, the attack doesn't stop there. According to Jacoby, a second form asks users for their credit card details and billing address. This is somewhat unusual for Facebook phishing attacks, the majority of which target only social networking account information.

"These scams are just getting more popular and we really recommend not giving out personal information, especially not email, password and credit card information over social media," Jacoby said.

http://reg.idgenterprise.com/insider.html?url=http://www.csoonline.com/article/693676/the-mobile-security-survival-guide?source=ctwincpt_csomobile_reg" style="color: #000; text-decoration: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">FREE Download: Mobile Security Survival Guide

RIM’s year to forget: Where did it all go wrong?

Matt Hartley  Dec 20, 2011 – 6:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Dec 20, 2011 9:26 AM ET

REUTERS/J.P. Moczulski

Has the time come for Research In Motion Ltd. co-chief executives Mike Lazaridis (left) and Jim Balsillie to show themselves the door?

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Where did it all go wrong?

It’s safe to say that 2011 can’t end quickly enough for Research In Motion Ltd.

Shares of the Waterloo, Ont. based technology giant have fallen 77% in 2011, a year which saw repeated delays of new hardware and software updates, the disastrous launch of the PlayBook tablet, declining U.S. market share and the largest round of layoffs in the company’s history.

At times, it seemed as though a single week couldn’t go by without RIM popping up in a negative headline somewhere. Whether it was RIM co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis walking out on a BBC interview, the infamous “open letter” from an anonymous RIM executive or the lengthy October service outage which left millions of BlackBerry users without access to their messages, RIM had more than its far share of public relations nightmares this year.

In an effort to better understand just how rough RIM had it in 2011, we’ve compiled a list of the company’s most public struggles into a timeline that paints a picture of an iconic company struggling to find itself in a rapidly changing market.

As for what 2012 holds for RIM, it’s anyone’s guess. But last week’s revelation that the company’s BB 10 platform will be delayed until the second half of the year is not a promising sign.

JANUARY – PlayBook offers optimism for 2011
Share price on Jan. 4: $59.02
Share price on Jan. 31: $58.99 (down 0.05% for the month)

RIM entered 2011 on a high note, riding a wave of conservative optimism fuelled by the announcement of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet late in the year.

While 2010 certainly wasn’t the greatest in the history of the company — shares fell about 13% in 2010 — the company seemed to be holding its own despite a very public spat with Apple Inc. chief executive Steve Jobs, the rising spectre of Google Inc.’s Android and the lukewarm reception to the BlackBerry Torch. Despite the company’s declining share price, RIM’s global user base topped 50 million worldwide, and the PlayBook gave investors a reason to be optimistic.

Heading into the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the technology world was anxious to get a peek at the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, RIM’s answer to Apple’s iPad. When RIM co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis first unveiled the PlayBook at RIM’s developer conference in September 2010, his presentation was decidedly short on details.

Although the first impressions of the PlayBook were fairly positive, and RIM unveiled bold plans to launch several versions of the PlayBook which could access next generation wireless networks, questions about launch dates and features began to rumble. Still, Wall Street’s sales estimates for the PlayBook showed analysts were bullish on RIM’s first tablet, with some analysts predicting RIM would sell as many as six million PlayBooks in its first 12 months on the market.

However, the month closed on a sour note for RIM after a pair of analyst reports showed that Google’s Android software had eclipsed Nokia Corp.’s Symbian to become the most popular smartphone platform in the world. Meanwhile, RIM saw its share of the global smartphone market fall from 20% in the fourth quarter of 2009 to just 14.4% in the final quarter of 2010, despite a 36% jump in the total number of BlackBerrys sold from 10.7 million in the fourth quarter last year to 14.6 million in 2010.

FEBRUARY – Nokia and Apple move on as RIM prepares PlayBook
Share price on Feb. 28: $64.15 (up 8.7%)

In February, the eyes of the smartphone world largely ignored Waterloo, Ont. and instead were fixed on Espoo, Finland, as Nokia Oyj brokered a multi-billion dollar deal with Microsoft Corp. in an effort to breathe new life into its handset business and extinguish its “burning platform.”

In the days following the Nokia-Microsoft pact, analysts speculated about how RIM could benefit from the deal, as the two technology giants figured out how to integrate their smartphone operations. It seemed at the time that RIM had a chance to steal mindshare from Microsoft and Nokia.

RIM helped provide funding for a second BlackBerry Partners Fund, acquired the contact management firm Gist and announced a pair of new BlackBerry PlayBook devices at the Mobile World Congress conference in Spain, even as Android continued to gain momentum.

RIM said it planned to launch a pair of new PlayBook tablets in the second half of 2011, one capable of accessing wireless signals via LTE (long term evolution) technology, and a second with support for HSPA+ high speed wide area wireless networks. This was of course on top of the WiFi + WiMax PlayBook RIM was planning to launch with U.S. carrier Sprint sometime over the summer.

At the time, no one could have predicted RIM would fail to launch any of the additional PlayBook devices the company promised were on tap for 2011. To date, the WiFi-only PlayBook is the only tablet RIM has brought to market.

As February drew to a close and Apple prepared to launch the iPad 2, with still no word from RIM on when the PlayBook would finally go on sale, observers began to worry that RIM was missing its window of opportunity with the PlayBook. As I wrote on Feb. 28:

Still, one has to wonder how much more hype might have greeted the PlayBook for its debut weekend, how much stronger its first day sales would have been if the iPad 2 was still a distant rumour on the message boards of Apple fans and not a cold hard reality.

MARCH – Cracks begin to show in the BlackBerry veneer
Share price on Mar. 31: $54.83 (down 14.5%)

RIM’s year took a turn for the worst in March.

In what would be a harbinger of things to come, Apple unveiled the iPad 2 on March 2. Although RIM showed off the BlackBerry PlayBook — the company’s answer to the iPad — for the first time in September, in the intervening five months, RIM’s chief rival managed to release an updated version of the iPad before RIM could even confirm when the first PlayBook would hit store shelves.

Making matters worse, Google’s Android dethroned RIM as the top smartphone platform in the U.S., an announcement that set off alarm bells on Wall Street. Around the same time, RIM’s chief marketer, Keith Pardy, jumped ship for Samsung; the first in a series of high profile defections over the course of the year.

Finally, shares of RIM fell 11% in one day on March 24 after the company unveiled its first quarter outlook, which fell short of Wall Street expectations. Even announcements about the company’s success in international markets and that the PlayBook would eventually support Android applications failed to counter the rising negative sentiment surrounding RIM.

One analyst referred to RIM as a “broken brand” while others began to grow weary of the “stay tuned” refrain coming from RIM’s co-chief executive tandem of Mr. Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.

On March 22, RIM finally revealed that the PlayBook would go on sale on April 19 at more than 20,000 outlets across North America, seven months after Mr. Lazaridis first showed it off in September.

APRIL – RIM’s nightmare
Share price on April 29: $46.09 (down 16%)

What should have been a month that heralded a new era for Canada’s technology powerhouse quickly devolved into a nightmare as April went from bad to worse for RIM.

RIM’s rollout tour for the PlayBook was derailed before it had a chance to build up any steam. In a now infamous interview with the BBC, Mr. Lazaridis took exception to an interviewer’s question about the company’s ongoing troubles in India and stormed out. RIM quickly went into damage control mode, sending Mr. Balsillie on a whirlwind media tour in an attempt to put the focus back on the PlayBook.

But before the tech world could forget about Mr. Lazaridis blowing his top, the first of the BlackBerry PlayBook reviews from U.S. tech media heavyweights — including David Pogue at the New York Times and Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal — began to trickle out, painting a decidedly underwhelming picture of RIM’s tablet.

One prominent U.S. analyst described the PlayBook as a “race car that’s missing a wheel.”

Still, although RIM’s PlayBook was not met with the kind of line ups that tend to greet Apple’s new products, analysts were encouraged that initial projections showed the PlayBook exceeding its low sales expectations.

On the eve of the PlayBook launch in mid-April, I wrote that despite all of RIM’s troubles, the company might be one of the best bargains on the Toronto Stock Exchange. At the time, RIM had the lowest price-to-earnings ratio of the 100 largest companies on the TSX. At the time, RIM was trading at about 8.4 times this year’s earnings, and 7.8 times next year’s revenue. The average price-earnings ratio — the key fundamental metric to evaluate any stock — of a S&P/TSX stock is about 18 times earnings.

But it wasn’t long before RIM shareholders began to lose faith in the company en masse. On April 28, RIM cut its near term outlook amid weak smartphone sales caused by product delays and the relative age of the BlackBerrys the company had in market. The news caused shares to plummet, pushing RIM’s stock down 16% for the month, after falling 14.5% the month before.

MAY – The cloud over BlackBerry World
Share price on May 31: $41.35 (down 10.3%)

As RIM prepared to welcome thousands of partners and clients to the company’s annual BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida, the company found itself under a cloud of uncertainty as Wall Street investors downgraded the company.

RIM regained some of its lost momentum at BlackBerry World, where the company unveiled the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and its new BlackBerry 7 OS software. The company reinforced its plans to place BlackBerry Messenger at the centre of its consumer strategy, and announced it would soon offer enterprise support for iPhone and Android devices, a significant strategic shift for the company.

However, whatever goodwill RIM picked up at BlackBerry World soon evaporated. Shares of RIM were hammered by analysts after new data revealed how Android devices were outselling RIM’s BlackBerrys in the United States.

Then, on May 15, RIM announced it was recalling nearly 1,000 PlayBook tablets which featured faulty software, further cementing public opinion about the PlayBook as an also-ran in the tablet wars as investors began to worry that RIM might be the next Palm.

JUNE – The wheels come off
Share price on June 30: $27.90 (down 32%)

In June, things went from bad to worse. With its shares locked in a tailspin and sales of BlackBerry devices slowing in the face of rising competition from newer iPhones and Android devices — in Canada, RIM continued to dominate — RIM’s leaders soon found themselves faced with a fight for control of the company.

On June 15, RIM revealed that its second quarter earnings would be lower than expected, a move that sent shares down 15% after hours. Making matters worse, RIM also announced it would begin laying off some employees in an effort to streamline the business.

With its shares hovering at levels not seen since 2006, speculation began to swirl that RIM would be ripe for a takeover. Indeed, the potential for an acquisition even encouraged some analysts to raise their price targets on the company, even as other investors headed for the exits. Adding insult to injury, RIM’s co-chief executives lost their billionaire status.

It wasn’t long before proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co. and its client Northwest & Ethical Investments launched an activist shareholder campaign to split the co-CEO and co-chairman roles held by Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis in a vote at the company’s annual general meeting in July.

Before the month was out, RIM bowed to pressure and agreed to create an independent committee to examine its leadership structure.

Finally, on June 30, the technology blog Boy Genius Report published an “open letter” from an anonymous senior RIM executive which blasted the company’s corporate strategy, marketing efforts and institutional culture.

JULY – Avoiding disaster at the AGM and cutting 2,000 jobs
Share price on July 29: $23.93 (down 14%)

The spotlight on RIM’s co-chief executive tandem intensified in July as the company hurtled towards its annual general meeting on July 12. Although the company was able to reach an accord with several of its most critical shareholders to avoid a public vote on the future of its leadership structure at the AGM, questions about what went wrong at RIM began to swirl.

As U.S.-based technology blogs began to declare RIM an afterthought in the technology world, even in the face of large international subscriber gains, some of the company’s most powerful Bay Street supporters began to openly suggest breaking up the company in order to access the company’s hidden value.

On July 25, the other shoe dropped for RIM and the company cut 2,000 employees, or about 11% of its global workforce, in the largest round of layoffs in the company’s history. Although RIM and the city of Waterloo remained steadfast that the layoffs were not a sign of impending doom for the company, the news rattled the local technology community and caused even the most bullish of RIM supporters to begin questioning the company’s future.

AUGUST – RIM looks to find the comeback trail
Share price on August 31: $31.68 (up 32%)

August represented a rare bright spot for RIM in 2011. RIM kicked off the month by unveiling a pair of new BlackBerry models, setting the stage for the largest product in the history of the company. Taking into account varying product specifications, RIM prepared to roll out seven unique new BlackBerrys as the company attempted to jumpstart its comeback.

Before the month was out, RIM would unveil three new BlackBerry Curve models as the company prepared an all-out blitz in the run up to the holiday shopping season. Indeed, things were looking up for the company.

RIM suffered something of a hard luck public relations black eye when angry youths and violent looters in England were found to be using BlackBerry Messenger technology to communicate and coordinate attacks during the London Riots. RIM quickly reached out to the British government offering to help in any way possible, but that didn’t stop the U.K. government from considering a potential BBM ban, once again casting RIM in a negative light.

Shares of RIM climbed throughout the month as some investors believed RIM was ripe for a rebound and others began to openly speculate about the value of RIM’s patent portfolio in the wake of Google’s deal to acquire Motorola.

SEPTEMBER – Earnings disappoint (again) and the exodus continues
Share price on Sept. 30: $21.36 (down 33%)

Despite the company’s troubles throughout 2010 and 2011, RIM’s leaders remained defiant; steadfast in the conviction that their strategy had the technology firm on the path to redemption and refusing the admit the company was in trouble. Brighter days were ahead, they believed. Stay tuned, they urged.

But when the company reported lower than expected earnings (again) on September 15, RIM’s leaders were much more contrite, acknowledging the company’s difficult position.

“While getting the company to this point has been choppy over the past several quarters, we believe the architectural foundation of RIM, based on the acceptance and success of BlackBerry 7 and the technical performance and openness of the QNX mobile platform is the strongest it has ever been,” Mr. Balsillie said.

Throughout the month, calls for a leadership change continued as hope of a turnaround began to fade and speculation mounted that an activist investor, such as Carl Icahn, might soon take an interest in the company.

RIM suffered a short BBM service outage — foreshadowing darker days in October — as rumours swirled about the future of the PlayBook and retailers began slashing prices on RIM’s tablet.

In September, RIM’s head of developer relations, Tyler Lessard, opted to leave the company, eventually landing with Toronto-based startup Fixmo Inc. Mr. Lessard was the latest in a long line of senior RIM executives to leave the company in 2011, a list which also includes senior PlayBook product manager Ryan Bidan, chief marketing officer Keith Pardy and John Vandermay, formerly vice president of RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server business.

OCTOBER – BBM service outage wreaks havoc on RIM’s reputation
Share price on Oct. 31: $20.16 (down 6%)

As if things couldn’t get any worse for RIM, in October, the company suffered the worst service outage in the history of the BlackBerry platform when a core switch inside RIM’s network operating centre in the United Kingdom crashed. When the system went down, RIM began to slow down messaging traffic throughout Europe in an effort to ease the message backlog caused by the crash, which in turn caused service disruptions around the world.

RIM faced harsh criticism for the way the company handled the BlackBerry blackout. Although RIM issued several service updates on its website throughout the week in an attempt to inform consumers about the problems, some observers believe the company’s failure to fully disclose what had happened and get in front of the situation may have a lingering negative effect on the company’s brand

RIM founder and co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis eventually issued a video apology to the millions of BlackBerry users affected by the service blackout, assuring customers RIM would be taking “aggressive steps” to ensure the problem did not reoccur. But for many observers, the damage had already been done, dealing a huge blow to the BlackBerry’s reputation as a reliable, always-on messaging technology.

On the same day Apple’s iPhone 4S went on sale around the world, RIM announced it would be offering its users a selection of free applications as a way of apologizing to users who were inconvenienced by the service outage.

Shares of RIM spiked briefly as rumours of a possible takeover from Vodafone swirled and speculation intensified that RIM had hired a banker to consider strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of the company.

Before October was over, RIM held its annual developer conference in San Francisco, where the company took the wraps off BBX — since renamed “BB 10″ — its next generation software platform which will power all of the company’s future BlackBerry and PlayBook devices.

Combining elements of the company’s QNX software, which powers the BlackBerry PlayBook, and the BlackBerry OS software, RIM said its next generation software would help draw new developers into the company’s ecosystem.

In an interview with the Financial Post, Mr. Balsillie said RIM’s software platform would help the company “leapfrog” the competition and affirmed that the company’s strategy was solid.

Finally, RIM said the PlayBook 2.0 software update, which was designed to resolve lingering software issues and was set to launch before the end of the year, would be delayed until February of 2012, dealing a blow to the PlayBook’s sales prospects over the holiday season.

NOVEMBER – Even a massive BlackBerry launch is marred by tragedy
Share price on Nov. 30: $18.38 (down 9%)

After disappointing analysts on Wall Street and Bay Street throughout much of 2011, shares of RIM fell even further in November as the BlackBerry’s share of the U.S. consumer market fell below 10%.

First, RIM’s share price dipped below $20 for the first time since 2004, when RIM’s devices were still described in news reports as “e-mail pagers.” If that wasn’t enough, RIM’s shares dropped below book value on Nov. 3, causing some analysts to wonder just how low RIM would go?

Some analysts took a longer look at RIM in November, and speculated that the company should be upgraded on the strength of its services division, while others saw the release of RIM’s BlackBerry 7 devices as a sign the company might be back on the right track.

In a move to expand its international footprint, RIM also unveiled the BlackBerry Bold 9790 in November, launching the device first in Indonesia, where it was met with iPhone-like fanfare from users anxious to get their hands on the coveted device.

Unfortunately, the good news story for RIM was short lived. The head of RIM’s Indonesia operations is now facing charges related to several injuries which were sustained by RIM fans in the stampede caused by people hoping to get their hands on a discounted BlackBerry Bold 9790.

DECEMBER – The final insult, RIM’s BBX delayed until late 2012
Share price on Dec. 19: $13.53 (down 26%, down 77% since Jan. 4)

As 2011 draws to a close, RIM’s decline seems to be picking up speed.

On Dec. 2, RIM issued a profit warning, informing investors the company would take a US$485-million pre-tax hit as a result of a surplus of unsold PlayBook devices and slower than expected sales of BlackBerry smartphones.

But things were about to get much worse for RIM. Last week, when the company released its third quarter financial results, Mr. Lazaridis told investors that due to a delay in a specific chip set the Waterloo, Ont.-based company plans to use as part of the next generation of BlackBerry smartphones, the first RIM devices to run on the company’s forthcoming “BB 10” operating system won’t arrive until the second half of 2012.

It was a devastating blow to the company’s credibility and has led to a resurfacing of the debate surrounding the future of RIM’s leadership and indeed, about the long term health of the company itself.

As well, RIM’s third quarter earnings call also included a lower than expected outlook for the fourth quarter, suggesting that things in Waterloo may get worse before they get better.

In a move designed to show empathy to shareholders, Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis announced they would be reducing their own salaries to $1 per year, effective immediately. However, the token gesture was seen as too little too late by some observers.

“While we have remained solidly profitable and delivered significant unit volume during this transition, we recognize that our shareholders may feel we have fallen short in terms of product execution, market share and financial performance,” Mr. Balsillie said during an afternoon conference call with investors.

Although unrelated to the company’s core business, RIM suffered another public relations black eye in December when a pair of company executives caused a disturbance on an Air Canada flight to China, forcing the plane to be returned to Vancouver.

Posted in: FP Tech Desk, Investing, Mobile  Tags: 9790, 9900, AGM, Android, Apple Inc., BB 10, BBX, BlackBerry, BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry PlayBook, BlackBerry World, CES, Google Inc., iPhone, Jim Balsillie, layoffs, Mike Lazaridis, mobility, PlayBook, Research In Motion, Research in Motion Ltd., RIM, shareholders, smartphone, Steve Jobs, tablet, Waterloo, wireless

Matt Hartley

mhartley@nationalpost.com

• RIM's burning platform moment

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Microsoft to 'forcibly' update IE browsers in January

December 16, 2011 5:00pm

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Software giant Microsoft is taking the kid gloves off on its outdated Internet Explorer 6 browser, and will start forced updates to new versions of IE in January.

Tech site CNET said most users of Microsoft's Windows operating system can get the update via the "seamless" Automatic Updates mechanism.

"As we've talked to our customers about our approach (to upgrading), everyone benefits from an up-to-date browser. But from a security perspective alone this is important. Ninety percent of infections that were attributable to a security vendor had a patch out for more than a year," CNET quoted Ryan Gavin, Senior Director of Internet Explorer for Microsoft.

Users of Windows XP will be upgraded to IE Version 8 while Windows Vista users will be upgraded to IE 9.

CNET cited the latest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report indicating that socially engineered malware is the biggest kind of threat facing computer users today.

It said the Microsoft report also showed the malware often goes after security holes in browsers.

"The security mitigations for newer versions of IE have proven to deliver consistent security improvements. Starting with IE8 and continuing with IE9, every new version of Microsoft's browsers has delivered a more secure browsing experience. We'll all be happier and more secure when we don't have to depend on users to install the most recent patches," said Andrew Storms, director of Information Technology at nCircle Network Security.

Brazil, Australia get first crack

Initially, Gavin said the forced update will be rolled out only to Windows users in Brazil and Australia, the CNET report said.

Gavin said the choice stemmed from people there using a broad spread of IE6, IE7, and IE8.

He added Windows Update will allow people to roll back the upgrade.

On the other hand, Microsoft is wary of repeating the upgrade brouhaha that Mozilla created for itself earlier this year.

"Business, particularly large ones, test patches before they are released to their employees and this process doesn't bypass that," said Rob Enderle, a technology analyst with the Enderle Group.

For business and individuals that do not want the upgrade, perhaps to maintain in-house custom tools, Microsoft provides automatic update blocker kits for IE8 and IE9.

IE6 countdown

CNET said Microsoft's IE6Countdown.com site showed less than one percent of northern Europe uses IE6, but more than 23.6 percent of China does.

Worldwide percentage of IE 6 stands at around 8.3 percent. — TJD, GMA News

Computerworld - A lawsuit filed against Hewlett Packard Co last week over a recently discovered vulnerability in its LaserJet printers alleges that the company knew about the flaw for some time but did nothing about it.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of all HP LaserJet owners by David Goldblatt of New York, who recently purchased two of the printers.

The lawsuit accuses HP of violating California's consumer protection laws by failing to disclose a defect it knew about to consumers.

Two Columbia University researchers said last week that they discovered a weakness in the HP LaserJet printer's Remote Firmware Update process.

The process allows the LaserJet printer's firmware to be modified or upgraded remotely. However, the printer does not use any mechanism to authenticate firmware upgrade or modification requests. As a result, the printers can be easily fooled into accepting arbitrarily modified firmware, the researchers had noted.

According to the Columbia researchers, the defect allows attackers to not only gain complete remote control of the printer, but also to any network to which the printer is attached.

They also contend that the defect allows attackers to disable the printer from afar.

Goldblatt's lawsuit accuses HP of failing to require the use of digital signatures to authenticate software updates, even though it knew about the potential risks of not using them as far back as April 2010.

The complaint points to an HP-commissioned study called "Think Print, Think Security" that was published in April, 2010, and cites the firmware update issue in a section on printer vulnerabilities.

The complaint excerpts a section from the study explaining that software on some printers can be modified to enable data interception and data transfer to third parties.

"Data can be intercepted and sent to a third party using a number of methods. Firmware on some printers could be modified to add this ability or other special features such as a network sniffer," the study said. "This could be done by either uploading modified firmware or by modifying and replacing a chip on the printer's circuit board."

The lawsuit alleges that HP failed to disclose the defect until it was forced to do after a story on the Columbia researchers and the LaserJet vulnerabilities last week.

The lawsuit seeks remedies under the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act and the California Unfair Competition Law.

An HP spokeswoman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at

@jaivijayan

, or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed

. His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.

Read more about Security in Computerworld's Security Topic Center.

FREE Download: Mobile Security Survival Guide

The iPhone Is About To Become The FBI’s Newest Crime-Fighting Partner [Exclusive]

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By Ed Sutherland (9:37 am, Dec 06)

The MobileOne iPhone Fingerprint Device (Photo/Provided)

The next time you are pulled over by police you may encounter a familiar face: your iPhone. Faster than you can say “Book ‘em, Dano,” Apple’s handset is quickly becoming law enforcement’s favorite tool for identifying unknown fingerprints. The iPhone’s touchscreen will even be enlisted by the FBI to spot terrorism suspects.

Time counts when you’re trying to identify and find a perp, so using an iPhone  could significantly shorten the time police officers need to wait while fingerprints are run through a national database, says Ken Nosker, president of Fulcrum Technologies. Fulcrum’s mobileOne device is just one product using the iPhone to create biometric devices for law enforcement.

The chief benefits of using an iPhone fingerprint device are saving time and money. If an officer must take a suspect in for fingerprints, the delay could be hours, and although there are mobile fingerprinting units, their high price means more delays as police search for the one or two they can afford. On the other hand, many police officers already have iPhones, and the cost of the mobileOne device is within reach of even the smallest police departments.

The mobileOne device slips over an off-the-shelf iPhone or iPod touch, which can be easily slipped into a pocket. The device then can take high-quality fingerprints that even pass the rigorous requirements of the FBI. Because of the iPhone’s Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity, fingerprints obtained can be quickly compared to those in national databases, including the FBI’s recently introduced Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC) database.

In 2012, the mobileOne iPhone will be among devices that undergo trials by the FBI. Once approved, the iPhone fingerprint product could be available to all U.S. law enforcement looking for serious criminals.

At a recent International Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago, Fulcrum representatives were mobbed by local law enforcement officials asking when the mobileOne iPhone device would become available in their area. The holdup is getting the device approved by state IT departments. Nosker said the steps required to get iPhone fingerprinting approved are “pretty significant.”

But why not Android? For biometrics — which can include fingerprints, facial analysis – even voiceprints — “Apple provides the most stable platform, bar none,” Nosker said. He dismissed the vast array of Android handsets, complaining that 30 or 40 Android smartphones had 30 or 40 different ways to interface with his fingerprint device. In other words, Google’s OS can forget about being deputized, and Android will never be a RoboCop.

The mobileOne device is expected to cost $600, much less than another iPhone fingerprint option known as MORIS.

MORIS stands for “Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System.” Along with fingerprints, MORIS offers law enforcement officials facial and iris recognition. An officer snaps a photo of a suspect and the iPhone compares 130 facial landmarks, including the distance between the eye and nose. The same high-resolution photo is used to compare more than 200 features of the human iris. Both facial recognition systems use the iPhone to tie into national databases, cutting delays by a factor of ten, according to the system’s maker, BI2 Technologies.

The system, which attaches to an iPhone and weighs 12.5 ounces, is already paying off for Florida law enforcement. Since 2004, deputies in the Pinellas County, Fla. sheriff’s office have nabbed 700 people. In Brockton, Mass., the MORIS iris scans quickly link suspects’ prior criminal history.

Forget guns, or CB radios, or even in-car computer systems. In the next year, the iPhone could become the most important crime-fighting tool a cop has at his disposal. Just as the iPhone has reshaped what we expect from smartphones, it’s now set to overhaul law enforcement. Criminals beware!

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More from Cult of Mac

• Police use Facial Recognition iPhone App to ID Perps
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About the author

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

Email the author| Read more posts by Ed Sutherland.

Posted in News, Top stories | Tagged: accessories, BI2 Technologies, fbi, fingerprints, Florida, Fulcrum, iOS, iPhone, iPod Touch, iris recognition, law enforcement, mobileOne, MORIS, police, RISC, voice recognition |

PC World - Dell has announced that the Streak 7 is no longer available. The death of the Dell Android tablet line doesnt come as much of a surprise, but it points to some lessons that other tablets might learn from to be stronger competitors.

Dell has given it a valiant effort. It was the first major company to come out with a tablet to compete with Apple's iPad, and it has developed and subsequently pulled the plug on--both a 5-inch and 7-inch model of the Streak. It is sad to see Dell abandon the tablet market, but, overall, the death of the Dell Streak -- or any single tablet other than the iPad -- has little bearing on the tablet market.

Why, you ask? Basically, the answer is that up to now there hasn't been a tablet market, just an iPad market. It seems that the Amazon Kindle Fire will shift that debate some, but it remains to be seen just how much.

Based on recent figures, the Apple iPad is on pace to sell 40 million or 50 million tablets in 2011, while all rivals combined have sold just over a million. It is also worth noting that the leader in non-iPad tablets is the HP TouchPad, which didn't sell at all until HP pulled the plug on the device and clearanced out its inventory for $99.

Using those figures, all other tablets combined make up a negligible segment of the tablet market, and any single tablet, such as the Dell Streak, has no significant impact one way or the other. Here are a few things other tablet rivals should keep in mind if they don't want to follow the Dell Streak to extinction:

$200 Subsidized Is Not the Same as $200

Price is obviously a consideration in comparing tablet options. Most iPad rivals have priced themselves on par with the Apple tablet and most have failed to sell any appreciable number of tablets at that price.

As evidenced by the frenzy over the HP TouchPad fire sale, the relative success of the BlackBerry PlayBook at the greatly reduced price of $200, and the phenomenal sales of the Kindle Fire at $200, it seems that there is a market for non-iPad tablets when the price is right. But, some tablets resort to wireless carrier subsidies -- like a smartphone -- to get the price into that range.

Judging by the tepid reception and poor sales, customers don't agree that $200 with a two-year contract tied to a mandatory wireless data plan is the same thing as a $200 tablet. For iPad rivals to sell, they need to be priced competitively without strings attached.

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FREE Download: 5 Big Ideas in Data Analytics

(Credit: McAfee)

Malware targeted toward Android devices continues to surge, says a new report from McAfee, pushing 2011 to become the busiest year in history for both mobile and general malware.

The amount of malware infecting Android devices during the third quarter grew almost 37 percent from the second quarter, according to McAfee's Third-Quarter Threats Report (PDF). Android's growing demand among consumers has made it an increasingly ripe and inviting target for cybercriminals.

How inviting? Almost all new mobile malware over the third quarter was aimed squarely at Android. Legacy software being what it is, though, among all mobile platforms, Nokia's Symbian OS still saw the greatest amount of malware.

One common scheme against Android is led by Trojans that collect personal information and steal money from the user by sending SMS messages. Another type of malware records phone conversations and sends them to the attacker.

Related stories

• Android leads the way in mobile malware
• Android malware up 76 percent, nonexistent on iOS
• More malware targeting Android

As a result of the onslaught against Android and the growth in overall malware, McAfee now believes the industry will see 75 million unique pieces of malware by the end of the year, up from its previous forecast of 70 million. That number promises to make 2011 a record year for malware.

"This has been a very steady quarter in terms of threats, as both general and mobile malware are more prevalent than ever," said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, in a statement. "So far this year, we've seen many interesting yet challenging trends that are affecting the threat landscape, including heightened levels of sophistication and high-profile hacktivist attacks."

Phony antivirus products, AutoRun malware, and password-stealing Trojans were among the most common types of malware in the quarter, staging a rebound from previous quarters. Malware aimed at the Mac also continues to grow as Apple computers experience greater demand among both consumers and businesses.

The number of botnet infections inched down over the third quarter but staged some dramatic gains in countries such as Argentina, Indonesia, Russia, and Venezuela. Cutwail, Festi, and Lethic proved to be the most dangerous and damaging botnets last quarter.

And though spam has dropped in numbers since 2007, it's grown in sophistication, according to McAfee. Spearphishing, or targeted spam, is increasingly being adopted by more attackers and is proving to be a highly effective form of malware.

"The noise tells us spam levels have dropped, yet the signal we need to hear is that the bad guys have changed their tactics," the report noted. "They are protecting their business models and are doing so with a sophistication that creates a more dangerous threat than before."

Spreadsheet uploaded to homework-help website exposed sensitive patient data for almost a year.

By Mathew J. Schwartz InformationWeek
September 09, 2011 11:50 AM

Stanford Hospital & Clinics is investigating a privacy breach that left records on 20,000 emergency room visitors exposed online for a year.

The records appeared in a spreadsheet uploaded to Student of Fortune, a homework-help website, on Sept. 9, 2010. The spreadsheet was attached to a question about how the data could be converted into a bar graph. While the exposed records didn't include social security numbers, they did include names and diagnosis codes, admission and discharge dates, and account numbers.

The hospital said Thursday it first learned of the data breach after a patient alerted it on Aug. 22, 2011. Four days later, the hospital notified affected patients in a letter written by the hospital's chief compliance and privacy officer, Diane Meyer. Under federal stimulus funding laws, healthcare organizations are required to publicly disclose data breaches in a timely manner.

After discovering the breach, "a full investigation was launched, and Stanford Hospital & Clinics has been working very aggressively with the vendor to determine how this occurred, in violation of strong contract commitments to safeguard the privacy and security of patient information," according to a statement released by the hospital. It said it also immediately notified state and federal authorities about the breach.

The hospital said it traced the spreadsheet to a report generated by one of its vendors, billing contractor Multi-Specialty Collection Services, which is a subsidiary of Texican, a healthcare facility management vendor (although the Texican LinkedIn profile now resolves to the website of a company known as LuxSci). The hospital said it had severed its relationship with the vendor.

"It is clearly disturbing when this information gets public," hospital spokesman Gary Migdol told The New York Times. "It is our intent 100% of the time to keep this information confidential and private, and we work hard every day to ensure that."

According to Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisor at Sophos Canada, healthcare organizations that outsource work to third parties typically require their business partners to keep the information secure. But many never verify whether this is being done. "Simply inserting some clauses in their contracts to require these third parties to meet these regulations will ensure the data will be protected, right?" he said in a blog post.

While Student of Fortune said that it's been unable to identify the owner of the account used to upload the spreadsheet. But even if that person does get identified, perhaps this breach should be treated as more of a learning experience. "Rather than track down the person who made the mistake, imposing multi-million dollar fines, and saying it won't happen to us, let us learn from their mistakes," said Wisniewski. "That starts by knowing what to protect, and then making sure it stays protected. Classify your data based upon its importance. Now, based on that classification take the appropriate actions to control and protect that data."

This Stanford Hospital data breach aside, most data breaches typically go unreported. Part of the problem, according to Ponemon Institute, is the country's patchwork of data breach, including differing notification requirements in 49 states. Furthermore, different types of data--such as financial data or health information--is regulated by different laws and government agencies.

But according to a data breach report released on Thursday by the Digital Forensics Association, which reviewed data breaches from 2005 to 2010, the number of health industry data breaches disclosed has increased markedly since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act)--meant to strengthen privacy and security requirements under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)--was passed in Nov. 2009. Notably, the HITECH Act requires healthcare organizations to disclose breaches involving unencrypted personal health information, when those breaches affect at least 500 people in one state. The Department of Health and Human Services is now maintaining a database to track such breaches.

An outage on Wednesday reminds me that Google Docs never should have been launched without full offline storage and editing. Why doesn't Google make this a priority?

By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek
September 08, 2011 09:30 AM

Google's cloud-based services may be energy efficient but on Wednesday the company delivered too much energy savings: Google Docs Lists--the filelist component of Google Docs--went offline about 2:18 p.m. PT. As indicated on the Google Apps Status Dashboard, Google Documents and Google Drawings failed shortly thereafter.

So much for the cloud computing. I've been working in Google Docs since January 2010 and the service is almost always available. But the frustration of a cloud service failure is disproportionately higher than it is with local software crashes.

More Cloud Insights

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• A Revolutionary Approach to Cloud Building
• The Seven Types Of Power Problems

Analytics

• Strategy: The Hybrid Enterprise Data Center
• SaaS 2011: Adoption Soars, Yet Deployment Concerns Linger

Webcasts

• Effective IT Inventory and Asset Management: From Quagmire to Quick Fix
• Outsourcing Security: What Every Potential Cloud Security Customer Should Know

Videos

TechWebTV catches up with Whisper Systems' CTO and co-founder Moxie Marllinspike to discuss and demo WhisperCore -- a mobile security solution that brings BlackBerry-like centralized enterprise-grade security to Android devices.

I've experienced plenty of Microsoft Word crashes over the years and usually recovery has been fairly rapid. But with cloud services, all you can do is wait for an update. You feel powerless, because frankly you are powerless. And that's a problem, one that goes beyond the relative merits of a product to the emotional connection we have with our tools.

Google doesn't seem to appreciate this. The company recently introduced limited offline functionality, so you can store a limited number of Gmail messages, Docs files, and Calendar entries locally and access them when there's no network connection. Offline editing has yet to be implemented.

Traditionally, IT works in a break-fix mode within operational silos.

Discover the benefits of a holistic approach to IT management.

Google group product manager Rajen Sheth suggested offline functionality was more of an edge use-case than a critical function.

If you ask me, Google Docs never should have been launched without full offline storage and editing. Some Google engineers clearly recognize the importance of offline functionality: The company made a big deal over Google Gears several years ago because it was a big deal.

Yet Google hasn't made reinventing Gears in HTML5 a priority, perhaps because it's in the business of online ad serving or because it has been focused on Google+.

If it had, its Chromebooks might be more useful. For months I've wanted to use one while covering an industry conference of one sort or another. But I dare not, for fear that poor network connectivity might prevent me from taking notes. And probably half of the conferences I attend, even big events sponsored by major companies, have a network issue at some point.

Even a brief network slowdown is enough to ruin writing in Google Docs. I've had to switch from Google Docs to trusty old Word or Notepad probably four or five times in the past two years during conference keynotes, due to network issues.

At 2:40 p.m. PT, Google posted another update: "We're aware of a problem with Google Docs List affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Google Docs List. We will provide an update by September 7, 2011 3:40:00 p.m. UTC-7 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change."

And at 3:18 p.m. PT, the cloud returned.

"The problem with Google Docs List should be resolved," Google said on its Apps Dashboard. "We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support."

I appreciate the apology but I'd rather have offline editing support in Docs. This story brought to you by TextEdit.

An outage on Wednesday reminds me that Google Docs never should have been launched without full offline storage and editing. Why doesn't Google make this a priority?

By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek
September 08, 2011 09:30 AM

Google's cloud-based services may be energy efficient but on Wednesday the company delivered too much energy savings: Google Docs Lists--the filelist component of Google Docs--went offline about 2:18 p.m. PT. As indicated on the Google Apps Status Dashboard, Google Documents and Google Drawings failed shortly thereafter.

So much for the cloud computing. I've been working in Google Docs since January 2010 and the service is almost always available. But the frustration of a cloud service failure is disproportionately higher than it is with local software crashes.

More Cloud Insights

White Papers

• A Revolutionary Approach to Cloud Building
• The Seven Types Of Power Problems

Analytics

• Strategy: The Hybrid Enterprise Data Center
• SaaS 2011: Adoption Soars, Yet Deployment Concerns Linger

Webcasts

• Effective IT Inventory and Asset Management: From Quagmire to Quick Fix
• Outsourcing Security: What Every Potential Cloud Security Customer Should Know

Videos

TechWebTV catches up with Whisper Systems' CTO and co-founder Moxie Marllinspike to discuss and demo WhisperCore -- a mobile security solution that brings BlackBerry-like centralized enterprise-grade security to Android devices.

I've experienced plenty of Microsoft Word crashes over the years and usually recovery has been fairly rapid. But with cloud services, all you can do is wait for an update. You feel powerless, because frankly you are powerless. And that's a problem, one that goes beyond the relative merits of a product to the emotional connection we have with our tools.

Google doesn't seem to appreciate this. The company recently introduced limited offline functionality, so you can store a limited number of Gmail messages, Docs files, and Calendar entries locally and access them when there's no network connection. Offline editing has yet to be implemented.

Traditionally, IT works in a break-fix mode within operational silos.

Discover the benefits of a holistic approach to IT management.

Google group product manager Rajen Sheth suggested offline functionality was more of an edge use-case than a critical function.

If you ask me, Google Docs never should have been launched without full offline storage and editing. Some Google engineers clearly recognize the importance of offline functionality: The company made a big deal over Google Gears several years ago because it was a big deal.

Yet Google hasn't made reinventing Gears in HTML5 a priority, perhaps because it's in the business of online ad serving or because it has been focused on Google+.

If it had, its Chromebooks might be more useful. For months I've wanted to use one while covering an industry conference of one sort or another. But I dare not, for fear that poor network connectivity might prevent me from taking notes. And probably half of the conferences I attend, even big events sponsored by major companies, have a network issue at some point.

Even a brief network slowdown is enough to ruin writing in Google Docs. I've had to switch from Google Docs to trusty old Word or Notepad probably four or five times in the past two years during conference keynotes, due to network issues.

At 2:40 p.m. PT, Google posted another update: "We're aware of a problem with Google Docs List affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Google Docs List. We will provide an update by September 7, 2011 3:40:00 p.m. UTC-7 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change."

And at 3:18 p.m. PT, the cloud returned.

"The problem with Google Docs List should be resolved," Google said on its Apps Dashboard. "We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support."

I appreciate the apology but I'd rather have offline editing support in Docs. This story brought to you by TextEdit.

An outage on Wednesday reminds me that Google Docs never should have been launched without full offline storage and editing. Why doesn't Google make this a priority?

By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek
September 08, 2011 09:30 AM

Google's cloud-based services may be energy efficient but on Wednesday the company delivered too much energy savings: Google Docs Lists--the filelist component of Google Docs--went offline about 2:18 p.m. PT. As indicated on the Google Apps Status Dashboard, Google Documents and Google Drawings failed shortly thereafter.

So much for the cloud computing. I've been working in Google Docs since January 2010 and the service is almost always available. But the frustration of a cloud service failure is disproportionately higher than it is with local software crashes.

I've experienced plenty of Microsoft Word crashes over the years and usually recovery has been fairly rapid. But with cloud services, all you can do is wait for an update. You feel powerless, because frankly you are powerless. And that's a problem, one that goes beyond the relative merits of a product to the emotional connection we have with our tools.

Google doesn't seem to appreciate this. The company recently introduced limited offline functionality, so you can store a limited number of Gmail messages, Docs files, and Calendar entries locally and access them when there's no network connection. Offline editing has yet to be implemented.

Google group product manager Rajen Sheth suggested offline functionality was more of an edge use-case than a critical function.

If you ask me, Google Docs never should have been launched without full offline storage and editing. Some Google engineers clearly recognize the importance of offline functionality: The company made a big deal over Google Gears several years ago because it was a big deal.

Yet Google hasn't made reinventing Gears in HTML5 a priority, perhaps because it's in the business of online ad serving or because it has been focused on Google+.

If it had, its Chromebooks might be more useful. For months I've wanted to use one while covering an industry conference of one sort or another. But I dare not, for fear that poor network connectivity might prevent me from taking notes. And probably half of the conferences I attend, even big events sponsored by major companies, have a network issue at some point.

Even a brief network slowdown is enough to ruin writing in Google Docs. I've had to switch from Google Docs to trusty old Word or Notepad probably four or five times in the past two years during conference keynotes, due to network issues.

At 2:40 p.m. PT, Google posted another update: "We're aware of a problem with Google Docs List affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Google Docs List. We will provide an update by September 7, 2011 3:40:00 p.m. UTC-7 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change."

And at 3:18 p.m. PT, the cloud returned.

"The problem with Google Docs List should be resolved," Google said on its Apps Dashboard. "We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support."

I appreciate the apology but I'd rather have offline editing support in Docs. This story brought to you by TextEdit.

Computerworld - Microsoft today updated Windows to permanently block all digital certificates issued by a Dutch company that was hacked months ago.

The update -- the second for Windows Vista and Windows 7, but the first for the decade-old Windows XP -- moves all DigiNotar SSL (secure socket layer) certificates to Windows' block list, dubbed the Untrusted Certificate Store. Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) uses that list to bar the browser from reaching sites secured with dubious certificates.

Windows XP users will see this update starting today that blocks all SSL certificates issued by DigiNotar.

DigiNotar, a certificate authority (CA) based in the Netherlands, has admitted that its servers were compromised in mid-July. A report made public Monday by a digital forensics firm said that hackers had acquired 531 certificates, including many used by the Dutch government, and that DigiNotar was unaware of the intrusion for approximately a month.

In that forensics report, Fox-IT said that hackers controlled DigiNotar's servers starting June 17, and that during a month-long stretch in July and August, hackers spied on 300,000 Iranians' Gmail accounts.

Cybercrime watch

• Microsoft flips 'kill switch' on all DigiNotar certificates
• Ransomware plays pirated Windows card, demands $143
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• UK charges another alleged Anonymous member

SSL certificates are used by websites and browsers to identify a site as legitimate; illegally-obtained certificates can be abused to disguise unauthorized domains using "man-in-the-middle" attacks.

The Windows update will be automatically downloaded and installed to machines that have Windows Update's Automatic Update enabled, Microsoft said in a security advisory.

Microsoft's Dutch customers, however, won't see the update for another week.

"At the explicit request of the Dutch government, Microsoft will delay deployment of this update in the Netherlands for one week to give the government time to replace certificates," Dave Forstrom, a director in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, said in a blog post today. "Dutch customers who wish to install the update can do so by manually visiting Windows Update or following the instructions available at www.microsoft.nl once the security update is released worldwide."

The delay for the Dutch was expected. On Monday, the Netherlands' Ministers of Interior and Security and Justice told parliament that Microsoft would issue an update to block all DigiNotar certificates, and that the update would not be immediately pushed to Dutch Windows users.

Google and Mozilla have already updated their browsers to block all DigiNotar certificates. The former shipped a new version of Chrome on Saturday, while the latter updated Firefox 6 and Firefox 3.6 today.

Mozilla has been especially vocal about its disgust with DigiNotar, and has said that the ban of certificates issued by the company is permanent.

"This is not a temporary suspension, it is a complete removal from our trusted root program," said Johnathan Nightingale, director of Firefox engineering, in a blog post last Friday. "Complete revocation of trust is a decision we treat with careful consideration, and employ as a last resort."

Other security experts have said that the bans by Google, Mozilla and now Microsoft amount to a "death sentence" for DigiNotar and its business.

Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security, concurred. "Game over, man," he said today.

Apple has been mum during the DigiNotar episode: Its Safari browser relies on a block list in Mac OS X, so -- like Microsoft -- Apple must update its operating system to protect users.

Last March, when a similar attack targeted Comodo, Apple took a month before blocking the stolen certificates, or three weeks longer than Microsoft.

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Research In Motion should explore transformational changes, including the breakup or sale of the company, says the CEO of Jaguar Financial.

By Eric Zeman InformationWeek
September 06, 2011 10:52 AM

"It is time for transformational change," said Jaguar Financial CEO Vic Alboini in a statement Tuesday. Alboini thinks RIM needs to weigh its options, which he points out should be an outright sale of the company, or siphoning off the company's patents in order to bring in the maximum value for investors.

This isn't the first time this year we've heard such talk from RIM's investors.

But investors aren't having any of it.

"The team there has not executed for a prolonged period and that underscores the need for an independent chairman," said James Cole in July, an investor who owns $46 million in RIM stock at Portland Investment Counsel in Calgary, to BusinessWeek. "It's getting to the point where the executives have to be called to account and how are they going to call themselves to account? They won't do it."

RIM later succumbed to shareholder pressure and agreed to study the idea of splitting the roles of CEO and chairman of the board. A committee has been established to explore how the CEO and chairman roles might be best fulfilled, and will offer a recommendation based on its findings.

"There doesn't seem to be the urgency in addressing meaningful matters," noted Paul Taylor, chief investment officer of BMO Harris Private Banking, to BusinessWeek, also in July. "It seems like they committed to study the matter but have they committed to a change? Not really. It's a bit disappointing."

The worst bit of ire is being spilled by Mike Abramsky, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets in Toronto. In a July note to investors, he called for the Waterloo-based smartphone maker to split into two separate companies--a sentiment now shared by Alboini.

"The market is generally tired of what they say and is more interested in what they do," he said. "For 18 months, Balsillie has been saying 'Just you wait,' and we're still waiting. RIM's organization, like its handsets, needs modernization. By acting now, splitting RIM into network and handset businesses may target opportunities and unlock significant shareholder value."

The problem with all of this is that RIM recently launched a spate of new BlackBerry handsets with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless. According to preliminary guesswork, this new wave of handsets is selling at a decent clip.

But they may be too little, too late. Android, iOS, and even Windows Phone 7 have all surpassed the BlackBerry platform in terms of modern operating systems. The new BlackBerry 7 devices are a band-aid at best, a short-term fix to stop the flowing wound that was torn open by Apple and Google. While these new smartphones are capable business devices, knowing that they will be superseded in mere months by next-generation QNX BlackBerrys could dampen interest in them.

Muted interest in its smartphones won't help RIM's long-term financial performance, which has already been downgraded twice this year.

While I think calling for the company to be sold or split is not warranted, change at the top probably is. The company needs to do something with Balsillie and Lazaridis and transform the leadership in such a way that these two men won't have such power. The chance of Balsillie and Lazaridis willingly giving up their current co-CEO status is slim to none, however.