text stringlengths 234 589k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 62 values | url stringlengths 16 734 | date stringlengths 20 20 ⌀ | file_path stringlengths 109 155 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.65 1 | token_count int64 57 124k | score float64 2.52 4.91 | int_score int64 3 5 |
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The institute at http://www.tigr.org/ runs a set of gene-sequencing applications that analyze large amounts of data from a DNA sample. Under a procedure pioneered by the institute, the sample is fractured into many small parts as a way of being able to identify bite-sized chunks.
"The bits need to be put back together to identify the entire gene. That's the essence of the computational problem," says Vadim Sapiro, IT director at the Rockville, Md., institute. On the institute's aging servers, whose origins go back to the Digital Equipment Corp.'s Alpha architecture, "it would sometimes take months to babysit one assembly to completion."
For example, by finding the parts that contain some precise nucleotide overlap, they can slowly build out the sequence of proteins in the gene until they've mapped its complete, unique structure. It's like matching up the sequence 2, 3, 4, 5 with the sequence 3, 4, 5, 6. By finding the match, you've extended by the map by one nucleotide.
It might sound easy, but the number of possibilities is mind boggling, Sapiro says. Three billion nucleotides need to be mapped to come up with the composite genome of 20,000-plus human genes. The same sequences are easily found on different parts of a single gene, so additional software needs to sort through the matches, looking for errors | <urn:uuid:0604fcd7-e478-4508-ac58-a6cdc60cb68e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networkcomputing.com/storage/genome-institute-turns-suns-opteron-servers-get-gene-sequencing-done/876810790 | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00315-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944563 | 291 | 3.640625 | 4 |
The DARPA program, instigated in January this year, is called ‘active authentication.’ The current approach, it says, “requires humans to do something that is inherently difficult: create, remember, and manage long, complex passwords.” It is because of this difficulty that user passwords tend to be too weak and poorly managed – with, for example, users employing the same password on multiple accounts.
But even where passwords are strong and well-managed, they can be by-passed. Since they are used only once to provide the initial access, if the user’s session can then be hijacked, no further authentication is required. Later this month, for example, researchers Juliano Rizzo and Thai Duong will unveil a new attack (dubbed CRIME) that can hijack browser sessions after the users’ authentication.
DARPA’s active authentication seeks to solve these problems by making user authentication simple (to the user, that is) and continuous. The basic premise is the use of the behavioral biometric known as the user’s cognitive fingerprint. “Just as when you touch something with your finger you leave behind a fingerprint, when you interact with technology you do so in a pattern based on how your mind processes information, leaving behind a ‘cognitive fingerprint’.”
The user’s cognitive fingerprint, once captured, can then be used on a continuous basis to ensure that the current user is the authorized user; and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has taken up the challenge. It has started a nine-month project, supported by DARPA, to research the use of covert gaming to capture that cognitive fingerprint. “It will deploy covert games, mimicking ordinary human computer interactions,” explained SwRI’s Jenifer Wheeler. “Authenticated users are likely to unknowingly develop strategies for playing the games, even if the games are imperceptible. While legitimate users will unconsciously learn how to overcome the anomalies, impostors who have never seen the anomalies will respond differently, triggering an alert within the authentication system,” she said.
SwRI, with its strengths in behavioral modeling, educational software development and learning science, has teamed with Sentier Strategic Resources LLC, with its strengths in cognitive psychology and human-subjects testing. The project will have four major phases: developing a behavioral persona; developing the game-like interactions that can authenticate users with minimal disruption; developing prototype user and assessment models; and finally testing the system on volunteers. | <urn:uuid:512c201f-b9cd-4111-9d5e-c7fd6078a4f2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/active-authentication-seeks-to-augment-passwords/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00251-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926978 | 523 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Pharmaceutical companies routinely work with controlled substances, and must have adequate controls in place, to meet the legislative requirements of the countries in which they operate. Legislation is becoming increasingly complex as legislators attempt to keep up with a rapidly changing environment. Legislation exists at local, national and international levels to restrict the production, import/export, supply, use and possession of certain substances. This legislation has to be interpreted and transformed from legal wording into scientific nomenclature to be useful to R&D scientists, i.e. words into chemical structures.
The increasing externalization of R&D in the Pharmaceutical industry means that compounds are produced, stored and transported across a multiplicity of geographies. It is imperative that Pharmaceutical companies have a clear, detailed and accurate understanding of the regulations in all regions in which they operate. Pharmaceutical companies need to hold multiple licenses to conduct research across the field of controlled substances. But it doesn’t stop at research; controlled substances can be found in all areas of a pharmaceutical company’s operations, including final products.
Currently no single source of global controlled substance knowledge has been identified; just the legislation itself or specific country / legislation-type databases/websites.
The CSCS will support a range of business processes including:-
Management of Internal Compound Collections - regular checks are required to ensure controlled substances are correctly flagged and managed;
Compound Shipping- to ensure that controlled substances are not inadvertently shipped within or between countries;
Compound Synthesis – to ensure that controlled substances are not inadvertently synthesized;
Compound Purchase – to ensure that controlled substances are not inadvertently purchased; | <urn:uuid:47eb816b-0019-4e5c-9b7f-45bff08ccc8e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.hcltech.com/blogs/controlled-substance-compliance-services-cscs | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279923.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00463-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938545 | 331 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Some of you might just be starting out as a database administrator and need to know what a basic Transact-SQL query is for Microsoft SQL Server 2012, others might already be creating database objects. Either way, we put together a list of a few terms regarding Microsoft SQL Server that any database administrator should know.
- Transact-SQL (T-SQL): Central to SQL Server, T-SQL is a set of programming extensions from Sybase and Microsoft allowing all applications to communicate with SQL Server (regardless of the user interface of the application) by sending T-SQL statements to the server.
- Query: SQL code is written as a query statement and then performed against a database. All SQL queries perform data operations, including selecting, inserting/updating, or creating data objects. Clauses begin each query statement, such as SELECT, UPDATE, CREATE, or DELETE.
- SQL Azure: Service of Microsoft extending SQL server capabilities to the cloud allowing users to make relational queries against stored data.
- Relational Database: A collection of two-dimensional tables storing certain types of data that is organized to minimize duplication and data anomalies. The stored data is altered using the programming language SQL.
- High Availability (HA): Masking the effects of a hardware or software failure, downtime for users is minimized by allowing continued access to applications.
- Aggregate Functions:: Determines various statistics on sets of values by calculating a set of values and returning a single value.
- Recovery Model: Database property that defines the level of data recovery needed, including whether the transaction log requires backing up and what kinds of restore operations are available.
- Dynamic Management Views (DMVs): Look into the SQL Server and monitor its health and performance of the server, diagnose any problems, and adjust performance as needed.
- Extensible Markup Language (XML): Markup language that sets rules for encoding documents so that they can be read by both human and machine.
- Common Language Runtime (CLR): Provides an execution environment for .NET framework code, runs the code, and allows the programming languages to use the same representation.
Visit the SQL library at Microsoft for a complete list of SQL terminology.
Microsoft SQL Server Training | <urn:uuid:ee6926c9-ec67-4254-aeae-da333a30eed7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blog.globalknowledge.com/2012/09/24/10-sql-terms-you-should-know/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280128.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00152-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.857829 | 455 | 3.328125 | 3 |
1.6 What is the role of the United States government in cryptography?
The U.S. government plays many roles in cryptography, ranging from use to export control to standardization efforts to the development of new cryptosystems. Recently the government has taken an even bigger interest in cryptography due to its ever-increasing use outside of the military.
One obvious reason the U.S. government is interested in cryptography stems from the crucial role of secure communication during wartime. Because the enemy may have access to the communication medium, messages must be encrypted. With certain cryptosystems, the receiver can determine whether or not the message was tampered with during transmission, and whether the message really came from who claims to have sent it.
In the past, the government has not only used cryptography itself, but has cracked other country's codes as well. A notable example of this occurred in 1940 when a group of Navy cryptanalysts, led by William F. Friedman, succeeded in breaking the Japanese diplomatic cipher known as Purple.
In 1952, the U.S. government established The National Security Agency (NSA; see Question 6.2.2), whose job is to handle military and government data security as well as gather information about other countries' communications. Also established was The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST; see Question 6.2.1), which plays a major role in developing cryptography standards.
During the 1970's, IBM and the U.S. Department of Commerce - more precisely NIST (then known as NBS) - developed along with NSA the Data Encryption Standard (DES; see Section 3.2). This algorithm has been a standard since 1977, with reviews leading to renewals every few years. The general consensus is that DES is no longer strong enough for today's encryption needs. Therefore, NIST is currently working on a new standard, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES; see Section 3.3), to replace DES. In the intermediate stage, triple-DES (see Question 3.2.6) is the encryption standard. It is expected that AES will remain a standard well into the 21st century.
Currently there are no restrictions on the use or strength of domestic encryption (encryption where the sender and recipient are in the U.S.). However, the government regulates the export of cryptography from the U.S. by setting restrictions (see Section 6.4) on how strong such encryption may be. Cryptographic exports are controlled under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), and their treatment varies according to several factors including destinations, customers, and the strength and usage of the cryptography involved. In January 2000, the restrictions were significantly relaxed; today, any cryptographic product can be exported to non-governmental end-users outside embargoed destinations (states supporting terrorism) without a license.
Top of the page
- 1.1 What is RSA Laboratories' Frequently Asked Questions About Today's Cryptography?
- 1.2 What is cryptography?
- 1.3 What are some of the more popular techniques in cryptography?
- 1.4 How is cryptography applied?
- 1.5 What are cryptography standards?
- 1.6 What is the role of the United States government in cryptography?
- 1.7 Why is cryptography important? | <urn:uuid:3461f8bf-f133-4d78-9b14-301022e023ca> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.emc.com/emc-plus/rsa-labs/standards-initiatives/role-of-the-united-states-government.htm | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280485.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00482-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958086 | 672 | 3.5625 | 4 |
The recent high profile hacking incidents at Target, Sony and Anthem Health demonstrate clearly the need for timely and effective response to information security incidents. The negative consequences of such incidents were the loss of significant finances and productivity and, ultimately, a severe blow reputation to the organization. For an individual company this could lead to loss of sales and jobs. On a national level, however, a hacking incident aimed at a nation’s critical infrastructure could disable operations affecting their national transportation systems, medical facilities, defense industries, police, universities, telecommunications, government operations and utilities. This could result in a major loss of life and severe disruptions to the national economy and critical services.
Developed countries have, for the most part, already developed computer incident response capabilities and oftentimes at multiple layers of the government. For example, most European Union nations have their own national incident response teams whereas the EU, as a whole, has a computer emergency response team, the EU CERT, which coordinates with the EU member states in helping to respond effectively to information security incidents. Unfortunately, developing countries often lack this type of computer incident response capability and, if they exist at all, are usually concentrated only within their military. For example, according to the International Telecommunication Union’s IMPACT survey, less than ¼ of African countries have a national CERT. To better protect their nation’s critical infrastructure, developing nations need to develop an effective means of quickly detecting and effectively responding to attacks.
What is needed for a developing nation to develop an incident response team? To best answer to this question I like to employ a technique I refer to as “working backwards.” At first glance this term may seem to have a pejorative connotation. After all, developing nations generally want to improve themselves by going forward or becoming more progressive which seems to run counter to going backwards on anything. Rather, in this instance, I mean a nation must begin working backwards as a mental exercise rather than a physical one. That is, a developing nation must envision a worst case scenario that could occur through a deliberate information security attack by another nation, cyber-criminals or computer hacktivists. Then, working backwards, the country can put in place those safeguards would be necessary in order to have rapidly, detected, reacted, contained, corrected and learned from the event.
First, look at the impact of a severe disruption of a critical service through a cyber-attack. Given the current level of controls for that infrastructure what would be the probability of an attack being successful? If the answer to both questions is high impact and high probability, then the country must ensure that sufficient mitigating controls are put in place. These mitigating controls must be part of a strategic effort of risk assessment and mitigation for all of a countries critical infrastructure.
Second, if those controls were to fail, who would be notified and how quickly? Does the critical service have a means of quickly detecting and responding to the breach? Is there an incident response team that could quickly evaluate the problem and make a decision to contain the incident from spreading further? Have the operational procedures been defined and have they been exercised regularly? Does the response team have the proper expertise—not just in the technical skills of malware analysis, forensics, application and network security but also the soft skills of being able to interface with the appropriate legal authorities and the messaging that is presented to the public. The latter is especially important because if a nation’s critical infrastructure has been affected the public will need to be notified in a way that is informative without provoking panic.
Third, after successful detection, reaction and containment, the national incident response team must learn from the incident by determining what caused it and what lessons can be drawn from the incident to prevent its happening again. These could be additional technical controls, changed business processes or the even the implementation of new policies or laws.
In sum, working backwards is an excellent method of envisioning the worst and then systematically examining the root causes of the potential worst case incident in order to put in place the necessary controls, systems and procedures that would allow the successful prevention, detection, reaction, containment and resolution of the incident. These measures by themselves may not prevent a major hacking incident but they certainly make them much less likely. Without them, no major hacking incident can be responded to effectively.
This article is published as part of the IDG Contributor Network. Want to Join? | <urn:uuid:7877034d-c8d9-40fa-818b-96fe88187f3b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.csoonline.com/article/2899920/cyber-attacks-espionage/working-backwards.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280239.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00418-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957458 | 894 | 2.875 | 3 |
Blockchain in Healthcare Sector
Blockchain technology has been disrupting the finance industry for a couple of years. So, its high time now to utilize this trendy technology in healthcare sector to bring out increased efficiency.
Blockchain Technology – Overview:
Blockchain is the name given to a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing set of data records. As a distributed database, it has no master computer to hold the entire chain. Instead, the active nodes have a copy of the chain. The database continues to grow — data records are only added to the chain.
As pointed out by the Chief Scientist of PokitDok Bryan Smith, “A blockchain, at its essence, is a distributed database containing records whose contents, authenticity, and security are guaranteed. It drives efficiency, protects rights through immutable records, and establishes a system of accountability”. He further added “engaged participants could opt in to share information that they want to share. That data could be accessible to authorized parties through a variety of front ends – from a mobile device to a sensitive compartmented information facility. There’s no other database that exists with that kind of functionality.” tweet
Broadly, there are two types of elements:
- Transactions: Actions taken by the participants in the system
- Blocks: Transaction and time-stamp records for correct sequencing
Advantages of Blockchain:
- Public: All participants can view the stored blocks and transactions that are asymmetrically encrypted.
- Decentralized: No single authority for transaction approval exists.
- Secure: It can only be extended. Even modification of previous records is not permitted.
Workflow of Blockchain:
- To add a transaction in the distributed database, validation (algorithm based) is required from all participants. The validation criteria are dependent on system and transaction approval.
- Approved transactions are bundled in a block, which is sent to all participating nodes for validation. A hash is attached to each blog for fingerprinting.
Broadly, there are two types:
- Public: Read and write permissions for one and all, eg. Bitcoin
- Private: Used for common legal entities
Blockchain in Healthcare:
Healthcare industry leverages Blockchain Technology to secure health information across entities exploiting interoperability. Besides, wide use of this technology is noted in vaccine registries, electronic medical record and patient transaction management.
- Healthcare Mobile Communications and Alerts: Development of apps enriched with features like data collection from other apps, data storage in blocks and data integration to other systems through REST API and HTML forms.
- Population Health Management: Replacement of Health information Exchanges (HIE) and All Payer Claim Databases (APCD) in medical data security
- PGHD: Enablement of Medical Data Security streamlines the path of Patient Generated Health Data (PGHD) adoption.
Future of Blockchain:
Blockchain Technology has a wide scope in healthcare IT and many other domains and this will continue to grow over time. Critics, meanwhile, counter that it takes “enormous processing power and specialized equipment that far exceeds the benefits. Although most would acknowledge blockchain’s potential is still evolving and maturing, especially with respect to its applicability to the healthcare.”
According to notice posted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the ONC challenge, “Proponents of blockchain suggest that it could be used to address concerns regarding the privacy, security and the scalability of health records.” tweet | <urn:uuid:324199c1-7b86-4c4a-9653-ce2954508b53> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.altencalsoftlabs.com/blogs/2016/08/04/blockchain-healthcare-sector/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00234-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919237 | 720 | 2.71875 | 3 |
The correct answer: "affect" is usually a verb, so use that word when you mean to do something. "Affect" can also be a noun, if you are referring to someone's "emotional affect," or the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion, separate and distinct from bodily changes. "Effect" is usually a noun, so use it when you are talking about something. However, if you want to talk about bringing something about, "effect" can be a verb, as in, effecting an improvement in your vocabulary (thanks to Lucent's Mark Rivecco for reminding me of that usage).
The best example of how to use the words came from my good friend Mike Wolcott at Scientific-Atlanta. I particularly liked his salutation, at least until I recalled that he is given to hyperbole.
"O wise and all-knowing one, Grand Poobah of knowledge and light, dispenser of great things, Greetings! As Brunswick should know, you put 'possum roadkill in the stew for effect, then step back to see how it affects the customers."
Mike is one of those guys who has a way with words. I have never been able to top him, and I won't try this time. But it will be a long time before I eat at his house.Technical precision
Let's try a much misused technical term this month. Breeds there a man in the industry who knows the difference between a bit-per-second and a baud? If I have a cable modem, or even one of those old-fashioned things that are hooked to the phone line, I can get so many bits from my end to your end every second. That number of bits is the bit rate, or the speed at which the modem operates. Low-speed modems tend to use modulation techniques that transmit only one bit at a time. These modulation formats, which are also used extensively in cable work, are (usually) frequency shift keying (FSK) and biphase shift keying (BPSK). In FSK, you transmit 1s and 0s by shifting an oscillator between two frequencies. In BPSK, you change the phase of a carrier 180 degrees to indicate the two states.
The problem is that, if you transmit just one bit at a time, you don't make very good use of the spectrum. That is, your bandwidth efficiency (expressed as the number of bits-per-second for each hertz of bandwidth you use — bits-per-hertz) is not very good. To remedy this, you have to take baby steps back toward the analog domain, by transmitting more than one bit at a time. The more bits you transmit at a time, the more discrete states you have in your transmitted signal, and the more you start looking similar to an analog signal, which has an infinite number of states infinitely close together. It's not analog, and the spectrum doesn't look like analog, but with more states, you start approaching the continuous nature of analog.
When you are transmitting more than one state at a time, we can't talk just about the bits you are transmitting: we also need to talk about the collection of bits (two or more) you transmit at one time. We call this collection of bits a symbol. If you are using a modulation format such as QPSK, which transmits two bits at a time, the number of symbols transmitted per second is one-half the number of bits transmitted per second. Engineers, being the creative types we are, invented a new term for the number of symbols transmitted per second. Instead of the bit rate (number of bits transmitted per second), the number of symbols transmitted per second is called the baud rate. Where did the term "baud" come from? I haven't the foggiest notion, but I'm sure someone out there will tell me, and when he or she does, I'll tell you.
Thus, if we are transmitting QPSK, which puts two bits in a symbol, we have a baud rate of one-half the bit rate. A 19.2 kbps system is a 9.6 kbaud system if it uses QPSK. A 9.6 kbps system is also a 9.6 kbaud system if it uses BPSK, where only one bit is transmitted at a time.
In both cases, the same baud rate is used, but the number of bits transmitted per second varies by a factor of two. The bandwidth required is essentially the same, being a function of the baud rate, not the bit rate. In 64 QAM transmission, six bits are transmitted at a time, so a bit rate of, say, 30 Mbps works out to 30/6=5 Mbaud. If we are transmitting 256 QAM, we transmit eight bits in a symbol, so 5 Mbaud would be a bit rate of 40 Mbps. (Notice that you don't use a plural of baud, with an "s" at the end.)You're right; they're wrong
Now that you know the difference between bits-per-second and baud, you are probably in the top one percent of telecommunications engineers, at least so far as that one fact goes. Now, how do you convince your co-workers that you are right, and they are wrong? The only way I know to do it is to cite an authority, so try mine: the IEEE Dictionary of Electrical and Electronic Terms.
Contact Jim Farmer email@example.com | <urn:uuid:ee444561-f4bb-45f5-bf10-fd3ae47f0030> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.cedmagazine.com/article/1997/09/effects-bit-baud-demystified | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279468.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00354-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953932 | 1,149 | 2.8125 | 3 |
A partnership between Fujitsu and Tohoku University has paid off in the form of a precise tsunami forecasting system that will help make Japan more resilient to disasters, such as the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, and the resulting tsunami that devastated the island nation.
A collaboration between Fujitsu Limited and Tohoku University that began in 2012 has resulted in a 3D tsunami simulator that can reproduce details such as the push of water into urban areas as well as potential river surges that could be caused by a tsunami.
The joint research project combines a 2D tsunami-propagation simulation technology developed by Professor Fumihiko Imamura, director of the International Research Institute of Disaster Science in Tohoku University, with Fujitsu’s 3D fluid simulation technology. As a result, researchers connected to the project can accurately replicate the complex changes a tsunami goes through as it interacts with coastal topography or buildings in urban areas.
The plan is to apply the simulator toward composite disaster forecasting of a tsunami caused by a major earthquake. To enable this strategy, the system will be brought into the Strategic Programs for Innovative Research (HPCI), which touts the powerful K supercomputer as its primary computing resource. HPCI is facilitated by MEXT, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. One of the themes of the program is improved tsunami forecasting techniques that would boost the country’s emergency preparedness.
Because of the tragic consequences of the 2011 disaster, Japan understands the great need to employ large-scale simulation technology to optimize building resiliency and to facilitate improved damage forecasting.
The 2D tsunami-propagation simulation technology developed by Tohoku University’s Professor Imamura is excellent for calculating the arrival time and wave height of a tsunami along coastal areas. But the program lacks the ability to simulate the water’s ingress into urban areas and rivers. Adding 3D data is challenging, but necessary to account for structures like buildings and levees which affect the tsunami’s behavior.
Fujitsu’s 3D fluid simulation technology uses a smoothed-particle hydrodynamic technique that treates fluid as a grid of particles. Thus it can model 3D behavior, like breaking waves and overflow. But going from 2D to 3D pushes computational demand significantly, espeically when the goal is to model a wide area extending from the tsunami source area to a coastal region.
Fujitsu and Tohoku University developed a new program that incorporated the data on wave height and flow velocity from the 2D tsunami-propagation simulation technology into the 3D fluid simulation technology. The result was a new 3D tsunami simulator that uses computational resources efficiently.
As the news release explains:
The action of the tsunami over the wide area extending from the hypocenter source to the coastal areas was replicated using the 2D simulation technology (figure 1 (a)), for which the computing loads are comparatively light, and the 3D fluid simulation technology was used just on the coastal regions and the urban areas, where such phenomena as wave breaks and overflow occur, enabling the 3D movements of the tsunami to be replicated within a period of time that is reasonable for practical use.
The newly devised 3D fluid simulation technology simulates the action of the tsunami in the coastal areas, which could not be done with either the 2D simulation technology or the 3D fluid simulation technology alone. With the increased simulation capability, Japanese officials hope to be able to predict the degree of damage caused by the impact force of the tsunami as it hits the shoreline.
A second benefit of having relatively light computing loads is that the time required for replication is greatly reduced, allowing mitigation efforts to more quickly assess an incoming threat.
To get a sense of the time-savings, Fujitsu explains that using only the 3D fluid simulation technology on a 10,000-node supercomputer system, it would take over 200 years to perform this kind of workload. The 3D tsunami simulator, on the other hand, is able to replicate a 0.5m radius in a tsunami traveling over approximately 10 square kilometers, which is equivalent to a typical harbor or bay, in about 160 hours on an equivalent computer.
The new simulator will be used in tandem with a variety of tsunami damage forecasting methods to create a disaster mitigation plan for western Japan. To assist the effort, Fujitsu said the company is working “to develop solutions that will support natural disaster reduction measures and be provided to the national and local governments.” | <urn:uuid:6a4275d9-d1cd-4d24-9569-c01af43f213e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.hpcwire.com/2014/04/17/3d-tsunami-simulator-boosts-japans-emergency-preparedness/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00262-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928092 | 932 | 3.125 | 3 |
CenturyLink helps teachers reach students through STEM
The importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education for the next generation is becoming an increasingly urgent topic. Consider these facts from the National Math + Science Initiative:
- U.S. students recently finished 27th in math and 20th in science in the ranking of 34 countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
- STEM jobs are expected to grow 70% faster than overall employment during the next several years.
- There are approximately 2.5 entry-level job postings for each new bachelor's degree recipient in a STEM field, compared with 1.1 job postings for each new four-year graduate in a non-STEM field.
There is a lot we can do to inspire interest in STEM learning, beginning as early as pre-kindergarten. Coming up with strategies to improve performance and student engagement in STEM at a young age is something we continue to hear about from teachers looking to integrate technology in their classrooms.
That’s why I am excited about the Teachers and Technology grant program. These grants, funded by the CenturyLink Clarke M. Williams Foundation, are designed to help teachers reach students in innovative ways and grow their understanding of STEM concepts by putting technology into their classrooms. Every year, CenturyLink awards approximately $1.4 million to place technology in the hands of preK-12 students, exposing them to the tools and skills they will need in STEM fields.
Here’s a snapshot of our 2015-2016 Teachers and Technology grant program:
- We invited full-time classroom teachers in preK-12 public, private and charter schools in our residential service areas to submit grant proposals.
- Teachers requested technology to support lessons that introduce students to robotics and computer programming, improve performance in math and science and much, much more.
- From iPads, Chromebooks and whiteboards to complex calculators, science probes and video production/editing equipment, we received almost 1,200 requests from teachers for technology and equipment.
- This year, CenturyLink is awarding 314 grants of up to $5,000 to purchase technology and equipment for STEM-related lessons in preK-12 classrooms.
- Over the next month, our employees are planning surprise check presentations for the grant winners in their respective communities.
At CenturyLink, we are committed to strengthening the communities we serve. I am proud of the work the CenturyLink Clarke M. Williams Foundation is doing to help support our students and drive interest in STEM education. I look forward to hearing from this year’s Teachers and Technology grant winners, as well as past recipients, about how these grants are making a difference in their classrooms. | <urn:uuid:fcf0b161-ae11-4126-8613-6ab92bba722e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://news.centurylink.com/blogs/corporate/centurylink-helps-teachers-reach-students-through-stem | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00198-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947675 | 550 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Internaut | XML: The good, the bad and the bloated
- By Shawn McCarthy
- Aug 11, 2008
Depending on whom you talk to, Extensible Markup Language is either the
centralized solution for managing cross-platform and cross-agency data sharing, or it's a bloated monster that's slowly taking over data storage and forcing too much data through networks during queries.
Which view is accurate?
In general, I believe XML's flexibility and cross-platform capabilities far outshine any negatives. But if XML files are not properly planned and managed, there is a good possibility that you could experience XML bloat.
To understand how XML files can become a system-management headache, it's important to understand a little about how XML evolved.
The idea of markup languages originated in the publishing industry. Editors used to scribble notes and symbols on sheets of text. Those markups were shorthand messages to typesetters indicating that some text should be set as headlines, others as body text and certain words in bold, italic, etc.
As the world migrated to electronic documents, a need arose to make those markups machine-readable. In the mid-1970s, the Standard Generalized Markup Language evolved as a way to embed markup messages into lines of text. Soon the streamlined Hypertext Markup Language emerged as the Web evolved. Thanks to basic HTML, many people are now familiar with the beginning <> and ending tags that format special data elements on a Web page. Plus, such files remain readable by people.
So far, so good. But what's good and/or bad about XML? It grew out of that same concept but with two major differences.
1) An XML file is not meant to carry any display information or page formatting. Instead, it separates data content from the presentation layer of a Web page or any other application that needs to import the file. An XML file contains metadata about itself, categorizes various components of the file, and labels various data elements within the file using opening and closing tags -- Like this
2) XML really does mean extensible
. Although HTML is limited to a couple dozen sets of tags, XML can be extended as needed, as long as those who need to exchange data agree on the schema. An XML schema is a set of data tags and rules about how those tags should be used to identify types of data within a document or data collection. Once a schema is finalized, it can be used to identify and share information in a specific way.
Government data managers have developed several government-specific XML schemas to enable data sharing among multiple systems. Total system compatibility might not be necessary if two systems are at least able to import and export XML files and provide a directory that indicates where the files are kept and what data they contain.
But XML bloat occurs when files are poorly constructed or not equipped for the jobs they must perform. There is a strong temptation to cram too much information into files, which makes them larger than they need to be. When an agency needs only part of the data, if often has to accept the whole file, including long blocks of text. And when an agency needs to support more than one XML schema, it can end up with redundant data that must be exported in more than one set of files.
Clearly, XML bloat is an issue that cannot be ignored. But the advantages of XML are such that it's not wise to throw the baby out with the bathwater and dump XML all together.
Luckily, technologies are evolving that can help with XML bloat.
First is the evolution of platform-based XML solutions that offer a single system to author, tag, store and manage XML files. They also allow developers to set the policies for dynamic XML integration into other documents or applications. Mark Logic is one of the best-known purveyors of such solutions, though other companies, such as TigerLogic Corp., are making headway.
Second is the idea of XML file-size reduction. The World Wide Web Consortium is developing specifications to support binary encoding of XML within Simple Object Access Protocol messages. The SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism and the XML-binary Optimized Packaging standards hold significant promise.
Of course, binary XML would eliminate a key advantage of text-based XML because it would no longer be human-readable. Each government agency would need to decide if that type of solution is right for its needs.
Taken together, those solutions have the potential to tame XML bloat and keep that powerful solution the likely choice for cross-platform development for the next several years.
Shawn McCarthy, a former writer for GCN, is senior analyst and program manager for government IT opportunities at IDC. | <urn:uuid:8ea744fc-a81e-4210-b5e1-a3b11e584c6a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://gcn.com/articles/2008/08/11/internaut--xml-the-good-the-bad-and-the-bloated.aspx | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00224-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924642 | 965 | 2.625 | 3 |
Zeng P.,Chinese Academy of Sciences |
Ma L.,Chinese Academy of Sciences |
Gao Z.,Chinese Academy of Sciences |
Wang J.,Chinese Academy of Sciences |
And 16 more authors.
Transfusion | Year: 2015
Background: Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV), an emerging tick-borne pathogen that can cause fatal severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, was first identified in China in 2009. Limited evidence suggests that SFTSV can be transmitted between humans via blood contact, raising concerns over transfusion safety. A study of donor samples from three Chinese blood centers was conducted to investigate the seroprevalence and rate of SFTSV viremia among Chinese blood donors. Study Design and Methods: From April 16 to October 31, 2012, a total of 17,208 plasma samples were collected from donors at Xinyang (located in an SFTSV-endemic area), Mianyang, and Luoyang Blood Centers. Assessment of anti-SFTSV total antibody was performed on all samples using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Repeat-reactive samples were tested for SFTSV RNA using reverse transcription (RT)-real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay with Taqman probes. In addition, 9960 of the Xinyang samples were tested in pools of 4 by the same PCR method and each of the samples in a reactive pool was tested individually. Results: Donor seroreactivity rates were as follows: Xinyang, 0.54% (80/14,752); Mianyang, 0.27% (3/1130); and Luoyang, 0.28% (3/1326). All seroreactive samples were negative on RT-PCR single-sample testing. Two RT-PCR-reactive donor samples were identified, both with estimated viral load of less than 20 plaque-forming units/mL. The RNA prevalence rate for SFTSV among donors in Xinyang was 0.02%. Conclusion: This was the first multiregion study of SFTSV sero- and viral prevalence among Chinese blood donors. Viral prevalence was low and no seroreactive sample was viremic, suggesting a limited impact of SFTSV on blood safety in China. © 2014 AABB. Source
Rodriguez-Brito B.,San Diego State University |
Li L.,San Diego State University |
Li L.,Blood System Research Institute |
Wegley L.,San Diego State University |
And 32 more authors.
ISME Journal | Year: 2010
The species composition and metabolic potential of microbial and viral communities are predictable and stable for most ecosystems. This apparent stability contradicts theoretical models as well as the viral-microbial dynamics observed in simple ecosystems, both of which show Kill-the-Winner behavior causing cycling of the dominant taxa. Microbial and viral metagenomes were obtained from four human-controlled aquatic environments at various time points separated by one day to > 1 year. These environments were maintained within narrow geochemical bounds and had characteristic species composition and metabolic potentials at all time points. However, underlying this stability were rapid changes at the fine-grained level of viral genotypes and microbial strains. These results suggest a model wherein functionally redundant microbial and viral taxa are cycling at the level of viral genotypes and virus-sensitive microbial strains. Microbial taxa, viral taxa, and metabolic function persist over time in stable ecosystems and both communities fluctuate in a Kill-the-Winner manner at the level of viral genotypes and microbial strains. © 2010 International Society for Microbial Ecology All rights reserved. Source
Loureiro P.,University of Pernambuco |
Proietti A.B.C.,Fundacao Hemominas |
Capuani L.,University of Sao Paulo |
Goncalez T.T.,Blood System Research Institute |
And 10 more authors.
Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia | Year: 2014
The Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study (REDS) program was established in the United States in 1989 with the purpose of increasing blood transfusion safety in the context of the HIV/AIDS and human T-lymphotropic virus epidemics. REDS and its successor, REDS-II were at first conducted in the US, then expanded in 2006 to include international partnerships with Brazil and China. In 2011, a third wave of REDS renamed the Recipient Epidemiology and Donor Evaluation Study-III (REDS-III) was launched. This seven-year research program focuses on both blood banking and transfusion medicine research in the United States of America, Brazil, China, and South Africa. The main goal of the international programs is to reduce and prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS and other known and emerging infectious agents through transfusion, and to address research questions aimed at understanding global issues related to the availability of safe blood. This article describes the contribution of REDS-II to transfusion safety in Brazil. Articles published from 2010 to 2013 are summarized, including database analyses to characterize blood donors, deferral rates, and prevalence, incidence and residual risk of the main blood-borne infections. Specific studies were developed to understand donor motivation, the impact of the deferral questions, risk factors and molecular surveillance among HIV-positive donors, and the natural history of Chagas disease. The purpose of this review is to disseminate the acquired knowledge and briefly summarize the findings of the REDS-II studies conducted in Brazil as well as to introduce the scope of the REDS-III program that is now in progress and will continue through 2018. © 2014 Associação Brasileira de Hematologia, Hemoterapia e Terapia Celular. All rights reserved. Source
Lahtinen A.,University of Helsinki |
Kivela P.,University of Helsinki |
Hedman L.,University of Helsinki |
Kumar A.,University of Helsinki |
And 10 more authors.
Emerging Infectious Diseases | Year: 2011
To determine the prevalence of parvovirus 4 infection and its clinical and sociodemographic correlations in Finland, we used virus-like particle-based serodiagnostic procedures (immunoglobulin [Ig] G, IgM, and IgG avidity) and PCR. We found 2 persons with parvovirus 4 primary infection who had mild or asymptomatic clinical features among hepatitis C virus-infected injection drug users. Source
Muthivhi T.N.,CEO Strategy |
Olmsted M.G.,Research Triangle Institute |
Park H.,Research Triangle Institute |
Sha M.,Research Triangle Institute |
And 7 more authors.
Transfusion Medicine | Year: 2015
Background and Objectives: South Africa has a markedly skewed representation where the majority of blood (62%) is presently collected from an ethnically White minority. This study seeks to identify culturally specific factors affecting motivation of donors in South Africa. Materials and Methods: We performed a qualitative study to evaluate motivators and deterrents to blood donation among Black South Africans. A total of 13 focus groups, comprising a total of 97 Black South Africans, stratified by age and geographic location were conducted. Transcripts of the interviews were analysed using a coding framework by Bednall & Bove. Results: Participants made 463 unique comments about motivators focusing primarily on promotional communications (28%), incentives (20%) and prosocial motivation (16%). Participants made 376 comments about deterrents which focused primarily on fear (41%), negative attitudes (14%) and lack of knowledge (10%). Conclusion: Although prosocial motivation (altruism) was the most frequently mentioned individual motivator, promotional communication elicited more overall comments by participants. As reported by many authors, fear and lack of awareness were strong deterrents, but scepticism engendered by perceived racial discrimination in blood collection were unique to the South African environment. © 2015 British Blood Transfusion Society. Source | <urn:uuid:9f75d331-447c-4f3f-8aaf-c6c3f77a76d3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.linknovate.com/affiliation/blood-research-institute-59054/all/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279915.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00042-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920395 | 1,672 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Surprising Statistics About Big Data
Baseline has reported extensively about the booming interest in big data. In fact, seven out of 10 CIOs and other top executives say data analytics is a "crucial" or "very important" business driver, according to survey research from KPMG. The interest is fueled by the fact that big data continues to grow so rapidly: A statistic quoted in an IDC and EMC report says that the digital universe is doubling every two years, and will reach 40,000 exabytes (40 trillion gigabytes) by 2020. (A single exabyte of storage can contain 50,000 years' worth of DVD-quality video.) As a result, a growing number of corporations have access to far more information that they can manage, and they are constantly challenged with getting the right IT tools and tech talent in place to maximize big data's value. As with any new initiatives, however, there will always be pushback. So, if you're trying to justify the need for a big data initiative, consider using the following impressive statistics, which were obtained from research produced or compiled by Sybase, the Wikibon Project, Capgemini, CSC and other organizations. | <urn:uuid:089b40da-736e-4cb7-98f2-2095d5f9a03a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.baselinemag.com/analytics-big-data/slideshows/surprising-statistics-about-big-data.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00160-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944505 | 245 | 2.5625 | 3 |
iptables is the packet filtering technology that’s built into the 2.4 Linux kernel. It’s what allows one to do firewalling, nating, and other cool stuff to packets from within Linux. Actually, that’s not quite right —
iptables is just the command used to control netfilter, which is the real underlying technology. We’ll just call it iptables though, since that’s how the whole system is usually referred to.
Stateful Packet Inspection
First off, many have heard a number of different definitions of “stateful” firewalls and/or “SPI” protection, and I think it’s worth the time to take a stab at clearing up the ambiguity. “Stateful Inspection” actually gives its true definition away in its name; it’s nothing more and nothing less than attempting to ensure that traffic moving through the firewall is legitimate by determining whether or not it’s part of (or related to) an existing, accepted connection.
When you hear that this firewall or that firewall does “SPI”, it could really mean anything; it’s a big buzzword right now, so every company out there wants to add it to their sales pitch. Remember, the definition is broad, so there can be (and is) a big difference between so-called SPI protection on a $50 SOHO router as compared to what’s offered on something like Check Point FW-1. The former could do a couple TCP-flag checks and call it SPI, while the latter does a full battery of tests. Just keep that in mind; not all SPI is created equal.
iptables is made up of some basic structures, as seen below:
TABLES are the major pieces of the packet processing system, and they consist of FILTER, NAT, and MANGLE. FILTER is used for the standard processing of packets, and it’s the default table if none other is specified. NAT is used to rewrite the source and/or destination of packets and/or track connections. MANGLE is used to otherwise modify packets, i.e. modifying various portions of a TCP header, etc.
CHAINS are then associated with each table. Chains are lists of rules within a table, and they are associated with “hook points” on the system, i.e. places where you can intercept traffic and take action. Here are the default table/chain combinations:
- FILTER: Input, Output, Forward
- NAT: Prerouting, Postrouting, Output
- MANGLE: Prerouting, Postrouting, Input, Output, Forward
And here’s when the different chains do their thing:
- PREROUTING: Immediately after being received by an interface.
- POSTROUTING: Right before leaving an interface.
- INPUT: Right before being handed to a local process.
- OUTPUT: Right after being created by a local process.
- FORWARD: For any packets coming in one interface and leaving out another.
In other words, if you want to process packets as they leave your system, but without doing any NAT or MANGLE(ing), you’ll look to the OUTPUT chain within the FILTER table. If you want to process packets coming from the outside destined for your local machine, you’ll want to use the same FILTER table, but the INPUT chain. See the image below for a visual representation of this.
TARGETS determine what will happen to a packet within a chain if a match is found with one of its rules. A two most common ones are DROP and ACCEPT. So if you want to drop a packet on the floor, you write a rule that matches the particular traffic and then jump to the DROP target. Conversely, if you want to allow something, you jump to the ACCEPT target — simple enough.
How Packets Move
Packets move through netfilter by traversing chains. Each non-empty chain has a list of rules in it, which packets are checked against one after another. If a match is found, the packet is processed. If no match is found, the default action is taken. The default action for a chain is also called its policy. By default, chain policies are to jump to the ACCEPT target, but this can be set to DROP if so desired (I suggest it).
So, with that
inadequate short intro out of the way, let’s dig into it with some diagrams and a couple of cookbook-style examples :
Allow Outgoing (Stateful) Web Browsing
iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p TCP –dport 80 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p TCP -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED –sport 80 -j ACCEPT
In the first rule, we’re simply adding (appending) a rule to the OUTPUT chain for protocol TCP and destination port 80 to be allowed. We are also specifying that the incoming packets will need to exit the machine over interface eth0 (-o is for “output”) in order to trigger this rule; this interface designation is important when you start dealing with machines with multiple interfaces. You can also add additional checks beyond those seen here, such as what source ports are allowed, etc., but we’ll keep it simple for the examples here. The second rule allows the web traffic to come back (an important part of browsing).
Notice the “state” stuff; that’s what makes netfilter a “stateful” firewalling technology. Packets are not able to move through this rule and get back to the client unless they were created via the rule above it, i.e. they have to be part of an established or related connection, and be coming from a source port of 80 — which is usually a web server. Again, you can add more checks here, but you get the point.
Allowing Outgoing Pings
iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p icmp –icmp-type echo-request -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p icmp –icmp-type echo-reply -j ACCEPT
Here, we’re appending (-A) to the output (OUTPUT) chain, using the icmp (-p) protocol, of type echo-request (–icmp-type echo request), and jumping (-j) to the ACCEPT target (which means ACCEPT it, strangely enough). That’s for the outgoing piece. For the return packet, we append to the INPUT chain instead of OUTPUT, and allow echo-reply instead of echo-request. This, of course, means that incoming echo-requests to your box will be dropped, as will outgoing replies.
“Passing Ports” Into A NATd Network
One of the most commonly-used functions of firewall devices is “passing ports” inside to other private, hidden machines on your network running services such as web and mail. In corporate environments this is out of necessity, and at home it’s often for gaming or in a hobbyist context. Either way, here’s how you do it with Netfilter/IPTABLES:
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -p tcp -d 184.108.40.206 –dport 25 -j DNAT –to 192.168.0.2:25
If we break this down, we see that we’re actually using the nat table here rather than not specifying one. Remember, if nothing is mentioned as far as tables are concerned, you’re using the filter table by default. So in this case we’re using the nat table and appending a rule to the PREROUTING chain. If you recall from the diagram above, the PREROUTING chain takes effect right after being received by an interface from the outside.
This is where DNAT occurs. This means that destination translation happens before routing, which is good to know. So, we then see that the rule will apply to the TCP protocol for all packets destined for port 25 on the public IP. From there, we jump to the DNAT target (Destination NAT), and “jump to” (–to) our internal IP on port 25. Notice that the syntax of the internal destination is IP:PORT.
Ah, but this is only half of the work. If you have any experience with corporate-class firewalls such as Check Point or Astaro, you know there are two parts to enabling connectivity like this — the NAT portion, and the rules portion. Below is what we need to get the traffic through the firewall:
iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o eth1 -p tcp –dport 25 -d 192.168.0.2 -j ACCEPT
In other words, if you just NAT the traffic, it’s not ever going to make it through your firewall; you have to pass it through the rulebase as well. Notice that we’re accepting the packets in from the first interface, and allowing them out the second. Finally, we’re specifying that only traffic to destination port (–dport) 25 (TCP) is allowed — which matches our NAT rule.
The key here is that you need two things in order to pass traffic inside to your hidden servers — NAT and rules.
Ok, so that about does it for now. I have obviously only scratched the surface here, but hopefully I’ve covered the very basics in a way that can help someone. I intend to keep adding to this as time goes on, both for the sake of being thorough and to clarify things as needed. If, however, I have missed something major, or made some sort of error, do feel free to contact me and set me straight. Also, be sure to check out the manpage as well as the links below.
The Netfilter/Iptables Project
Linux Firewalls, Second Edition | <urn:uuid:ee4d1da1-53e8-413d-bde2-8cbb314615ac> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://danielmiessler.com/study/iptables/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280319.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00372-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916065 | 2,162 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Let's take a closer look. Data is accessed randomly across the surface of a hard drive, with applications typically grabbing data in small pieces.
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Access density comes into play when a set of applications in a server accesses a hard drive store and are limited in their performance because the drive can't service them quickly enough. Let's have an example. Say a 300 GB 15K rpm Fibre Channel (FC) drive can do 200 IOPS. Dividing the second number into the first gives us an access density of 1.5.
Imagine we have five drives that give us 1.5 TB of storage and 1,000 IOPS. We'll hook these up to a one-core server with 10 applications. Each application needs 50 GB of capacity, 500 GB in total, and 100 IOPS. Presto! We're in I/O balance.
Now we'll upset this applecart and change to a two-core server and increase memory proportionately. This allows us to run 20 applications that will need 1 TB of storage capacity and 2,000 IOPS in total, but still 100 IOPS each. Oops, the storage system can't deliver the IOPS. Now let's change the server to a quad-core with uprated memory and run 40 applications. The storage system needs to provide 2 TB of capacity, 500 GB more than it has, and 4,000 IOPS. Double oops.
How do we get around IOPS trouble?What can we do? To increase capacity, we simply change each of our five drives to 500 GB and reach 2.5 TB. But the IOPS problem remains because the IOPS rate stays the same at 200 IOPS/drive and five drives. There's no way we can increase access density. The drive spin rate stays at 15K rpm, and the number of read/write heads per drive stays at one per platter.
The only way forward, in hard disk drive terms, is to increase the number of drives. If we need 4,000 IOPS, and a single drive delivers 200 IOPS, then we need 20 drives (or four times as many). But 20 drives of 300 GB gives us 6 TB capacity, which is way too much.
Let's make the problem worse. We'll virtualise the quad-core servers and have them run 80 applications; now they'll need 4 TB of storage capacity and 8,000 IOPS. That means we now need 40 spindles. Our servers are becoming spindle-bound.
But we don't need 40 drives with 300 GB capacity each. We're not disk capacity-bound. If anything, we have too much capacity. Forty 150 GB drives would give us 6 TB, which is plenty of capacity headroom. Now eight-core processors are coming, which translates into 160 applications, 8 TB of capacity and 16,000 IOPS.
Solid-state drives as a solutionBut we've forgotten something. Many servers are dual-socket, which immediately doubles the number of cores and hence IOPS needed. A dual-socket eight-core server in our example would mean 320 applications, 16 TB of capacity and 32,000 IOPS. That needs 80 spindles. A four-socket server would mean 640 applications, 32 TB of RAM, 64,000 IOPS and 320 hard disk drives.
Let's leave aside that blade servers connected to shared storage have the same problem because the number of IOPS needed by a rack of blades increases at an even greater rate as the number of cores and sockets per blade increases. And let's not think about hard disk drive failures and having to overprovision spindles to cover against drive failures.
These numbers and their progression are frightening. One answer to the conundrum of needing more spindles and less capacity per spindle is to move to small form factor (SFF) drives, such as 2.5-inch drives. We can cram more of these into the space occupied by 3.5-inch drives and thus increase the access density of a drive enclosure.
We could also take a step back and realise that we simply need a storage medium that can deliver a greater number of IOPS. It already exists in the form of solid-state drive technology, which has IOPS rates well above 50,000.
Solid-state drives are being used to provide a very fast and relatively small cache or tier 0 to hard disk drive arrays. They take advantage of many I/Os aimed at a small subset of the data on an array. Caching it in the SSD tier works very well, which is what Compellent, EMC, Pillar Data and other vendors do. However, a changeover from 3.5-inch to 2.5-inch drives provides more spindles for tier 1 data or applications whose value doesn't justify the expense of solid-state drives.
Flash storage can also be used when large chunks of data are being accessed and you need a high rate of IOPS. Large capacity flash arrays -- those used in place of hard disk drive arrays -- such as Violin Memory's 4 TB Violin 1010, Texas Memory Systems' 5 TB RamSan-620 and WhipTail Technologies' 6 TB WhipTail can do the job. The first two use fast single-level cell (SLC) flash with 200,000 IOPS or more, whilst the multi-level cell (MLC) WhipTail offers approximately 100,000 IOPS. We're entering an era when it will become common for IOPS-bound servers to be hooked up to solid-state drive data stores.
BIO: Chris Mellor is storage editor at The Register. | <urn:uuid:70ce7cb2-d631-45c5-952b-5d5aaaa43ab9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.computerweekly.com/news/1361872/Solid-state-drives-25-inch-drives-boost-IOPS-without-wasting-capacity | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00245-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936204 | 1,188 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Definition: A weighted, directed graph with two specially marked nodes, the source s and the sink t, and a capacity function that maps edges to positive real numbers, u: E |→ R+.
See also st-digraph, maximum-flow problem, flow function, blocking flow.
Note: A graph with multiple sources or sinks may be converted into a flow network by adding a supersource, which has infinite capacity to all sources, or a supersink, which has infinite capacity from all sinks.
From Algorithms and Theory of Computation Handbook, page 7-10, Copyright © 1999 by CRC Press LLC. Appearing in the Dictionary of Computer Science, Engineering and Technology, Copyright © 2000 CRC Press LLC.
If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul Black.
Entry modified 17 December 2004.
HTML page formatted Mon Feb 2 13:10:39 2015.
Cite this as:
Algorithms and Theory of Computation Handbook, CRC Press LLC, 1999, "flow network", in Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Vreda Pieterse and Paul E. Black, eds. 17 December 2004. (accessed TODAY) Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/flownetwork.html | <urn:uuid:ef599655-c8a1-483d-8f42-e29a2d2a7601> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/dads/HTML/flownetwork.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280801.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00547-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.857708 | 275 | 3.125 | 3 |
What are characteristics of a decision support system?
by Dan Power
How do you know a computerized system is a decision support system (DSS)? This question is important because knowledge transfer is more meaningful when we classify and categorize. Identifying characteristics, distinguishable features, attributes or aspects of all DSS helps distinguish such systems from other systems. Once accurate classification occurs, we are more likely to identify patterns and generalizations. In general, information systems that provide decision relevant information and results are decision support systems. DSS are interactive computer-based systems and subsystems intended to help decision-makers. These definitions include a number of characteristics. My approach has been to use a "big tent" definition and include business intelligence systems, some workflow systems, groupware, conferencing software, management expert systems and model-based analytic systems as decision support systems. So what are the major characteristics of DSS?
Alter (1980) identified three major characteristics of DSS:
1. DSS are designed specifically to facilitate decision processes,
2. DSS should support rather than automate decision making, and
3. DSS should be able to respond quickly to the changing needs of decision makers.
Clyde Holsapple and Andrew Whinston (1996) identified four characteristics one should expect to observe in a DSS (see pages 144-145). Their list is very general and provides an even broader perspective on the DSS concept. Holsapple and Whinston specify that a DSS must have a body of knowledge, a record-keeping capability that can present knowledge on an ad hoc basis in various customized ways as well as in standardized reports, a capability for selecting a desired subset of stored knowledge for either presentation or for deriving new knowledge, and must be designed to interact directly with a decision maker in such a way that the user has a flexible choice and sequence of knowledge-management activities.
Turban and Aronson (1995) and others try to narrow the "population of systems" called DSS. Turban and Aronson define DSS as “an interactive, flexible, and adaptable CBIS specially developed for supporting the solution of a nonstructured management problem for improved decision making (p. 77)”. A few paragraphs later, they broaden the definition and define 13 characteristics and capabilities of DSS. Their first characteristic is “DSS provide support for decision makers mainly in semistructured and unstructured situations by bringing together human judgment and computerized information. Such problems cannot be solved (or cannot be solved conveniently) by other computerized systems or by standard quantitative methods or tools”. Their list is a useful starting point.
Turban and Aronson note their list is an ideal set. They state “Because there is no consensus on exactly what a DSS is, there is obviously no agreement on standard characteristics and capabilities of DSS”. This conceptual confusion and lack of consensus on a well defined DSS concept originally prompted me in 1995 to try to more systematically define and categorize DSS. It seems impossible to conduct meaningful scientific research about systems that can't be consistently identified and categorized. A more consistent definition of DSS and set of “characteristics” should also improve communications about these important computerized systems with students and DSS practioners.
The following is my list of the characteristics of a DSS.
- Facilitation. DSS facilitate and support specific decision-making activities and/or decision processes.
- Interaction. DSS are computer-based systems designed for interactive use by decision makers or staff users who control the sequence of interaction and the operations performed.
- Ancillary. DSS can support decision makers at any level in an organization. They are NOT intended to replace decision makers.
- Repeated Use. DSS are intended for repeated use. A specific DSS may be used routinely or used as needed for ad hoc decision support tasks.
- Task-oriented. DSS provide specific capabilities that support one or more tasks related to decision-making, including: intelligence and data analysis; identification and design of alternatives; choice among alternatives; and decision implementation.
- Identifiable. DSS may be independent systems that collect or replicate data from other information systems OR subsystems of a larger, more integrated information system.
- Decision Impact. DSS are intended to improve the accuracy, timeliness, quality and overall effectiveness of a specific decision or a set of related decisions.
Alter, S. Decision Support Systems: Current Practice and Continuing Challenges. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, Inc., 1980.
Holsapple, C. W. and A. B. Whinston. Decision Support Systems: A Knowledge Based Approach. Minneapolis, MN.: West Publishing, Inc., 1996.
Power, D. J., Decision Support Systems: Concepts and Resources for Managers, Westport, CT: Greenwood/Quorum Books, 2002.
Sprague, R. H. and E. D. Carlson. Building Effective Decision Support Systems Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.: 1982.
Turban, E. and J. E. Aronson Decision Support and Intelligent Systems. (5th edition) Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.: 1995
The above response is based upon Power, D., What are the characteristics of a Decision Support System? DSS News, Vol. 4, No. 7, March 30, 2003.
Last update: 2005-10-05 12:48
Author: Daniel Power
You cannot comment on this entry | <urn:uuid:7654eb44-b80c-4e26-a6ba-58c9290f655b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://dssresources.com/faq/index.php?action=artikel&id=13 | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279379.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00511-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908696 | 1,158 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Digital certificates were originally designed to help authenticate, provide non repudiation, and to sometimes ensure integrity and confidentiality for written communication. They of course became the rage for securing Internet based transactions.
Today some people take for granted that digital certificates are intrinsic to any web based transaction and that the transactions are therefore safe. But are the transactions safe? By the way I stand corrected – I just did a quick pole of 10 people who regularly do e-transactions on the Internet and one of the ten even knew the existence of digital certificates.
Here is what digital certificates are and how they work. Digital certificates are electronic documents, much like an electronic version of a passport. In fact they contain very similar boiler plate information about both the owner and the issuer of the certificate. The issuer is hopefully a certificate authority, analogous to an issuing Country of a passport, which is widely recognized and in whom everybody else has complete confidence.
The digital certificate also contains a secret known, again hopefully, only to the certificate owner and to the issuer. The secret is called a private password. The certificate authority also publishes a public key or password for every certificate holder. Both the public and private keys used only together can unlock the secrets otherwise encrypted by one of the keys.
For example, if Bob wants to send a confidential email to Sally, then Bob would encrypt the email with Bob’s private key and then again with Sally’s public key. Sally would decrypt Bob’s email with Bob’s public key and with her secret private key. Bob’s public key will only decrypt emails from Bob, and Sally’s private key will only decrypt emails encrypted with her public key. So confidentiality and fairly strong authentication of sender is provided.
Another example. If Bob wanted to send an open email to many people, but needed everybody to be sure that Bob was the sender, Bob would encrypt with his private key and anybody receiving the email would decrypt and read it with Bob’s public key. Bob must have been the sender, so authentication of sender is provided to some degree.
Online vendors use digital certificates in combination with the SSL protocol for their encryption algorithm, in order to protect the validity, integrity, and confidentiality of each transaction. Any visitor to a validly secured online e-transaction site should be able to view the associated digital certificate including details of the hashing algorithm used to protect their transaction. In this case, the validation only goes in one direction; only the transaction site is identifying itself conclusively to any visitor.
Yikes! SSL Meltdowns
We’ve probably all read about a recent SSL certificate validation problem stemming from a hashing algorithm. This is not the first problem with SSL. There was a doozey in 2009. And in 2008. And so on. Each time there is a problem, someone finds a resolution, such as changing a hashing algorithm.
Whether industry uses SSL or TLS there will undoubtedly be developing security vulnerabilities and remediation for them.
The big issue is how to take reasonable precautions to protect ones-self from SSL meltdowns. Here is a simple precautionary SSL check-list.
· Do verify the URL you are visiting is what you expected and not a similar URL with slashes and asterisks where they don’t belong.
· If in doubt phone the vendor’s or site.
· Do take the time to verify the digital certificate on a web site.
· If in doubt, research the certificate authority.
· Remember that not all portions of a web site are secured with SSL. Users can stray to an unprotected area of a site.
Have a secure week. | <urn:uuid:529ae823-a7ff-4a0a-bd42-a53cb6180450> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/4491-Are-you-Using-or-Abusing-Digital-Certificates.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284376.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00381-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940139 | 746 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Wearable technology will let the less fortunate hear, see, and speak better than ever before, and it will enable others to “do things they could not do before,” says a study published in the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education.
Solving difficulties will make wearable technology more than just a craze, the research says. We’ll have ‘super-powers,’ wearable technology insiders think.
“More than just a fad, [wearable technology] can change the way we work and give us 'super powers',” says Science Daily, writing about the study.
+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD Fitness wearables: Who's tracking who? +
The idea that wearable technology will provide powers that “normal humans” don’t have, kept coming up in responses, according to the study. Twelve of the study participants thought that. The study surveyed only 16 wearable technology professionals in total, the official Textile Institute journal says.
Two kinds of people will ultimately benefit, Mary, one of the participants, thought. The “less-able bodied and the able bodied.” The less-able bodied “use hearing aids and other technology,” she thinks, but she says that she wants to see “people who have able bodies able to do things that they could not do,” she said. She means wearable technology when she refers to ‘technology.’
This was a recurring theme from a big chunk of the employees of the wearable technology companies surveyed in the US and Netherlands. The majority weren’t just resting on the laurels of the companies they worked for—who make fitness bands and so on—they think that their industry will be more than that, thus the ‘super-powers.’
Connectivity was another theme brought up by the insiders. Twelve used connectivity in their descriptions of wearable technology.
Wearable technology “interfaces the human body with the environments,” said a wearable technology accessory designer, quoted in the journal. Products he designs include shoes, pillows, and jewelry, the study says. Wearable technology is “something that can improve your connection with the world,” he’s quoted as saying.
Technology should be integrated into actual garments, a respondent called Alice reckons. In fact, smart textiles are replacing patient monitoring wiring in hospitals, the study explains.
One of the reasons it’s encouraging to hear these workers being bullish on their industry is because some might argue that wearable technology needs to come up with something better than it’s done so far. Hopefully, this bunch will.
Wearable technology is “failing to live up to the hype,” the Telegraph newspaper wrote last year as prices were slashed during holiday shopping season. And indeed the hype has been considerable. These products have promised to make us fitter, and the calendars on our wrists have promised a life full of interesting appointments. Neither have likely happened to most.
Wearable technology has other issues, I wrote in the middle of last year. Despite being probably superb for such things as repair manuals, hands-freeing smart-glasses and other enterprise-level wearable technology could be used to track workers. Workers don’t like that, I wrote last year. Add to the mixture that workers don’t trust the companies they work for, in many cases, and you have another dead-end for wearable technology.
Wearable technology may turn out to be the future of mobile payments, though. A swipe of the e-textile glove on a chip, say.
And scientists last year say that they are figuring out how to run magnetic fields through the body for low-power IoT communications.
This article is published as part of the IDG Contributor Network. Want to Join? | <urn:uuid:5cd5d8aa-052f-432e-af90-57e69cf8b6bb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networkworld.com/article/3045660/internet-of-things/wearable-tech-to-give-people-super-powers-says-study.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00199-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966422 | 797 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The security of critical infrastructure in the electricity sector is complex. Electricity assets are concentrated in small areas and distributed over large geographical expanses. They are manned and unmanned, involve dangerous equipment that citizens must be protected from, and they provide a resource to the public that enables the quality of life we enjoy today.
Protection of these assets require security professionals to use every tool in the toolbox. Security managers have to consider protecting physical property, cyber assets, employees, and the public. Priorities must be established that respects the needs of the public and the organization being protected.
+ MORE ON CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: Protecting vital electricity infrastructure +
Any protection program that is developed must be as efficient and cost-effective as possible, as budgets are limited and ratepayers are sensitive to wasteful spending. Effective security programs rely on risk management principles and associated tools to establish priorities, allocate budget dollars, and harden infrastructure sites.
Physical security protection encompasses defensive mechanisms to prevent, deter, and detect physical threats of various kinds. Specifically, these measures are undertaken to protect personnel, equipment, and property against anticipated threats. Properly conceived and implemented security policies, programs and technologies are essential to ensure a facility’s resistance to numerous threats while meeting demand, reliability, and performance objectives.
Security plans should be developed based off of solid security principles, practical security assessments, and known threat data. To create actionable security plans and procedures, we must first understand some very basic security principles. All too often, simple definitions are interchangeably used. This leads to confusion and unfitting assumptions. Understanding the definitions listed below will help start to build a comprehensive security program.
Threat - Actions, circumstances, or events that may cause harm, loss, or damage to your organization’s personnel, assets, or operations.
Risk - The combination of impact and likelihood for harm, loss, or damage to your organization from exposure to threats.
Vulnerability - Weaknesses and gaps in a security program or protection efforts that can be exploited by threats.
Resilience - The ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. Resilience includes the ability to withstand and recover from deliberate attacks, accidents, or naturally occurring threats or incidents.
Risk management - An analytical process that considers the operational context of the organization and the risk of unwanted events that might impact personnel, operations, and assets, with the aim of developing strategies that reduce risk by reducing the likelihood and impact of these events.
Once risks to a facility are accurately assessed, security professionals can determine whether countermeasures currently in place are adequate to mitigate those risks or if additional procedural, programmatic, or physical security countermeasures should be implemented. Any process used for identifying these risks should:
- Identify those threats which could affect personnel, assets, or operations
- Determine the organization’s vulnerability to those threats
- Identify the likelihood and impact of the threats
- Prioritize risks
- Identify methods and strategies to reduce the likelihood and impact of the risks
There are three general strategies for dealing with risk:
- Accept the risk – choose to accept the risk, and budget for the consequences that are likely to flow from that decision
- Avoid the risk – choose not to undertake the risky activity
- Reduce the risk – design controls to reduce the likelihood or the impact of the risk.
As you assess risk, a useful tool is a Design Basis Threat (DBT) which describes the threats that an asset should be protected from. Often used in the nuclear power industry, a DBT is typically a description of the motivation, intentions and capabilities of potential adversaries. A DBT is derived from credible intelligence information and other classified and non-classified data concerning realistic threats.
A DBT for the electricity sector has recently been completed by the NERC Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center’s (E-ISAC) Physical Security Advisory Group, with the assistance of the US Department of Energy. It is available on the E-ISAC member web portal and NERC members are encouraged to consult the DBT as part of their security planning process. It is not intended to cover all facility-specific threats that may need to be considered, but it does provide a starting point for threats rooted in past attack examples in North America.
A threat and vulnerability assessment done by professionals and a DBT are simply tools designed to help you determine security gaps, assess the importance of fixing those gaps, and identifying mitigation measures. The outputs of using these tools will directly feed your physical security plan. Your risk assessment results should arm you with the information required to make sound decisions based on real risks to an organization's assets and operations.
This article is published as part of the IDG Contributor Network. Want to Join? | <urn:uuid:f9602ce1-36dd-404a-81aa-166599f93a2c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.csoonline.com/article/3048348/security/at-the-intersection-of-energy-risk-management-and-facility-security.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280308.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00529-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934356 | 985 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Just as this issue of Government Technology was coming together, American life as we knew it, came apart. Terrorists attacked this country on Sept. 11, 2001. For days it was difficult to concentrate. For days we received e-mails from around the world, expressing sympathy and concern. Stories about exciting applications of electronic government languished; it just didnt seem appropriate to make calls to people who had been touched by this international tragedy.
Of course, it became immediately clear that electronic communications in this country will be impacted. Early on there was talk about how Osama bin Laden, who is thought to have orchestrated the attacks, used the Internet to communicate with his operatives around the world. It was also clear that certain confidential government communications had been intercepted or monitored by the perpetrators. Tragically, information technology was used as a terrorist tool.
It is not an exaggeration to say that, prior to Sept. 11, we were in the nascent years of a peaceful revolution that promised deep changes to our global culture. That peace has been shattered. How will the vast benefits of information technology be balanced with the potential evils it makes possible? Can resources in education, health, medicine, government, commerce and science remain fully open and available to the worldwide audience?
Certainly, the magnitude of the attack produced results that the terrorists had not intended. Americans rallied, worked and grieved as one, and then reexamined what it means to live in a free and open society. Surely, this concept will be a consideration as policy makers look at how the Internet and information technology can be used more securely.
In the aftermath of the attacks we learned how important technology has become in daily life. Cell phone calls from in-flight victims shed light on the horrible event; New York City posted an emergency Web site; United Airlines pulled its site and posted disaster information. The Internet became a resource for information, communication and comfort, as scores of new sites were devoted to personal messages about the tragedy. E-mails sailed around the country as friends let friends know they were safe.
At the same time, commentators pointed out that bin Laden and his people had access to that same technology. Terrorists monitor broadcasts, infiltrate security and communicate using sophisticated codes. Extremists who hide in remote areas are no longer remote -- technology delivers as easily to a bunker as to a big city.
Almost as immediate as shock and outrage, was the pronouncement that this breech of our open society should not alter the freedoms weve come to take for granted. To allow an extremist act to close the doors would be to betray our history and principles -- principles that are admired around the world.
In the months ahead, what we will need is balance and wisdom to handle this new perspective that was violently thrust upon us. As in all events of extreme tragedy, the good that flows from indescribable pain should guide our future decisions.
A message received by Wayne Hanson, the former editor of this publication, illustrates the strength of the human spirit. From colleague Earl Mardle of Australia, who met Hansen at the annual Stockholm Challenge: "John Kennedy once stood at the Berlin Wall and said, "Ich bin ein Berliner." The Internet is now filling with e-mails proclaiming that in this moment, we are all Americans."
Let us hold this sentiment in our hearts and consciousness as we mold technology to meet the challenges of the future. | <urn:uuid:7f329ac2-c3ce-4949-a7e8-70c794c4bda9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.govtech.com/magazines/gt/Keeping-the-Faith.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280308.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00529-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96794 | 689 | 2.625 | 3 |
Here's the weekly update from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on what the Mars Curiosity Rover is doing on the Red Planet.
This week, we get a discussion of the discovery of what appears to be an ancient riverbed, where water once flowed on the planet. The existence of smooth pebbles help explain why they were shaped by a strong water flow, instead of carried by wind. Very cool explainer from this week's JPL presenter, Sanjeev Gupta:
The Mars rover is continuing its journey to a new location on the planet, so we'll consider this week's discovery as the rover's "water break." While the discovery of an ancient riverbed is very cool news for the scientific community, I'm secretly hoping that rover will stumble on some old Martian bones.
Keith Shaw rounds up the best in geek video in his ITworld.tv blog. Follow Keith on Twitter at @shawkeith. For the latest IT news, analysis and how-tos, follow ITworld on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Watch some more cool videos: Current video game characters battle old-school 8-bit rivals Nokia admits faking phone video Watch a robot turn into a car without Michael Bay's assistance Sherlock Holmes is really good at Blue's Clues Watch this preview of Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out | <urn:uuid:0bba87a8-c942-434a-9196-ad93c18535bc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.itworld.com/article/2721812/cloud-computing/this-week-on-mars--water--water-.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00126-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902416 | 272 | 2.875 | 3 |
In advance of this year’s Supercomputing Conference in Denver, Colorado, and in celebration of the event’s 25th anniversary, we’ll be doing some looking back on the great history of supercomputing. We can’t think of a better way to do this than with a speech from the father of supercomputing himself: Seymour Cray.
In 1972, Seymour Cray founded Cray Research Incorporated and was responsible for the design of the Cray-I, Cray-II and Cray-III systems. For decades, Cray built the fastest systems in the world, including Cray-1, which was the first vector supercomputer. The Cray-3 was to achieve a magnitude higher performance by employing Gallium Arsenide instead of silicon, but ultimately the innovative material created more problems than it solved.
At the 1988 Supercomputing Conference in Orlando, Florida, Seymour Cray delivered a lecture entitled, “What’s All this About Gallium Arsenide?” A video of his engaging lecture survives for posterity on Youtube. Norman Morse of Los Alamos National Laboratory introduced Seymour Cray to the stage. In the early 1970s, when Cray Research was still in its infancy, the major organizations interested in supercomputing were fairly limited, explained Morse. Some of those organizations included the Department of Energy laboratories, of which Los Alamos was one, aerospace agencies and the National Security Agency.
At the time of this recording, about two decades later, interest in supercomputing had grown considerably. By 1988, there were several hundred supercomputers scattered throughout the world, with many organizations using supercomputers to support their activities.
In this video Seymour Cray, in good humor, covers a wide range of topics including pulse technology, magnetic circuit paths, and the scalar properties of gallium arsenide when used as a semiconductor. This important piece of history reveals a man with deep technical knowledge, as he describes Cray supercomputers from the first vector supercomputer, Cray-1, to the innovative ideas that comprised the Cray-3.
Cray Roadmap as of 1988 | <urn:uuid:943c0381-b150-488e-a8e3-a7e4567e7c35> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.hpcwire.com/2013/11/04/sc-flashback-seymour-cray-gallium-arsenide/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281426.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00520-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945847 | 447 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Brahmanand P.S.,Directorate of Water Management ICAR |
Kumar A.,Directorate of Water Management ICAR |
Ghosh S.,Directorate of Water Management ICAR |
Roy Chowdhury S.,Directorate of Water Management ICAR |
And 6 more authors.
Current Science | Year: 2013
The need for achieving food security is felt significantly in the recent years due to enormous pressure from the ever-increasing population in India. Owing to the change in preferences in crop production techniques over a period of time, several new challenges draw attention to food security. This article discusses various challenges to food security in India. Critical analysis is made on challenges like crop diversification, issues related to bio-fuel and medicinal plant cultivation, climate change, mismatch between water demand and availability, recent status in production of highyielding crop varieties and agricultural crop pricing and insurance and new trends in globalization and urban encroachments. Source
Behera M.S.,Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibres |
Mahapatra P.K.,Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology |
Singandhupe R.B.,Central Institute of Cotton Research |
Kundu D.K.,Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibres |
And 2 more authors.
Indian Journal of Plant Physiology | Year: 2014
An experiment was conducted during 2005–06 and 2006–07 winter seasons to study the effect of drip irrigation regimes and fertility levels on physiological parameters, growth and yield of ashwagandha (Withania somnifera L. Dunal). The treatments consisted of three irrigation regimes, viz., I1: drip irrigation at 100 % pan evaporation (PE), I2: drip irrigation at 80 % PE and I3: drip irrigation at 60 % PE, combined with three fertility levels, i.e., F1: 100 %, F2: 75 % and F3: 50 % of recommended dose of NPK, control having surface irrigation and soil application of fertilizers. The cultivation of ashwagandha with application of drip irrigation at 80 % of pan evaporation along with application of 100 % recommended dose through fertigation resulted in significant improvement in growth, physiological parameters such as crop growth rate, relative growth rate, net assimilation rate, leaf area index, chlorophyll content, and root and seed yields. © 2014, Indian Society for Plant Physiology. Source
Rao S.S.,Indian National Remote Sensing Centre |
Sahadevan D.K.,Indian National Remote Sensing Centre |
Wadodkar M.R.,Regional Remote Sensing Center Central |
Nagaraju M./.S.S.,National Bureau of Soil Survey & Land Use Planning |
And 8 more authors.
Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing | Year: 2016
The study was carried out to evaluate the global soil moisture product of Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-2 (AMSR-2), Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer–Earth Observing System (AMSR-E), Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission’s (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) in central region of India for monsoon period of 2011 and 2013. The evaluation was done using 100, 75 in-situ soil moisture measurements of 2011, 2013 respectively. The in-situ measurements were spread across ~10,000 sq.km area which is roughly equal to 12 pixels of SMOS, AMSR-2 AMSR-E and TMI data. The result shows reasonable correlation of r2 = 0.506, 0.467 between SMOS and in-situ soil moisture for 2011, 2013 respectively. TMI exhibits good correlation of r2 = 0.55 in 2013 but failed to do the same in 2011. AMSR-2 soil moisture products shows moderate correlation r2 = 0.32 in 2011 but poorly correlated in 2013. © 2016 Indian Society of Remote Sensing Source
Sethi K.,Chaudhary Devi Lal University |
Siwach P.,Chaudhary Devi Lal University |
Verma S.K.,Central Institute of Cotton Research
Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants | Year: 2015
Among the four cultivated cotton species, G. hirsutum (allotetraploid) presently holds a primary place in cultivation. Efforts to further improve this primary cotton face the constraints of its narrow genetic base due to repeated selective breeding and hence demands enrichment of diversity in the gene pool. G. arboreum (diploid species) is an invaluable genetic resource with great potential in this direction. Based on the dispersal and domestication in different directions from Indus valley, different races of G. arboreum have evolved, each having certain traits like drought and disease resistance, which the tetraploid cotton lack. Due to lack of systematic, race wise characterization of G. arboreum germplasm, it has not been explored fully. During the present study, 100 polymorphic SSR loci were used to genotype 95 accessions belonging to 6 races of G. arboreum producing 246 polymorphic alleles; mean number of effective alleles was 1.505. AMOVA showed 14 % of molecular variance among population groups, 34 % among individuals and remaining 52 % within individuals. UPGMA dendrogram, based on Nei’s genetic distance, distributed the six populations in two major clusters of 3 populations each; race ‘bengalense’ was found more close to ‘cernuum’ than the others. The clustering of 95 genotypes by UPGMA tree generation as well as PCoA analysis clustered ‘bengalense’ genotypes into one group along with some genotypes of ‘cernuum’, while rest of the genotypes made separate clusters. Outcomes of this research should be helpful in identifying the genotypes for their further utilization in hybridization program to obtain high level of germplasm diversity. © 2015, Prof. H.S. Srivastava Foundation for Science and Society. Source
Mukherjee A.K.,Technion - Israel Institute of Technology |
Mukherjee A.K.,Central Institute of Cotton Research |
Carp M.-J.,Technion - Israel Institute of Technology |
Zuchman R.,Technion - Israel Institute of Technology |
And 3 more authors.
Journal of Proteomics | Year: 2010
We have studied the proteome of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana infected with a necrotrophic fungal pathogen, Alternaria brassicicola. The Arabidopsis-A. brassicicola host-pathogen pair is being developed as a model genetic system for incompatible plant-fungal interactions, in which the spread of disease is limited by plant defense responses. After confirming that a defense response was induced at the transcriptional level, we identified proteins whose abundance on 2-DE gels increased or decreased in infected leaves. At least 11 protein spots showed reproducible differences in abundance, increasing or decreasing during the progress of the infection. The pathogenesis-related protein PR4, a glycosyl hydrolase, and the antifungal protein osmotin are strongly up-regulated. Two members of the Arabidopsis glutathione S-transferase (GST) family increased in abundance in infected leaves. The spots in which these GST proteins were identified contain additional members of the GST family. Representation of GST family members in several protein spots migrating at similar molecular weight suggests post-translational modifications. The signature of GST regulation may be specific for the type of plant-pathogen interaction. The proteomic view of the defense response to A. brassicicola can be compared with other types of plant-pathogen interactions, and to leaf senescence, identifying unique regulatory patterns. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Source | <urn:uuid:42e1c944-95b1-4749-8b56-b32db3675f5b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.linknovate.com/affiliation/central-institute-of-cotton-research-482215/all/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281492.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00364-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893295 | 1,672 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The need for real-time network traffic monitoring in today’s intelligent data center has become compelling. Data center network administrators need to gain better visibility of their networks, optimize the performance of mission-critical applications and, more importantly, secure their networks. Optical traffic access point (TAP) cassettes are hardware tools that allow you to monitor your network, which make a 100% copy of your network’s data allowing your monitoring tools to see every bit, byte and packet. In fact, TAP cassettes are one of the most efficient ways to monitor traffic and network link quality in data center and telecom carrier networks. Have you ever used this kind of device in your network? Let’s get close to TAP cassettes together in this article.
What Is an Optical TAP Cassette?
Optical TAP is an access point install in networks that provides real-time monitoring of ports. Typically, the data is used to monitor for security threats, performance issues, and optimization of the network. Optical TAP cassette is a passive device that integrates TAP functionality into cable patching system, which requires no power of its own and does not actively interact with other components of the network. Instead of two switches or routers connecting directly to each other, the optical TAP cassette sits between the two endpoint devices connected directly to each of them. Then traffic is copied and once the traffic is tapped, the copy can be used for any sort of monitoring, security, or analytical use. Thus, TAP cassettes are a key component of any visibility system.
How Does an Optical TAP Cassette Work?
Optical fiber is designed to send light from a transceiver through a thin glass cable to a receiver on the other end. Instead of connecting directly to each other, each of the two endpoint nodes (switches, routers, database, etc) are connected to network ports on the TAP cassette. A TAP cassette usually integrates both network ports and monitoring ports in a module and it includes an optical splitter, which “splits” off a percentage of the input power and sends it to a monitoring device. As shown in the figure below, we can connect the TAP cassette to the Switch X and Switch Y via network ports and connect TAP cassette to monitoring device via monitoring ports.
By using the splitter, we can see that a part of TX data of Switch X transmits to RX of Switch Y and another part of TX data of Switch X transmits to monitor. Similarly, a part of TX data of Switch Y transmits to RX of Switch X and another part of TX data of Switch Y transmits to monitor. The monitored traffic is thus separated into two transmit (TX-only) signals, one copy from endpoint A (Switch X), and one copy from endpoint B (Switch Y). The proportional share of light for each path (transmit to network and monitor) is known as the split ratio. The split ratio is written as a combination of two percentages. The first number is designated as the network percentage. The second number is the monitor percentage. They always add up to 100 percent. For example, a common split ratio for traditional 1Gb short-range links is 70/30, where 70% of the light continues to the network and 30% is allocated to the monitor port.
How to Connect an Optical TAP Cassette in Your Network?
Before you connect the fiber optic cable into a TAP cassette, make sure that the TAP cassette characteristics is compatible with the cables. At present, TAP cassettes are mainly available in LC and MTP two port types. Take the MTP TAP cassette for example, and following steps below to connect an optical TAP cassette to your network:
1.Connect MTP network port to switch A using a MTP cable.
2.Connect another MTP network port to switch B using a MTP cable.
1.Connect TAP monitor port to monitoring device using a MTP cable for switch A monitoring.
2.Connect another TAP monitor port to monitoring device using a MTP cable for switch B monitoring.
Data center networks are becoming more and more complex making it more difficult to trouble shoot and balance traffic within LANs and SANs. Optical TAP cassettes allow network and storage engineers to gather valuable data analytics, which give you a much fuller understanding of your data flow patterns and allow you to plan your technology integrations accordingly. FS.COM provide a series of 10G, 40G or 100G TAP LGX cassettes, and is available in single-mode or multi-mode with a 50/50 or 70/30 split ratio. For more information, please contact us via email@example.com or call 24/7 Customer Service: 1 (718) 577 1006.
|TAP-4MTF12-7340GM4||4xMTP (12 Fibers) Female 70/30 Split Ratio OM4 TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-4MTF12-5540GM4||4xMTP (12 Fibers) Female 50/50 Split Ratio OM4 TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-4MTF24-73100GM4||4xMTP (24 Fibers) Female 70/30 Split Ratio OM4 TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-4MTF24-55100GM4||4xMTP (24 Fibers) Female 50/50 Split Ratio OM4 TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-2MTF12LC-7310GM3||2xMTP (12 Fibers) Female to 6xLC Duplex 70/30 Split Ratio OM3 TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-2MTF12LC-5510GM3||2xMTP (12 Fibers) Female to 6xLC Duplex 50/50 Split Ratio OM3 TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-2MTF12LC-7310GSM||2xMTP (12 Fibers) Female to 6xLC Duplex 70/53 Split Ratio SMF TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-2MTF12LC-5510GSM||2xMTP (12 Fibers) Female to 6xLC Duplex 50/50 Split Ratio SMF TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-3MTF12-7310GM3||3xMTP (12 Fibers) Female 70/30 Split Ratio OM3 TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-3MTF12-5510GM3||3xMTP (12 Fibers) Female 50/50 Split Ratio OM3 TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-3MTF12-7310GSM||3xMTP (12 Fibers) Female 70/30 Split Ratio SMF TAP LGX Cassette|
|TAP-3MTF12-5510GSM||3xMTP (12 Fibers) Female 50/50 Split Ratio SMF TAP LGX Cassette| | <urn:uuid:bad6ea31-ead8-450f-a35b-c958a048d1de> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.fs.com/blog/do-you-know-about-optical-tap-test-access-point-cassettes.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00090-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.872831 | 1,479 | 2.921875 | 3 |
People repurpose all manner of things, but engineers have created a battery-free communication technique that repurposes wireless signals that already surround us. This new wireless communication system seems like "magic," since it "provides connectivity between computers out of what is essentially thin air." It takes us a step closer to an Internet of Things reality as it lets devices talk to each other without relying on batteries or wires for power. Instead, it taps into already existing ambient Wi-Fi, TV or cellular signals to exchange information.
University of Washington researchers call it "ambient backscatter;" it's so revolutionary that when engineers presented their work [pdf] at the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Data Communication 2013 conference in Hong Kong, they won the "best paper" award.
"Ambient Backscatter: Wireless Communication Out of Thin Air" [pdf] states:
In this technique, TV signals and other source of RF signals serve as both the source of power and the means of communication. Because ambient backscatter avoids the maintenance-heavy batteries and dedicated power infrastructure of other forms of low-power communication (e.g., RFID and NFC), it enables a bevy of new applications that were previously impossible or at least impractical. We believe that ambient backscatter provides a key building block that enables ubiquitous communication (with no restrictions except the existence of ambient RF signals) among pervasive devices which are cheap and have near-zero maintenance.
"Two devices communicate with each other by reflecting the existing signals to exchange information," reported The University of Washington. "The researchers built small, battery-free devices with antennas that can detect, harness and reflect a TV signal, which then is picked up by other similar devices. The technology could enable a network of devices and sensors to communicate with no power source or human attention needed."
Please take three minutes to watch the video that explains more about ambient backscatter "transforming existing ambient RF signals into a source of power and a communication medium." It gives an example of everyday objects like keys, wallets and sunglasses that are enabled with ambient backscatter tags that "exchange information by reflecting or absorbing pre-existing radio signals. These tiny battery-free devices can leverage ambient Wi-Fi, TV or cellular signals to communicate with each other and localize themselves."
If a person who had tagged their items later "lost" their keys, such as by accidentally leaving them on the couch, then the "couch can use the ambient backscatter to communicate with the lost keys" and send a text alert the user's smartphone.
The researchers used credit card-sized prototype devices to test the ambient backscatter technique. "For each device the researchers built antennas into ordinary circuit boards that flash an LED light when receiving a communication signal from another device." Using ambient RF signals for both power and communication, they showed how "one payment card can transfer funds to another card."
During "range" testing, the tags were located anywhere from a half mile to about 6.5 miles away from a TV tower; they were still able to communicate with each other. "The receiving devices picked up a signal from their transmitting counterparts at a rate of 1 kilobit per second when up to 2.5 feet apart outdoors and 1.5 feet apart indoors. This is enough to send information such as a sensor reading, text messages and contact information."
They believe that this technology could be added to smartphones so that when the battery dies, "the phone could still send text messages by leveraging power from an ambient TV signal."
The researchers claim this tech will enable smart homes, smart cities and the Internet of Things. The tags could be embedded in concrete walls, floors or roofs, and since they require no batteries, they would last "forever" and will require no maintenance.
A Google Faculty Research Award and the National Science Foundation's Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering helped fund this University of Washington research.
Hopefully this technology breakthrough won't also be used as yet another surveillance tool to spy on us. | <urn:uuid:3d97258e-47a5-4116-ada6-42edcf1c3dff> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.computerworld.com/article/2474512/emerging-technology/researchers-create-battery-free-wireless-communication--out-of-thin-air-.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283689.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00116-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940715 | 827 | 3.234375 | 3 |
There has been much research exploring the strong and very real emotional bond between humans and domesticated canines. Dogs are known, after all, as "man's best friend." No one's saying that about cats.
So we find it extremely unlikely that looking into the eyes of a robot dog will yield the same heartwarming vibe as looking into the eyes of a beloved pet that sometimes secretly pranks you by affectionately licking your face after drinking toilet water.
But there may be none of that in the cold, metal world of the future, if Australian animal welfare researcher Dr. Jean-Loup Rault is to be believed.
From The Telegraph:
"It might sound surreal for us to have robotic or virtual pets, but it could be totally normal for the next generation. It's not a question of centuries from now. If 10 billion human beings live on the planet in 2050 as predicted, it's likely to occur sooner than we think. ...
"In Japan, people are becoming so attached to their robot dogs that they hold funerals for them when the circuits die."
Isn't that sort of like holding a funeral for your computer or smartphone when it dies? Not that there's anything wrong with it.
The value proposition for robot dogs is compelling -- they don't poop, they don't shed, they don't attract fleas or ticks, and you don't have to worry about them if you go on vacation or even stay somewhere overnight.
But robot dogs will never lick your face after drinking toilet water, and that alone is irreplaceable.
(Related article: If dogs could talk, here's what we'd ask them)
This story, "Robot dogs can never replace real dogs" was originally published by Fritterati. | <urn:uuid:acac634d-b818-437c-9b80-fb2e3789a13e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.itnews.com/article/2921566/robot-dogs-can-never-replace-real-dogs.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279379.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00512-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961558 | 360 | 2.515625 | 3 |
30% of servers are powered ‘on’ when they’re longer needed.
Data centres in America are consuming massive amounts of energy in a wasteful manner by running computer servers that do little or no work most of the time, according to research.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) analysed energy use by data centres and found that, on average, they were using only 12% to 18% of the electricity powering their computer servers.
Another 30% of servers are still powered on when they’re longer needed, while 80% of organisations said that the department responsible for data centre management has no contact with the department paying electric bills.
Most notably, data centres consumed an estimated 91 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2013, which the report claims is enough to power all of New York City’s households twice over.
The report also predicted that energy consumption in data centres would reach 140 billion kilowatt hours by 2020. This could cost businesses $13bn annually for electricity, which is equivalent to that generated by 50 large coal-fired power plants emitting nearly 150 million tons of carbon pollution.
It added that electricity use could be cut by 40% if more efficient practices were realised in the industry. This would equal $3.8bn in savings for businesses and cut 39 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, the report said.
Pierre Delforge, director of high-tech energy efficiency at NRDF, said: "New practices and policies are needed to accelerate the pace and scale of the adoption of energy efficiency best-practices throughout the industry.
"Nearly one-third of all leased data centre space will come up for renewal over the next year, so the time to act is now." | <urn:uuid:47386ee5-c404-4e9d-9ecb-aa0a4cfd1a40> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.cbronline.com/news/data-centre/us-data-centres-waste-vast-amounts-of-electricity-4353856 | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00236-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958065 | 357 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Wireless devices that don’t require any batteries
Smart devices that lack a battery or wire connection but can still send data over Wi-Fi, have been created by computer scientists.
Experts from the University of Washington have developed a way of using radio frequency (RF) signals as a power source for smart devices and reusing existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide connectivity to them.
Currently, RF-powered devices require a dedicated gateway such as an RFID reader for internet connectivity. But a new communication system, called Wi-Fi Backscatter, reuses existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide the internet connection.
Because conventional, low-power Wi-Fi consumes three to four orders of magnitude more power than can be harvested in these wireless signals, the scientists developed an ultra-low power tag prototype with an antenna and circuitry that can talk to Wi-Fi-enabled laptops or smartphones while consuming minimal power.
These tags look for Wi-Fi signals moving between the router and a laptop or smartphone. Data is then encoded by either reflecting or not reflecting the Wi-Fi router’s signals. Wi-Fi-enabled devices including laptops and smartphones would detect these minuscule changes and receive data from the tag.
According to the research team, Wi-Fi Backscatter could "pave the way for the rapid deployment and adoption of RF-powered devices and achieve ubiquitous connectivity via nearby mobile devices that are Wi-Fi enabled".
“If Internet of Things devices are going to take off, we must provide connectivity to the potentially billions of battery-free devices that will be embedded in everyday objects”, said Shyam Gollakota, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at University of Washington.
“We now have the ability to enable Wi-Fi connectivity for devices while consuming orders of magnitude less power than what Wi-Fi typically requires".
The research team say they used off-the-shelf devices such as Intel Wi-Fi cards and Linksys routers to achieve data transmission rates of one kilobit per second and a range of two metres, although plans are to extend the range to about 20 metres. | <urn:uuid:499d1343-04fd-4901-ae70-9e83805e9ea9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://betanews.com/2014/08/06/wireless-devices-that-dont-require-any-batteries/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279468.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00356-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912159 | 439 | 3.5 | 4 |
This may be the digital age, but many humanitarian and development workers still rely on paper forms to collect data an inefficient and often ineffective process that takes precious resources away from their core mission.
As a result, many humanitarian and development programs can't easily access and analyze the data they need to best guide their organizations' relief efforts.
DataDyne saw a way to address the problem by using the increasingly powerful computing capacity of mobile phones, which are now widely available around the globe, even in poor and rural regions.
The not-for-profit organization developed a software program called EpiSurveyor to make real-time electronic data collection possible for nonprofit and government organizations. The idea for this handheld data-collection application first emerged during the era of personal digital assistants, but DataDyne quickly migrated to using mobile phones as they became increasingly prevalent.
EpiSurveyor is the first cloud-computing application created specifically for the public health and international development sector. Like many other tools on the market, it enables the collection, analysis and understanding of data. But unlike others, EpiSurveyor is free to most users. It's available to anyone with access to a browser, and it's designed to be simple enough to use that organizations don't need IT consultants to deploy, use or support it.
Its impact is significant. UNICEF uses EpiSurveyor to manage child health programs, the Kenya Ministry of Health uses it to track disease outbreaks, and nonprofit organization TulaSalud uses it to collect information for maternal-child health programs in Guatemala. The World Bank uses EpiSurveyor to conduct economic surveys of the poor in Latin America. Camfed International uses it to manage and evaluate its education programs in numerous African countries, and the Smithsonian Institution uses it to track mountain gorillas, one of the world's most endangered species.
Since its online introduction in 2009, EpiSurveyor has become the most widely used data-collection tool in the international development sector. More than 6,000 people in more than 170 countries now use it, with 20,000 to 50,000 data records uploaded each month.
With EpiSurveyor, DataDyne achieved its goal of enabling organizations to better collect and analyze data. EpiSurveyor is also providing a new model for successfully scaling technology for social good.
But DataDyne isn't done yet. Its workers are constantly improving and updating the product based on the feedback they receive from users in the field. And DataDyne is currently seeking growth funding for product development and expansion.
Read more about the 2012 Computerworld Honors Laureates. | <urn:uuid:787a61f7-e548-4f10-86aa-1ca10e884bcf> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.computerworld.com/article/2504965/enterprise-applications/harnessing-the-computing-power-of-low-cost-mobile-phones.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282110.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00474-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932009 | 539 | 2.875 | 3 |
Quantum dots are nanocrystals made out of semiconductors used in display and monitor devices and as well as many other equipment. Government and industry have both started focusing on highly efficient energy devices, which is contributing to the market growth. There has been a continuous increase in demand for devices which can perform efficiently in varying conditions. Quantum dot technology addresses these concerns efficiently and is also driving the use of this technology across various application areas.
These Quantum Dots can be used in optoelectronics and optical components, healthcare (biomedical and biotechnology, alternative energy, security applications, and others. There are various processes or techniques involved in the production of Quantum Dots, such as, colloidal synthesis, fabrication, viral assembly, bulk-manufacture, electrochemical assembly, and heavy metal free (cadmium-free) quantum dots. The one benefit associated with its production process is that, it can be manufactured easily and cost effectively.
There are many benefits of using Quantum Dots – they require only small amount of energy to get activated, which can be obtained by a single blue or UV wavelength beam, regardless of its size. Both attributes reduce the costs largely; can be used in multiple forms, e.g. small crystals in liquid solutions, as quantum dust, and in bead form and these different formats make its range of applications even wider.
The market for quantum dots is expected to grow at a CAGR of 85% to reach $5.61 billion by the end of 2020 from the current estimates of $0.14 billion.
The report gives a detailed analysis and breakdown of the market by various production processes used in manufacturing of quantum dots and the raw materials used in its manufacturing. The market is further segmented by the geographical regions and a detailed analysis of vendors has been included.
Some of the major vendors that are mentioned in the report are Samsung, QD Vision, Nanoco Group, Quantum Material Corporation and Nanosys, Inc.
There are various benefits of using quantum dots, such as efficiency of converting energy to power and miniaturization which is driving the growth of quantum dots market.
The factors that could hinder the growth of demand for the Quantum Dots Market are the product associated high costs, environmental concerns, and the existence of similar products in the market.
WHAT THE REPORT OFFERS
Quantum Dots Market Overview with information on drivers and restraints
In-depth Quantum Dots Market Analysis and its applications in the industry
Identification of factors responsible for changing the market scenarios, rising prospective opportunities and identification of key companies which can influence the market on global and regional scale
Extensively researched competitive landscape with profiles of major companies along with their market shares
A comprehensive list of key market players along with the analysis of their current strategic interests and key financial information | <urn:uuid:454f49eb-1a08-4101-8544-03f580344598> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/quantum-dots-market-industry | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280888.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00502-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950613 | 571 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Japan water treatment chemicals market is slowly growing at a CAGR of 4-4.5%. This far-east group of islands constitute to be a developed country where there is an increasing demand for water for industrial as well as domestic applications. But, being a developed country, Japan has started using alternative technologies like membrane treatment technology; it is more efficient as a water purification technique because it effectively eradicates some kinds of bacteria, viruses and algae which cannot be killed by chemicals.
Water treatment is defined as the process employed for eliminating contaminants present in water, which is achieved through a number of techniques. Water treatment chemicals consists of one such technique, wherein contaminated or waste-water is treated with chemicals to make it safe for human consumption and useful in other applications as well where clean water is a necessity. The higher incidence of water-borne epidemics has urged the need to pump up the safety measures and undergo stringent procedures to avail purified water, this has led to the usage of water treatment chemicals for the purification of drinking water.
In recent times, stringent environmental norms were set up to remove and treat water pollutants before they release into the environment. The municipal corporations have been adopting water treatment facilities to clean and recycle water before supplying for drinking and sanitation purposes.
Water is used in various industries, especially in emerging economies where several industries are set up. The required standard for water quality has made it necessary for better purification methods. However, water purification equipment alone is not enough to achieve this standard, hence; the usage of water treatment chemicals becomes indispensable to meet the desired standards of purified water.
The Japan Water treatment chemicals market is segmented by product (Biocides & disinfectants, coagulants & flocculants, corrosion & scale inhibitors, defoamers and defoaming agents, pH adjusters and softeners, and other chemicals), by their application (commercial & institutional, electric power generation, energy, manufacturing, mining & mineral processing, municipal and other applications). The prime players in this market include Accepta, BASF SE, Chemtreat Inc., Organo Corp., PQ Corp. and Wex technologies.
The soring standards of water quality in industrial applications and the stringent environmental laws on water treatment and waste-water management pose to be the drivers of this market.
There is a strong requirement for the availability of alternate water treatment technologies in the market. Additionally, there is also a need to find Eco-friendly solutions for water treatment that can balance and treat the chemical as well as the naturally occurring water pollution differently.
What the report offers? | <urn:uuid:cd511ed9-4cd8-4e29-ab18-fd3f9e55a9a7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/japan-water-treatment-chemicals-market-industry | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00035-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958399 | 527 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Amnesty International is using satellite cameras to monitor highly vulnerable villages in war-torn Darfur, Sudan. The human rights organization is inviting ordinary people worldwide to monitor 12 villages by visiting the Eyes on Darfur project Web site and put the Sudanese Government on notice that these and other areas in the region are being watched around the clock.
"Despite four years of outrage over the death and destruction in Darfur, the Sudanese government has refused worldwide demands and a U.N. resolution to send peacekeepers to the region," said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International. "Darfur needs peacekeepers to stop the human rights violations. In the meantime, we are taking advantage of satellite technology to tell President al-Bashir that we will be watching closely to expose new violations. Our goal is to continue to put pressure on Sudan to allow the peacekeepers to deploy and to make a difference in the lives of vulnerable civilians on the ground in Darfur."
According to Ariela Blätter, director of the Crisis Prevention and Response Center for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), new images of the same villages are being added currently within days of each other. This time frame offers the potential for spotting new destruction. Amnesty International worked with noted researchers to identify vulnerable areas based on proximity to important resources like water supplies, threats by militias or nearby attacks.
Amnesty International worked closely on the project with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which offered expertise on satellite imagery and other cutting edge geospatial technologies. The images from commercial satellites can reveal visual information about conditions on the ground for objects as small as two feet across. According to Lars Bromley, project director for the AAAS Science and Human Rights Project who advised Blätter on technical matters, the photos could show destroyed huts, massing soldiers or fleeing refugees.
Amnesty International has been at the forefront of efforts to wed human rights work with satellite technology. For example, Amnesty, the AAAS and the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights joined in a ground-breaking project in 2006 to document the destruction of a settlement by the Zimbabwean government. The groups presented evidence that the government destroyed entire settlements, including the informal settlement of Porta Farm, forcing thousands of civilians to flee.
Eyes on Darfur also includes an archival feature, which shows destroyed villages since the conflict began in 2003 and includes expert testimony. For example, an image of the village of Donkey Dereis in south Darfur taken in 2004 shows an intact landscape with hundreds of huts. Two years later, a satellite image shows the near total destruction of the villages -- 1,171 homes gone and the landscape overgrown with vegetation. | <urn:uuid:ce125bb7-b147-43b8-88f0-9988695fff55> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.govtech.com/geospatial/Amnesty-International-Adopts-Powerful-Technology-in.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280133.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00577-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940407 | 549 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Apple does more to ensure its solutions are accessible to a wide range of users than any other platform, in spite of any drivel suggesting otherwise.
Look at the evidence
You may have read the selective fantasy peddled as fact by Christina Farr, which claimed blind and deaf users want Apple to do more to make its systems accessible. Her inherent bias was clearly confirmed when those advocates also said Google has done far less to make Android devices accessible.
Contrast Apple's success with Chris Hofstader's review of Nexus 7's claimed accessibility features: "Google insults the community of people with print impairments by claiming that this device is accessible," he wrote.
Apple engineers "go to extraordinary lengths to make our products accessible to people with various disabilities from blindness and deafness to various muscular disorders," said Apple CEO Tim Cook.
iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite will be even more accessible, with:
- Speak Screen: read what's on the screen using gesture or Siri
- Improved zoom
- Support for hearing aids from companies including ReSound
- A new system-wide Braille keyboard
- An Accessibility API for developers to make apps more accessible
- An Accessibility Inspector to review UI elements
Apple was among the first tech firms to recognize the need to make its solutions accessible and began introducing features to meet this need in the original Macintosh.
Introduced with OS X Tiger, VoiceOver was a critical moment for accessibility in IT -- what Apple now offered for free within the OS, users with disability had previously needed to pay hundreds of dollars to acquire.
Control your Mac -- by voice
You can control your Mac using speech. Here's how it's done.
Apple introduced braille display support in OS X way back in 2008. This sends information about what is displayed on screen to the Braille display.
Apple's accessibility features mean users can control the cursor, select text and engage in editing functions including cut, copy and paste on its platforms.
Apple's parentally controlled Guided Access technology exists to help users remain focused on a single app. This is of particular relevance for autistic users.
Both OS X and iOS support captioning and subtitles in multimedia content.
If you suffer hearing loss in one ear you can lose important audio elements when listening in stereo -- so Apple includes a mono audio setting.
Facetime enables people with hearing or speech difficulties to communicate non-verbally using sign language and facial expression.
Most people are used to hearing the phone ring. If you can't, Apple provides vibrating alerts and enables users to set the LED flash to illuminate when calls come in.
If you have difficulties with some gestures (such as pinch), you can make them accessible using a more comfortable gesture -- even shake and rotate can be accessed in this way.
Inverted colors, cursor size controls, Screen Flash, Slow and Sticky Keys, Speakable Items, Mouse Keys, Onscreen keyboard, Simple Finder, Larger Dynamic Type… there are literally dozens of options to help make Apple's platforms more accessible to any user, for no additional charge.
More than anyone
Apple's contribution to assistive tech means, "Apple has done more for accessibility than any other company to date," said NFB President, Mark A Riccobono.
Apple's intrinsic commitment to accessibility changes lives, as noted in this 2010 post. No one else offers so many accessibility features within the OS. And while Apple can (and will) do better, it remains the best platform for anyone with accessibility needs.
Got a story? Drop me a line via Twitter or in comments below and let me know. I'd like it if you chose to follow me on Twitter so I can let you know when fresh items are published here first on Computerworld. | <urn:uuid:0996bd37-cb89-4457-9eee-8e988fb3f05c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.computerworld.com/article/2476373/healthcare-it/15--reasons-apple-is-best-for-accessibility.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280834.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00393-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917723 | 766 | 2.609375 | 3 |
As one analyst covering the tech industry commented to me, cloud computing, or the cloud, seems to have risen on the hype curve at an amazing speed. A few months back the term hardly but now every technical analyst, journal, vendor and conference seems to be abuzz about it. Given all this hype, it is surprising we dont have an agreed upon definition of just what the cloud is. At times it is compared with utility and grid computing and other times confused with SaaS and virtualization.
The simplest way to understand cloud computing is to think of it in a usage scenario. In this paradigm, a provider hosts a service and provides access to consumers over the Internet via standard protocols like HTTP, REST or SOAP. The service may be end-user software, a compute facility, a storage facility, a development platform, a business process or a hosting platform. The service is typically off-premise from the consumer and the consumer should not have to worry about installation of software or administration or management headaches.
Applications that utilize the cloud also come in multiple flavors. They may range from an end to end application hosted in the cloud (like Salesforce.com) to an on-premise application using some services from the cloud (e.g., an application that utilizes Amazons S3 service for data storage), to a custom application totally written for and hosted on one of the cloud platforms (e.g., an application written and hosted on Bungee Connect or Microsofts Azure offering).
Just like most new paradigms, cloud computing is more of an evolution rather than a revolution. It has really come about due to the evolving trends surrounding the Internet, service oriented architecture (SOA) and virtualization. The Internet is evolving from a medium that is purely used to access documents into a network of applications that provide access to a rich set of functionalities for the end users.
Similarly, with the advent of SOA in the enterprise and beyond, many of the tightly bound applications have become decoupled into smaller modules that can be served via services over private networks and the Internet. Finally, virtualization is not only allowing enterprises to consolidate their infrastructure but also allows service providers to offer a shared-infrastructure environment that acts as a foundation for cloud computing.
So, is cloud computing really ready for the enterprise? Before we answer the question, lets examine the typical advantages that cloud computing will provide: | <urn:uuid:8596319d-94ff-4ab4-92f7-36cd6bf03899> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.cioupdate.com/trends/article.php/3790281/Is-Cloud-Computing-Ready-for-the-Enterprise.htm | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279379.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00513-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939721 | 490 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD)
A form of dispersion where the two polarization states of light travel at slightly different velocities causing the optical pulse to statistically spread and possibly get distorted in the time domain. When the broadening becomes too wide, the pulses overlap and produce inter-symbol interference, increasing the bit error rate. PMD is characterized by the frequency or wavelength and varies according to the index of refraction (i.e., index of propagation) of the medium. Since PMD is related to the propagation axes, it leads to birefringence.
Watch PMD E-Learning Video | <urn:uuid:ff140e88-d6bc-44e5-95b5-379095634a40> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://exfo.com/glossary/polarization-mode-dispersion-pmd | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284270.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00539-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918171 | 129 | 3.125 | 3 |
Definition: A n × n matrix, i.e., one whose size is the same in both dimensions.
Generalization (I am a kind of ...)
See also rectangular matrix.
If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul Black.
Entry modified 3 November 2005.
HTML page formatted Mon Feb 2 13:10:40 2015.
Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "square matrix", in Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Vreda Pieterse and Paul E. Black, eds. 3 November 2005. (accessed TODAY) Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/squarematrix.html | <urn:uuid:e1196637-ad34-4cdb-a45a-e9ae8d331ce0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/dads/HTML/squarematrix.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00265-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.830421 | 154 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is launching a new standards effort in web authentication that aims to offer a more secure and flexible alternative to password-based logins on the Web.
For many web users, passwords are annoying to use and offer weak protection for their interactions – they’re too often forgotten or set to easily-guessed combinations. Even strong passwords can be lost in data breaches or targeted in phishing attacks.
W3C’s new web authentication work, based upon the member submission of FIDO 2.0 Web APIs from the FIDO Alliance, will enable the use of strong cryptographic operations in place of password exchange.
Web authentication complements current W3C activities
According to W3C CEO Dr. Jeff Jaffe, the Web Authentication effort will complement prior W3C work on a Web Cryptography API, and on-going work on web application security specifications.
“We’ve seen much better authentication methods than passwords, yet too many web sites still use password-based logins. Standard Web APIs will make consistent implementations work across the web ecosystem. The new approach will replace passwords with more secure ways of logging into web sites, such as using a USB key or activating a smartphone,” said Wendy Seltzer, Technology and Society Domain Lead.
Why passwords are still important
Per Thorsheim, Independent Information Security Advisor and founder of PasswordsCon, is happy that the FIDO Alliance and W3C working together.
“I strongly believe that we don’t need more standards, we need fewer and better standards. I do wonder though if the number of compromised credentials over the past year is higher than cases of forgotten passwords. By this I once again highlight the fact that most compromises happen due to bad security at the service provider, not because of bad user passwords. Are we trying to solve a security problem, a UX problem, or both?” he commented for Help Net Security.
He also noted that, on the privacy and legal side of secure authentication, a new issue is becoming more visible every day: the right to remain silent in order to not incriminate yourself.
“If you get arrested in the US they will get your fingerprints, and they are legally allowed to use those to gain access to anywhere you are using fingerprint as your choice of authentication. Travelling across borders? Depending on where you come from and where you are going, you have to give up your fingerprints. Getting illegal access to your fingerprints? That’s already been shown on Mythbusters and demonstrated by the Chaos Computer Club a long time ago. If you have any electronics they can confiscate it, do forensics and use any evidence against you. If you have a FIDO Alliance compliant U2F hardware token with you, they can confiscate that token and use it to easily gain access to wherever you have used it,” he says.
But, as he pointed out, they cannot legally ask you to give up your password. “It is your last and probably still your most important line of defence.”
“Bottom line is simple: as long as they develop standards and tools that supplement and improve the security of a password I’m all for it. Just don’t take away my password please,” he added. | <urn:uuid:fcb8e5d8-a134-4b60-8362-07b054d07405> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2016/02/18/w3c-launches-effort-to-replace-passwords/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00227-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928056 | 688 | 2.65625 | 3 |
SAS vs. SATA - Page 4
The T10 organization has created a new standard called T10 PI/DIF (PI = Protection of Information Disk, DIF = Data Integrity Field disk). They are really two standards but I tend to combine them since one without the other doesn't achieve either goal (in the rest of the article I'll just use T10-DIF to basically refer to both). This standard attempts to address data integrity via hardware and software. The T10-DIF standard adds three fields (CRC's) to a standard disk sector. A diagram for a 512-byte disk sector with the additional fields is shown below:
Figure 1: T10-DIF data layout
In a 512-byte sector (shown as 0 to 511 byte count in the previous figure), there are three additional fields, resulting in a 520-byte chunk (not a power of two). The first additional field is a 2-byte data guard that is a CRC of the 512-byte sector. This field is abbreviated as GRD. The second field is a 2-byte application tag, abbreviated as APP. The third field is a 4-byte reference field, abbreviated as REF. With T10-DIF the HBA computes a 2-byte guard CRC (GRD) that is added to the 512-byte data sector before the entire 520-byte sector is passed to the drive. Then the drive can check the GRD CRC against the CRC of the 512-byte sector to check for an error. This greatly reduces the possibility of silent data corruption from the HBA to the disk drive.
T10-DIF means that drives have to be able to handle 520 byte sectors (not just 512 bytes). Moreover, if the drives have 4096-byte sectors then theT10-DIF standard changes to 4,104 byte sectors. There are HBA and disk manufacturers that support T10-DIF drives today. For example, LSI has HBA's that are T10-DIF compliant and there T10-DIF compliant drives from several manufacturers.
A visual way of thinking about the protection it provides is shown in the figure below:
Figure 2: T10 protection in the data path
At the bottom of the figure is a representation of the data path from the application down to the disk drive including the possibility of a storage network (SAN) being in the path (this can be a SAS network as well). The first row above the data components, labeled as "Normal IO," illustrates the data integrity checks that vendors have implemented. They are not coordinated and are not tied to each other across components, leaving the possibility of silent data corruption between steps in the data path.
The next level above, labeled on the left as "T10-DIF," illustrates where T10-DIF enters the picture. The HBA computes the checksum and puts it in the GRD field of the 520-byte sector. Then this is passed all the way down to the drive, which can check that the data is correct by checking the GRD checksum against the computed checksum of the data. T10-DIF introduces some data integrity protection from the HBA to the disk drive.
If you go back to the table of SDC's you will find that when using T10-DIF with a SAS channel, the SDC increases to 10E28. For a storage system running at 100 TiB/s for an entire year it is not likely that a single SDC will be encountered in the SAS channel. Just in case you didn't notice, a storage system running at 100 TiB/s for a year is roughly 3,153,600,00 TiB of total throughput (roughly 31,536,000 Exabytes).
Using T10-DIF added 7 orders of magnitude to the SDC protection of a SAS channel (10E21 to 10E28). SAS + T10-DIF is now 11 orders of magnitude better than the SATA channel (10E28 versus 10E17).
There is a second standard named T10-DIX that computes a checksum from the application and is inserted into the 520-byte chunk (the APP field). The T10-DIX protection is show in the previous diagram on the line with the left-hand label of "T10-DIX." It can be used to check data integrity all the way down to the HBA where T10-DIF kicks in.
If you look at the previous diagram, the application, or something close to it, creates a 2-byte CRC (tag) and puts it in the 520-byte data chunk. This allows the data to be checked all the way to the HBA. Then the HBA can do a checksum and add it to the correct place in the T10-DIF field and send it down to the drive.
If you look at the very top line of the previous diagram, labeled on the left as "T10-DIF+DIX," you can see how the T10 additions ensure data integrity from the application to the drive. This is precisely what is needed if data integrity means anything to you.
There are a few things of note with T10-DIF (PI) and T10-DIX. The first is that the application field cannot be passed through the VFS layer without changes to POSIX. Secondly, in the case of NFS the ability to pass 520-bute sectors is not likely happen either, unless the underlying protocol is changed (and POSIX). That means that NFS is not a good protocol at this time if you want data integrity from the application down to the HBA (T10-DIX) from the host.
If you have carefully read the T10 discussion you will notice that it is all around SAS. T10-DIF/PI and T10-DIX cannot be implemented with SATA. Therefore the SAS channel with T10-DIF just widens the gap with the SATA channel in terms of SDC.
Notice that the data integrity discussion is about channels and not drives. If any storage device uses a SATA channel then it suffers from the SDC rate previous discussed. If the storage device uses a SAS channel then it has the same SDC and can use T10-DIF/PI and T10-DIX to improve the SDC to a very high level. To be crystal clear, this includes SSD devices. SATA SSD devices that use the SATA Channel have a very poor SDC relative to SSD's that use the SAS Channels (SAS attached SSD devices).
There are many storage systems that use a caching tier of SSD's. The concept is to use very fast SSD's in front of a large capacity of drives. The classic approach is to use SAS drives for the "backing store" in the caching system and use the SSD's as the write and read cache layer. Many of these solutions use SAS channels on the backing storage, resulting in a reasonable SDC rate, but use SSD's with a SATA channel in the caching layer.
Some of these caching layers can run at 10 GiB/s. With a SATA channel you are likely to get 27.1 SDC's per year (about one every two weeks) while the SAS channel devices have virtually no SDC's in a year. The resulting storage solution only has as much data integrity as the weakest link - in this case, the SATA Channel. With this concept you have taken a SAS Channel based storage layer with a very good SDC rate and couple it to a SATA channel based caching layer with an extremely poor SDC rate.
Can't ZFS cure SATA's ills?
One question you may have at this point is if a file system like ZFS could allow you to use drives attached via a SATA channel despite their limitations? ZFS focuses on data integrity and checksums the data so shouldn't it "fix" some of SATA channel problems? Let's take a look at this since the devil is always in the details. | <urn:uuid:6f42db17-9ca0-4cbf-b4bb-d28e3fa025bd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-technology/sas-vs.-sata-4.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00163-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927834 | 1,666 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Fake News, AI, and the Search for Truth
Multiple weaknesses were exposed in public institutions in connection with last year’s election. First, cybercriminals tried to hack the outcome, then pollsters failed to read voter sentiment accurately. Finally, fake news crept into our news feeds, distorting our collective view of the real world. Can big data technology and artificial intelligence put us back on the straight and narrow?
We’ll soon get to find out. Following the election, Facebook revealed that it’s exploring ways that artificial intelligence can be used to prevent fake news from being distributed. The social media site has been criticized for not doing enough to stop users from circulating phony news stories that may have helped swing the election in favor of President-elect Donald Trump, an accusation the company vehemently denies.
Following the election, Yann LeCun, Facebook’s director of AI research, told a group of journalists gathered at its Menlo Park, California headquarters that an AI-based filter to detect fake news either already exists or could be built, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal. “Tens of employees” have been pulled off other projects to work on the fake news problem, the story says.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined several steps the company is looking at taking to tamp down on fake news, including advanced technology, a user reporting system, a third-party verification system, and disrupting fake news “economies,” among others.
But better fake-news detection algorithms are at the top of the list. “The most important thing we can do is improve our ability to classify misinformation,” Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post. “This means better technical systems to detect what people will flag as false before they do it themselves.”
AI to the Rescue?
Big data technology could certainly help with detecting news stories. Bill Schmarzo, the Dell EMC vice president who’s been called the Dean of Big Data, says AI technology like machine learning and texting mining is perfectly suited for this type of activity.
“You can look through patterns and categorize and cluster the different articles that come up to see if there’s any sort of tendency going on,” he says. “You can come up with some kind of rating using the vast amounts of data coming out from these different sources, applying things like AI to understand the data and to create a credibility score that then, as a reader, I would have a hint that says I’m reading this story that comes from a [suspicious] site.”
This sort of AI could help to prevent fake news—such as everything posted on the Denver Guardian (a fake news site) or a spoofed New York Times site that claimed Elizabeth Warren endorsed Bernie Sanders for president–from going viral.
“The technology is probably geared to more fast-moving news that’s spreading virally. This article is taking off fast. Flag it and throw it over to a human for review,” he says. “The technology is out there to help flag these things. But I still think there’s going to be a human component.”
It’s impossible to eliminate the underlying engine driving the fake news phenomenon (which isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon, and is sometimes called propaganda) because it’s inherently tied into human psychology, which makes any application of advanced technology a messy endeavor.
“Humans are really ineffective data processing and decision-making machines,” Schmarzo says. “What happens is they get an opinion in their mind, and then they search for data to support that decision. It’s called rationalization. It’s one of several decision-making flaws humans have.”
Hit It Like Spam
Seth Redmore, chief marketing officer at text analytics firm Lexalytics, agrees that AI technology can play a role in cracking down on fake news. But to really get a handle on the problem, it will require tacking it from multiple angles, he says.
In addition to creating filters that detect and weed out fake news, users should consider creating white lists of reputable news sources. That will significantly reduce the odds of known fake news sources from spreading virally, he says. “It’s very easy to tell a machine that a news source is fake,” he says. The problem is people. “Even now, I still see once a month somebody mistaking an article from The Onion for being a serious article.”
We’re at a similar point with fake news today as we were with computer viruses and spam 20 years ago, he says. Eventually we’ll catch up, but it will take a bit of work. “We’re behind the curve, and we got really surprised by how powerful this was,” Redmore says. “There’s a bit of scrambling to catch up right now.”
Another approach to stopping the problem involves killing the funding. If brands like Proctor & Gamble or General Motors were aware that their ads were being displayed against fake news stories, they would immediately put an end to it, Schmarzo says.
“I would need to have a score to ensure that my brand marketers are having the right kind of experience on my social media network,” he says. “I’m dumfounded they didn’t do that. It seems like a pretty basic thing.”
Redmore says blocking fake news, which he likens to “brain viruses,” will be a more difficult task than dealing with spam. For starters, spam followed a “push” delivery model that impacts individual email inboxes, whereas fake news has more of a “pull” delivery model where people are attracted to it because it aligns with their inherent biases.
And let’s not forget that fake news, like it or not, is protected under the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Fake journalists enjoy freedom of speech, while legitimate news organizations scramble to avoid getting ensnared by the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.
“My gut tells me fake news is going to be harder to classify [than spam] because it covers a broader range of topics and you can throw a lot more noise in there,” Redmore says. “Can we always determine what fake news is and always discredit it? We can’t do that with viruses, and that technology is hugely advanced.”
While AI technology could probably be developed that correctly identified the majority of fake news articles, the threat of false positives, or incorrectly labeling a real story as fake, is a major impediment to implementation.
Redmore uses the example of Sohaib Athar, the Pakistani IT professional who inadvertently live-tweeted the Navy SEAL raid that resulted in the death of Osama Bin-Laden in 2011. “When somebody finds something that is truly new and truly groundbreaking, it’s hard to filter it out from stuff that’s spam really,” he says.
This is the philosophical problem that Facebook is currently struggling with. In his blog post, Facebook’s Zuckerberg said the social media site doesn’t want to become the arbiter of truth. “We believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible,” he wrote.
Truth in the Crosshairs
Even if you could train a machine learning algorithm with the entirety of human knowledge up to a given point in time, there would be no guarantee that it would not incorrectly flag a legitimate breaking news story as fake in the future. That’s because news, by its very nature, is adding to the corpus of human knowledge.
AI technology, for all its progress, still cannot accurately interpret the actual meanings of complex phrases; that capability is still five to 10 years away, Zuckerberg predicted last year. So to assume that an algorithm can correctly identify fake news means that it must be able to correctly determine whether a collection of words reflects the truth or not. That is a tall order in our complex world. In fact, it may never be accomplished.
That’s not to say that progress can’t be made against fake news. As Schmarzo says, not all news stories have equal value, so one doesn’t need to boil the ocean by fighting every instance of fake news.
“One of the hard things that Facebook needs to look at is that stories that say Elvis Presley is still alive and working at a burger stop in Michigan. You know what? Who cares?” he says. “The cost of a false story on Elvis is zero. It’s immaterial, unless you own a burger place in Michigan.
“However, a false story about a presidential candidate or congressional nominee or police officer–these have a lot more weight to them,” he continues. “Those are really serious. You can leverage AI and text mining to flag those stories that are meaningful and have ramifications.”
And finally, consumers of news themselves need to be more critical of news stories themselves. They need to understand that, short of implementing draconian rules governing the distribution of information like they have in China, there’s no central source for “truth” on the Internet. It’s the Wild West out there.
People are free to explore information about anything they want, and are free to post anything they want, with a few exceptions. The role of the newspaper editor as your friendly neighborhood gatekeeper to pertinent information about your town and the world has basically been obliterated, replaced by Facebook feeds, Twitter posts, and Google News. There’s no way that AI can eliminate all instances of fake news on these sites, so some of the burden falls to readers to be more wary about what they read in their pursuit of becoming an informed citizen and voter. | <urn:uuid:e946c4cb-199f-4862-baea-542e98aafe28> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.datanami.com/2017/01/10/fake-news-ai-search-truth/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00071-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952595 | 2,081 | 2.625 | 3 |
We all are familiar with the term ‘firewall’ but majority of us don’t know the source of its origination. It is actually a terminology used for describing a part of automobile that separated the automobile’s interior from the compartment of engine. In the world of network this term is used metaphorically to show the way internal networks are separated from the hazards of external world. With the help of firewalls the networks are divided into various physical networks and as a result of this the occurrence of potential damages can be controlled otherwise these damages can spread to different subnets.
This works in the same way as the original firewalls worked to stop the spreading of a fire. | <urn:uuid:4b636156-c08f-4ddf-9f50-da191caaa4ba> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://howdoesinternetwork.com/tag/network-security | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00099-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934926 | 142 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Manufacturing Breakthrough Blog
Tuesday March 17, 2015
In my last posting, Six Sigma and the Causal Chain, I asked you the question below, so let’s talk about each of the potential answers.
When attempting to solve a problem, the only way to solve it is:
- One at a time, eliminate all of the symptoms (7.69%)
- Change something and see what happens (0.00%)
- Lay out the ordered sequence of events linking the potential causes to predicted effects (89.74%)
- Flip a coin to decide what to try (2.56%)
Choice 1 suggests we eliminate all of the symptoms, one by one. If we select this option, we really won’t solve our problem, but rather will just apply a bandage of sorts. Without finding the cause of the symptoms, eventually the symptoms will return because the source is still there, hiding. Choice 2 is similar in that changing something to see what happens doesn’t get us any closer to the source of the problem. In fact, changing something to see what happens will probably confuse us because we might end up with new symptoms. Choice 4 is obviously not a good solution because we’re just trying things instead of searching for cause and effect relationships.
So that leaves us with Choice 3 whereby we lay out the ordered sequence of events to get us closer to establishing a cause and effect relationship and eventually develop a viable solution. This is the real power of the Causal Chain. The bottom line is that until we establish the true cause and effect relationship of the problem we are trying to solve, we will flounder. Let’s look at another tool that helps us do this…..the Cause & Effect Diagram or, as it is also known, the Fishbone Diagram or the Ishikawa Diagram.
The Cause & Effect Diagram
When investigating production problems, it is imperative that we take the time to analyze the various potential causes responsible for the effect we are seeing. A Fishbone Diagram is a great tool to accomplish this. While this diagram does not necessarily indicate the relative magnitude of each cause, it does help limit the scope of subsequent data collection efforts. A Cause & Effect/Fishbone diagram is best developed in a brainstorming session with employees directly involved in the process.
Each branch off the main problem line represents a potential cause leading to the problem. Additional contributing factors are also shown for each branch. As a side note, these diagrams resemble the bones of a fish, hence the term Fishbone Diagram. So let’s see a graphic of what they look like.
The figure above represents the classic drawing of what a C & E or Fishbone Diagram looks like. At the far right we see the “Problem Definition” which should be worded in such a way that there is no confusion about the problem. In this drawing we also see boxes labeled as “Cause Category.” In a classic C & E Diagram the typical names of these categories are Man, Materials, Methods and Machine (the Four Ms). The potential root causes for problems in the Categories are added in each of the “Potential Contributor” boxes.
The C & E Diagram is fundamentally used as a brainstorming tool that groups possible causes of a problem into broad headings or categories. In other words, when selecting the various categories for your C & E Diagram, make them relate to your own industry or the specific problem you’re trying to solve. You then proceed to brainstorm all of the potential contributors (i.e. potential root causes) until you’re satisfied that you’ve listed the major ones. Let’s look at a simple example of a C & E Diagram.
A Cause & Effect Diagram Example
In the example below, we see that “Bar Transfer Drive Trips” is listed as the problem. The next logical question(s) to ask are “why is it tripping?” or “what caused it to trip?” Instead of the Four Ms listed earlier, the headings selected for the Cause Categories for this problem are People, Design, Maintenance and Environment.
In each of the potential contributor boxes, we insert those things that are potentially causing the problem. Once the list of potential root causes is complete, each one is then individually assessed to determine which are most likely causing the problem so solutions can be developed. It’s important to understand that the Cause & Effect Diagram is useful to determine what could have caused a problem and not how to correct it. Once you’ve completed your assessment, then it’s simply a matter of testing the potential root causes in their natural order of ranking (i.e. highest probability to lowest probability) of problem causes.
In my next posting we will discuss another very useful tool in the Six Sigma tool kit, the Pareto Chart. Like the Causal Chain and the C & E Diagram, the Pareto Chart is a very useful tool for solving problems. However, as you will see, the Pareto Chart helps you identify the order to “attack” potential root causes. As always, if you have any questions or comments about any of my postings, just leave me a message and I will respond.
Until next time. | <urn:uuid:cf573cd8-8e3d-452f-b7b5-1e59eee49461> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://manufacturing.ecisolutions.com/blog/posts/2015/march/solving-production-problems-through-brainstorming.aspx | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285244.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00493-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92748 | 1,106 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Wednesday January 11, 2017
Twin Killers in Manufacturing
As every production manager is aware, it’s not easy to achieve a smooth and continuous flow of products in concert with market demand. Although managers are aware of this, what is generally unknown or recognized is the major obstacles to running an effective operation all boils down to two basic phenomena that exists in all manufacturing operations. These two phenomena are referred to as dependent events which include the interactions between resources and products and statistical fluctuations which causes excessive amounts of variation. In order to improve our decision-making ability, it’s necessary to understand the nature of both dependencies and variation that permeate all production firms. So let’s explore both of these phenomena in more detail.
In any manufacturing operation there are numerous dependencies that exist. Dependencies are those sequence of operations or activities in any plant that cannot occur until some other operation takes place and has been completed. These interactions between dependent events play a vital role in the smooth flow of materials through a manufacturing process. If a preceding operation is delayed, then many times the end product will be delayed and shipment to the customer could be late. There are many examples of these dependencies within every manufacturing facility. For example, the production process cannot begin until the raw materials are received, accepted, and sent to the first step in the process. Likewise, the raw materials cannot be received until an order is placed, the raw material is produced, payment is received, etc. And what happens when a quality problem is detected in any step in the process? The root cause of the problem must be found, impacted materials must be reworked (or scrapped) or new materials must be supplied.
The significance of dependencies within the manufacturing process is magnified immensely by another reality, the unavoidable existence of variability in the form of both random events and statistical fluctuations. Random events are those activities occurring at unpredictable times that have a significant disruptive effect on the entire manufacturing process. Random events occur in the process from many different sources. For example, suppose a customer order is suddenly canceled? What problems result from this cancellation?
In any manufacturing facility there are events referred to as statistical fluctuations that wreak havoc on the shop floor. It’s important to understand that these fluctuations occur that cause higher levels of variability. Typical examples include things like actual customer orders being different than what has been forecasted; the time required to process materials at a work station is different from the planned time; or even the time to set-up a machine is different than the predicted amount.
Although random events and statistical fluctuations are different phenomena, they both cause variability and if the process is poorly controlled, they both send shock waves throughput the system. Production managers are constantly on guard for both of these variation producers that cause disruptions and adjustments to their planned activities. So what’s the impact of dependency and variability?
Dependency and Variability Impact
In order to demonstrate the damaging effects of dependency and variability in a manufacturing system, let’s create a simple analogy. Imagine a basic production line that only produces a single product, uses only one raw material, and has a single sequence of dependent operations. The figure below describes this simple process.
Raw material is received, processed by the first resource, transferred to the second resource, then the third and so on until a finished product is created. Each step is dependent upon the preceding step. And the impact of any variation in time or quality between steps is felt by all downstream operations. Downstream resources fall further and further behind the work schedule as the disruptions and negative fluctuations accumulate throughout the system. One obvious effect is the accumulation of work-in-process inventory which translates into lost or reduced throughput. One important point is that negative variations from the scheduled flow of product will accumulate more readily than positive variations will. The definitive result is that as the flow of products is disrupted, throughput decreases, excess work-in-process forms and operating expenses increases.
One of the teachings of Lean Manufacturing is the concept of the balanced manufacturing plant, meaning that all process steps are close to having the same processing times. Is this a good idea?
In my next post, we will discuss the balanced plant concept in more detail as well as the effect of disruptions in a balanced plant. As always, if you have any questions or comments about any of my posts, leave me a message and I will respond.
Until next time.
L. Srikanth and Michael Umble, Synchronous Management – Profit-Based Manufacturing for the 21st Century, Volume One – 1997, The Spectrum Publishing Company, Wallingford, CT | <urn:uuid:7b9aa705-5600-4f78-9aa8-23960224190f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://manufacturing.ecisolutions.com/blog/posts/2017/january/dependencies-and-variability.aspx | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285244.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00493-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951074 | 937 | 2.828125 | 3 |
What is the difference between CCNA and CCNP?
- 29th January 2016
- Posted by: Juan van Niekerk
- Category: Networking
The CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) and CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Personnel) certifications are both offered by Cisco, a major supplier of networking certifications and equipment. Many students looking to gain a Cisco certification have begged the question: “What is the difference between CCNA and CCNP?” The best way to answer this question is by looking at what the student will learn when studying each of these Cisco certification levels.
When undertaking the CCNA course, students will learn how to properly manage medium-sized networks. It is aimed at IT professionals that are just starting out in the IT field and involves the installation, configuration, troubleshooting and operation of route and switched networks. This will create a solid foundation of knowledge upon which to build a lucrative career in networking, seeing as many employers will not consider an application for employment without a valid certification.
There are no prerequisites to studying the CCNA course and you will have a choice between writing the following exams:
• 200-120 CCNA Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices: Accelerated (CCNAX)
• 100-101 ICND1 Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Part 1 (ICND1)
• 200-101 ICND2 Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Part 2 (ICND2)
The CCNP course is a more in-depth and advanced certification. It is aimed at IT professionals that have between 1 and 2 years’ experience in networking and will go a long way towards furthering the career of anyone involved in the networking environment. Adding the CCNP certification to your CV will show that you have a firm understanding of WAN (Wide Area Networks) and LAN (Local Area Networks) and how they can work together. It will also demonstrate an understanding of both video and wireless solutions as well as advanced security troubleshooting and solutions.
This certification consists of 3 exams, namely:
• 300-101 ROUTE Implementing Cisco IP Routing (ROUTE)
• 300-115 SWITCH Implementing Cisco IP Switched Networks (SWITCH)
• 300-135 TSHOOT Troubleshooting and Maintaining Cisco IP Networks (TSHOOT)
Which is the more senior Cisco certification?
The CCNP certification is considered the more senior out of these two Cisco certification levels, considering that it delves much deeper and wider into the workings of networking and its associated content such as security and wireless options than the CCNA.
Prerequisites to obtaining CCNP
In order to undertake your CCNP certification, you will have to have studied and passed the exam for the CCNA certification.
Since the levels of training between CCNA and CCNP are different, each of the certifications will lead to different career paths.
CCNA career path:
This certification will be suited to someone looking to gain an entry-level career such as:
• Network Support Engineer
• Network Technician
• Helpdesk Engineer
• Service Desk Engineer/Technician
• First and Second Line Support
CCNP career path:
The CCNP certification will suit IT professionals that are endeavouring to take a further step up in their career and can include the following:
• Third Line Support
• Network Engineer
• Network Analyst
• IT Team Leader
• Systems Engineer
• Network Specialist
Quality Cisco CCNA and CCNP training
It is imperative that, when looking to undertake your Cisco CCNA and CCNP training, you do the necessary research and find a training provider that delivers the quality of training that will enable you to deliver what you have learned confidently and timeously.
Quality online courses such as the training provided by ITonlinelearning has gained massive popularity due to the fact that not only the courses, but also the exams can be undertaken from the comfort of your own home. This means that you can study when you have the time to do so at a pace that suits you. | <urn:uuid:73758560-04f9-4f8d-af18-f8a5dad93843> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.itonlinelearning.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-ccna-and-ccnp/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280485.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00486-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941505 | 838 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Most of those working in the cable industry should know what virtual circuits are, but have they ever stopped to think about how those circuits might apply to their industry?
Everyone talks about the use of this technique in traditional telephone networks. In that network environment, the idea is that the paths between central offices would be used in a virtual way to conserve resources.
Remember that the idea of a virtual circuit is that there is enough unused time in any communications path that all of the traffic could be arranged so that the total numbers of circuits would exactly equal the amount of time that the communications would consume. Time would not be wasted by unused periods on "dedicated" circuits; it would be used by pieces and parts of other communications needs.Unused circuit time
The theory teaches that, in the abstract, if there were 100 communicators on one side of a path and one receptor on the other side, and each of the communicators needed a path that was one mile long to reach the receptor, then there would be approximately 100 miles of plant to allow every communicator to send a message to the lone receptor. Imagine instead that a small piece of equipment is placed very near the transmitting end of the 100 paths that are emanating from the communicators.
Also imagine that coming out of that equipment is only one path that travels the remaining distance (let's say seven-eighths of a mile, for example). This would yield a network that has a total of 100 circuits × 1/8 mile = 12.5 miles, and one circuit that is seven-eighths of a mile, for a grand total of 13.375 miles. If the traffic load can all be allocated to timeslots on the one circuit, then this network would serve the same purpose as the one with 100 different paths to the lone receptor.
But what if the traffic load is so high that one circuit will not handle the demands of the 100? Traffic data analysis over many years has shown that there is a relatively large amount of time in multiple circuits that is unused or that carries information that can be gated and delayed by an acceptable amount of time. So even if additional paths were needed from the intermediate point to the receptor to handle all of the traffic demands, there is a good chance that only a couple dozen circuits may be needed, and the savings in physical plant would still be great.
The problem of links between points becomes even more burdensome when it is acknowledged that the 100 communicators would like to send traffic to each other, as well as to the lone receptor. Since the number of links required in such a case is (N-1) × (N)/2 where N is the number of discrete points that need to be connected under this formula (thus, five points yield 10 connections), the needs of the above-mentioned 100 points yields 4,950 connections. The opportunity to save a great deal of plant by using virtual concentration techniques in a large network is even better.Clouds of circuits
Looking at this concept of virtual circuits, it is apparent that the length of the path from the output of the virtual machine to the receptor is a critical element in how effective this concept is in saving actual plant resources. This, after all, is the physical length that is irreducible, so to speak.
Further, by considering the differences between a typical telco plant (central office with long loops to customer locations) and a cable television plant with the shared part of the plant extending all the way to the property line of the customer, it should be apparent that the use of a version of virtual circuits is more beneficial to cable operators than to telcos.
Think of the design of this beast as a cloud, wherein lies the ability to do virtual circuits, and the customers are connected to physical paths that radiate from the cloud. Imagine that the 100 points above all agreed to be connected to a central point that could switch their traffic to any other point. The total number of links would be exactly 100. A far cry from 4,950 links.
The telco cloud that surrounds the central office has loops that are long. The cable cloud surrounds the entire cable plant, except the drops, which are short (approximately 110 feet per). If an operator wanted to build the most efficient system for using virtual circuits, the larger the cloud (or conversely, the more common plant elements that it surrounds) and the shorter the connecting paths, the better.A natural advantage
Who knows? Maybe if the cable industry ever gets a chance to provide a large variety of relatively homogeneous traffic elements (such as digital bits representing television signals, data and telephone traffic), perhaps it can find a way to use its natural advantage in the theory of networks to provide the most services to the largest number of customers for the lowest price. The cable television industry is already more than halfway there. The rest, as they say, is a walk.
Contact Wendell Bailey at: email@example.com | <urn:uuid:1bf6c4ae-ff5a-4706-9444-f9cb02cf00f0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.cedmagazine.com/print/articles/1996/04/virtual-circuits-and-the-cable-cloud | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283689.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00118-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957202 | 1,010 | 3.515625 | 4 |
A computer program called Elbot succeeded in fooling a quarter of the people chatting with it into believing it was human during last weekend's Loebner Prize competition and came close to being the first to pass the Turing Test.
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The feat won developer Fred Roberts, a former IBM and Nixdorf software engineer who lives in Germany, £1,760 and a bronze medal for the best machine in the 18th Loebner Prize competition held at Reading University.
The Loebner Prize goes to the computer program that comes closest to passing the Turing Test. Devised by Britain's most famous code-breaker, Alan Turing, the test says that if, during text-based conversation, a machine is indistinguishable from a human, then it could be said to be "thinking" and, therefore, could be attributed with intelligence.
Elbot scored 25% in the test, just below the 30% pass threshold.
The Reading competition drew six entrants and six human "confederates" who chatted using SMS messages with visitors. They each held five minutes of unrestricted chat to see if the visitors could tell which responses were from a machine.
Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading's School of Systems Engineering, who organised the test, said, "The machines are not yet good enough to fool all of the people all of the time, but they are certainly fooling some of the people some of the time.
"Sunday's results show a more complex story than a straight pass or fail by one machine. Where the machines were identified correctly by the human interrogators, their conversational abilities were scored at 80% and 90%.
"This shows how close machines are getting to communicating with us in a way in which we are comfortable. That day will change our relationship with machines."
Roberts said he developed Elbot to converse with users about any topic under the sun, rather than a specialised and self-contained set of FAQs as is usually the case for commercial systems.
"The completely open range of subject matter required various new strategies to make the most of a finite knowledge base, with an eye towards keeping the conversational experience fun, entertaining and meaningful, though not necessarily to fool the user into thinking the application is human," he said.
To chat with Elbot click here.
One of the scripts from the competition will be available soon. | <urn:uuid:f9d91aad-6147-4790-a147-330baf8441c6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240087130/Chatty-robots-on-the-brink-of-humanity | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00238-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966282 | 507 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Sometimes called recurrence coding, This is one of the simplest
data compression algorithms but is effective for data sets which are
comprised of long sequences of a single repeated character. For
instance, text files with large runs of spaces or tabs may compress
well with this algorithm. Old versions of the arc compression
program used run-length encoding.
The way RLE works is by finding runs of repeated characters in the
input stream and replacing them with a three-byte code. The code
consists of a flag character, a count byte, and the repeated
character. For instance, the string ``AAAAAABBBBCCCCC'' could be more
efficiently represented as ``*A6*B4*C5''. That saves us six bytes.
Of course, since it does not make sense to represent runs less than
three characters in length with a code, none is used. Thus
``AAAAAABBCCCDDDD'' might be represented as ``*A6BBCCC*D4''. The flag
byte is called a sentinel byte.
One problem with this approach lies in the selection of the sentinel
value. This flag signals to the decompression code that an encoded
sequence follows. Ideally we would like to select a byte value that
does not occur in the input stream. However, running through the
input stream looking for an absent value slows down this algorithm.
Since the main advantage of this algorithm is its speed, slowing it
down for only slightly better compression results is not usually
considered. Often an arbitrary, non-letter ASCII value is chosen as
the sentinel. When compressing a stream with natural occurrences of
the sentinel flag,
the flag byte must be represented. Sometimes a three-byte code is
used with a count of less than three. Another aproach is to use a
doubled flag byte represent one naturally occurring flag byte in the
input. Thus, ``AAAAAA*BBBBCC*D'' would encode to ``*A6***B4CC**D''.
The two stars after ``A6'' and the final two stars denote a natural
star in the input stream.
It is wasteful to only encode run counts with ordinal numbers from
zero to nine. Instead we can use the value of the byte to denote the
number of characters in the run. In this way we can get a range of
zero to 255. However, since we are never encoding any run with less
than four characters, the range becomes four to 259. Runs comprised
of more than 259 characters in them will be broken up into two or more
three-byte flag-character-count sequences.
RLE is used as one of the steps in the JPEG image compression process.
Basically the JPEG algorithm breaks an image up into a series of 8x8
matrixes and proceeds to run a ``DCT'' transformation on each matrix.
This transformation isolates the important image components in the
upper left portion of the matrix. The lossy step of the JPEG process
happens when values far from the upper-left corner are rounded.
Unless these values are of very high magnitude they tend to become
zeros. However, the further away from the upper left corner of the
matrix, the less likely bytes are to have a high magniture so there
ends up being a lot of zeros in the transformed matrix. To maximize
the length of zero runs, JPEG scans the matrix in a diagonal pattern
and then uses RLE to encode multiple zeros in a row efficiently. This
is a terribly high-level explaination of how JPEG works and I would
recommend reading Nelson and Gailly's chapter on lossy graphic
compression for more information. | <urn:uuid:0246b239-6e3a-4793-b850-cc9354930efe> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/alg/node164.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00266-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898147 | 781 | 4.1875 | 4 |
Here's a piece of news which, on the face of it, makes sense but, if you look at it a bit closer, could also make less sense than you think.
According to research from Microsoft, school kids aren't being taught the necessary IT skills to prepare them for future employment. It found that 71% of 16 to 18 year olds learned more about technology outside the classroom than in school and 58% said they had a greater level of understanding of IT than their IT teachers.
Steve Beswick, senior director of Education at Microsoft UK, said the results would be a major concern for businesses as they suggested schools were not equipping students with the appropriate skills and knowledge for future employment.
Not really. First off, teachers don't necessarily need to have a greater level of understanding of IT than their students even when it comes to teaching IT and besides, just because the kids say they know more doesn't mean they do. Opinion is bound to differ between teachers, students and employers over what is meant by "a greater level of understanding of IT".
Second, given the amount of time kids spend using technology outside the classroom, it's hardly surprising they learn more about it when they're not in school.
Third, when students talk about technology, do they mean the same thing as when businesses talk about technology? What role, for example, will their skills on XBox 360, PS3, Facebook or Windows Live Messenger equip them for in business?
Fourth, how can you give students the necessary IT skills for the future when the IT requirements of their jobs could be so different from one another?
According to the report, 39% of students thought their school's investment in technology gave them the skills they needed for future work. That's a surprisingly high figure in my eyes. If they're still students and not at work, how can they predict what the IT requirements will be?
We should be careful not to get too carried away about technology's role in employment. Far better that school kids get a well-rounded education which will help them to adapt to future employment requirements. Yes, a grounding in technology is helpful but being able to use IT won't magically make a person more valuable to a future employer in and of itself. Especially if that student's idea of good IT skills is at variance with his or her potential future employer. | <urn:uuid:a5482b9e-b1ee-4ba8-99f0-9f26aae79200> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.computerweekly.com/microscope/opinion/Are-schools-failing-the-IT-test | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281263.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00568-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977595 | 476 | 2.65625 | 3 |
IBM says it has made a breakthrough in developing small yet powerful chips.
IBM researchers said they have made a breakthrough in chip development that could lead to processors that are smaller but more powerful than current offerings.
Researchers used a technique called molecular self-assembly to create important parts of a semiconductor memory device, IBM reported in a paper presented last week at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting in Washington.
According to researchers at IBMs Yorktown Heights, N.Y., research lab, the self-assembly technique takes advantage of a reliable way that certain types of polymer molecules come together and organize themselves. The result of that tendency, the researchers said, are patterns that can be used to create device features that are smaller, denser and more uniform than techniques currently used, such as lithography.
Chip makers will continue to be able to use lithography for many more years to create smaller, faster chips, but those enhancements will also increase the cost and complexity of the technique, an IBM spokesman said.
Molecular self-assembly, an approach based on nanotechnology, will give processor manufacturers another method to shrink the chips while boosting the performance. IBM said the new technique is compatible with existing chip-making tools, enabling manufacturers to implement the molecular self-assembly without greatly increasing costs by having to retool machines and assume risks that come with major changes in processes. The result could be more powerful processors for everything from computers to wireless devices.
IBM researchers expect molecular self-assembly to be used in pilot programs in three to five years.
In creating the crucial parts of the semiconductor memory device using the technique, researchers were able to create a dense silicon nanocrystal array, the basis for a variant of conventional flash memory.
Rob Enderle, principal analyst with The Enderle Group, said IBMs announcement is a step in the right direction for nanotechnology. The key for IBM and other vendors will be developing a process that can produce the billions of chips that are needed every year.
"While some of them have been able to build little itty-bitty test machines ... nobody has come up with a way to address the scalability issue," said Enderle, in San Jose, Calif. "They have to find a way to ramp and produce lots and lots of these things. But this is a good step." | <urn:uuid:548c43a1-8e92-4827-99c3-c529514c6d3b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/In-Chip-Production-Small-Is-Beautiful | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00221-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94531 | 476 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Wright H.J.,CABI Inc |
Ochilo W.,CABI Africa |
Pearson A.,Rothamsted Research |
Pearson A.,Lancaster University |
And 6 more authors.
Journal of Agricultural and Food Information | Year: 2016
Plant pests cause crop losses of 30–40%, contributing significantly to global food insecurity. The Plantwise program works alongside national agricultural extension services, who advise smallholder farmers on plant health issues and collect data on problems they face. In a 1-year pilot, Plantwise tested the use of information and communication technologies (ICT)—tablets and short message service (SMS)—with 60 Kenyan extension workers. They were able to assist more farmers with better advice, had significantly improved access to plant health information, valued being able to ask their peers for advice, and dramatically improved the quality and speed of the data they collected. © 2016 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis. Source | <urn:uuid:1aab7f2f-4e32-48aa-bb7c-d3436fcfe84d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.linknovate.com/affiliation/ministry-of-agriculture-110780/all/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280801.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00551-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917567 | 200 | 2.640625 | 3 |
By the end of 2015, the potential security risks to the smart grid will reach 440 million new hackable points. Billions are being spent on smart grid cybersecurity, but it seems like every time you turn around, there is yet another vulnerability exposing how to manipulate smart meters or power-grid data. At the IEEE SmartGridComm2010 conference, Le Xie, Texas A&M University's assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, gave examples of how attackers could hack the power grid for fun and profit.
SmartPlanet interviewed Kenneth Van Meter, Lockheed Martin's general manager of Energy and Cyber Services. "By the end of 2015 we will have 440 million new hackable points on the grid...Every smart meter is going to be a hackable point. There are devices and routers in all of the substations that are hackable. Automated devices at home all become hackable points. We're making the whole network from generation to distribution and meter fully automated, so that's hackable. If you can communicate with it, you can hack it," Van Meter stated.
According to the Lockheed Martin smart grid expert, there are three worst case scenarios for the 3,200 utilities in the U.S:
1. Someone, a neighborhood kid or a person in another country, might turn off the power to a hospital or neighborhood in the middle of night.
2. Voltage control devices could be hacked, turned up and down so that the voltage zaps computers, high-definition TVs or other voltage-sensitive equipment.
3. "If you can cause rapid problems in the grid to occur in the right places at scheduled times, you could destabilize the whole grid, black out whole cities or states and cause massive damage." He added that some devices aren't available in the U.S. and could take two years to get a replacement.
Lockheed Martin is working with DHS on advanced forensics and tools, helping to build the first ever real-time cyber center for utilities, blocking and tackling with a set of cyber security requirements that if utilities don't comply with, then they could be fined as much as $1 million a day.
Technology Review mentioned that last year, IOActive's Mike Davis created software to hijack smart meters. That was before the Stuxnet worm attacked SCADA systems, proving to be malware worthy of a sci-fi movie. Both Jonathan Pollet of Red Tiger Security and Nathan Keltner of Fishnet Security have talked of smart grid vulnerabilities in regards to SCADA systems that are used at utility companies. Keltner said the smart grid amounts to "old-school SCADA that's been bolted into some sort of a newer technology."
At hacker security conferences this summer, researchers presented several smart grid/smart meter talks such as Electricity for Free? The Dirty Underbelly of SCADA and Smart Meters, Wardriving the Smart Grid, and The Night The Lights Went Out In Vegas: Demystifying Smartmeter Networks. There are also bucket loads of smart meter data privacy issues and how it could be used. Ready or not, this nation is moving fast to implement smart grid technologies.
Pike Research estimates that $21 billion will be spent on smart grid cybersecurity by 2015. The Department of Energy recently announced it will invest more than $30 million for ten projects that will address cybersecurity issues facing the smart grid. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have released 537 pages of guidelines on how to protect the smart grid from attack. Will throwing money and policies at the problem make it go away or really fix it?
Only time will tell if the smart grid is the best thing since sliced bread, the next Stuxnet worm nightmare, or perhaps somewhere in-between. Wardriving the Smart Grid sums it up nicely by quoting Charles Palmer, director of IBM's Institute for Advanced Security, "The truth is also that a well-placed squirrel can wreak almost as much havoc as a cyber attack on a power grid." To which Shawn Moyer responded on the Net, "We must find this well-placed squirrel, and ensure that it never falls into the hands of our enemies." | <urn:uuid:10426154-c04d-45b9-8a7f-b6746bcd2e61> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.computerworld.com/article/2469471/endpoint-security/440-million-new-hackable-smart-grid-points.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281263.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00569-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933995 | 848 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Gigabit Ethernet Auto-Negotiation
By Rich Hernandez (Issue 1 2001)
The Auto-Negotiation standard allows devices based on several Ethernet standards, from 10BaseT to 1000BaseT, to coexist in the network by mitigating the risks of network disruption arising from incompatible technologies. This capability helps ensure a smooth migration path from Ethernet to Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet. This article provides an in-depth explanation of auto-negotiation and its functioning and also discusses special cases that may be encountered.
Today a number of technologies, such as 10BaseT, 100BaseTX, and 1000BaseT, use the same RJ-45 connector, creating the potential for connecting electrically incompatible components together and causing network disruption. In addition, with the advent of Gigabit Ethernet over copper, three-speed devices now support 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1000 Mbps operation. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE® ) developed a method known as auto-negotiation to eliminate the possibility of dissimilar technologies interfering with each other.
Gigabit transceivers at the physical layer (PHY) of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model use auto-negotiation to advertise the following modes of operation: 1000BaseT in full or half duplex, 100BaseTX in full or half duplex, and 10BaseT in full or half duplex. Although auto-negotiation can be disabled for 100BaseTX or 10BaseT connectivity, it is always required for normal 1000BaseT operation.
Auto-negotiation enables an easy upgrade path to gigabit speeds by future proofing the server network connectivity with a three-speed network interface card (NIC) or LAN on motherboard (LOM). A server connected to a Fast Ethernet switch or hub can easily be upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet by connecting the NIC to a Gigabit Ethernet switch. If both the NIC and the switch are set to auto-negotiate, the interface will be automatically configured to run at 1000 Mbps.
The auto-negotiation algorithm (known as NWay) allows two devices at either end of a 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, or 1000 Mbps link to advertise and negotiate the link operational mode—such as the speed of the link and the duplex configuration of half or full duplex—to the highest common denominator.
In addition, for 1000BaseT, NWay determines the master-slave interlock between the PHYs at the ends of the link. This mode is necessary to establish the source of the timing control of each PHY. NWay is an enhancement of the 10BaseT link integrity test (LIT) signaling method and provides backward compatibility with link integrity.
Auto-negotiation is defined in Clause 28 of the 1998 edition of the IEEE Standard (Std) 802.3. Clause 28 defines a standard to address the following goals:
- Provide easy, plug-and-play upgrades from 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1000 Mbps as the network infrastructure is upgraded
- Prevent network disruptions when connecting mixed technologies such as 10BaseT, 100BaseTX, and 1000BaseT
- Accommodate future PHY (transceiver) solutions
- Allow manual override of auto-negotiation
- Support backward compatibility with 10BaseT
- Provide a parallel detection function to recognize 10BaseT, 100BaseTX, and 100BaseT4 non-NWay devices
In addition, the 1999 standard for Gigabit over copper cabling, IEEE Std 802.3ab, added the following enhancements to the Auto-Negotiation standard:
- Mandatory auto-negotiation for 1000BaseT
- Configure master and slave modes for the PHY
The Auto-Negotiation specification includes reception, arbitration, and transmission of normal link pulses (NLPs). It also defines a receive LIT function for backward compatibility with 10BaseT devices. All of these functions are implemented as part of the physical layer transceiver as shown in Figure 1 . The exchange of link information occurs between the PHY and the Medium Dependent Interface (MDI) or RJ-45 connector.
Figure 1. Data terminal equipment layer model (Redrawn from the IEEE Std 802.3, 1998 Edition)
Gigabit Ethernet defines auto-negotiation as a functional block part of the physical coding sublayer (PCS) function, while in 100BaseT it is defined as a separate sublayer in the PHY. All auto-negotiation functions are implemented as part of the transceiver integrated circuit, which is part of a network interface card or integrated on the motherboard of a computer.
10BaseT link test pulses
The 10BaseT standard includes a link test mechanism to ensure network integrity. In the absence of network traffic, a 100 nanosecond (ns) heartbeat unipolar (positive only) pulse is sent every 16 milliseconds (ms) within a range of +/- 8 ms. The link test pulse is sent by the transmitters of all 10BaseT media attachment units (MAUs) between the data terminal equipment (DTE) and the repeater.
A link fail condition is entered if the receiver does not receive a packet or a link test pulse within 50-150 ms. The link fail condition disables the data transmit, data receive, and loopback functions. The link test pulses continue to be transmitted and received during the link failure. The link is reestablished when two consecutive link test pulses or a single data packet have been received.
100BaseT/1000BaseT fast link pulses
The link information is encoded in a special pulse train known as the fast link pulse (FLP) burst. The FLP builds on the LIT pulse used by 10BaseT devices as a heartbeat pulse to the link partner at the opposite end of the link. The LIT was redefined as the normal link pulse (NLP). As shown in Figure 2 , the NLP is the 10BaseT link integrity test pulse, and the FLP is a group of NLPs. Each pulse is 100 ns in width.
Figure 2. FLP and NLP comparison
Auto-negotiation replaces the single 10BaseT link pulse with the FLP burst. Auto-negotiation stops the transmission of FLP bursts once the link configuration is established. The FLP burst looks the same as a single link test pulse from the perspective of 10BaseT devices. Consequently, a device that uses NWay must recognize the NLP sequence from a 10BaseT link partner, cease transmission of FLP bursts, and enable the 10BaseT physical medium attachment (PMA). Auto-negotiation does not generate NLP sequences—it only recognizes NLPs. Instead, auto-negotiation passes control to the 10BaseT PMA to generate NLPs.
Each FLP burst consists of 33 pulse positions that provide clock and data information. The 17 odd-numbered pulses are designated as clock pulses, while the 16 even-numbered pulse positions represent data information. A logic one is represented by the presence of a pulse, while the absence of a pulse is represented by a logic zero. Figure 3 shows the timing characteristics of the clock and data pulses.
Figure 3. FLP burst timing
FLP burst encoding
The data pulses in the FLP burst encode a 16-bit link code word (LCW). A device capable of auto-negotiation transmits and receives the FLP. The receiver must identify three identical LCWs before the information is authenticated and used in the arbitration process. The devices decode the base LCW and select capabilities of the highest common denominator supported by both devices. Once the LCWs are properly received, each device transmits a FLP burst with an acknowledge bit. At this point, both devices enable the mode that is the highest common mode negotiated.
The clock pulses are used for timing and recovery of the data pulses. The 17 clock pulses are always present in the FLP burst. The first pulse on the wire is a clock pulse. The 16 data pulses may or may not be present. If the data pulse is present, it represents a value of one in the LCW for that position. The lack of a data pulse indicates a zero in the LCW for that position, as shown in Figure 4 .
Figure 4. FLP burst encoding
Base link code word
The base LCW is transmitted within an FLP burst after power-on, reset, or renegotiation. The DTE and its link partner communicate their capabilities by exchanging LCWs. Figure 5 defines the bit positions of the base LCW. These bit positions map directly to the data pulses in the FLP burst-bits D0 through D15.
Figure 5. Base link code word definition
Technology ability field
The technology ability field (TAF), which is encoded in bits D5 through D12 of the FLP burst, is shown for the IEEE 802.3 Base Page as defined in the Selector field (00001) for IEEE 802.3 Ethernet. The order of the bits within the TAF does not correspond to the relative priority of the technologies during the arbitration process. Each device capable of auto-negotiation maintains a prioritization table used to determine the highest common denominator ability. These priorities were updated to include Gigabit Ethernet over copper, as shown in Figure 6 .
Figure 6. Priority resolution table
A local device may use the Remote Fault (RF) bit to indicate the presence of a fault detected by the remote link partner. For example, the RF bit is set to a logic one when the device enters the link fail state. The RF bit is reset to zero once the LCW is successfully negotiated. After the successful receipt of the three identical LCWs, the device will transmit an LCW with the Ack bit set to one. This LCW must be transmitted a minimum of six to eight times.
Additional pages, other than the base LCW, can be sent if both devices on the link set the Next Page bit in the base LCW. The Next Page protocol consists of a message page (MP) and one or more unformatted pages. These pages are LCW encoded in the FLP like the Base Page. Figure 7 shows the message and unformatted LCW bit definition.
Figure 7. Message and unformatted pages
If the MP bit is set to one, the LCW will be treated as a message page and interpreted to carry a message as defined in IEEE Std 802.3, Annex 28C, 1998 Edition. The unformatted pages include the specific message information, indicated by an MP bit that is set to zero.
1000BaseT devices use auto-negotiation to set up the link configuration by advertising the PHY capabilities, including speed, duplex, and master-slave mode. Gigabit Ethernet over copper relies on the exchange of a Next Page LCW that describes the Gigabit extended capabilities. These capabilities are documented via one Base Page, one 1000BaseT message Next Page, and two 1000BaseT unformatted Next Pages, as shown in Figure 8 . A message code with a value of 8-M10:M0=00000001000 indicates that the 1000BaseT technology message code will be transmitted.
Figure 8. 1000BaseT Base and Next Pages
A 1000BaseT PHY can operate as a master or slave. A prioritization scheme determines which device will be the master and which the slave. The IEEE supplement to Std 802.3ab, 1999 Edition defines a resolution function to handle any conflicts. Multiport devices have higher priority to become master than single port devices. If both devices are multiport devices, the one with higher seed bits becomes the master.
A device determines that a link partner can use auto-negotiation by detecting the FLP burst. However, some devices may not have implemented the auto-negotiation function. For devices that support 100BaseTX, 100BaseT4, or 10BaseT, a parallel detection function allows detection of the link.
The receiver device passes the signals in parallel to both the NLP/FLP detector functional block and to any 100BaseTX or 100BaseT4 PMAs or the NLP receive LIT functions in the physical transceiver. If the native signal causes the TX/T4 PMA to enter a link good condition, then the auto-negotiation function is bypassed.
Examples of auto-negotiation interoperability
These three examples illustrate the flexibility of the 10/100/1000 802.3ab Auto-Negotiation standard. Each has a server with a triple-speed Gigabit over copper network device (NIC or LAN on motherboard) connected to a 10/100 Ethernet switch.
Case one: Interoperability with 10BaseT devices
The link partner can be a port on a 10 Mbps hub or a 10/100 Mbps switch configured for 10 Mbps operation only. The NIC in the server is configured for auto-negotiation.
Communication between a 10BaseT device and the NIC proceeds as follows (see Figure 9 ):
Figure 9. 10BaseT-only legacy device
- The DTE powers up in link fail mode and transmits FLPs.
- The link partner transmits NLPs.
- The link partner goes into link fail initially because it has not yet received any NLPs.
- The DTE parallel detection function detects the NLPs, passes control to the 10BaseT PMA, and starts transmitting NLPs.
- A link is established at 10 Mbps half duplex. (Note: When the auto-negotiation parallel detection function detects the link, it defaults to half duplex; therefore, the 10BaseT legacy device must be set to half duplex.)
Case two: Interoperability with non-auto-negotiation 100BaseT
The link partner can be a port on a 100 Mbps hub or a 10/100 Mbps switch configured for 100 Mbps operation only. The NIC in the server is configured for auto-negotiation.
Communication between a non-auto-negotiation 100BaseT device and the NIC follows these steps, illustrated in Figure 10 :
Figure 10. Non-auto-negotiation 100BaseT
- The DTE powers up in link fail mode and transmits FLPs.
- The 100BaseTX link partner powers up and sends idle symbols.
- The DTE parallel detection function detects the idle symbol, bypasses the auto-negotiation function, passes control to the 100BaseTX PMA, and transmits idle.
- A link is established at 100 Mbps half duplex.
Case three: Interoperability with auto-negotiation 100BaseT (10/100)
The link partner is a port on a 10/100 switch configured for auto-negotiation. The NIC in the server is configured for auto-negotiation and capable of 10/100/1000 Mbps operation.
Figure 11 illustrates the following communication steps between a 100BaseT device and the NIC:
Figure 11. Auto-negotiation 10/100 device
- Both devices power up in link fail mode and transmit FLPs.
- Each device receives and decodes the capabilities of the other.
- A link is established at 100 Mbps full duplex.
A link is degraded when a device and its link partner, such as a server NIC and a switch, are configured so that the duplex settings do not match; that is, one is set to half duplex and the other to full duplex. When both devices send frames simultaneously on the link in this configuration, the following occurs:
- The half-duplex link detects a collision, which corrupts its outgoing frame and discards the incoming frame. The half-duplex link will attempt to retransmit the frame.
- The full-duplex link will not resend its frame. It determines that the incoming frame is bad and flags cyclical redundancy check (CRC) errors.
- Applications will timeout and retransmit continuously, causing a very slow connection.
Figure 12 summarizes all possible combinations of speed and duplex settings, both on 10/100/1000-capable switch ports and on NICs. For example, connecting a 10/100/1000-capable NIC configured for auto-negotiation with a 10/100/1000 switch also configured for auto-negotiation results in the ports for both the NIC and the switch being configured at 1000 Mbps full duplex. Figure 12 also shows combinations that would yield no link or link fail conditions, as well as combinations that would yield a duplex mismatch.
Figure 12. Configuration table for 10/100/1000 BaseT devices
Enabling migration to gigabit speeds
The IEEE standard for auto-negotiation ensures easy migration from 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps speeds. A 10/100 BaseT NIC installed on a server connected to a 10/100 switch port set for auto-negotiation can be upgraded to a 10/100/1000 BaseT connection by simply replacing the NIC in the server. The new NIC will auto-negotiate to 100 Mbps full duplex automatically. The same is true with a LAN-on-motherboard (LOM) interface. A new server with a 10/100/1000 BaseT LOM interface can be substituted with no configuration changes in a switch or cable plant.
When a 10/100 Ethernet switch is upgraded to a Gigabit over copper switch, the NIC in the server will negotiate to operate at 1000 Mbps automatically, without stopping or rebooting the server. The Auto-Negotiation Standard allows newer, faster devices to be incorporated into the network without disruption, by negotiating capabilities of the highest common denominator between the two ends of a link.
Rich Hernandez (firstname.lastname@example.org) is a senior engineer with the Server Networking and Communications Group at Dell. Rich has been in the computer and data networking industry for over 16 years. He has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston and has pursued postgraduate studies at Colorado Technical University. | <urn:uuid:4f5ae15c-f387-4c3c-a195-f8c301333af0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/power/en/ps1q01_hernan?c=us&l=en&cs=04 | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00073-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880908 | 3,699 | 2.640625 | 3 |
If you’re over 30 you probably remember the term “melting pot” being used to describe America’s model of benefitting from other cultures. Growing up in the SF Bay Area I heard it all the time.
I was thinking about multiculturalism the other day and trying to figure out what was wrong with the “melting pot” approach when I realized that NOTHING was wrong with it.
The problem isn’t the melting pot; the problem is NOT doing the melting pot.
The melting pot and e pluribus unum are very similar concepts. They speak of taking difference and turning it into unity. They speak of building a stronger, united whole by incorporating the strengths of diverse components.
Abusing the Metaphor
Fine. I like that.
The problem is that we’re not doing that. We’re not following the metaphor. The metaphor has a key word and concept within it: melting. Melting implies a couple of key things:
When you have two metal bars next to each other and you throw them into a true “melting pot” they are exposed to the extreme temperatures and they melt. The lines between them fade away. They cease, for all intents and purposes, to be different metals. And the properties of each are given to the new, single alloy.
This is what we want — a united America that’s stronger due to its diverse population.
But we don’t have that. We’re missing the heat. The heat in the case of the metals is actual increased temperature, but the heat in the cultural context is the social pressure on immigrants to downplay their previous culture and adopt the American way of life. In both cases the “heat” is essential because it enables many to become one.
Without it you have a single location with a collection of different people with different cultures. Cultures which exert such extreme and opposing pressures on the whole that they can destroy it in a very short period.
That’s our country today. A lack of whole. A lack of unity. A lack of identity. We are pulling ourselves in too many directions
Some cultures look different but are fundamentally the same. Take the Eastern Indian culture and the Upper Middle-Class “White” culture 1, for example. They may have different native languages and like different foods, but the similarities are far more significant. Their goals are as follows:
- Be disciplined with your money.
- Be relatively conservative with your values.
- Financial security is your measure of success.
- Education is your path to financial security.
- Every child goes to a good university. Period.
- The purpose of every parent is to get your kids into that great school.
- Make those kids successful so that they can have kids and they can do the same.
The primary source of accomplishment in the lives of parents within these cultures is captured by the following statement:
Yes, my son is doing really well. He was top of his class in high school and he’s on track to be top 25 at Harvard. He’ll get hired immediately and make a lot of money.
That’s it. That’s life for most of these people. And it’s not just Indian and White people. It’s a good portion of the Chinese and Koreans too. Oh, and the Jews.
Education –> Money –> Kids –> Education –> Money.
Notice that almost half (48%) of Hindus in the United States have a Masters degree 2.
So these are the types of approaches to life that we should be standardizing on as an American ideal. It doesn’t have anything to do with foods or accents or favorite dances; it’s about shared values.
And it doesn’t mean that there’s no place for art or philosophy. I’m not saying everyone has to try and be a doctor, engineer or lawyer; that’s un-American as well. The point is simply that people who come here and want to establish Sharia law and abolish the American way of life, from America, should not be welcome.
This is to say that there is such thing as being so different as to become incompatible with America. And that’s America’s primary challenge today — figuring out what our identity is and determining how to go about actualizing it.:
1 Yes, I’m aware that “White” culture is all but pinned down. | <urn:uuid:9480ad8a-d37f-431d-bd47-35550a6ea40e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://danielmiessler.com/blog/thoughts-on-the-melting-pot-metaphor/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280319.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00377-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95416 | 948 | 2.765625 | 3 |
You arrive at work and find a USB flash drive on your desk; it’s not yours but would you plug it in? Over the years you’ve heard a plethora of security-related reasons not to plug in random USB drives, yet as penetration testers know, curious people who know better still plug in a USB drive found in a parking lot. The scenario about finding a drive on your desk at work is one asked by an engineer who developed a USB drive that could turn your laptop or desktop into toast.
An engineer going by the alias of “Dark Purple” was allegedly inspired to build USB killer, what is basically a USB bomb, after reading about a guy who plugged in a USB and “burnt half” of his laptop down. Within a week, Dark Purple came up with a plan and ordered the components. While testing the prototype, Dark Purple “burnt down everything I could. Then I developed and ordered printed circuit boards in China and made a combat model.”
USB killer was described by the engineer’s “former colleague” as being “like an atomic bomb: cool to have, but cannot be applied.” The end product appears relatively boring and “harmless.”
USB ports can provide power, such as when you charge your phone or other device via USB. The USB killer at first acts like a normal storage USB while it pulls and stores power until it reaches negative 110 volts; then it sends that surge back into the system. Zap! Not only will that power returned sizzle components and overload circuits, but it will also damage processors. Both AMD and Intel have USB controllers in their CPU die, or core of the computer chip.
Thankfully Dark Purple decided against posting step-by-step directions, full schematics and all the app details; however there are a couple of shots showing the soldering.
The basic idea of the USB drive is quite simple. When we connect it up to the USB port, an inverting DC/DC converter runs and charges capacitors to -110V. When the voltage is reached, the DC/DC is switched off. At the same time, the filed transistor opens. It is used to apply the -110V to signal lines of the USB interface. When the voltage on capacitors increases to -7V, the transistor closes and the DC/DC starts. The loop runs till everything possible is broken down. Those familiar with the electronics have already guessed why we use negative voltage here. I'll explain to others that negative voltage is easier to commutate, as we need the N-channel field resistor, which, unlike the P-channel one, can have larger current for the same dimensions.
Some folks might consider USB killer to be a prank, but “prank” implies it might be funny to some people; only an enemy would consider physical sabotage to be funny. Nevertheless, some commenters on Kukuruku want the full schematics to brick devices and some others want to buy USB killer.
The next time you find a USB stick and are curious to know its content, hopefully you’ll stop and remember USB killer. | <urn:uuid:30c2039b-5864-419e-9158-f3bf704de87a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networkworld.com/article/2896407/microsoft-subnet/zap-this-usb-drive-will-sizzle-a-pc-or-turn-a-laptop-into-toast.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00193-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954072 | 653 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Warnings are Futile if People Don't Respond
At the time, the PTWC was the only agency to detect that tragic event, but its warnings to governments surrounding the Indian Ocean went mostly ignored, with deadly results. Now, a warning system is in place, and for the moment, it's all run by the U.S. National Weather Service on behalf of the United Nations. The only other visible sign of this global data network is something you see only if you know what to look for. Back in the late 1990s, when I first started working with the University of Hawaii's Advanced Network Computing Lab to test enterprise-class products for the long-departed CommunicationsWeek, where I was the reviews editor, I happened to be driving along the north shore of O'ahu when I spotted some tall masts topped with sirens. I asked my friend and colleague Brian Chee who created the lab what those might be. "They're the tsunami-warning sirens," he told me.Unfortunately, those sirens aren't everywhere in vulnerable areas. However the data network operated by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is nearly everywhere, and it has the ability to provide timely warnings, which, if heeded, can save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. But, sadly, if they're ignored as they were in 2004, those same numbers can be lost. In the United States where warnings are usually taken seriously, the March 11, 2011, earthquake in Japan and the subsequent tsunami were taken seriously, and people were evacuated. But a global data network can do only so much. As critical as this infrastructure is, it only works when it's used. The good news is that most governments in the Pacific and in the Indian Ocean now take the threat seriously, they have plans in place to evacuate residents in affected areas, and they probably won't be struck by the unimaginable loss of life that happened in 2004. But there's another tsunami warning area that gets little attention. It monitors the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the seas connected to them. The Atlantic Ocean is also capable of generating tsunamis as the Atlantic Ocean spreads along the mid-Atlantic ridge. Imagine a 36-foot-high tsunami coming ashore in Manhattan, and then ask yourself where the warning system is and where you'd go to evacuate.
On March 11, those sirens began sounding hourly, warning residents of low-lying areas throughout Hawaii to seek higher ground. The sirens were triggered as the last stage of the tsunami-warning data network. You might consider that these are the human interface of this vast global network that starts with reports of earthquakes and continues with measurements of ocean waves by a string of sensors spanning thousands of miles of open ocean. | <urn:uuid:9214c462-96da-4c7b-9ab2-43675220fb46> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Japan-Earthquake-Sends-Pacific-Tsunami-Warning-Data-Network-into-Action-104446/1 | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00222-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970638 | 554 | 2.90625 | 3 |
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Anonymous (Guest) Access
Note: Many topics at this site are reduced versions of the text in "The Encyclopedia of Networking and Telecommunications." Search results will not be as extensive as a search of the book's CD-ROM.
Many computer systems and network servers provide what is called "anonymous" or "guest" access. An account is set up with the name anonymous or guest. Multiple users can log in to the account at the same time. Typically, an annonymous account does not require a password, although users are sometimes asked to type a username. The anonymous/guest account user usually has very restricted access to the system and is often only allowed to access special public files. Such accounts are used on FTP (called Anonymous FTP) and Web servers on the Internet (and intranets). The accounts are also used for kiosk information systems in public areas or in organizations that make computers available to employees that need to look up information such as pension fund data or archival data.
Internet RFC 2245 explains anonymous servers and provides some guidelines for managing them.
Anonymous accounts should only have read access rights to limit attacks on the system. Any user requiring write access should be required to log in under a specific user account with a secure password.
Anonymous or guest access accounts should be disabled by default in most operating systems unless the system administrator has specific reasons to use them.
Anonymous accounts may provide what is called a "drop-box" feature, in which a user is allowed to submit a file to a server but is not allowed read or execute access to the drop-box folder. This prevents users from submitting and running executable programs that could damage the server.
Many Web sites allow access to anonymous accounts only after users have supplied additional information, such as their e-mail address. This information can be used to track the user later. Cookies are also used to track users. Note that trace information is easily faked by the client, so the authenticity of this information should always be questioned. This is especially important when messages and other information received by clients are posted for others to read.
Anonymous servers are susceptible to attacks. An anonymous user could instigate a "denial-of-service" attack on a server that does not have an idle time-out and that limits the number of anonymous users. The user could simply tie up the server by logging on multiple times (up to the user limit) and keeping the connection open.
Copyright (c) 2001 Tom Sheldon and Big Sur Multimedia. | <urn:uuid:76e09ca4-247b-492e-8a25-5c4774ff6abc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.linktionary.com/a/anonymous.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00250-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934092 | 586 | 2.640625 | 3 |
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has developed a series of games aimed at discovering whether large numbers of non-expert users can perform formal software code verification faster and cheaper than trained experts would.
Formal verification is an analysis process aimed at finding exploitable flaws and vulnerabilities in software, but is usually performed manually by engineers who know what they are looking for. That means that the process is usually long, tedious, not at all cost-effective, and therefore not used often.
“Finding faster, more cost-effective means to perform formal verification is a national security priority, so DARPA’s Crowd Sourced Formal Verification (CSFV) program has developed and launched its Verigames web portal offering free online formal verification games,” the agency announced last week.
“The CSFV games translate players’ actions into program annotations and generate mathematical proofs to verify the absence of important classes of flaws in software written in the C and Java programming languages,” they explained.
“CSFV has developed an automated process that enables the creation of new puzzles for each math problem the program seeks to review. If gameplay does reveal potentially harmful code, DARPA will implement approved notification and mitigation procedures, including notifying the organization responsible for the affected software.”
Five games are currently offered. In “CircuitBot”, players must link up a team of robots to carry out a mission, and in “Flow Jam” they have to analyze and adjust a cable network to maximize its flow. The goal of “Ghost Map” is to find a path through a brain network, and “StormBound” sees players “unweaving” a windstorm into patterns. Finally, “Xylem” makes them catalog species of plants using mathematical formulas.
With these games and others that might follow, DARPA is trying to harness the power of the crowd to solve a critical security issue, and in order to entice users to participate, it offers fun puzzles. | <urn:uuid:841d11c5-c13c-4951-abcf-4707a899b95d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2013/12/09/darpas-games-crowdsource-discovery-of-software-flaws/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281492.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00368-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94408 | 425 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Around Mars the space traffic really isn’t all that bad – five spacecraft vying for hundreds of miles or open cosmos around the planet – but serious space traffic control is still necessary to prevent a collision.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which controls the airspace around the red planet this week said it implemented formal collision-avoidance technology that will keep the current and future orbiters a safe distance from each other and warn the scientists if two orbiters approach each other too closely.
+More on Network World: Graphene is hot, hot, hot+
In a paper written by JPL scientists that detailed the collision avoidance software and algorithms the researchers said that the possibility of a collision around Mars (or the moon which uses similar avoidance technology) is minuscule.
“However, the consequences of collision are catastrophically high: millions to billions of dollars/euros/yen/etc. in lost tax revenue investment, irreparable loss of science data, and the creation of a debris environment in otherwise pristine orbital environments are three obvious consequences. The international repercussions of spacecraft from two different nations/agencies colliding would also very likely be undesirable. Given world economy, spacecraft collisions and the resultant waste of tax revenue can potentially lead to reduced popular support for the world's space agencies, the many benefits of space exploration notwithstanding.”
NASA said the new formal collision-avoidance process for Mars is part of what’s known as the Multi-Mission Automated Deep-Space Conjunction Assessment Process. “A side benefit of it is that information about when two orbiters will be near each other -- though safely apart -- could be used for planning coordinated science observations. The pair could look at some part of Mars or its atmosphere from essentially the same point of view simultaneously with complementary instruments,” NASA said.
The spacecraft in operation around Mars include NASA’s Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), India’s Mars Orbiter Mission and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express. The system also tracks NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, a 1997 orbiter that is no longer working.
The need for a centralized control is needed when you take into considerations the different types of orbits the spacecraft follow. NASA says MAVEN studies the upper atmosphere and flies an elongated orbit, sometimes farther from Mars than NASA's other orbiters and sometimes closer to Mars, so it crosses altitudes occupied by other orbiters.
"Previously, collision avoidance was coordinated between the Odyssey and MRO navigation teams," said Robert Shotwell, Mars Program chief engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California in a statement. "There was less of a possibility of an issue. MAVEN's highly elliptical orbit, crossing the altitudes of other orbits, changes the probability that someone will need to do a collision-avoidance maneuver. We track all the orbiters much more closely now. There's still a low probability of needing a maneuver, but it's something we need to manage."
Trajectory information from all Mars spacecraft is sent to JPL over NASA’s Deep Space Network and gathered by JPL engineers who run computer projections of future trajectories out to a few weeks.
“The amount of uncertainty in the predicted location of a Mars orbiter a few days ahead is more than a mile (more than two kilometers). Calculating projections for weeks ahead multiplies the uncertainty to dozens of miles, or kilometers. In most cases when a collision cannot be ruled out from projections two weeks ahead, improved precision in the forecasting as the date gets closer will rule out a collision with no need for avoidance action. Mission teams for the relevant orbiters are notified in advance when projections indicate a collision is possible, even if the possibility will likely disappear in subsequent projections. This situation occurred on New Year's weekend, 2015, NASA said.
According to NASA, on Jan. 3, automated monitoring determined that two weeks later, MAVEN and MRO could come within about two miles (three kilometers) of each other, with large uncertainties remaining in the exact passing distance. Automatic messages were sent to the teams operating the orbiters. In this case, before the timeline got short enough to need to plan an avoidance maneuver, the uncertainties shrank, and that ruled out the chance of the two spacecraft coming too near each other, NASA said.
According to NASA, “if preparations for an avoidance maneuver were called for, spacecraft commands would be written, tested and approved for readiness, but such commands would not be sent to a spacecraft unless projections a day or two ahead showed probability of a hazardous conjunction. The amount of uncertainty about each spacecraft's exact location varies, so the proximity considered unsafe also varies. For some situations, a day-ahead projection of two craft coming within about 100 yards (100 meters) of each other could trigger a maneuver.”
Space traffic management at Mars is much less complex than in Earth orbit, where more than 1,000 active orbiters plus additional pieces of inactive hardware create a challenging avoidance environment.
Check out these other hot stories: | <urn:uuid:2e7e1528-821b-4b94-a5d7-4bcd715fa803> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networkworld.com/article/2918952/software/nasa-the-fine-art-of-space-traffic-control-around-mars.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00212-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926665 | 1,055 | 3.609375 | 4 |
The Windows source code leak
13 Feb 2004
On 12th February, Microsoft Corporation announced
that part of the source code for Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 had been leaked and illegally published on the Internet. As a service to computer users, Kaspersky Lab provides information on the potential threat that this leak represents.
The day before Microsoft announced the leak, several hundred megabytes of text files containing source code for Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 were published on a number of hacker websites. The files included the code of key applications such as WINSOCK (the application which works with network resources), Internet Explorer, and Outlook. All the websites where the code was published have been closed down, but there is no guarantee that the information will not resurface.
The source code lays bare the internal workings of the operating system, exposing the nuts and bolts of the system. Access to source code makes it possible for users to modify programs, adapting them to their own needs. They can even independtly correct program errors without having to wait for a response from the manufacturer. It should be remembered that a user needs to have substantial IT experience in order to take advantage of such opportunities.
On a more serious note, access to source code does make it far easier to identify previously unknown vulnerabilities in the operating system. Virus writers and hackers then use these breaches to attack computers. Having the source code makes it possible to integrate malicious programs into the heart of the operating systems. Viruses are then an undetectable part of Windows. This is dangerous, as it opens the door to a new generation of stealth viruses: viruses which mask their presence in the system by controlling the operation of anti-virus programs and firewalls.
"The leaking of the Windows source code is a historic event in computer virology; a new round of virus vs. anti-virus has begun. We are certain to see new viruses attacking vulnerabilities in Windows for which no patches yet exist. The appearance of system viruses, which are almost impossible for traditional anti-virus software to detect, is another real danger," comments Eugene Kaspersky, Head of Anti-Virus Research at Kaspersky Lab, "Nevertheless, virus analysts are prepared for such contingencies and will rise to this new challenge from by the computer underground". | <urn:uuid:cd7a97a5-55d0-4c59-9718-9765ffd196de> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.kaspersky.com/au/about/news/virus/2004/The_Windows_source_code_leak | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00176-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944686 | 469 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Update: September 30, 2015
Over a year and a half after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mysteriously disappeared, we are still left with very few details about what may have happened to cause the plane to go missing. The biggest development has been a piece of debris recovered this summer that investigators can say “with certainty” belonged to MH370. However, recovering data from the plane’s black box or passengers’ cell phones could provide more details about the events that leading up to the crash. Even after a device has experienced severe water damage, recovery efforts could prove successful and lend insight into what happened to the plane.
Original Post: April 25, 2014
There has been a lot of curiosity surrounding the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 somewhere over the Indian Ocean. For almost seven weeks, investigators from different countries have been searching for the wreckage in hopes of providing answers to the families of the passengers and the rest of the world about what exactly happened to the flight.
While many have been focused on recovering the plane’s black box and the data it contains, there has been little talk about what information the passengers’ cell phones might reveal. Pictures, unsent text messages and undelivered emails composed as the plane went down might provide invaluable information about the incident while helping to bring a sense of closure to the passengers’ families.
CNN sought to answer the question of whether or not recovering data from the passengers’ cell phones is possible. Should the wreckage be found, it will likely have been submerged nearly 2.5 miles beneath the Indian Ocean for weeks, which would be an extraordinarily harsh environment for any electronic device. CNN decided to conduct an experiment and reached out to 4Discovery and Gillware who collaborated on the recovery.
The test began by recreating the conditions at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, where experts believe the plane’s wreckage to be. Chemist Allen LaPointe and fish biologist George Parsons of Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium used salt water from their ocean floor exhibit to create a chamber designed to simulate the temperature and pressure of the Indian Ocean’s floor.
Next, the cell phone’s transmission was turned off and CNN correspondent Ted Rowlands captured some videos and still photos. He also attempted to send some text messages and emails, which would be stored in the outbox waiting for a signal to send. Such data from a cell phone of one of the passengers might give investigators clues about what happened in the plane’s final moments.
The phone was then placed in the pressure chamber, and after one week, 4Discovery removed it and began to attempt recovery. They removed the control board from the cell phone and cleaned it using an ultrasonic cleaning device to remove the salt deposits. Unfortunately, the circuitry in the control board was corroded beyond cleaning, so data could not be extracted directly. To recover the data, a more invasive approach was necessary, so Gillware stepped in to complete the recovery.
Gillware engineers removed the NAND flash memory chip and cleaned it for reading. They placed the chip in a compatible adapter and performed a raw dump of the contents using Gillware’s proprietary recovery software utilities. The raw data was extracted and 4Discovery performed the final analysis.
Due to some damage to the NAND flash chip, there was some minor corruption to a few of the pictures and videos, but they were largely in working order. Additionally, all of the text messages and emails in the phone’s outbox were fully recovered.
If the flight were found on the floor of the Indian Ocean, the condition of the passengers’ phones would not be exactly the same as in the experiment, but Gillware and 4Discovery believe enough data would be recoverable in that situation to be useful. Not only could this help investigators determine what happened to the plane, but it could help the passengers’ families find some peace by providing them with the last communications of their loved ones. | <urn:uuid:8c000562-42ae-4adc-9d11-827a35bb5124> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.gillware.com/blog/data-recovery/can-data-from-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-passengers-cell-phones-be-recovered/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00322-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956605 | 811 | 3.546875 | 4 |
Basic errors put patients at risk of serious harm
Thursday, Dec 12th 2013
A new report found that several thousand patients may have been exposed to serious harm for a number of years due to basic errors in safety and quality standards. The research was performed by professor Stephen Field, the chief inspector of general practice for the U.K.'s Care Quality Commission, and studied the healthcare habits of family doctors and GP surgery staff.
The Independent reported that of the 910 surgeries observed by Field and his team, one third were found to fail one or more of the 16 basic standards for safety and quality in medical operations, as outlined by the independent U.K. health regulator. The top failures were related to infection control, cleanliness and medicine handling and management. The study also stated that 10 organizations' standard failures were so severe that they had the potential to put thousands of individuals in jeopardy of health issues.
One main problem in many healthcare groups was cleanliness, illustrated by the fact that teams found cobwebs and insects at a facility that was previously considered a "good practice."
"We're talking about the fact that we found maggots in a treatment room," Field told the source. "And when we asked the question - and this is a good practice - the nurse said yes we do seem to have a bit of a problem."
Furthermore, teams found improper vaccine handling, which could also lead to serious health problems for patients. These failures were associated with outdated vaccines that should have been disposed of several months before, emergency injections being left out at room temperature and vaccine storage refrigerators that were not monitored.
Industry guidelines for vaccine storage
Field's study highlights the importance of following healthcare guidelines, especially those relating to vaccine storage and handling. According to Health.gov, medical organizations should not utilize domestic or kitchen refrigerators for storing vaccines, as they are designed for food storage and are not up to the temperature standards for vaccines. Instead, organizations should utilize a purpose-built refrigerator designed to fulfill the requirements of medicine storage.
Furthermore, to ensure that vaccines are kept at the proper level, a vaccine temperature monitor or data logger should be installed and checked often. These items should be kept between 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) and 46 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius). Administrators should aim to maintain a temperature level of 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). Health.gov also recommends resetting these systems after the storage unit temperature has been recorded.
Field stated that storage areas that are not monitored could put vaccines in danger of being ineffective. Overall, Field told the Independent that the issues encountered during the study were problems that should have been corrected "many, many years ago." | <urn:uuid:c18455c7-f235-4482-868c-5edc56e4a789> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.itwatchdogs.com/environmental-monitoring-news/healthcare/basic-errors-put-patients-at-risk-of-serious-harm-552984 | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00258-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974572 | 546 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Solar energy is making its impact in Australia through reduced electricity bills for solar power users and lower wholesale electricity prices. Australia’s installed solar power capacity is approximately 3.5 GW in 2013, accounting for 5% of total electricity capacity and 2% of electricity generation. The number of solar arrays installed across the country has been increased from 10,000 in 2008 to 1.2 million in 2013.
Solar power in Australia is a relatively recent phenomenon. Currently, it has over 4,100 megawatts (MW) of installed photovoltaic (PV) solar power (March 2015), and 760 MW of PV was installed in the preceding 12 months. At a capacity factor of 14 percent, this would contribute 1.1 percent of Australia's electrical energy.
The Global annual solar power production is estimated to reach 500GW by 2020, from 40.134 GW in 2014, making this market one of the fastest growing one and The Australia Solar Power Market is estimated to reach $XX billion in 2020 with a CAGR of 9.1% from 2014 to 2020.
With fossil fuel prices fluctuating continuously and disasters like Fukushima and Chernobyl raising serious questions about nuclear power, renewable sources of energy are the answer to the world’s growing need for power. Hydro Power has environmental concerns so apart from water the other renewable source of energy in abundance is Solar. The Earth receives 174 petawatts of solar energy every year. It is the largest energy source on the Earth. Other resources like oil and gas, water, coal etc. require lot of effort and steps to produce electricity, solar energy farms can be established easily which can harness electricity and the electricity produced is simply given to the grid.
Falling costs; government policies and private partnerships; downstream innovation and expansion; and various incentive schemes for the use of renewable energy for power generation are driving the solar power market at an exponential rate.
On the flipside, high initial investment, intermittent energy Source, and requirement of large installation area to setup solar farms are restraining the market from growth.
In the recent years, lot of research is going on in this field to make production easier, cheaper and also to make the solar panels smaller and more customer friendly. Lot of efforts are being put into increase the efficiency of solar panels which used to have a very meagre efficiency percentage. Different techniques like Nano-crystalline solar cells, thin film processing, metamorphic multijunction solar cell, polymer processing and many more will aid the future of this industry.
This report comprehensively analyzes the Australia Solar Power Market by segmenting it based on type (Concentrating type, Non Concentrating type, Fixed Array, Single Axis Tracker, and Dual Axis Tracker) and by Materials (Crystalline Silicon, Thin Film, Multijunction Cell, Adaptive Cell, Nano crystalline, and others). Estimates in each segment are provided for the next five years. Key drivers and restraints that are affecting the growth of this market were discussed in detail. The study also elucidates on the competitive landscape and key market players. | <urn:uuid:b82be3f2-d527-43a7-9b1e-fd80e09e48c5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/australia-solar-power-market-industry | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00102-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937794 | 623 | 3.28125 | 3 |
NASA said it will this week move some of the larger - 46 lb -- mirror segments of its future James Webb Space Telescope into a cryogenic test facility that will freeze the mirrors to -414 degrees Fahrenheit.
Specifically NASA will freeze six of the 18 Webb telescope mirror segments at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility, or XRCF, at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., in a test to ensure the critical mirrors can withstand the extreme space environments. All 18 segments will eventually be tested at the site.
Layer 8 Extra: NASA telescopes watch cosmic violence, mysteries unravel
Marshall's X-ray & Cryogenic Facility is the world's largest X-ray telescope test facility and a unique, cryogenic, clean room optical test location, NASA stated. The test chamber takes approximately five days to cool a mirror segment to cryogenic temperatures. As this cooling takes place, engineers will measure in extreme detail how the shapes of the mirrors change, simulating how they'll react to space temperatures.
The Webb Telescope mirror segments are made of from beryllium, which is strong and light and each segment of the total 18 hexagonal-shaped mirror segments onboard is 4.26 feet in diameter.
According to the NASA Web site, when the primary satellite mirror is assembled in space, it will include three different shapes of mirror segments: 6 are "A" segments, 6 are "B" segments and 6 are "C" segments. The XRCF will collect data from all three sizes - "A, B and C"-- a first for these in the cryogenic facility. This test will also include the engineering development unit, the first primary mirror segment of the Webb telescope that has met flight specifications at ambient temperatures, NASA stated.
The Webb Telescope mirror will travel into space folded up and will unfold after launch. The telescope will have a large mirror, 21.3 feet in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court, NASA stated. The Webb satellite will reside in an orbit about 1 million miles from the Earth.
There will be four science instruments on JWST: a near-infrared (IR) camera, a near-IR multi-object spectrograph, a mid-IR instrument, and a tunable filter imager. The satellite's instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range. It will be sensitive to light from 0.6 to 27 micrometers in wavelength.
Like NASA's current WISE satellite the spacecraft must be kept cold to see stars and galaxies infrared light. NASA said because warm objects give off infrared light, or heat, if Webb's mirror was the same temperature as say the Hubble Space Telescope's, the faint infrared light from distant galaxies would be lost in the infrared glow of the mirror. Thus, Webb needs to be very cold with its mirrors at around -364 degree F. The mirror as a whole must be able to withstand very cold temperatures as well as hold its shape.
The Webb telescope is scheduled for launch in 2014.
Layer 8 in a box
Check out these other hot stories: | <urn:uuid:97feccbe-f4cc-4dd0-bacc-2e209fa5de05> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networkworld.com/article/2233059/security/nasa-set-to-cryogenically-freeze-test-critical-satellite-mirrors.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00010-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913177 | 643 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Zhang Z.,Beijing Normal University |
Zhang Z.,Central South University of forestry and Technology |
Hou D.,Central South University of forestry and Technology |
Xun Y.,Conservation Institute of Daweishan Nature Reserve |
And 2 more authors.
Journal of Natural History | Year: 2016
Previous studies of nest-site selection on a fine scale may reveal limiting resources within habitat types. The red-billed leiothrix (Leiothrix lutea Scopoli, 1786) is a common bird species that lives in the subtropical forests of Asia. Despite many reports of this species from introduced populations, little information has been obtained from its native range. From 2011 to 2013, we studied nest-site selection of red-billed leiothrix at micro-scales in Daweishan Nature Reserve, Hunan Province, central China. A total of 363 nests were found in five vegetation types. We measured the habitat variables and constructed nest-site selection models for nests found in the forest and scrub-grassland. Among the 18 variables measured in the forest, six variables were selected to construct the nest-site selection model: distance to forest edge (DTE), distance to water (DTW), vegetation comprehensive coverage, tree coverage, bamboo coverage and shrub height. According to Akaike’s information criterion, the best model consisted of five of these variables (excluding vegetation comprehensive coverage), and distance to forest edge, distance to water, tree coverage and bamboo coverage had negative effects on nest-site selection. In scrub-grassland, the DTE, DTW, and bush coverage (BUC) were selected from the 13 variables measured, and, accordingly, the best model consisted of DTE and BUC. Model averaging suggested that BUC had a positive effect on nest-site selection. In contrast, DTE has a reverse effect. In addition, DTE differed significantly between successful and failed nests in forest and scrub-grassland. More successful nests were found near the forest edge. Taken together, these findings emphasise the power of fine-scale habitat selection models in identifying relevant habitat variables with a significant effect on preferred habitat and eventually, breeding success. © 2016 Taylor & Francis Source | <urn:uuid:1be14505-a381-4f52-bcfc-9f8b1c5ad224> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.linknovate.com/affiliation/conservation-institute-of-daweishan-nature-reserve-1737526/all/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00315-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936087 | 462 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Guidelines for Enterprise Wide Linux Security
Predictions regarding a world epidemic of Linux-viruses have come true in the first quarter of 2001. The latest incidents caused by the Ramen Internet-worm and its numerous modifications, as well as the multi-platform virus Pelf (Lindose) and other Linux-targeted malicious code, have proved that this operating system, (previously considered as the most protected software), has fallen victim to computer viruses.
Modern computer virology defines three main requirements for malicious code to exist within an operating system or application as follows:
- The environment should be well documented. In order to create a virus, one should know as many details as possible about how the operating system works. Otherwise, creating a virus could be as difficult as making an aircraft without knowledge of the basic principles of aerodynamics.
- Poor protection predicating the presence of known vulnerabilities in security systems and the ability for the creation of self-replicating and self-spreading objects.
- The operating system or application should be widespread. Many years of anti-virus practice clearly show that virus writers are interested in creating malware only for a computing environment that is popular and therefore, their "products" can cause mass infection.
Until recently, Linux met all these aforementioned requirements except the last one. Today, Linux's popularity has reached the threshold where virus writers have switched from making the "traditional" malicious code for Windows and Microsoft Office to a new, very dynamically developing area of the computer industry - Linux.
Who's the victim?
Was the computer world ready to meet the new challenge of global computer security? We define the three main groups of corporate users, considering their level of readiness to combat against Linux-viruses:
- Companies which have a clear, well-balanced enterprise-wide security policy that considers not only today's but also future threats to the normal operation of computer systems.
- Companies having a clear, well-balanced enterprise-wide security policy that concentrates only on today's threats and ignores future danger.
- Companies having no enterprise-wide security policy, using only sporadic, point-targeted security measures without considering future threats
Unfortunately, only the first group of users were prepared sufficiently to face the new security challenges, while the two other groups have fallen victim to the newly born Linux-viruses. Lack of an active, future oriented approach to computer protection and the neglecting of basic rules of information security were the main reasons for the Linux viruses appearing "in-the-wild" and causing mass infections around the world.
Today, we cannot imagine anyone questioning the absolute necessity of every single Linux based file or application server having anti-virus software installed. This anti-virus software prevents the transfer of malicious code to the operating systems causing devastation to other segments of the corporate network.
A most disturbing aspect is the fact that the vast majority of Linux-based workstations are not equipped with adequate virus-protection systems. Many users still rely only on the clear user access right regulation that can prevent malicious code from spreading out of the current user account. However, viruses can still destroy important data and exploit security breaches in order to capture the root privileges and gain access rights to all Linux resources. In this case, the centralised server-based virus protection is not sufficient, because the unchecked data traffic (files received from the Internet, floppy disks, CDs and other removable storage devices, etc.) can overpass it.
One of Kaspersky Lab' main priorities is the long-term forecast of the possible ways in which malware may develop; we are always striving to provide our customers with the most reliable protection before a real virus epidemic strikes.
Analysis of modern trends in the field of operating systems has allowed our company to make rather bleak forecasts about future threats posed by Linux-specific malicious code and commence development of appropriate defence systems. As a result, in the first part of 1999 Kaspersky Lab introduced the world's first integrated anti-virus software for Linux.
Today, KasperskyTM Anti-Virus for Linux is the acknowledged leader in the field of virus protection and is considered to be the most technologically advanced software for Linux security. It includes the most comprehensive list of virus defence technologies:
- an anti-virus scanner checking data storage on-demand;
- anti-virus daemon for real-time data filtering and
- an anti-virus monitor for the reliable interception for further virus checks of all files being used.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Linux can be used for the reliable protection of workstations and file and application servers, including Linux-based e-mail gateways such as Sendmail, Qmail and Postfix. The client part of the software is supplied in the open source code thus enabling a user to easily integrate the product into third-party Linux applications in order to perform user-specific tasks. Kaspersky Anti-Virus is compliant with any Linux distribution using the NSS library version 1.* (or compatible). The easy-to-use and intuitive user interface makes the program's installation, configuration and updating supremely convenient.
Thanks to the support of a wide range of Linux executable files (ELF, script files, etc) and Linux-specific file packing utilities (TAR, TGZ, etc.), Kaspersky Anti-Virus provides protection against all types of computer malware, including those specifically developed for Linux. In addition, the product is powered by a highly efficient technology combating even unknown Linux-viruses. The product has proved its reliability by successfully repelling the attacks of all modifications of the Ramen Internet-worm (such as "Lion" and "Adore") without any extra updates to the anti-virus database.
Kaspersky Lab also offers "Rescue Kit", a unique boot system that is designed to restore a computer to working order after it has been attacked by a virus and lost its booting ability. "Rescue Kit" creates a set of start-up diskettes based on the Linux principle and has a pre-installed copy of Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Linux. It allows for a "clean boot" and performs a comprehensive virus scanning of all the most popular file systems:
- FAT (DOS)
- FAT32 (Windows 95/98/ME)
- NTFS (Windows NT/2000)
- HPFS (OS/2)
- EXT (Linux)
Today, Kaspersky Anti-Virus is one of the most wide-spread anti-virus software for Linux. It is used everyday by thousands of corporate users worldwide.
Linux has become one of the major operating systems to run file and application servers within a networking environment. At the same time, it gathers popularity as a desktop standard, due to many companies installing Linux at the workplace of the average user. We forecast this could stimulate the development of Linux specific malware, due to:
- In most cases, the end-users will not be able to properly install and configure the built-in security system, because it is too complex and requires special knowledge.
- Virus writers could employ the so called "social engineering" method to penetrate the computers. Previously, this was used in such infamous Internet-worms as "LoveLetter" and "Anna Kournikova."
Another challenge to Linux security could be multipartite viruses i.e., viruses that are able to operate in several operating systems at the same time and successfully infect files of different formats. In this case, Linux users will be forced to check not only Linux files but all files regardless of the operating system they are designed for.
In general, we see the following common features of future Linux malware:
- Exploitation of security breaches and vulnerabilities.
- Use of technologies of mass distribution via e-mail and the Internet.
- Use of background infection technology of all passing traffic at the server-level.
- Use of unauthorised remote control utilities (backdoor).
5 rules for Linux corporate security
The only way to protect corporate networks against the new generation of Linux specific malicious programs is to implement and conduct a strict enterprise wide policy that includes the following points:
- Regular tracking of recently discovered security breaches in the Linux operating system and Linux applications being used. To do this, we recommend that users subscribe to the security oriented mailing lists available at your Linux software vendors Web sites.
- Immediate installation across the entire network of the latest updates and patches against recently discovered security breaches. In case patches are still not available, we recommend applying a temporary solution to neutralise an existing vulnerability.
- Installation and regular updating of Linux specific anti-virus software on all Linux based stations within the corporate network, including workstations, file and application servers and e-mail gateways.
- Utilisation of firewall software to avoid confidential information leakage due to malicious backdoor utilities.
- Education of the average user as to the basic principles of Linux security.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus can be purchased in the Kaspersky Lab online store or from a worldwide network of Kaspersky Anti-Virus distributors and resellers.
You can subscribe to the FREE Kaspersky Lab virus information service delivering the latest virus-related news directly to your e-mail box. Click HERE. | <urn:uuid:4a118684-d68b-410a-8ecc-7c5a7f692ec6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.kaspersky.com/au/about/news/virus/2001/Linux_Viruses_An_Unpleasant_Surprise_or_a_Forecast_That_Came_True_ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00223-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917897 | 1,905 | 2.671875 | 3 |
To begin to grapple with the concept of Big Data, you have to start thinking in zettabytes. A zettabyte is a unit of digital information that is equivalent in size to a billion terabytes. And a terabyte, in turn, is the equivalent of a billion kilobytes. To amass a zettabyte of data, you'd need to compile approximately half of all of the information transmitted by broadcast technology (television, radio, and even GPS) to all of humankind during an entire calendar year, according to a study by The University of Southern California. Or, according to the linguist Mark Liberman of The University of Pennsylvania, if you recorded all human speech that had ever been spoken, the audio file would require a modest 42 zettabytes of storage space. That, in short, is a lot of data.
But the growth in the amount of data that our massive infrastructure of information technology is capable of collecting presents a growing concern for all manner of organizations. The more data you collect, the more unwieldy that data becomes, and the more challenging it may be to learn anything useful from it. Hence, Big Data and the challenges related to capturing, storing, processing, analyzing, and leveraging it have become significant concerns among technology and information companies. There are plenty of strategies, tools, and experts out there, but making sense of it all can be as daunting as trying to comprehend the size of a zettabyte.
Big Data: The How and the Why
Big Data, according to one definition put forth by the IT research and consulting firm Gartner, is "a popular term used to acknowledge the exponential growth, availability and use of information in the data-rich landscape of tomorrow." This definition contains within it many of the keys to thinking about Big Data.
The first important element to understand about Big Data is its rate of growth. Calling the growth of data "exponential" is by no means hyperbole. In the early days of computing, data storage could typically be described and measured on the order of megabytes. As the ability of technological tools to generate, process, and store data has skyrocketed, the cost of doing so has plummeted. According to research done by NPR, a gigabyte's worth of data storage in 1980 cost $210,000; today, it costs 15 cents.
The availability of data is the other major factor that has contributed to the rise of massive data sets. The technological revolution of the 20th century served to move an immensely broad spectrum of human behavior into the digital realm: shopping, healthcare, weather prediction, transportation, communication, and even our social lives. All of these activities-and many more besides them-were once aspects of life that could only be measured, cataloged, and studied through a cumbersome paper trail, if there was any trail to follow at all. Today, every one of these activities is conducted largely, if not entirely, within the realm of the digital, making it vastly easier to record and analyze the data that are associated with them. Facebook, Groupon, our doctor's office, our cable company, and our cell phone-these are all rich sources of information about how we each live our lives, and how the world works as a whole. So there is a lot of data out there, and it's waiting for someone-anyone-with the right tools to analyze it. The Big Data challenge at hand is twofold: How to access it, and how to analyze it.
Finding a Standard Framework for Big Data Management
Content managers have long been grappling with the challenge of managing Big Data once they've captured it-and the challenge has led developers to create entirely new distributed computing frameworks to contend with today's data management needs.
One emerging industry standard for managing Big Data is Apache Hadoop, a project spearheaded by open source advocate Doug Cutting. Hadoop allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers using a simple programming model. According to The Apache Software Foundation, Hadoop, which was named after Cutting's son's toy elephant, "is designed to scale up from single servers to thousands of machines, each offering local computation and storage."
The Hadoop Wiki on the Apache website distills the framework's function as follows: "Hadoop implements a computational paradigm named Map/Reduce, where the application is divided into many small fragments of work, each of which may be executed or re-executed on any node in the cluster. In addition, it provides a distributed file system (HDFS) that stores data on the compute nodes, providing very high aggregate bandwidth across the cluster."
Gartner search analysis showed that the term "Hadoop" was one of the most searched on the firm's website in 2011, reflecting its rise as an important computational framework for managing massive data sets. A survey by Ventana Research suggested that more than half of large-scale data users are considering integrating Hadoop-based solutions within their information environments.
You've Captured Big Data-Now What?
One of the richest and most ubiquitous sources of Big Data is the internet itself. Much of the information that is constantly being uploaded, streamed, and otherwise fed onto the web is rich in value to all sorts of organizations, particularly as that data relates to consumer and economic trends and behaviors. There is no shortage of companies touting solutions for searching, collecting, and analyzing Big Data from the web.
Connotate has been in the web analytics business since 2000, but it has lately been honing its focus on developing technology to analyze and produce efficient and meaningful results for Big Data. Shortly after naming Keith Cooper its new CEO in late February of 2012, the company announced that it had acquired Fetch Technologies, a competitor in the realm of real-time internet data analysis.
The goal of the merger, according to Cooper, is nothing short of being able to extract "any data from any site any time"-a Big (Data) ambition. The emphasis on real-time web analytics is a function of the realities of doing business: Information changes quickly, and decision making, in turn, must change with it. The right tool, says Cooper, can scan "every news website once an hour and determine whether there's new news, and bring back the precise data you're looking for," whether it's mortgage prices, changes to a company's executive staff, or anything else you'd care to keep tabs on that might affect your organization's decision making.
As is the case with much of information technology, the future of Big Data analysis seems to be headed into the cloud. Greg Merkle, the vice president and creative director of Dow Jones, pointed to the SaaS (software-as-a-service) model of solutions as an emerging trend in Big Data. "It's an agile way to get the results you're looking for," Merkle says, "and it's 100% in the cloud." Companies such as Quantivo Corp. are developing self-service SaaS Big Data analysis tools.
Big Data has emerged in recent years as a catch-all term for the challenges of organizing and analyzing digital information. But behind the hype, there's the reality that data really is getting ever bigger and ever more complex. The tools that organizations develop and employ to manage that data will need to continue to function on larger scales, at faster speeds, and with greater sophistication. Every organization stands to gain in one way or another from the proliferation of information that is created and collected every day.
This article was adapted from an article by Michael J. LoPresti that was published in Intranets, a newsletter published by Information Today, Inc., Medford, NJ. For more information, visit www.infotoday.com and click on "Newsletters." | <urn:uuid:c803cfe4-e6d4-4460-8885-187f23fdb325> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/What-Is-.../What-is-Big-Data-82431.aspx | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00039-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953049 | 1,593 | 3.5 | 4 |
On October 26, 2006, computer security personnel from across the legislative branch were informed that the Congressional Budget Office had been hit with a computer virus. The news might not have seemed extraordinary. Hackers had been trying for years to break into government computers in Congress and the executive branch, and some had succeeded, making off with loads of sensitive information ranging from codes for military aircraft schedules to design specifications for the space shuttle.
Employees in the House of Representatives' Information Systems Security Office, which monitors the computers of all members, staffers, and committee offices, had learned to keep their guard up. Every year of late, they have fended off more than a million hacking attempts against the House and removed any computer viruses that made it through their safeguards. House computers relay sensitive information about members and constituents, and committee office machines are especially loaded with files pertaining to foreign policy, national security, and intelligence. The security office took the information from the CBO attack and scanned the House network to determine whether any machines had been compromised in a similar fashion.
They found one. A computer in one member's office matched the profile of the CBO incident. The virus seemed to be contacting Internet addresses outside the House, probably other infected computers or servers, to download malicious files into the House system. According to a confidential briefing on the investigation prepared by the security office and obtained by National Journal, security employees contacted the member's office and directed staffers to disconnect the computer from the network. The briefing does not identify the member of Congress.
Apparently worried that the virus could have already infected other machines, security personnel met with aides from the member's office and examined the computer. They confirmed that a virus had been placed on the machine. The member's office then called the FBI, which employs a team of cyber-forensic specialists to investigate hackings. The House security office made a copy of the hard drive and gave it to the bureau.
Upon further analysis, the security office found more details about the nature and possible intent of the hack. The machine was infected with a file that sought out computers outside the House system to retrieve "malware," malicious or destructive programs designed to spy on the infected computer's user or to clandestinely remove files from the machine. This virus was designed to download programs that tracked what the computer user typed in e-mail and instant messages, and to remove documents from both the hard drive and a network drive shared by other House computers. As an example of the virus's damage, the security office briefing cited one House machine on which "multiple compressed files on multiple days were created and exported." An unknown source was stealing information from the computer, and the user never knew it.
Armed with this information about how the virus worked, the security officers scanned the House network again. This time, they found more machines that seemed to match the profile -- they, too, were infected. Investigators found at least one infected computer in a member's district office, indicating that the virus had traveled through the House network and may have breached machines far away from Washington.
Eventually, the security office determined that eight members' offices were affected; in most of the offices, the virus had invaded only one machine, but in some offices, it hit multiple computers. It also struck seven committee offices, including Commerce; Transportation and Infrastructure; Homeland Security; and Ways and Means; plus the Commission on China, which monitors human rights and laws in China. Most of the committee offices had one or two infected computers. In the International Relations Committee (now the Foreign Affairs Committee) office, however, the virus had compromised 25 computers and one server.
The House security office contacted the committees' employees and all of the members' offices, and removed the infected computers and servers. The House's technical-support center sent an advisory to all systems administrators, reminding them of safe computing practices, such as not opening links in e-mails from unknown sources. The House security office determined that whoever infected the machines had probably tricked users into visiting a website or clicking on a link in an e-mail or instant message that downloaded an infectious file; the virus then exploited as many of the computer's vulnerabilities that it could detect. A diagram in the security briefing shows how the virus, once it penetrated the computer, made multiple attempts to download different kinds of malicious software.
The hacker or hackers -- it's unclear whether more than one was involved -- attempted to evade detection by using an array of attack methods and downloading malicious files from various Internet addresses. The hacker was likely using many other infected machines as launching pads, making it essentially impossible to stop the attacks completely and exceptionally difficult to know where the hacker was located. It's relatively easy for an attacker to mask his or her location by communicating through layers of infected computers and servers around the world.
The confidential briefing does not say where the hacker was, nor does it attribute the attack to a particular group or country. Such information is notoriously difficult for investigators to ascertain. But according to some members of Congress whose machines were infected, the attack described in the briefing emanated from China and was probably designed to steal sensitive information from lawmakers' and committee offices.
That allegation and others about Chinese cyber-espionage lie at the heart of a simmering controversy over Chinese or China-supported hacking of U.S. government computer systems. As National Journal reported earlier this year, computer hackers, who several investigators and senior government officials believe are based in China and sometimes work on the Chinese government's behalf, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. corporations and government agencies.
The hackers have reportedly stolen proprietary information from executives and even one Cabinet secretary in advance of business meetings in China. Some sources contend, moreover, that Chinese hackers may have played a role in two major power outages in the United States. Power companies and outside investigators call such allegations demonstrably untrue, but many cyber-security professionals express considerable anxiety about the vulnerability of U.S. networks.
Concern about China is so great that, only hours before the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing last summer, the United States' top counterintelligence official, Joel Brenner, warned American visitors to leave their cellular phones and wireless handheld computers at home. "Somebody with a wireless device in China should expect it to be compromised while he's there," Brenner said on CBS News. "The public security services in China can turn your telephone on and activate its microphone when you think it's off." For those who were required or determined to take their electronic equipment, Brenner advised that they remove the batteries when they were not using the device.
Chinese sources were at the root of the hack on members of Congress in 2006, according to some lawmakers. In an interview with National Journal last summer, Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said that the virus described in the House's confidential briefing had infected a machine in his office. House security personnel informed him of the infection, Kirk said, and he called the FBI.
Kirk then co-chaired the House U.S.-China Working Group, whose members had met with 11 Chinese business leaders less than a year earlier to discuss bilateral trade issues. The group has held monthly meetings to foster a diplomatic dialogue between Chinese and U.S. officials. Kirk said that his office's infected computer was trying to contact Internet addresses that "eventually resolved themselves in China." He hastened to add, "Obviously, you don't know who is the real owner or operator of the [Internet] address."
The breach could be viewed through one of two lenses, Kirk said. "The bad view" is that Chinese intelligence sources were trying to spy on a member of Congress. The "good view" holds that Chinese citizens, who read about the commission's work in the media, hacked Kirk's computer out of frustration or retribution. But this attack profile, Kirk said, "looked toward the criminal side."
"Hacking into a congressional computer is a serious offense," he said. Although Kirk said he didn't know what files, if any, the hacker had pilfered, he assumed that the intruder wasn't looking for information about Kirk's constituents in Illinois. He concluded that the hacker was more interested in his China policy. "At that point," Kirk said, "it seemed what we had was a case of overseas espionage."
This past June, Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican from Northern Virginia, took to the House floor and announced that four of his office's computers "were compromised by an outside source."
"On these computers," he said, "was information about all of the casework I have done on behalf of political dissidents and human-rights activists around the world." Wolf is an outspoken critic of China's human-rights policies.
"That kind of information, as well as everything else on my office computers -- e-mails, memos, correspondence, and district casework -- was open for outside eyes to see," Wolf said. And then, without naming names, he added, "Several other members were similarly compromised."
Wolf said he had met with staff from the House Information Resources office and with FBI officials. "It was revealed," he said, "that the outside sources responsible for this attack came from within the People's Republic of China." A spokesperson for Wolf told NJ that the intrusion he spoke of on the House floor is the same attack described in the confidential briefing obtained by National Journal and prepared by the House information security office. That briefing states that Wolf was one of the eight members affected, and that four of his machines were hit -- the same number that Wolf cited publicly. In his floor remarks, Wolf said that his computers were found to have been compromised in August 2006, two months before the House Information Systems Security Office scanned the network for possible infections.
Keeping It Secret
The pervasive nature of the 2006 attack begs a question: Why didn't members of Congress publicly disclose these breaches sooner? Wolf offered one answer.
"Despite everything we read in the press, our intelligence, law enforcement, national security, and diplomatic corps remain hesitant to speak out about this problem," Wolf said on the House floor. "Perhaps they are afraid that talking about this problem will reveal our vulnerability." He then added, "I have been urged not to speak out about this threat."
Wolf didn't say who urged him to remain silent. Kirk, whose office was also hit, said he spoke with Wolf before his remarks. Wolf wanted to publicly raise the issue of cyber-security to bring more attention to the problem, Kirk said. Kirk was more interested in finding the culprits.
"My objective was to get even with these guys and nail them," he said. "My objective was to tell the FBI as much detail as I can so we can go after them."
In his speech, Wolf urged his colleagues to raise their level of awareness, and he exhorted the executive branch to open up. "I strongly believe that the appropriate officials, including those from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, should brief all members of Congress in a closed session regarding threats from China and other countries against the security of House technology, including our computers, BlackBerry devices, and phones," Wolf said.
Wolf's outspokenness met resistance, Kirk said. "I think a number of people came to Frank and said, 'Back off. Don't do this,' " Kirk said. He declined to say who had approached Wolf. But he said that "some parts of the government" favor keeping systems open to track attackers, but they aren't inclined to talk about it openly.
Both the intelligence community and the military use cyber-monitoring tools that are essentially the same as those directed against U.S. government systems. The Air Force, in particular, considers cyberspace to be a new battleground; the service has reportedly developed a formidable capacity to inflict damage on other nations' computers and electronic infrastructure.
Many members of Congress, it seems, may also be uninterested in talking about their cyber-vulnerabilities -- not because they aren't concerned about them but because they don't understand them.
Wolf has said that in discussing the threat with colleagues, he has found that members don't realize their computers are tantalizing targets. One cyber-security expert says that Wolf is probably right but that members' ignorance doesn't mean they're indifferent.
"As a member of Congress, you have so many issues competing for your attention and, historically, cyber-security hasn't been one that's won out," said Amit Yoran, who was the first director of the National Cyber Security Division in the Homeland Security Department. "It's not an issue that is particularly well tracked by their constituents."
Moreover, Yoran said, lawmakers can also fall victim to their own demands. "In Congress, you've got an organization full of a lot of senior executives." Just as in the executive branch or in the private sector, members want to be treated like CEOs. They have "very high support requirements," Yoran said. Put another way, if members of Congress want their computers to access a certain website or run a particular program, they don't ask for technical support -- they demand it.
That mind-set makes it exceptionally difficult to protect congressional computers in a uniform fashion. The House and Senate could enact the strictest security policies imaginable, but if members and their aides ignore the policies or ask for exceptions, security degrades.
No one understands that better than the office in charge of protecting members' computers -- the House Information Systems Security Office. "I can say, comfortably, that the level and quality of expertise within the security department, the IT department, of the House, is very strong," Yoran said. "The Senate as well." The confidential briefing on the 2006 breach bolsters Yoran's assessment. It is clearly written and demonstrates that the security office understands the dynamic nature of cyber-intrusions.
Yoran emphasized, however, that between expertise and adequate security, "there's a lot of ground." Members and their staffers must decide whether to follow security procedures -- and perhaps too often, they don't want to be bothered.
Who Should Lead?
Congress is more than a tempting and sometimes easy target. Lawmakers also have oversight responsibility for the security of executive branch networks, and they make decisions that affect all U.S. telecommunications systems.
Members make the laws that set security policies and standards for government systems. They issue an annual report card and other assessments on how well the government is meeting those standards. Slowly but increasingly, lawmakers are writing statutes aimed at stiffening the penalties for computer intrusion and at defining hacking more clearly as a crime.
Yet Congress's repeated run-ins with cyber-thieves and hackers don't appear to have focused lawmakers' oversight efforts. Last week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Washington think tank noted for its defense policy research, released a highly anticipated cyber-security assessment for President-elect Obama. The study group included experts from a range of disciplines and industries, and was co-chaired by two members of Congress: Reps. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas.
The report, a year in the making, is almost entirely devoted to cyber-security recommendations for the next president. It devotes only one page to Congress's role, perhaps with good reason. The panel essentially concludes that Congress cannot manage cyber-security.
The root of the problem, the report said, lies in Congress's inconsistent, almost feudal, approach to oversight. "The fragmentation of oversight complicates efforts to improve homeland security, and cyber-security shares in this problem," the authors wrote. The Homeland Security Department, which is responsible for securing civilian government networks, "has far too many oversight committees -- more than 80 -- exercising jurisdiction."
The CSIS study group discussed whether that jurisdiction should be streamlined, a simple enough task on the surface. House and Senate rules don't explicitly give jurisdiction over cyber-issues to any committees, and congressional leaders could limit responsibility to a more manageable number of lawmakers. The study group certainly thought that was a good idea. "Without rules changes that provide clear jurisdiction, responsibility for investigation, oversight, and policy development in cyber-security will depend largely on member interest and the ability of committees to coordinate with each other," the report stated.
The study group stopped short of formally recommending that Congress take that step, however. In large measure, that's because the CSIS recommendations were meant for the president-elect, not the speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate. But the panel also concluded that cyber-security -- protecting critical networks not only from espionage but also from tampering and potential control by outsiders -- was of such importance and magnitude that only the president could take charge of it. Indeed, the authors titled their report "Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency."
"The president could engage [congressional] leaders in a discussion to streamline jurisdiction," the report said, "but jurisdictional consolidation would not produce the immediate improvement in cyber-security that our other recommendations offer." The panel wants Obama to take charge of cyber-security and make the White House its political nerve center. It recommended that he create a new office for cyberspace in the Executive Office of the President that would work closely with the National Security Council, "managing the many aspects of securing our national networks while protecting privacy and civil liberties." Any attempt to broadly secure cyberspace will, by necessity, involve close scrutiny of the information traveling through it, including e-mails, instant messages, and, increasingly, telephone calls.
The study group also recommended that Obama appoint an assistant for cyberspace and establish a Cyber-Security Directorate in the NSC. To support that directorate, the experts recommended a National Office for Cyberspace, which would be directed by the president's cyber-assistant.
"The new administration has to take rapid action to improve cyber-security, and streamlining congressional jurisdiction isn't one of those actions," said James Lewis, a CSIS senior fellow and the director of its public policy program. He led the study group.
"The legislative process is deliberative," Lewis said. "It has to move at its own pace on questions like jurisdiction, but there are things the executive branch can and should do without waiting." | <urn:uuid:bc2315a1-9dc8-4a48-85e2-60eb39fc1dff> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2008/12/hacking-the-hill/42717/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282937.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00433-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973952 | 3,735 | 2.90625 | 3 |
In case anyone hasn’t heard, a major flaw in OpenSSL named “Heartbleed” went public last week, putting companies’ and consumers’ private information at risk.
What is “Heartbleed”?
Heartbleed is a bug in OpenSSL (CVE-2014-0160) that resides in its heartbeat mechanism, allowing an attacker to ask for more data than should be allowed - to be copied from the server memory. This means that the response will contain data from the server’s memory, which may have sensitive information in it that is no longer controlled by the software.
References online indicate that passwords, private keys (certificates) of servers, and other very sensitive data are at risk.
Was Imperva impacted?
Some of our products and services were vulnerable to the bug. We don’t believe any were impacted by exploits. You can read the details here.
What can you do to protect your company?
Imperva and Incapsula both provide mitigation for applications protected by our WAFs as follows:
- SecureSphere customers can configure SecureSphere WAF to block Heartbleed attacks
- Incapsula customers are protected: see how
- Neither? Sign up for Incapsula now using the free trial to close the gap while you evaluate your options.
If none of these are an option, patching to the latest and greatest OpenSSL software (version 1.0.1g and newer) resolves the vulnerability at the software infrastructure level, and is a best practice.
As a consumer, how can I protect myself?
Mashable.com produced a list of affected sites that may have been compromised due to this bug. We recommend changing your passwords if you happened to have accounts in those sites, mostly for good measure.
Is this a big deal?
Yes. Heartbleed is one of the biggest Internet infrastructure vulnerabilities on record, not necessarily for its sophistication, but for the fact that it affects a majority of applications online and therefore has the potential to expose large amounts of sensitive data.
When the dust settles…
Heartbleed will be another event that highlights how hard it is for companies to ensure that their code base is secure. The reason is that almost all code includes 3rd party software, and that software may come with its own vulnerabilities. When that software happens to be used by the majority of the sites on the internet, the result is a big deal. But in case you want to dismiss this as a niche problem for SSL, think about how widely other frameworks (like Java or PHP or…) are used.
Authors & Topics: | <urn:uuid:cd384cb9-fa61-4e60-8494-86ae1c0627f6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blog.imperva.com/2014/04/heartbleed-update.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281492.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00369-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933699 | 547 | 2.53125 | 3 |
General Knowledge Questions and Answers For Kids
These General Knowledge Quiz Questions with answers are creatively compiled to make your kids learn about the world around them. Answers to these general knowledge questions for kids are mentioned at the end of this post.
General Knowledge Questions and Answers for Kids
1. What is the name of dog that went into space first?
2. Who was the first lady prime minister in the world?
- Sirimavo Bandaranaike
- Mahinda Rajapakse
- Chandrika Kumarathunge
3. Who invented the first space rocket?
- James Watt
- Joseph Godard
4. Who was the first prime minister of Bangladesh?
- Abdul Kalam
- Raju menjar
- Kahram Rehkam
- Mejibur Rehman
5. Who invented The Internet?
- Tim Berners-Lee
- Bill Gates
- Charles Babbage
- Hewlett Packard
6. Dr. A.P.J.Adbul Kalam originally is a
- Aeronautical Engineer
7. India is ___ largest country?
8. How much percentage of water has covered the land
- None of These
9. Who conceptualized the carbon nano tube?
- Sumio Tijima
- Dr. Abbas Ali
- Richard Smalley
- Isac Newton
10. Who was the president of Interpol in year 2006?
- Sam Menakshew
- Barack Obama
- Jackie Selebi
- Donald Breadman
11. Who is the new chief minister of Karnataka?
- Dharam Singh
- Jennifer Hawkins
- Chris Carins
12. India's first breeder neutron reactor was
13. What is the rhino's horn made of?
14. Which is the only country that got independence in 15th August as India?
- South America
- South Africa
- South Korea
- North America
15. Who invented the calendar?
- Luwen Hock
- Robert Hook
- Pope Gregory XIII
16. Who was the first woman chief minister in India?
- Sarojini Naidu
- Sucheta Krupalani
- Sonia Gandhi
- Sushma Swaraj
17. Which is the largest flower in the world?
18. Who was the Hostage taker of the hostage crisis in the Philippines last August 23, 2010 that killed 8 Hong-Kong Chinese nationals?
- Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza
- Gregorio Mendoza
- Joy Janiiola
- Denmark Baliling
19. Who is present chief election commissioner of India?
- Y.S. Sampath
- S.Y. Qurashi
- H.S. Brahma
- Naveen Chawla
20. Who was the first lady chief minister in Rajasthan?
- Indira Gandhi
- Prathibha Patil
- Vasundhara Raje
- Sonia Gandhi
21. Name the coin of Uruguay?
22. Who is the present governor of RBI?
- Y.V. Reddy
- Bimal Jalan
- Jagdish Bhagwati
23. Which is the largest planet?
Answers to General Knowledge Questions for Kids
The answers of general knowledge questions that are asked above are mentioned below.
- Laika. In 1957, Laika became the first animal launched into orbit, paving the way for human spaceflight.
- Sirimavo Bandaranaike, three times Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, was the first woman in the world to hold the office of prime minister.
- Professor Joseph Godard was the first to invent a rocket capable of entering Space. Prior to Godard's work, Wernher von Braun invented the first rocket capable of delivering a war head. Braun's rocket did not reach above the earth's outer atmosphere and therefore cannot be considered a true "space rocket".
- Mejibur Rehman was the first prime minister of Bangladesh.
- Tim Berners-Lee is a British engineer and computer scientist and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web, making the first proposal for it in March 1989. On 25 December 1990, with the help of Robert Cailliau and a young student at CERN, he implemented the first successful communication between an HTTP client and server via the Internet.
- Dr. A.P.J. Adbul Kalam originally is an Aeronautical Engineer.
- India is 7th largest country.
- None of These
- Richard Smalley conceptualized the carbon nano tube.
- Jackie Selebi was the president of Interpol in year 2006.
- Dharam Singh is the new chief minister of Karnataka.
- India's first breeder neutron reactor was Kamini.
- Rhino's horn is made of hair.
- South Korea is the only country that got independence in 15th august as India.
- Pope Gregory XIII invented the calendar. Gregory XIII is best known for his reformation of the calendar, producing the Gregorian calendar with the aid of Jesuit priest/astronomer Christopher Clavius.
- Sucheta krupalani was the first woman chief minister of India.
- Rafflesia is the largest flower in the world.
- Senior inspector Rolando Mendoza was the Hostage taker of the hostage crisis in the Philippines last August 23, 2010 that killed 8 Hong Kong Chinese nationals.
- S. Y. Quraishi is present chief election commissioner of India.
- Vasundhara Raje was the first lady chief minister in Rajasthan.
- Biso is the coin of Uruguay.
- R.Ranganijan is the present governor of RBI.
- Jupiter is the largest planet.
This list is based on the content of the title and/or content of the article displayed above which makes them more relevant and more likely to be of interest to you.
We're glad you have chosen to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and all links are nofollow. Do not use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:1b6eea26-2528-4b0d-94e8-75b59d0c64e1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.knowledgepublisher.com/article-962.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279468.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00361-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904995 | 1,304 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Would you be shocked to discover that New York State is ranked as the second highest in the country for reported bullying incidents, according to a September 2015 study by the US Cyberbullying Research Center?
Devised in 2012, section 814 of the NYS Education Law features the following factors on the safe and appropriate use of internet technology that we think you should be aware of:
New York offers a range of useful resources to help schools with their approach to internet safety. Take a look at the links below:
The New York State Education department provides some handy resources to help schools understand the aforementioned state law, along with an internet safety resource toolkit and a host of other useful resources designed for teachers, parents, students and technology administrators.
The New York City Department of Education’s Internet Acceptable Use and Safety Policy outlines a comprehensive set of policies for multiple areas of internet usage across the city’s schools and districts.
New York State Model Schools mission is “to leverage technology to transform education to improve learning and lives of students”. The consortium provides an internet safety course through popular learning platform, Moodle. This free curriculum offers a range of modules including:
The Social Web – this includes areas such as social networking, the next generation of the web, social bookmarking, and MUVES (Multi-User-Virtual-Environments).
Cyber Citizenship, Ethics, and Cyber Safety – this module teaches students about protecting their identity online, how to keep safe online, an overview of cyber predators and how to use the web ethically.
Copyright and Intellectual Property – specifically for educators, this module explains how to use copyrighted materials gathered online
Strategies for Safe Schools – this module provides examples of how other educators across the US are using technology and the online world safely in their schools.
In a survey we ran just last year, we discovered that 75% of students had accessed restricted websites at school despite blocking used as a preventative measure. And with over 10% of students admitting that they accessed inappropriate websites at school (including gambling, pornographic and self-harm sites), these figures show why it’s important to consider monitoring online activity in addition to blocking. The ability to monitor online activity allows instructors to identify exposure to potential risk before an incident escalates, so the relevant support and guidance can be provided. Real-time remote monitoring software, such as Impero Education Pro, provides instructors and administrators with a live thumbnail view of all student screens for monitoring activity in real-time. Automatic screen captures and video recordings of incidents enable instructors to put both misuse and risk into context, so students can remain focused, on task and safe in the digital learning environment. | <urn:uuid:ecf024b3-53c4-451b-b461-89abdcf71dbb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.imperosoftware.com/internet-safety-what-it-means-for-new-york-school-districts/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284376.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00387-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925595 | 547 | 3.0625 | 3 |
You likely have been told your entire life not to stare directly at the Sun but for an event happening next month you may want to figure out how to get a peek.
NASA said on June 5th, 2012, Venus will pass in front of the sun, "producing a silhouette that no one alive today will likely see again."
RELATED: The sizzling world of asteroids
Such crossings are rare. NASA says they come in pairs, the one set for June 5 being the pair of a crossing that happened in 2004. Another transit won't occur until the 2117.
Specifically NASA says that the nearly 7-hour journey begins at 3:09 pm Pacific Daylight Time on June 5th. The timing should be good for observers in the mid-Pacific where the sun is high overhead during the crossing. Observers on seven continents, even a sliver of Antarctica, will be able to see it. In the USA, the transit will be at its best around sunset. NASA notes that the passing planet is really no larger than a good sized solar flare as it passes over the face of the Sun.
From NASA: "This year's transit is the second of an 8-year pair. Anticipation was high in June 2004 as Venus approached the sun. No one alive at the time had seen a Transit of Venus with their own eyes, and the hand-drawn sketches and grainy photos of previous centuries scarcely prepared them for what was about to happen. Modern solar telescopes captured unprecedented view of Venus's atmosphere backlit by solar fire. They saw Venus transiting the sun's ghostly corona, and gliding past magnetic filaments big enough to swallow the planet whole. 2012 should be even better as cameras and solar telescopes have improved. Moreover, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is going to be watching too. SDO will produce Hubble-quality images of this rare event."
In the news: The SpaceX blast into history
The Hubble telescope will also be watching. NASA said astronomers are planning to point the Hubble telescope at the Earth's Moon, using it as a mirror to capture reflected sunlight and isolate the small fraction of the light that passes through Venus's atmosphere. Imprinted on that small amount of light are the fingerprints of the planet's atmospheric makeup.
According to the European Space Agency, Venus-Sun transits are of great historical significance because they gave astronomers a way to measure the size of the Solar System. For example, the transits of the 18th century enabled astronomers to calculate the distance to the Sun by timing how long it took for Venus to cross the solar disc from different locations on Earth and then using simple trigonometry. Also, during the transit of 1761 astronomers noticed a halo of light around the planet's dark edge, revealing Venus to have an atmosphere, the ESA stated.
So how do you watch this historic event safely? The Tranistofvenus.org has a bunch of good suggestions here.
Layer 8 Extra
Check out these other hot stories: | <urn:uuid:71807832-d114-4130-b40c-7c167894ac11> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networkworld.com/article/2222475/security/cool-space-shot--venus-set-to-cross-sun.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00021-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94398 | 611 | 3.515625 | 4 |
A new malware that researchers have dubbed Mayhem is being used to target Linux and Unix web servers and has so far compromised over 1,400 Linux and FreeBSD servers around the world, warn researchers from Russian Internet giant Yandex.
Mayhem has the functions of a traditional Windows bot, but doesn’t need root access to make use of them. The malware is modular, and can be likely made to do a number of things, but the current version can:
- Find websites that contain a remote file inclusion (RFI) vulnerability
- Enumerate users of WordPress sites
- Identify user login pages in sites based on the WordPress CMS
- Brute force passwords for sites based on the WordPress and Joomla CMSs
- Brute force passwords for almost any login page
- Brute force FTP accounts
- Crawl web pages (both by URL and IP) and extract useful information.
During their investigation, the researchers also discovered that Mayhem is a continuation of the Fort Disco brute-force campaign unearthed by Arbor ASERT in August 2013.
“Initially, the piece of malware appears as a PHP script,” the researchers shared. “After execution, the script kills all “/usr/bin/host’ processes, identifies the system architecture (x64 or x86) and system type (Linux or FreeBSD), and drops a malicious shared object named “libworker.so’.”
New variables, scripts and tasks are created, functions executed and processes run (for in-depth details check out the researchers’ paper at Virus Bulletin), and the malware contacts the C&C server in order to send the host’s system information and receive instructions on what to do next.
The researchers managed to gain access to two of the three C&C servers used to manage the botnet, and have discovered that those two control about 1,400 bots, most of which were used to brute force WordPress passwords.
“During our analysis, we found some common features shared between Mayhem and some other *nix malware. The malware is similar to “Trololo_mod’ and “Effusion’ – two injectors for Apache and Nginx servers respectively,” they noted, and add that despite a lack of evidence, they suspect that all these malware families were developed by the same gang.
Yandex researchers weren’t the first ones to have detected and analyzed Mayhem – the Malware Must Die team has spotted it nearly a month earlier. Both teams researched the malware independently.
Yandex researchers attribute the rising popularity of botnets made up of *nix web servers to several factors: Web servers are more powerful than ordinary personal computers and have good uptime; its admins usually update the software manually and irregularly, allowing attackers to find and exploit vulnerabilities; and Web server botnets are perfect for earning criminals money off of traffic redirection, drive-by download attacks, black hat SEO, and so on. | <urn:uuid:74392e49-2ab8-48dd-90da-520248c209b5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2014/07/18/mayhem-malware-ropes-linux-unix-servers-into-botnets/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280308.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00535-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912208 | 618 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Anturis JVM monitor allows you to monitor total memory usage, heap, non-heap and pool memory usages, threads and classes of JVMs, to ensure the best performance.
You can monitor all of your Java applications in one web-console, set up warning and error thresholds for each parameter and get actionable alerts in case of problems.
Total memory usage is the amount of memory that the JVM uses. This metric can affect overall performance of the underlying OS, if the JVM consumes all available memory.
Heap memory usage is the amount of memory that the JVM allocates for objects used by the running Java application. Unused objects are regularly removed from the heap by the garbage collector. If this metric grows, it can indicate that your application is not removing references for unused objects, or that you need to configure the garbage collector properly.
Non-Heap memory usage is the amount of memory allocated to the method area and the code cache. The method area is used to store references to loaded classes. If these references are not removed properly, the permanent generation pool can increase every time the application is redeployed, leading to a non-heap memory leak. It can also indicate a thread-creation leak.
Total pool memory usage is all the memory used by the various memory pools allocated by the JVM (that is, the total memory without the code cache area). This can give you an idea of how much memory your application consumes without the JVM overhead.
Threads is the number of active threads in the JVM. For example, each request to a Tomcat server is processed in a separate thread, so this metric can give you an idea of the number of requests that are currently being served.
Classes is the number of loaded classes. If your application dynamically creates a lot of classes, this can be the source of a severe memory leak.
Read Java Virtual Machine: the Essential Guide to learn the basics of JVMs.
©2017 Anturis Inc. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:29f51aee-65b7-4d71-a1d4-afc6b7c52550> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://anturis.com/jvm-monitoring/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00011-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.888385 | 418 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The DIGITS function returns a character string representation of the
absolute value of a number.
The argument must be an expression that returns the value of one of the
following built-in numeric data types: SMALLINT, INTEGER, or DECIMAL.
If the argument can be null, the result can be null; if the argument is
null, the result is the null value.
The result of the function is a fixed-length character string representing
the absolute value of the argument without regard to its scale. The result
does not include a sign or a decimal point. Instead, it consists
exclusively of digits, including, if necessary, leading zeros to fill out
the string. The length of the string is:
o 5 if the argument is a small integer
o 10 if the argument is a large integer
o p if the argument is a decimal number with a precision of p | <urn:uuid:42189ae0-f19c-4af9-bfba-5687e09540e2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ibmmainframes.com/about15996.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00224-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.662503 | 192 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Cooke S.J.,Carleton University |
Cooke S.J.,Center for Aquatic Ecology and Conservation |
Schreer J.F.,The State University of New York at Potsdam |
Wahl D.H.,Center for Aquatic Ecology and Conservation |
And 3 more authors.
Journal of Experimental Biology | Year: 2010
Parental care is an energetically costly period of the life history of many fish species characterized by extended high intensity activity. To date, there have been no studies that have investigated the cardiovascular correlates of extended parental care in fish. Using Doppler flow probes, the cardiovascular performance of six syntopic centrarchid fish species (N=232) that provide sole, male parental care was examined across a range of water temperatures that encompass their reproductive periods (14-26°C). Experiments were restricted to males but included both nesting and non-nesting individuals to evaluate the cardiovascular performance of fish during parental care. Resting values for cardiac output (Q) and heart rate (fH) tended to be higher for nesting fish when adjusted for variation in temperature. Both of these cardiac variables also increased with water temperature. Stroke volume (Vs) was similar among nesting and non-nesting fish and was generally thermally insensitive. When exposed to exhaustive exercise, nesting fish took longer to exhaust than non-nesting individuals. The high resting levels found in nesting fish accompanied by only minor increases in maximal values typically resulted in reductions in cardiac scope. Cardiovascular variables recovered more quickly in nesting fish, which could facilitate the high activity and bursting associated with parental care. Interspecifically, several cardiovascular variables were correlated with parental care activity. Parental care investment became more energetically expensive as the degree of cardiac frequency modulation decreased. Additionally, as the duration of parental care increased, so did the time required for fish to become exhausted, although this relationship was probably influenced by the fact that the larger species (e.g. smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomleu; largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides) provided the lengthiest care. Collectively, these data indicate that fish that provide parental care possess adaptations, including sufficient phenotypic plasticity, such that they can enhance their ability to provide high intensity protracted care, and emphasize the nexus between behavior and physiology. © 2010. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. Source | <urn:uuid:11157bae-da48-4e1e-93b2-ff7bc54dcf15> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.linknovate.com/affiliation/center-for-aquatic-ecology-and-conservation-560474/all/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280483.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00068-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941652 | 492 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Harvard Recruiting PC Power to Find Better Solar-Panel Materials
Harvard and IBM are reaching out to find and utilize as many unused computing cycles as possible to complete some time-consuming energy projects. In exchange, the owner of a PC being utilized in the grid network can enjoy the satisfaction of helping contribute to a good scientific cause, as well as make a number of new friends in the process: The World Community Grid has become a community of its own.Harvard University has been recruiting students since the 17th century. On Dec. 8, however, the prestigious institution began recruiting people with computing power to help out in research projects that could benefit mankind in big ways.
When a personal computer is on and connected to the Internet but sitting idle, a portion of that computing power can be utilized automatically for specific projects by an outside network-provided, of course, that the PC owner has given permission and has downloaded a piece of software to do the work.
It's long been a fact that many computers and their owners around the world unwittingly contribute as "bots" to illicit networks through the use of secretly placed spyware agents. The Harvard project resembles such scenarios, but this project-which runs on the IBM-sponsored World Community Grid-is strictly on the up and up.
Job No. 1: Finding specific polymers that can be used to make newer, more powerful solar panel cells for home and/or commercial electrical use. That project kicked off Dec. 5 with a little champagne celebration at the Cambridge, Mass., office of Alan Aspuru-Guzik, a chemistry researcher at the university and coordinator of the project.
Scientists say the project will allow it to discover the right combination of organic molecules that can be used to manufacture plastic solar cells that are less expensive and more flexible than silicon-based ones that are typically used to turn sunlight into electricity.
"People connected to the grid are helping us to identify the types of [polymer] molecules that can be used in building the right kind of plastics for solar panels," Aspuru-Guzik told me.
"The way we do it normally is not now cost-efficient, although the materials are cheap because it's plastic. But if we can get a whole lot of people to allow us to use their computers on this grid for this purpose, we can sort out the chaff and find the molecules faster and in a more fruitful manner." | <urn:uuid:69762e0f-f6cb-494b-b9c0-05b2b8c9e8de> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Green-IT/Harvard-Recruiting-PC-Power-to-Find-Better-SolarPanel-Materials | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00096-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946457 | 491 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Who chooses replication, and why
Organizations use replication to protect data from loss, to implement disaster recovery, to migrate data to new locations, and to repurpose data for other systems, such as for test and development activities or decision-support applications.
How replication works
Data is copied from the source and sent over a network to a target device. The process may be host-based, network-based, or array-based. Bandwidth reduction and data compression may be used to reduce the impact on production resources. Most replication occurs during production activity—either synchronously, in step with production, or asynchronously, closely behind production activity.
Benefits of replication
Without impacting production applications and activity, replication reduces the risk of information loss and enables critical applications to be run from a secondary location in the event of a planned or unplanned outage or disaster. Replication also enables organizations to easily and nondisruptively move data—either to a new location or to other environments and systems. | <urn:uuid:d80cb4bb-29ea-4fd6-ab4d-7ed0a244ca16> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.emc.com/corporate/glossary/replication.htm | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280485.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00490-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917477 | 204 | 3.9375 | 4 |
For HPC centers all over the world, supporting cutting-edge research by providing users with high-levels of compute power is job number one, but nowadays centers are also expected to be as energy-efficient as possible. Such is the case with Netherlands-based HPC center SURFsara. When the center needed to reduce its energy consumption and improve uptime, it turned to Dell Deployment Services and Dell Configuration Services.
SURFsara relies on both government and university funding to provide university groups with the computing power they need to perform ground-breaking research. In addition to this mandate, the center must ensure that government efficiency-efficiency guidelines are followed.
“We help them process large volumes of data, fast,” says Jaap Dijkshoorn, Group Leader of Cluster Computing, SURFsara, The Netherlands. “[But we also] try to be as green as possible.”
When SURFsara’s existing cluster was reaching the end of its lifecycle, the center sought a replacement that emphasized performance-per-watt. After a European tender process, they found that Dell best met their needs based on performance, power consumption and price.
The new HPC cluster, called Lisa, consists of 624 Dell blade servers, Dell Force10 switches and Dell PowerVault direct attached storage array. It is providing researchers with a 50 percent increase in computing power – from 20 teraflops to 30 teraflops – and around-the clock-access to computing with 99 percent uptime.
The new system has also helped SURFsara meet the green IT targets set by the Dutch government. The country is aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and expects businesses to do their share in making this happen. Thanks to the energy-efficient Dell blades, the amount of electricity that goes into powering SURFsara has dropped by 40 percent, from 250 kilowatts to 150 kilowatts.
Observes Dijkshoorn: “Not only does that mean that as an organisation we’re being as green as possible, but the fact that we’re significantly reducing our electricity bills should also see us make savings that we can reinvest in developing cutting-edge technology services.” | <urn:uuid:c70929af-b633-49d7-9895-053e0bdd2114> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.hpcwire.com/2013/04/24/hpc_center_meets_green_mandate/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00214-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948126 | 463 | 2.703125 | 3 |
This week’s landfall of hurricane Sandy in the New York, New Jersey, Northern Virginia and surrounding areas is another reminder of the fact that businesses and even lives can be brought to a disturbing halt—and often, there’s little anyone can do to prevent the ensuing destruction. This most recent hurricane illustrates how even unlikely events can sometimes crop up. The data center industry, which has a major hub in New York City and is also concentrated in other areas on the eastern seaboard, had the unfortunate chance to put its disaster preparedness efforts to the test. Here’s a smattering of what has been taking place in the hurricane’s aftermath, from the darn near heroic to the downright annoying.
Good Old-Fashioned Manpower
Data centers are facilities that do well with maximum system redundancy and automation, greatly reducing the need for human interaction to keep them running. But sometimes there really is no substitute for human beings. Following Con Edison’s shutdown of power to Lower Manhattan and subsequent flooding from Sandy, a Peer 1 Hosting data center on the 17th floor of a building in that neighborhood faced a dire situation. According to Computerworld (“Huge customer effort keeps flooded NYC data center running”), Peer 1’s “rooftop generator couldn't access the 20,000-gallon fuel tank in the flooded basement. Its pumping system was disabled by storm waters from Hurricane Sandy.” The solution? A bucket brigade moving fuel by hand up to the generator to keep the facility running. “A network of people, stationed at every staircase landing, formed a bucket brigade passing fuel from one person to the next. Several dozen may have been involved over multiple shifts, including some day laborers who were also hired to help.”
Although the effort to keep the Peer 1 data center operational might not quite meet the standard of heroic, it certainly is one of the more encouraging data center stories of the disaster. Other data centers were unable to stay online, necessitating reliance on backup facilities.
The Need for Backup—and More
The Peer 1 facility illustrates how a number of different problems caused by a disaster can combine to worsen the situation. Not only was electrical power cut off by the utility company (something that could happen purposefully, as in the case of ConEd, or as a direct result of damage from the disaster), but floodwaters cut off access to the backup generator’s fuel supply. In some such cases, no amount of onsite preparation can keep a data center going until normal services are restored.
DatacenterDynamics (“Datagram data center stays down through Wednesday”) notes that a Datagram data center in Manhattan was forced to shut down when the building’s basement was flooded, creating hazardous conditions because of the electrical infrastructure therein. In this case, a shutdown of the facility was the only option. “Crews continued pumping water out of the basement on Wednesday afternoon. Power to the building could not be restored until all water was removed, the company said on a status page it put up to replace its website.” The hurricane also damaged communications lines to the facility, adding to the difficulties. The solution, however, was to switch to an alternate site: “The provider has been offering backup servers to New York customers out of its facility in Connecticut.” Redundancy in location—as well as in onsite systems—enabled Datagram to continue providing services despite a complete shutdown of its facility in Manhattan. Other companies did likewise, using failover sites to maintain operations despite difficulties in Manhattan or other areas.
Of course, some companies faced less dire circumstances and were able to more easily weather the storms through their onsite backup systems, as DatacenterDynamics also notes (“Sandy: the uptime stories”).
Stock Markets Close
Perhaps wisely, the New York stock markets closed on Monday and Tuesday, finally reopening on Wednesday. The extent of high-frequency trading (also called algorithmic trading), combined with the effects of the hurricane could have triggered a flash crash or other anomaly—a serious danger, given the fragile state of the economy. Not only does the hurricane present a solemn reminder of the need for disaster preparedness, but it highlights the dangers that disasters (natural or manmade) pose to a nation on the brink of another recession. According to Computerworld (“Even with prep, did Wall Street's business continuity plans fail?”), an IDC Financial Insights report “criticized the NYSE's contingency plan…because the plan called for the stock market to operate ‘as an electronic-only exchange for the first time in its history.’” The report went on to say that “keeping the market open on a purely electronic basis, with the market having never operated this way even under perfect conditions, would only increase the chance of any minor malfunction to a high-frequency trading algorithm, causing potentially great disruption.”
Unfortunately, the report cited insufficient regulation as part of the problem. “‘Not only has Sandy exposed the susceptibility of the contingency plans devised by major market players (exposing a lack of foresight concerning the potential impact of a hurricane that can simultaneously hit the [New York-Connecticut-New Jersey] area), but it has also given insight into [financial market regulators’] apparent inability to monitor electronic markets,’” according to Computerworld. Presumably, this means that the solution is more regulation—an increasingly common theme in American society, even though the federal government is up to its ears in debt from meddling in the business of almost everyone around the world.
For many business owners (and consumers), the images of Sandy’s destruction—and the stories of individuals and businesses attempting to continue their lives and operations—are too far removed. Unfortunately, however, disasters can strike anywhere. Few would have anticipated a hurricane as being much of a threat to New York City, for instance (compared with, say, another manmade attack). The importance of both redundant systems on site and a remote backup site has been abundantly illustrated. Of course, not every business can afford all the disaster-preparedness and -recovery stops: budget is still a limiting factor. But for those companies that can afford to prepare but simply won’t, hurricane Sandy should be a wakeup call. The costs of downtime often dwarf the costs of preparing for disasters, major or minor. And for everyone, this disaster is an opportunity to reflect on the importance of life—it’s more than just business and cool technology—as well as the path of the nation and even the western world. A vibrant economy can handle a disaster and bounce back quickly; a struggling economy can be damaged severely by the same disaster. Whatever the case, however, we hope for a safe and speedy recovery in the areas harmed by Sandy.
Photo courtesy of Brian R. Birke | <urn:uuid:cc487186-1d8b-4183-920c-e39b553dbe3c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.datacenterjournal.com/hurricane-sandy-highlights-need-for-disaster-preparedness/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279379.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00518-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961931 | 1,428 | 2.625 | 3 |
Object databases first started to appear in 1985 and they are also known as object-oriented database management systems. The data in such databases is stored in the form of objects, as used by object-oriented programming. They are different from relational or graph databases and most of them offer a query language that allows object to be found with a declarative programming approach.
Db4o is the open source object database that is supported by a large community. The database allows .Net and Java and developers to store and recover any application object with just 1 line of code. Versant, the developer of Db4o offers a free and commercialized suite.
PicoLisp is a Lisp dialect running on Linux and it features a database functionality. First class objects are loaded from database files automatically when they are accessed and written back when modified. PicoLisp was developed in 1988 and in 2012 a Java version was created.
FramerD, developed in 2005, allows computerized creation, access and manipulation of descriptions and systems of descriptions. It is a portable distributed object-oriented database and was developed to support sharing and maintaining knowledge bases. It is optimized for pointer-intensive data structure.
Siaqodb is a NoSQL object database running on among others .NET, Unity3D as well as the Windows Phone. Thanks to the Sync Framework provider, siaqodb is a cross-platform client-side database. It can be kept in sync with server-side databases. LINQ is the query engine and it provides a LINQ query editor in the application.
McObject developed Perst, an open source object-oriented embedded database sytem (ODBMS). Data is stored in Java directly and it is available for .NET framework applications as well. Users can store, sort and retrieve objects in high-speed and with memory usages being low. It is reliable to use and offers different development tools.
Starcounter is a transactional database made available for modern commodity computers. Transactions are secured on disk and it supports duplication and full recovery. It integrates Virtual Machine and a Database Management System. It offers a .NET object API and SQL query support and gives a single server the capacity of a data centre.
Zope is developed and maintained by one of the largest open source communities. It was developed in 1998 in the object-oriented programming language Python. Zope stands for ‘Z Object Publishing Environment’ and Zope is helped the programming language Python become popular. It was the first system to start using object publishing methodology for the web.
Magma is a multi-user object database developed especially for Squeak 4.4. It provides good read-transparency to a large-scale shared persistent object model. It has a high-availability and fault tolerance and is developed to support large indexed collections with hard querying.
NDatabase is a .NET Object Database and a transparent persistence layer for .NET. It allows users to store and retrieve native objects with a single line of code. It offers NoSQL and LINQ support and databases are automatic created. It supports different platforms among other Silverlight, Windows Phone and NuGet.
Neoppod is a distributed, redundant and transactional storage system. It was initiated in 2005 and implemented on top of Zope. It is a NoSQL database developed for the cloud.
Sterling is a NoSQL object-oriented database developed especially for Silverlight, Windows Phone 7.0 and .NET. It supports LINQ object queries. The core is light so that the system is flexible and it becomes easy to query the database. Sterling is portable and weighs only 85 kb.
EyeDB is an Object Oriented Database Management System (OODBMS) that is developed by SYSRA. It provides an object model, object definition language, a manipulation language and an object query. It offers programming interfaces for C++ and Java. | <urn:uuid:5bbd1b91-15b7-4fe2-a2ed-8ba5a274d067> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://datafloq.com/big-data-open-source-tools/os-objects-databases/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00242-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919111 | 799 | 2.75 | 3 |
Many of us give little appreciation to our internet connection until a problem arises, and then we are quick to realize how much the internet provides for us each and every day. It powers your computer, smart television, entertainment systems, tablets, phones, and most importantly connections you to the outside world. I mean what would we even do to entertain ourselves without the internet? How would we communicate? These are questions many of us only talk about in the abstract, because we rely so heavily on internet it would be too difficult to find out the answers to these questions without immobilizing ourselves. The internet has become increasingly fast, according to a study conducted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the average US household went from a speed of 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) in March 2011 to 31 Mbps in September 2014. In 2015 the FCC took such statistics and re-defined the minimum download speed from 4 Mbps to 25Mbps, a big jump for broadband connection. The FCC is the one who is also attempting to increase internet speeds for all households, but the real mover and shaker is competition. Local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Google have pushed big name companies to raise speeds while keeping costs affordable. Verizon FiOS, one of the only fiber-to-the-home-only increased it’s minimum speed from 25Mbps to 50 Mbps. There are some lucky cities as well that have gigabit internet status, meaning ISPs in such cities provide 1 gigabit per second, 1000X better than 1Mbps speeds and 40X the FCC qualification for broadband. The increase is due in part to fiber optic lines such as Google’s dark fiber that is already in place in large cities even though it is not ready for use, as well as newer DOCSIS 3.1 that will make it easier for cable companies to get on board with faster speeds.
So, how fast is my connection then?
Despite innovations, and the reliance on speedy internet connection, the average speed is nowhere near the industry top technology capabilities. Researchers at PCMag helped us out by examining the Fastest ISPs in the United States using a tool named Speedtest. The data is then used in comparison to other ISPs in a formula PCMag calls the Internet Speed Index, which basically comprises of a number that pits ISP to ISP.
They encourage you to do the same and click the link, www.pcmag.com to test your own internet connection speed. Once you hit the page, scroll down to Begin Test to find out how your connection compares to others.
If you would like to educate yourself in more detail about the information presented in this blog post please visit : www.pcmag.com | <urn:uuid:e3c3887b-9685-465e-8340-d24d4b4d6ff8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.bvainc.com/how-fast-is-your-internet/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00058-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95549 | 550 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Lorenzo-Carballa M.O.,University of Liverpool |
Ferreira S.,University of Liverpool |
Ferreira S.,University of Porto |
Sims A.M.,University of Liverpool |
And 10 more authors.
Freshwater Science | Year: 2015
Loss and fragmentation of habitat is a current main cause of biodiversity loss in freshwater habitats. Odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) depend on these habitats to complete their development. Fragmentation may be a particular threat for odonates because it generates a network of small habitat patches within which populations could suffer from isolation and loss of genetic diversity. The southern damselfly Coenagrion mercuriale is categorized on the IUCN red list as Near Threatened, largely because of population fragmentation and demographic declines associated with changes in land use. Small populations at the margin of this species' range are of particular concern because they would be prone to detrimental effects of habitat fragmentation if this species were a poor disperser.We sampled C. mercuriale in 16 habitat patches (localities) at 4 main sites in the department of Pasde- Calais in northwestern France to quantify factors that affect dispersal and genetic diversity. Specimens were genotyped at 12 microsatellite loci to quantify genetic diversity, genetic differentiation, and the potential effect of landscape variables on genetic differentiation, and to detect any potential source-sink structure. Habitat separation had a limiting effect on dispersal by C. mercuriale, resulting in 3 main genetic clusters and weak divergence at the main site of Vallée de la Course. Genetic differentiation was low in each main site, implying that the localities within sites were connected at scales of up to 2 km, albeit with some evidence for isolation at the more isolated localities. Given the degree of isolation of some areas and a lack of apparent genetic mixing in the intervening populations, any movement among the most distantly separated sites must have occurred some time ago. We identified barriers to dispersal, such as woodland, but detecting an unambiguous effect of certain variables, such as urbanization, was difficult because many landscape features were highly correlated. © 2015 by The Society for Freshwater Science. Source | <urn:uuid:112a3cda-b19c-4d7f-97af-dfcfba0b19e4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.linknovate.com/affiliation/conservatoire-despaces-naturels-du-nord-et-du-pas-de-calais-248312/all/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00270-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933228 | 455 | 3.140625 | 3 |
The small robots can rectify mistakes made during the demonstration, avoiding a complete catastrophe.
Scientists at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences demonstrated a flashmob of 1,024 simple robots, collectively known as Kilobots to arrange themselves into complex shapes.
The aim of the demonstration was to show how simple behaviour among simple machines can create complex behaviours, and the demonstration was done successfully with the robots that collectively made the letter K and arranged themselves as a starfish.
Once the initial set of instructions was delivered, the Kilobots did not require any micromanagement or intervention.
Only four robots made the original coordination system while the rest received a 2D image of the activity they had to mimic, and following the procedure, the robots arranged themselves.
Harvard school of engineering and applied sciences, Prof Radhika Nagpal, said: "The beauty of biological systems is that they are elegantly simple — and yet, in large numbers, accomplish the seemingly impossible.
"At some level, you no longer even see the individuals; you just see the collective as an entity to itself. We can simulate the behavior of large swarms of robots, but a simulation can only go so far.
"The real-world dynamics — the physical interactions and variability — make a difference, and having the Kilobots to test the algorithm on real robots has helped us better understand how to recognize and prevent the failures that occur at these large scales."
This technology marks the beginning of the use of collective artificial intelligence, which can be used to create complex machines that will be capable of eventually creating the swarm. | <urn:uuid:9242cc91-b649-4e5e-aaa3-341090e6775f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.cbronline.com/news/enterprise-it/harvard-researchers-demonstrate-flashmob-of-more-than-1000-robots-180814-4346344 | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282110.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00480-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949208 | 326 | 3.671875 | 4 |
GCN LAB IMPRESSIONS
IBM claims breakthrough with 'liquified' memory
- By Greg Crowe
- Jun 30, 2011
IBM already has pretty good memory for a hundred-year-old, but now it has gotten even better. The company’s research division in Zurich, Switzerland, just announced a breakthrough that will enable manufacturers to use a type of memory that was previously deemed too unreliable for widespread usage.
Researchers said their tests of a new approach to phase-change memory showed it performed 100 times faster than the most advanced flash memory, and that was in a worst-case scenario. PCM also can last for at least 10 million write cycles, compared with 30,000 cycles for enterprise-class Flash and 3,000 cycles for consumer flash drives, IBM said.
PCM was initially developed in the 1960s. Developed as solid-state alternative to dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), PCM uses an electrical charge to change a piece of chalcogenide glass — some forms of which exist in CD-RWs — from a crystalline state to a more amorphous one.
Does that seem like sci-fi? Sure, but the difference in the resistances of the two states gives you your ones and zeros. Although its performance was comparable to DRAM, it was considered too much of a power hog and its materials too expensive to be put in mainstream devices. So PCM was essentially the Betamax of computer memory.
Twice Betamax actually, because when flash, another, different type of solid-state memory, was developed, PCM was again overlooked. This was in spite of the vastly superior speed that PCM was capable of over flash. It was simply too expensive to put in a drive that people could wear on their key chains.
But now, as the need for further miniaturization of memory chips continues, we will shortly run up against a wall with both DRAM and flash memory. So researchers have been working for the past several years on making PCM more affordable and stable.
First, they found a way to put two logical bits in each physical cell, thus cutting material costs nearly in half. But this created some problems with the resistance levels shifting more, which would make read errors more likely. The breakthrough that the IBM scientists have announced involves some modulation coding techniques to help allay this problem. So now nothing stands in the way of developing this technology for consumer use.
It’s like some kind of Betamax Phoenix. Hmm, I like that. Hands off, it’s my copyright now!
So when can we expect computers or portable drives to come out with this new memory? Well, IBM expects it to be ready by 2016. So don’t throw your flash drives away yet.
Greg Crowe is a former GCN staff writer who covered mobile technology. | <urn:uuid:dd5ecefd-44b3-4b69-af6b-e58dc18a253d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://gcn.com/articles/2011/06/30/ibm-breakthough-phase-change-memory.aspx | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00114-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969185 | 596 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Communicate.Communicate.Communicate - Leading with Impact
Effective communication is critical to a leader's individual success and the organization's ability to accomplish its goals.
The activities leaders do all day involve communication. Good communication is a vital element of success, and yet, in most organizations it is identified as the skill requiring the most improvement. What is said and how it is said is only the beginning of effective communication. When done well, leader communication can positively impact the working environment, engage team members, and build trust. Or it can do the opposite.
This course helps ensure leaders know and understand this most important of leadership competencies. Through good communication, leaders bring clarity to team vision and values, work collaboratively with peers, delegate deliberately, provide constructive feedback, and coach for performance.
Benefits for the Individual
Enhanced ability to communicate in the workplace by:
- Applying effective questioning techniques using open, closed, clarifying, and confirming question types
- Identifying and applying important listening habits
- Leveraging your Personal Needs to ensure you are getting what you need out of any communication
- Identifying others' Personal Needs to ensure the communication appeals to what's important to them
- Identifying and addressing the facts, episodes, and feelings that surround a topic you need to communicate
- Practicing with common communication blunders
Benefits for the Organization
- Increased likelihood of achieving organization's strategic goals
- Enhanced employee engagement
- Improved culture of transparency | <urn:uuid:190aa5d8-bd22-4d12-9202-ba57623e1024> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.globalknowledge.com/ca-en/course/116265/communicatecommunicatecommunicate-leading-with-impact/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279923.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00472-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923919 | 300 | 3 | 3 |
Authors: Dr. Cyrus Peikari and Seth Fogie
Wireless networks are replacing wired networks very rapidly. More and more people want to stay connected on the road. What this transition brings is – more security problems. While wired networks have been around for ages and have had the time to make good security defences, wireless networks and new in comparison and still have a long way to go. This book aims to give you the knowledge you need to bring maximum security to your network, by teaching you how that security can and will be broken.
About the authors
Dr. Cyrus Peikari worked as a telecommunications software research and development engineer for Alcatel. He has developed several award-winning security software programs. He co-founded DallasCon, the largest annual wireless security conference in the Southwest and has spoken at Defcon, the annual hacker security conference in Las Vegas.
An interview with Cyrus Peikari is available here.
Seth Fogie is a former United States Navy nuclear engineer. After retiring from the Navy, Mr. Fogie worked as a technical support specialist for a major Internet service provider, during which time he earned his MCSE. Currently, Mr. Fogie is director of engineering at VirusMD Wireless Security, where he develops next-generation mobile security software.
Inside the book
The book begins with an examination of wireless hardware. According to the authors, we are presented with only the very best hardware that offers the highest cost/value ratio. The types of hardware presented are access points, antennas, wireless network interface cards and handheld devices. This can serve both as a good buying guide if you haven’t decided on what type of hardware you want to purchase and as an introduction to what hardware is available and how it works.
Moving on we receive the basics of what we have to know if we want to understand wireless networks – an overview of the various wireless network protocols. You’ll learn about the 802.11, 802.11a and 802.11g standards, IrDA, Bluetooth and HomeRF. There’s also a comparison between the 802.11a and 802.11b standards. To aid in the understanding of the theory presented here there are a few diagrams that will make your life easier.
Even though wireless communication may seem simple, wireless programming can be complex. That’s exactly why the authors analyse several types of programming and formatting found in handheld wireless devices. The presented material includes: HTML/XML/XHTML, WAP/WML/WMLScript, .NET, Java (J2ME), i-mode and Openwave SDK. If you’re interested in the basics of wireless programming this is a good place to look. Besides the theory you’ll see some screenshots and code examples. I have to emphasize that this is an introductory text that will not give you much to learn from if you want some hardcore wireless programming information.
The IEEE 802.11 standard offers a method of protection known as the Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) protocol. WEP defines a set of instructions and rules by which wireless data can be transmitted over the airwaves with at least some security. Several security vulnerabilities have been discovered in WEP and here you’ll learn about them.
Now that you know about the vulnerabilities we get some juicy material, the authors present how to crack WEP. What you see here is a technical explanation that will get you wondering the next time you rely solely on WEP to secure your wireless network. To continue in the vein of good material we are presented with “Hacking Techniques” where the authors dwell into several attack methods including social engineering and social spying, explain sniffing and session hijacking in more detail. When it comes to a more advanced attack technique, you will learn to understand buffer overflows and there’s also the very (un)popular Denial of Service attack.
As I began reading the chapter entitled “Wireless Attacks”, I realised that things are going to get particularly interesting now. Why? The beginning of the chapter welcomes the reader with a disclaimer stating that the information presented here is meant to teach you how to protect your network only and not for any other, possibly illegal, activities. What you’ll learn here is how to efficiently discover a wireless network and attack it. Everything is explained in great detail with a variety of screenshots and photos. Attacks like war driving, client-to-client hacking and jamming are explained.
As regards wireless viruses, the antivirus industry has been predicting the apocalypse for some time now. Although fortunately their dark predictions have not come true yet, airborne viruses are a reality and that’s why they are present in this book. After an overview of viruses and prevention you’ll learn about hostile web pages, viruses for PalmOS, Windows CE .NET and more. Although very brief, this chapter is quite interesting. With time this topic will, for sure, get more exposure.
There are several tools you have to master if you want to become a wireless security expert. For hands-on learning the authors bring us detailed information on how to install and configure various tools. After reading this part of the book you will certainly become proficient in the usage of these tools: Ethereal, Kismet, AirSnort, etc. This is probably the very best part of the book.
If you’re interested in palmtop hacking you’ll get info about it too. As wireless Pocket PC powered devices are becoming cheaper and a larger audience is able to acquire them, the number of war drivers using handheld devices is growing rapidly. There’s an overview of various tools with a myriad of screenshots.
Now that we’ve learned much about wireless hacking techniques, tools and methods, we are presented with a wireless hack walkthrough. The idea is to simulate a real world attack scenario based on a test network built for the occasion. The authors walk us through the process of discovering a wireless network, the preparation of an attack and the execution. After the attack scenario comes the chapter that will teach you how to secure your WLAN. The many available methods that you can use to secure your WLAN are explained in detail. If you’re worried about VPN security there’s also much information on the subject: tunnelling, IPSec, L2TP, and much more. To finish off the book there’s a part dedicated to the wireless public key infrastructure (PKI) in which you’ll find out more about public key cryptography, digital signatures, wireless PKI implementation, and so on.
About the CD-ROM
The CD-ROM is very simple with no flashy graphics. What you get here is a collection of wireless security tools mentioned in the book. This is very useful since you can install the software presented in the book while you’re reading it, and start experimenting. I just wish more books had a CD-ROM, at least with just tools like this one.
My 2 cents
What can I say? When you come to the end of the book you’ll be wishing for its size to be at least double. The writing style is very loose and will keep you hooked to the material without giving you too much dry technical information. The variety of examples and screenshots brings the material forward to a wider audience despite the “Intermediate-Advanced” user level noted on the book. Just when you think this is pure gold, you realize there’s a CD-ROM packed with the book that contains the software presented in the book. What more can I ask for? | <urn:uuid:63fe9add-6d2f-4411-99f6-432949847585> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2003/02/17/maximum-wireless-security/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280319.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00380-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948001 | 1,566 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Tech Glossary – S to T
Safe Mode is a way for the Windows operating system to run with the minimum system files necessary. Sometimes, Windows may not fully load after an unexpected crash and the only way to get the computer to boot is to use Safe Mode. Once you have successfully booted the computer in Safe Mode, you can run a disk utility program to repair corrupted files or directories on the hard drive.
SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment)
It is an interface used to connect ATA hard drives to a computer’s motherboard. SATA transfer rates start at 150MBps, which is significantly faster than even the fastest 100MBps ATA/100 drives. For this and other reasons, Serial ATA is likely to replace the previous standard, Parallel ATA (PATA), which has been around since the 1980s.
Spyware can capture information like Web browsing habits, e-mail messages, usernames and passwords, and credit card information. If left unchecked, the software can transmit this data to another person’s computer over the Internet.
A switch is used to network multiple computers together. Switches made for the consumer market are typically small, flat boxes with 4 to 8 Ethernet ports. These ports can connect to computers, cable or DSL modems, and other switches. High-end switches can have more than 50 ports and often are rack mounted. /p>
A terabyte is 1,024 gigabytes and precedes the petabyte unit of measurement. While today’s consumer hard drives are typically measured in gigabytes, Web servers and file servers may have several terabytes of space. A single 500GB hard drive can also be called a half-terabyte drive. | <urn:uuid:fafb1c75-fde2-49da-a4cc-998bb22c4d3d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://icomputerdenver.com/tech-glossary/tech-glossary-s-t/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285244.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00498-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923144 | 353 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The US Department of Energy said it has whittled 92 teams down to 9 finalists for its competition that aims to double the current amount of energy captured from ocean waves.
Each of the finalists in the Wave Energy Prize and two alternates will now receive seed DOE funding to develop a 1/20th-scale model of their deep water wave energy converter (WEC) devices. The final round of testing will take place this summer at the nation's most advanced wave-making facility—the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Maneuvering and Seakeeping Basin in Carderock, Maryland.
+More on Network World: 10 hot energy projects that could electrify the world and more Cool Energy projects+
“Recent studies found that America’s technically recoverable wave energy resource is estimated to range between 898-1,229 terawatt hours (TWh) per year, distributed across the coast of Alaska, the West Coast, the East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. For context, approximately 90,000 homes can be powered by 1 TWh per year. This means that even if only 5% of the potential is recovered, millions of homes could be powered by wave energy as the technology progresses,” the DOE stated.
According to the DOE the broader goal for the WEC competition is to spur innovations for new and next generation technologies to be cost-competitive at 15 cents per kilowatt hour (¢/kWh), down from the current range of 61-77 ¢/kWh3.
The nine finalist teams are:
- AquaHarmonics of Portland, Oregon
- CalWave of Berkeley, California
- M3 Wave of Salem, Oregon
- Oscilla Power of Seattle, Washington
- RTI Wave Power of York, Maine
- Sea Potential of Bristol, Rhode Island
- SEWEC of Redwood City, California
- Wavefront Power (Team FLAPPER) of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
- Waveswing America of Sacramento, California
The two alternate teams include:
- McNatt Ocean Energy of Annapolis, Maryland
- Wave Energy Conversion Corporation of America of North Bethesda, Maryland
Check out these other hot stories: | <urn:uuid:a790a933-c3df-441e-9744-c2f2613177b2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networkworld.com/article/3040323/data-center/energy-dept-sets-9-finalists-for-2-25m-wave-energy-prize.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279176.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00409-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.887071 | 458 | 2.578125 | 3 |
So far in this series I have described two telephony protocols (SIP and MGCP) that feature prominently on the CCIE Voice and CCVP exam blueprints. In this blog entry, I am going to describe another, H.323.
H.323 is a collection or framework of ITU standards for interactive multimedia communications over a packet network. Not only does it appear in a large proportion of Cisco's IP telephony/voice related exams, but there is also a huge installed base of H.323 enabled devices out in the field - so, whether you are focused on passing exams or doing a great job (hopefully both!), you're going to need to have a good understanding of it.
Some of the most important protocols and standards that make up the H.323 framework are:
- H.225 Registration, Admission, and Status (H.225 RAS): this enables communication between H.323 endpoints and H.323 gatekeepers (described later).
- H.225 call control and signalling: this is used to setup connections between H.323 endpoints.
- H.245: this protocol is used to perform functions such as negotiating capabilities and setting up logical channels that are used for the transmission of media such as voice or video traffic.
H.323 network elements include:
Terminals (endpoints): these are endpoints such as phones or video conference units. In Cisco unified communications networks, H.323 endpoints could include devices such as Cisco CallManager/Unified Communications Manager systems or video conferencing units.
Multipoint Control Units (MCUs): these are devices that control multipoint conferences (conference bridges), and are comprised of two logical elements - multipoint controllers (MC) and multipoint processors (MP).
Gateways: these are devices that interface between H.323 networks and other networks such as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). A Cisco voice gateway enabled for H.323 can perform this function.
Gatekeepers: these devices perform a plethora of functions. They can be responsible for call admission control (CAC), zone management, bandwidth control, dial plan, address translation and resolution, bandwidth management, call authorization, call control signaling, and so on. Cisco routers can be configured as H.323 gatekeepers.
Next time, I'll take a look at H.323 protocols and message types in more detail. | <urn:uuid:cf82e414-9fd6-4efa-a6ba-af51613415a6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networkworld.com/article/2344296/cisco-subnet/ccie-voice---ccvp-exam-objectives--4--h-323.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281426.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00527-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917213 | 490 | 3 | 3 |
OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) is a Classless, Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) for IP networks used to distribute routing information within a single Autonomous System. OSPF is defined in RFC 2328 for IPv4 (OSPF v2) and RFC 5340 for IPv6 (OSPF v3).
OSPF is one of two Link-State routing protocols, the other one being IS-IS, and is mostly used in enterprise networks. Link-State protocols form a database with the complete topology of their network and use Dijkstra's algorithm to calculate the best path through. The fact that OSPF has a complete knowledge of the network allows it to respond quickly to topology changes, like an interface failure, and to converge in seconds. Another advantaged of this is that it creates a loop-free structure without the need of Split-Horizon as in Distance Vector protocols.
OSPF uses “Cost” as its metric. The lower the Cost, the more preferred the path. The formula to calculate Cost (OSPF’s metric) is:
The reference bandwidth is set with the “ospf auto-cost reference-bandwidth” under the OSPF process. The default on IOS devices is 100Mbps. Here is an example of a 10Mbps link with the default reference:
This link would have a Cost of 10, and be more preferred than any paths with a Cost >10.
Designated Router (DR)/Backup Designated Router (BDR)
Designated Routers and Backup Designated routers will be elected for multi-access segments on which OSPF is running. Non-DR/BDR routers will only form adjacencies with the DR and BDR on a segment. This makes each OSPF segment more efficient by cutting down on the traffic between neighbors. The DR/BDR election is based on the priority of the router’s interface participating in the election, if priorities are equal, Router-ID (RID) is used to break the tie. A router can be configured to never become the DR or BDR for a segment with the command “ip ospf priority 0” on an interface.
The RID a 32-bit number, which is decided based on the highest interface IP address, with loopbacks taking priority. For instance, a router has two interfaces, one physical and one loopback. The physical interface has an IP of 172.30.1.1 and the loopback has an IP of 184.108.40.206. In this case, the RID will be 220.127.116.11 because it’s the highest loopback IP address.
There are four OSPF router types, they are:
- Internal Router - An internal router is a router that has all its interfaces in the same area.
- Area Border Router (ABR) - An ABR is a router which sits between multiple areas and one of these must be area 0. The ABR keeps a Link-State Database (LSDB) for each area in which is resides.
- Autonomous System Boundary Router (ASBR) - An ASBR is a router which connects an OSPF autonomous system to an external autonomous system, for instance BGP/the Internet or another routing domain within a network.
- Backbone Router - A backbone router is a router that has at least one interface in area 0. All ABRs should also be backbone routers since they should be connected to area 0.
Link-State Advertisements (LSAs)
In an OSPF Autonomous System, multiple areas can exist. Every router in an area knows about every link in the area. This is accomplished with LSAs. Routers store LSAs in the Link-State Database (LSDB). Each LSA has a specific function. The OSPF LSA types are:
- Type 1 - Router LSA - the router announces its presence and lists the links to other routers or networks in the same area, together with the metrics to them. Type 1 LSAs are flooded across their own area only. The link-state ID of the type 1 LSA is the originating router ID.
- Type 2 - Network LSA - the designated router on a broadcast segment (e.g. Ethernet) lists which routers are joined together by the segment. Type 2 LSAs are flooded across their own area only. The link-state ID of the type 2 LSA is the IP interface address of the DR.
- Type 3 - Summary LSA - an Area Border Router (ABR) takes information it has learned on one of its attached areas and it can summarize it (but not by default) before sending it out on other areas it is connected to. This summarization helps provide scalability by removing detailed topology information for other areas, because their routing information is summarized into just an address prefix and metric. The summarization process can also be configured to remove a lot of detailed address prefixes and replace them with a single summary prefix, also helping scalability. The link-state ID is the destination network number for type 3 LSAs.
- Type 4 - ASBR-Summary LSA - this is needed because Type 5 External LSAs are flooded to all areas and the detailed next-hop information may not be available in those other areas. This is solved by an Area Border Router flooding the information for the router (i.e. the Autonomous System Boundary Router) where the type 5 originated. The link-state ID is the router ID of the described ASBR for type 4 LSAs.
- Type 5 - External LSA - these LSAs contain information imported into OSPF from other routing processes. They are flooded to all areas (except stub areas). For "External Type 1" LSAs routing decisions are made by adding the OSPF metric to get to the ASBR and the external metric from there on, while for "External Type 2" LSAs only the external metric is used. The link-state ID of the type 5 LSA is the external network number.
- Type 6 - Group Membership LSA - this was defined for Multicast extensions to OSPF (MOSPF), a multicast OSPF routing protocol which was not in general use. MOSPF has been deprecated since OSPFv3 and is not currently used. It may be reassigned in the future.
- Type 7 - Routers in a Not So Stubby Areas (NSSA) do not receive external LSAs from Area Border Routers, but are allowed to send external routing information for redistribution. They use type 7 LSAs to tell the ABRs about these external routes, which the Area Border Router then translates to type 5 external LSAs and floods as normal to the rest of the OSPF network.
Regarding OSPF there are three network types, Point-to-Point, Broadcast and Non-Broadcast. These types and their characteristics are:
- Point-to-Point - Each of these networks has exactly two members and a single path between them. These networks have no broadcast capability, so OSPF communication is unicast. No Designated Router (DR) or Backup Designated Router (BDR) is elected. An example Point-to-Point network is PPP.
- Broadcast - These networks have broadcast capability and are further divided into the two following types.
- Broadcast (Multi-Access) - These networks allow multiple (more than two) routers to access the same network and also offer a broadcast ability. In these, OSPF will automatically form adjacencies, and a DR and a BDR is elected. OSPF communication is multicast. An example broadcast network is Ethernet.
- Point-to-Multipoint, Broadcast - These networks consist of a single router who is connected by a single path with multiple others. These networks have a broadcast capability so OSPF communication is multicast and a DR or BDR is elected.
- Non-Broadcast - These networks don't have broadcast capability and are, also, divided into two types.
- Point-to-Multipoint, Non-Broadcast - These networks consist of a single router who is connected by a single path with multiple others. Since these networks have no broadcast capability, OSPF communication is unicast. No DR or BDR is elected. An example Non-Broadcast Point-to-Point network is IP over ATM.
- Non-Broadcast Multi-Access (NBMA) - - These networks allow multiple routers to access the same network but do not have a broadcast capability, so OSPF communication is unicast. A DR and a BDR will be elected. An example NBMA network is Frame Relay.
OSPF uses the concept of areas to logically group routers inside an autonomous system. The backbone area is 0. All other areas must connect to area 0. Within an area, updates are flooded to all routers. All routers in an area must have complete information about the area.
OSPF has multiple area types:
- Backbone - Area 0 is the back bone in an OSPF autonomous system. All areas must connect to Area 0. This should be accomplished physically, but it can be done virtually with OSPF Virtual Links. Area 0 must also be contiguous.
- Stub - A Stub area does not accept external LSAs (type 5). They are filtered at the ABR. The ABR generates a default route (0.0.0.0) which is injected into the stub area.
- Totally Stubby Area - A Totally Stubby Area does not accept external (type 5) or summary LSAs (type 3/inter-area). Similar to Stub Areas, ABRs in Totally Stubby Areas generate and inject a default route into the area.
- Not So Stubby Area (NSSA) - NSSAs are essentially stub areas that include an ASBR. These areas do not accept external LSAs (type 5). The ASBR in a NSSA injects external prefixes as Type 7 LSAs, which are converted to Type 5 LSAs by the area’s ABR.
- NSSA Totally Stubby Area - NSSA Totally Stubby areas are a mixture of NSSAs and Totally Stubby Areas. These areas do not allow external (type 5) or summary (type 3) LSAs. They have an ASBR which injects external prefixes as Type 7 LSAs, which are converted to Type 5 LSAs by the ABR. | <urn:uuid:39bb769b-f2ae-4ea7-9290-4e1331ff392e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networking-forum.com/wiki/OSPF | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00253-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91555 | 2,187 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Definition: A model of computation consisting of a finite state machine controller, a read-write head, and an unbounded sequential tape. Depending on the current state and symbol read on the tape, the machine can change its state and move the head to the left or right. Unless otherwise specified, a Turing machine is deterministic.
See also other models: cell probe model, random access machine, pointer machine, multiprocessor model, related terms: big-O notation, busy beaver, variants: alternating Turing machine, nondeterministic Turing machine, oracle Turing machine, probabilistic Turing machine, universal Turing machine.
Note: From Algorithms and Theory of Computation Handbook, page 24-19, Copyright © 1999 by CRC Press LLC. Appearing in the Dictionary of Computer Science, Engineering and Technology, Copyright © 2000 CRC Press LLC.
An article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul Black.
Entry modified 21 November 2005.
HTML page formatted Mon Feb 2 13:10:40 2015.
Cite this as:
Algorithms and Theory of Computation Handbook, CRC Press LLC, 1999, "Turing machine", in Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Vreda Pieterse and Paul E. Black, eds. 21 November 2005. (accessed TODAY) Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/turingMachine.html | <urn:uuid:7f483f5b-bb0b-42c5-963f-4cec610119e0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/dads/HTML/turingMachine.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280801.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00555-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.762232 | 312 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Internet routers have the built-in capability to classify traffic. With the U.S. Appeals Court’s decision, nothing is stopping network operators from charging more for certain classes of internet traffic. At peak periods, unpaid traffic could be interrupted.
Internet transport on the terrestrial (land-based) internet was supposed to be free under the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Net Neutrality doctrine. The FCC believed that it had the jurisdiction to regulate the internet and enforce Net Neutrality. Verizon prevailed in winning the U.S. Court of Appeals’ decision that although the FCC had jurisdiction to regulate the internet, it did not have the authority to enforce Net Neutrality, aka the Open Internet Order.
The court reversed Net Neutrality, deciding that network operators such as Verizon can sell faster and lower-latency internet streaming services to content providers, such as Hulu and Netflix, to increase speed and service quality of this paid data traffic compared to free traffic. If innovators like Netflix had to pay higher fees for internet transport when they were young, they may not have succeeded, to the detriment of all the consumers who enjoy their services. Now streamed media companies may have to pay Verizon for premium internet services and pass the cost on to their subscribers so traffic doesn’t suffer slowdowns and interruptions.
Verizon argued that it should be able to charge for differentiated services. Verizon and a handful of cable and communications companies have built most of the backbone infrastructure that supports internet traffic. Internet service providers exchange traffic through Internet Exchange Points, referred to as IXs throughout the country and around the world. An IX is a building where network operators interconnect core routers to one another and to the outside internet with very large fiber-optic connections. These network operators, also known as tier 1 networks, are vital to the efficient use of the internet. Based on this ruling, the IX points could become choke points to a free and open internet.
According to telecommunications policy expert Tim Obermier, Ph.D of the University of Nebraska:
"Internet access has similarities to the fledgling days of the telephone industry. Customers have limited service provider choice for connection to the Internet due to geography. There are striking similarities which may arise due to the court’s decision. We could potentially be looking at a situation where individuals using one particular Internet service provider cannot access specific services which individuals can access using other internet service providers. This is particularly problematic and similar to the early history of the telephone industry when the lack of interconnection of telephone exchanges was a competitive tool."
Tier 1 operators were motivated to interconnect to provide seamless internet service to their downstream retail and tier 2 and tier 3 network customers. Now they are also motivated to interconnect to charge more as they discriminate between paid and unpaid classes of service. As network demand grows, the Tier 1 networks could simply dedicate more existing capacity to customers paying for differentiated services instead of adding capacity and letting the free and open internet volumes and speeds drop to unacceptable levels, or even stop altogether.
Fearing this, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA) representing 10 midsized tier 2 and tier 3 networks, joined the FCC in opposing Verizon.
This comes on the heels of AT&T’s announcement of sponsored mobile data plans at the Consumer Electronics show. Under a sponsored data plan, a streamed content provider can pay AT&T in advance so a user can download without the data counting against his or her monthly data plan limit. This is just a sugar-coated version of the court ruling. If Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile follow suit, a mobile streaming service company started today, like Pandora, Spotify and SnapChat, might not survive.
AT&T said that it won’t differentiate service between media and content companies that subscribe and don’t subscribe to its sponsored data plan. But after yesterday’s ruling, AT&T may follow Verizon’s lead, making faster mobile network speed another line item on its sponsored data plan price list.
This new environment favors big companies to the detriment of innovators. The internet is disruptive by nature. It has brought tremendous productivity and is becoming a major entertainment platform. The disruption of incumbent television and music attributable to streaming by Netflix, Spotify and Slacker Radio is thrilling for the industry. The direction that the appeals court, Verizon and AT&T is taking the internet will tame these disruptive qualities and ultimately hamper innovation.
Although the ruling against Net Neutrality is overwhelming, Obermier says there could be a bright side to this ruling.
"The authority of the FCC under section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to promulgate rules regarding the deployment of broadband services was apparently upheld. This means the FCC could consider alternative rules which may yet protect consumers by providing open access to their favorite services over the Internet. However, if tier 1 networks all play fair, and keep the public happy, the FCC may not pursue additional control."
It will be very challenging for a small innovator to remedy unequal transport form a tier 1 network. It will be even more challenging for the FCC and courts to administer, hear and remedy the complaints of small innovators. The New York Times reported that FCC chairman Tom Wheeler was considering an appeal. Reversing this decision would eliminate a lot of bureaucracy, along with the many challenges of fairly administering internet pricing based on the class of internet traffic. | <urn:uuid:44fbb9c4-0711-4079-9a48-3a8a1197c58a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.networkworld.com/article/2226159/infrastructure-management/innovation-on-the-web-lives-and-dies-with-net-neutrality.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00279-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9467 | 1,100 | 2.71875 | 3 |
|Cryptographic Token Interface Standard||
This RSA Security Inc. Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) document was produced from the original standard document using Open Office to export it in MediaWiki format then processed through some custom perl scripts and then passed into a modified version of doxygen to finally produce the HTML output. The text of the standard is otherwise unchanged.
Tim Hudson - email@example.com - 10-Sep-2009
As cryptography begins to see wide application and acceptance, one thing is increasingly clear: if it is going to be as effective as the underlying technology allows it to be, there must be interoperable standards. Even though vendors may agree on the basic cryptographic techniques, compatibility between implementations is by no means guaranteed. Interoperability requires strict adherence to agreed-upon standards.
Towards that goal, RSA Laboratories has developed, in cooperation with representatives of industry, academia and government, a family of standards called Public-Key Cryptography Standards, or PKCS for short.
PKCS is offered by RSA Laboratories to developers of computer systems employing public-key and related technology. It is RSA Laboratories' intention to improve and refine the standards in conjunction with computer system developers, with the goal of producing standards that most if not all developers adopt.
The role of RSA Laboratories in the standards-making process is four-fold:
The PKCS family currently includes the following documents:
PKCS #1: RSA Encryption Standard. Version 1.5, November 1993.
PKCS #3: Diffie-Hellman Key-Agreement Standard. Version 1.4, November 1993.
PKCS #5: Password-Based Encryption Standard. Version 1.5, November 1993.
PKCS #6: Extended-Certificate Syntax Standard. Version 1.5, November 1993.
PKCS #7: Cryptographic Message Syntax Standard. Version 1.5, November 1993.
PKCS #8: Private-Key Information Syntax Standard. Version 1.2, November 1993.
PKCS #9: Selected Attribute Types. Version 1.1, November 1993.
PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax Standard. Version 1.0, November 1993.
PKCS #11: Cryptographic Token Interface Standard. Version 1.0, April 1995.
PKCS #12: Personal Information Exchange Syntax Standard. Version 1.0 is under construction.
PKCS documents and information are available online from RSADSI's web server. To get them, go to RSADSI's homepage (http://www.rsa.com); then go to RSA Laboratories; then go to the PKCS page. There is an electronic mailing list, "pkcs-tng", at rsa.com, for discussion of issues relevant to the "next generation" of the PKCS standards. To subscribe to this list, send e-mail to majordomo at rsa.com with the line "subscribe pkcs-tng" in the message body. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to majordomo at rsa.com with the line "unsubscribe pkcs-tng" in the message body.
There is also an electronic mailing list, "cryptoki", at rsa.com, specifically for discussion and development of PKCS #11. To subscribe to this list, send e-mail to majordomo at rsa.com with the line "subscribe cryptoki" in the message body. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to majordomo at rsa.com with the line "unsubscribe cryptoki" in the message body.
Comments on the PKCS documents, requests to register extensions to the standards, and suggestions for additional standards are welcomed. Address correspondence to:
PKCS EditorRSA Laboratories100 Marine Parkway, Suite 500Redwood City, CA 94065(650)595-7703fax: (650)595-4126email: pkcs-editor at rsa.com.
It would be difficult to enumerate all the people and organizations who helped to produce Version 2.01 of PKCS #11. RSA Laboratories is grateful to each and every one of them. Especial thanks go to Bruno Couillard of Chrysalis-ITS and John Centafont of NSA for the many hours they spent writing up parts of this document.
For Version 1.0, PKCS #11's document editor was Aram Perez of International Computer Services, under contract to RSA Laboratories; the project coordinator was Burt Kaliski of RSA Laboratories. For Version 2.01, Ray Sidney served as document editor and project coordinator. | <urn:uuid:0d6150c8-d0fe-41ac-91c6-f71afdf01873> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.cryptsoft.com/pkcs11doc/v201/main.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00215-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.870504 | 964 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Everything is cooler when you have someone British narrating a video, so enjoy this clip from BBC Four discussing the properties of quantum levitation. In the video, the host takes an ordinary ceramic and turns it into a superconductor (basically a cool magnet) by cooling it down with liquid nitrogen (you know, like you have just lying around the office).
If you are over in Britain and can watch the program, here's some more description from the BBC:
"Professor Mark Miodownik traces the story of ceramics. He looks at how we started with simple clay, sand and rock and changed them into pottery, glass and concrete - materials that would allow us to build cities, transform the way we view our world and communicate at the speed of light. Deep within their inner structure Mark discovers some of ceramics' most intriguing secrets. He reveals why glass can be utterly transparent, why concrete continues to harden for hundreds of years and how cooling ceramics could transform the way we power cities of the future."
Maybe now we can finally develop that hoverboard from Back to the Future.
Keith Shaw rounds up the best in geek video in his ITworld.tv blog. Follow Keith on Twitter at @shawkeith. For the latest IT news, analysis and how-tos, follow ITworld on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. | <urn:uuid:f04c11a8-5be3-42d6-836b-ec4bb5b25775> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.itworld.com/article/2729070/virtualization/watch-quantum-levitation-in-action.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00243-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925483 | 282 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The advance could lead to sub-second provisioning time with IP and next-generation optical networking equipment, and enable elastic bandwidth between clouds at high connection request rates, rather than requiring static provisioning for peak demand.
AT&T developed the overall networking architecture for the concept, while IBM provided the cloud platform and cloud data center orchestration technologies. ACS oversaw portions including network management, innovation in optical-layer routing and signaling as part of the overall cloud networking architecture. The prototype was implemented on OpenStack.
The work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Government's DARPA CORONET program, which focuses on rapid reconfiguration of terabit networks.
"This technology not only represents a new ability to scale big data workloads and cloud computing resources in a single environment, but the elastic bandwidth model removes the inefficiency in consumption versus cost for cloud-to-cloud connectivity," said Douglas Freimuth, IBM Research senior technical staff member and master inventor. | <urn:uuid:dca2b556-1621-4455-8653-e478327a5331> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/news/2014/07/want-sub-second-cloud-provisioning-time-at-t-ibm.aspx | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00059-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930001 | 200 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The media gets excited about gene therapy. With the sequencing of genomes becoming ever cheaper and accessible, a grand vision of gene therapy is now being put about all too casually by futurists in which defective genetic codes are simply edited out and replaced by working ones. At the same time there is broader idea of "Precision Medicine" which envisages doctors scanning your entire DNA blueprint, instantly spotting the defects that ail you, and ordering up a set of customized pharmaceuticals precisely fitted to your biochemical idiosyncrasies.
There is more to gene therapy -- genetic engineering of live patients -- than the futurists let on.
A big question for mine is this: How, precisely, will the DNA repairs be made? Lay people might be left to presume it's like patching your operating system, which is not a bad metaphor, until you think a bit more about how and where patches are made to a computer.
A computer has one copy of any given software, stored in long term memory. And operating systems come with library functions for making updates. Patching software involves arriving with a set of corrections in a file, and requesting via APIs that the corrections be slotted into the right place, replacing the defective code.
But DNA doesn't work like this. While the genome is indeed something of an operating system, that's not the whole story. Sub-systems for making changes to the genome are not naturally built into an organism, because genes are only supposed to change at the time the software is installed. Our genomes are carved up en masse when germ cells (eggs and sperm) are made, and the genomes are put back together when we have sex, and then passed into our children. There is no part of the genetic operating system that allows selected parts of the genetic source code to be edited later, and -- this is the crucial bit -- spread through a living organism.
Genetic engineering, such as it is today, involves editing the genomes of embryos at a very early stage of their lifecycle, so the changes propagate as the embryo grows. Thus we have tomatoes fitted with arctic fish genes to stave off cold, and canola that resists pesticides. But the idea that's presented of gene therapy is very different; it has to impose changes to the genome in all the trillions of copies of the code in every cell in a fully developed organism. You see, there's another crucial thing about the DNA-is-software metaphor: there is no central long term program memory for our genes. Instead the DNA program is instantiated in every single cell of the body.
To change the DNA in a mature cell, geneticists have to edit it by means other than sexual reproduction. As I noted, there is no natural "API" for doing this, so they've invented a clever trick, co-opting viruses - nature's DNA hackers. Viruses work by squeezing their minuscule bodies through the cell walls of a host organism, latching onto DNA strands inside, and crudely adding their own code fragments, pretty much at random, into the host's genome. Viruses are designed (via evolution) to inject arbitrary genes into another organism's DNA (arbitrary relative to the purpose of the host DNA's that is). Viruses are just what gene therapists need to edit faulty DNA in situ.
I know a bit about cystic fibrosis and the visions for a genetic cure. The faulty gene that causes CF was identified decades ago and its effect on chlorine chemistry is well understood. By disrupting the way chlorine ions are handled in cells, CF ruins mucus membranes, with particularly bad results for the lungs and digestive system. From the 1980s, it was thought that repairs to the CF gene could be delivered to cells in the lung lining by an engineered virus carried in an aerosol. Because only a small fraction of cells exposed to the virus could have their genes so updated, scientists expected that the repairs would be both temporary and partial, and that fresh viruses would need to be delivered every few weeks, a period determined by the rate at which lung cells die and get replaced.
Now please think about the tacit promises of gene therapy today. The story we hear is essentially all about the wondrous informatics and the IT. Within a few years we're told doctors will be able to sequence a patient's entire genome for a few dollars in a few minutes, using a desk top machine in the office. It's all down to Moore's Law and computer technology. There's an assumption that as the power goes up and the costs go down, geneticists will in parallel work out what all the genes mean, including how they interact, and develop a catalog of known faults and logical repairs.
Let's run with that optimism (despite the fact that just a few years ago they found that "Junk DNA" turns out be active in ways that were not predicted; it's a lot like Dark Matter - important, ubiquitous and mysterious). The critical missing piece of the gene therapy story is how the patches are going to be made. Some reports imply that a whole clean new genome can be synthesised and somehow installed in the patient. Sorry, but how?
For thirty years they've tried and failed to rectify the one cystic fibrosis gene in readily accessible lung cells. Now we're supposed to believe that whole stretches of DNA are going to swapped out in all the cells of the body? It's vastly harder than the CF problem, on at least three dimensions: (1) the numbers and complexity of the genes involved, (2) the numbers of cells and tissue systems that need to be patched all at once, and (3) the delivery mechanism for getting modified viruses (I guess) where they need to do their stuff.
It's so easy being a futurist. People adore your vision, and you don't need to worry about practicalities. The march of technology, seen with 20:20 hindsight, appears to make all dreams come true. Practicalities are left to sort themselves out.
But I think it takes more courage to say, of gene therapy, it's not going to happen.
I had a letter to the editor published in Nature on big data and privacy.
Nature 519, 414 (26 March 2015) doi:10.1038/519414a
Published online 25 March 2015
Letter as published
Privacy issues around data protection often inspire over-engineered responses from scientists and technologists. Yet constraints on the use of personal data mean that privacy is less about what is done with information than what is not done with it. Technology such as new algorithms may therefore be unnecessary (see S. Aftergood, Nature 517, 435–436; 2015).
Technology-neutral data-protection laws afford rights to individuals with respect to all data about them, regardless of the data source. More than 100 nations now have such data-privacy laws, typically requiring organizations to collect personal data only for an express purpose and not to re-use those data for unrelated purposes.
If businesses come to know your habits, your purchase intentions and even your state of health through big data, then they have the same privacy responsibilities as if they had gathered that information directly by questionnaire. This is what the public expects of big-data algorithms that are intended to supersede cumbersome and incomplete survey methods. Algorithmic wizardry is not a way to evade conventional privacy laws.
Constellation Research, Sydney, Australia.
An unpublished letter to the editor of The New Yorker, February 2015.
Alec Wilkinson says in his absorbing profile of the quiet genius Yitang Zhang ("The pursuit of beauty", February 2) that pure mathematics is done "with no practical purposes in mind". I do hope mathematicians will forever be guided by aesthetics more than economics, but nevertheless, pure maths has become a cornerstone of the Information Age, just as physics was of the Industrial Revolution. For centuries, prime numbers might have been intellectual curios but in the 1970s they were beaten into modern cryptography. The security codes that scaffold almost all e-commerce are built from primes. Any advances in understanding these abstract materials impacts the Internet itself, for better or for worse. So when Zhang demurs that his result is "useless for industry", he's mispeaking.
The online version of the article is subtitled "Solving an Unsolvable Problem". The apparent oxymoron belies a wondrous pattern we see in mathematical discovery. Conundrums widely accepted to be impossible are in fact solved quite often, and then frenetic periods of innovation usually follow. The surprise breakthrough is typically inefficient (or, far worse in a mathematician's mind, ugly) but it can inspire fresh thinking and lead to polished methods. We are in one of these intense creative periods right now. Until 2008, it was widely thought that true electronic cash was impossible, but then the mystery figure Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin. While it overturned the conventional wisdom, Bitcoin is slow and anarchic, and problematic as mainstream money. But it has triggered a remarkable explosion of digital currency innovation.
A published letter
As Alec Wilkinson points out in his Profile of the math genius Yitang Zhang, results in pure mathematics can be sources of wonder and delight, regardless of their applications. Yet applications do crop up. Nineteenth-century mathematicians showed that there are geometries as logical and complete as Euclidean geometry, but which are utterly distinct from it. This seemed of no practical use at the time, but Albert Einstein used non-Euclidean geometry to make the most successful model that we have of the behavior of the universe on large scales of distance and time. Abstract results in number theory, Zhang’s field, underlie cryptography used to protect communication on devices that many of us use every day. Abstract mathematics, beautiful in itself, continually results in helpful applications, and that’s pretty wonderful and delightful, too.
Sandy Spring, Md.
My favorite example of mathematical innovation concerns public key cryptography (and I ignore here the credible reports that PKC was invented by the Brits decades before but kept secret). For centuries, there was essentially one family of cryptographic algorithms, in which a secret key shared by sender and recipient is used to both encrypt and decrypt the protected communication. Key distribution is the central problem in so-called "Symmetric" Cryptography: how does the sender get the secret key to the recipient some time before sending the message? The dream was for the two parties to be able to establish a secret key without ever having to meet or using any secret channel. It was thought to be an unsolvable problem ... until it was solved by Ralph Merkle in 1974. His solution, dubbed "Merkle's Puzzles" was almost hypothetical; the details don't matter here but they were going to be awkward to put it mildly, involving millions of small messages. But the impact on cryptography was near instantaneous. The fact that, in theory, two parties really could establish a shared secret via public messages triggered a burst of development of practical public key cryptography, first of the Diffie-Hellman algorithm, and then RSA by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman. We probably wouldn't have e-commerce if it wasn't for Merkle's crazy curious maths.
It's long been said that if you're getting something for free online, then you're not the customer, you're the product. It's a reference to the one-sided bargain for personal information that powers so many social businesses - the way that "infomopolies" as I call them exploit the knowledge they accumulate about us.
Now it's been revealed that we're even lower than product: we're lab rats.
Facebook data scientist Adam Kramer, with collaborators from UCSF and Cornell, this week reported on a study in which they tested how Facebook users respond psychologically to alternatively positive and negative posts. Their experimental technique is at once ingenious and shocking. They took the real life posts of nearly 700,000 Facebook members, and manipulated them, turning them slightly up- or down-beat. And then Kramer at al measured the emotional tone in how people reading those posts reacted in their own feeds. See Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks, Adam Kramer,Jamie Guillory & Jeffrey Hancock, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, v111.24, 17 June 2014.
The resulting scandal has been well-reported by many, including Kashmir Hill in Forbes, whose blog post nicely covers how the affair has unfolded, and includes a response by Adam Kramer himself.
Plenty has been written already about the dodgy (or non-existent) ethics approval, and the entirely contemptible claim that users gave "informed consent" to have their data "used" for research in this way. I draw attention to the fact that consent forms in properly constituted human research experiments are famously thick. They go to great pains to explain what's going on, the possible side effects and potential adverse consequences. The aim of a consent form is to leave the experimental subject in no doubt whatsoever as to what they're signing up for. Contrast this with the Facebook Experiment where they claim informed consent was represented by a fragment of one sentence buried in thousands of words of the data usage agreement. And Kash Hill even proved that the agreement was modified after the experiment started! These are not the actions of researchers with any genuine interest in informed consent.
I was also struck by Adam Kramer's unvarnished description of their motives. His response to the furore (provided by Hill in her blog) is, as she puts it, tone deaf. Kramer makes no attempt whatsoever at a serious scientific justification for this experiment:
- "The reason we did this research is because we care about the emotional impact of Facebook and the people that use our product ... [We] were concerned that exposure to friends’ negativity might lead people to avoid visiting Facebook.
That is, this large scale psychological experiment was simply for product development.
Some apologists for Facebook countered that social network feeds are manipulated all the time, notably by advertisers, to produce emotional responses.
Now that's interesting, because for their A-B experiment, Kramer and his colleagues took great pains to make sure the subjects were unaware of the manipulation. After all, the results would be meaningless if people knew what they were reading had been emotionally fiddled with.
In contrast, the ad industry has always insisted that today's digital consumers are super savvy, and they know the difference between advertising and real-life. Yet the foundation of the Facebook experiment is that users are unaware of how their online experience is being manipulated. The ad industry's illogical propaganda [advertising is just harmless fun, consumers can spot the ads, they're not really affected by ads all that much ... Hey, with a minute] has only been further exposed by the Facebook Experiment.
Advertising companies and Social Networks are increasingly expert at covertly manipulating perceptions, and now they have the data, collected dishonestly, to prove it.
For the past year, oncologists at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York have been training IBM’s Watson – the artificial intelligence tour-de-force that beat allcomers on Jeopardy – to help personalise cancer care. The Centre explains that "combining [their] expertise with the analytical speed of IBM Watson, the tool has the potential to transform how doctors provide individualized cancer treatment plans and to help improve patient outcomes". Others are speculating already that Watson could "soon be the best doctor in the world".
I have no doubt that when Watson and things like it are available online to doctors worldwide, we will see overall improvements in healthcare outcomes, especially in parts of the world now under-serviced by medical specialists [having said that, the value of diagnosing cancer in poor developing nations is questionable if they cannot go on to treat it]. As with Google's self-driving car, we will probably get significant gains eventually, averaged across the population, from replacing humans with machines. Yet some of the foibles of computing are not well known and I think they will lead to surprises.
For all the wondrous gains made in Artificial Intelligence, where Watson now is the state-of-the art, A.I. remains algorithmic, and for that, it has inherent limitations that don't get enough attention. Computer scientists and mathematicians have know for generations that some surprisingly straightforward problems have no algorithmic solution. That is, some tasks cannot be accomplished by any universal step-by-step codified procedure. Examples include the Halting Problem and the Travelling Salesperson Problem. If these simple challenges have no algorithm, we need be more sober in our expectations of computerised intelligence.
A key limitation of any programmed algorithm is that it must make its decisions using a fixed set of inputs that are known and fully characterised (by the programmer) at design time. If you spring an unexpected input on any computer, it can fail, and yet that's what life is all about -- surprises. No mathematician seriously claims that what humans do is somehow magic; most believe we are computers made of meat. Nevertheless, when paradoxes like the Halting Problem abound, we can be sure that computing and cognition are not what they seem. We should hope these conundrums are better understood before putting too much faith in computers doing deep human work.
And yet, predictably, futurists are jumping ahead to imagine "Watson apps" in which patients access the supercomputer for themselves. Even if there were reliable algorithms for doctoring, I reckon the "Watson app" is a giant step, because of the complex way the patient's conditions are assessed and data is gathered for the diagnosis. That is, the taking of the medical history.
In these days of billion dollar investments in electronic health records (EHRs), we tend to think that medical decisions are all about the data. When politicians announce EHR programs they often boast that patients won't have to go through the rigmarole of giving their history over and over again to multiple doctors as they move through an episode of care. This is actually a serious misunderstanding of the importance in clinical decision-making of the interaction between medico and patient when the history is taken. It's subtle. The things a patient chooses to tell, the things they seem to be hiding, and the questions that make them anxious, all guide an experienced medico when taking a history, and provide extra cues (metadata if you will) about the patient’s condition.
Now, Watson may well have the ability to navigate this complexity and conduct a very sophisticated Q&A. It will certainly have a vastly bigger and more reliable memory of cases than any doctor, and with that it can steer a dynamic patient questionnaire. But will Watson be good enough to be made available direct to patients through an app, with no expert human mediation? Or will a host of new input errors result from patients typing their answers into a smart phone or speaking into a microphone, without any face-to-face subtlety (let alone human warmth)? It was true of mainframes and it’s just as true of the best A.I.: Bulldust in, bulldust out.
Finally, Watson's existing linguistic limitations are not to be underestimated. It is surely not trivial that Watson struggles with puns and humour. Futurist Mark Pesce when discussing Watson remarked in passing that scientists don’t understand the "quirks of language and intelligence" that create humour. The question of what makes us laugh does in fact occupy some of the finest minds in cognitive and social science. So we are a long way from being able to mechanise humour. And this matters because for the foreseeable future, it puts a great deal of social intercourse beyond AI's reach.
In between the extremes of laugh-out-loud comedy and a doctor’s dry written notes lies a spectrum of expressive subtleties, like a blush, an uncomfortable laugh, shame, and the humiliation that goes with some patients’ lived experience of illness. Watson may understand the English language, but does it understand people?
Watson can answer questions, but good doctors ask a lot of questions too. When will this amazing computer be able to hold the sort of two-way conversation that we would call a decent "bedside manner"?
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No it doesn't, it only means the end of anonymity.
Anonymity is not the same thing as privacy. Anonymity keeps people from knowing what you're doing, and it's a vitally important quality in many settings. But in general we usually want people (at least some people) to know what we're up to, so long as they respect that knowledge. That's what privacy is all about. Anonymity is a terribly blunt instrument for protecting privacy, and it's also fragile. If anonymity was all you have, then you're in deep trouble when someone manages to defeat it.
New information technologies have clearly made anonymity more difficult, yet it does not follow that we must lose our privacy. Instead, these developments bring into stark relief the need for stronger regulatory controls that compel restraint in the way third parties deal with Personal Information that comes into their possession.
A great example is Facebook's use of facial recognition. When Facebook members innocently tag one another in photos, Facebook creates biometric templates with which it then automatically processes all photo data (previously anonymous), looking for matches. This is how they can create tag suggestions, but Facebook is notoriously silent on what other applications it has for facial recognition. Now and then we get a hint, with, for example, news of the Facedeals start up last year. Facedeals accesses Facebook's templates (under conditions that remain unclear) and uses them to spot customers as they enter a store to automatically check them in. It's classic social technology: kinda sexy, kinda creepy, but clearly in breach of Collection, Use and Disclosure privacy principles.
And indeed, European regulators have found that Facebook's facial recognition program is unlawful. The chief problem is that Facebook never properly disclosed to members what goes on when they tag one another, and they never sought consent to create biometric templates with which to subsequently identify people throughout their vast image stockpiles. Facebook has been forced to shut down their facial recognition operations in Europe, and they've destroyed their historical biometric data.
So privacy regulators in many parts of the world have real teeth. They have proven that re-identification of anonymous data by facial recognition is unlawful, and they have managed to stop a very big and powerful company from doing it.
This is how we should look at the implications of the DNA 'hacking'. Indeed, Melissa Gymrek from the Whitehead Institute said in an interview: "I think we really need to learn to deal with the fact that we cannot ever make data sets truly anonymous, and that I think the key will be in regulating how we are allowed to use this genetic data to prevent it from being used maliciously."
Perhaps this episode will bring even more attention to the problem in the USA, and further embolden regulators to enact broader privacy protections there. Perhaps the very extremeness of the DNA hacking does not spell the end of privacy so much as its beginning.
I had a letter published in Science magazine about the recently publicised re-identification of anonymously donated DNA data. It has been shown that there is enough named genetic information online, in genealogical databases for instance, that anonymous DNA posted in research databases can be re-identified. This is a sobering result, but does it mean that 'privacy is dead'? No.
The fact is that re-identification of erstwhile anonymous data represents a new act of collection of PII and as such is subject to the Collection Limitation Principle in privacy law around the world. This type of data processing is essentially the same as Facebook using biometric facial recognition to identify people in anonymous photos. European regulators recently found Facebook to have breached privacy law with its Tag Suggestions function and have forced Facebook to shut down their facial recognition feature.
I expect that the same legal principles to apply to the re-identification of DNA. That is, there are legal constraints on what can be done with 'anonymous' data no matter where you get it from: under most data privacy laws, attaching names to previously anonymous data constitutes a Collection of PII, and as such, is subject to consent rules and all sorts of other principles. As a result, bioinformatics researchers will have to tread carefully, justifying their ends and their means before ethics committees. And corporations who seek to exploit the ability to put names on anonymous genetic data may face the force of the law as Facebook did.
The text of my letter to Science follows, and after that, I'll keep posting follow ups.
Science 8 February 2013:
Vol. 339 no. 6120 pp. 647
Yaniv Erlich at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research used his hacking skills to decipher the names of anonymous DNA donors ("Genealogy databases enable naming of anonymous DNA donor," J. Bohannon, 18 January, p. 262). A little-known legal technicality in international data privacy laws could curb the privacy threats of reverse identification from genomes. "Personal information" is usually defined as any data relating to an individual whose identity is readily apparent from the data. The OECD Privacy Principles are enacted in over 80 countries worldwide . Privacy Principle No. 1 states: "There should be limits to the collection of personal data and any such data should be obtained by lawful and fair means and, where appropriate, with the knowledge or consent of the data subject." The principle is neutral regarding the manner of collection. Personal information may be collected directly from an individual or indirectly from third parties, or it may be synthesized from other sources, as with "data mining."
Computer scientists and engineers often don't know that recording a person's name against erstwhile anonymous data is technically an act of collection. Even if the consent form signed at the time of the original collection includes a disclaimer that absolute anonymity cannot be guaranteed, re-identifying the information later signifies a new collection. The new collection of personal information requires its own consent; the original disclaimer does not apply when third parties take data and process it beyond the original purpose for collection. Educating those with this capability about the legal meaning of collection should restrain the misuse of DNA data, at least in those jurisdictions that strive to enforce the OECD principles.
It also implies that bioinformaticians working "with little more than the Internet" to attach names to samples may need ethics approval, just as they would if they were taking fresh samples from the people concerned.
Lockstep Consulting Pty Ltd
Five Dock Sydney, NSW 2046, Australia.
Let's assume Subject S donates their DNA, ostensibly anonymously, to a Researcher R1, under some consent arrangement which concedes there is a possibility that S will be re-identified. And indeed, some time later, an independent researcher R2 does identify S as belonging to the DNA sample. The fact that many commentators seem oblivious to is this: R2 has Collected Personal Information (or PII) about S.* If R2 has no relationship with S, then S has not consented to this new collection of her PII. In jurisdictions with strict Collection Limitation (like the EU, Australia and elsewhere) then it is a privacy breach for R2 to collect PII by way of DNA re-identification without express consent, regardless of whether R1 has conceded to S that it might happen. Even in the US, where the protections might not be so strict, there remains a question of ethics: should R2 conduct themselves in a manner that might be unlawful in other places?
* Footnote: The collection by R2 of PII about S in this case is indirect (or algorithmic), but nevertheless is a fresh collection. Logically, if anonymous data is converted into identifiable data, then PII has been collected. In most cases, the Collection Limitation principle in privacy is technology neutral. Privacy laws do not generally care how PII is collected; if PII is created by some process (such as re-identification) then privacy principles still apply. And this is what consumers would expect. If a Big Data process allows an organisation to work out insights about people without having to ask them explicit questions (which is precisely why Big Data is so valuable to business and governments), then the individuals concerned should expect that privacy principles still apply.
In an interview with Science Magazine on Jan 18, the Whitehead Institute's Melissa Gymrek discussed the re-identification methods, and the potential to protect against them. She concluded: "I think we really need to learn to deal with the fact that we cannot ever make data sets truly anonymous, and that I think the key will be in regulating how we are allowed to use this genetic data to prevent it from being used maliciously.".
I agree completely. We need regulations. Elsewhere I've argued that anonymity is an inadequate way to protect privacy, and that we need a balance of regulations and Privacy Enhancing Technologies. And it's for this reason that I am not fatalistic about the fact that anonymity can be broken, because we have the procedural means to see that privacy is still preserved.
This blog post builds a little further on my ecological ideas about the state of digital identity, first presented at the AusCERT 2011 conference. I have submitted a fresh RSAC 2013 speaker proposal where I hope to show a much more fully developed memetic model.
The past twenty years has seen a great variety of identity methods and devices emerge in the digital marketplace. In parallel, Internet business in many sectors has developed under the existing metasystems of laws, sectoral regulations, commercial contracts, industry codes, and traditional risk management arrangements.
As with Darwin's finches, the very variety of identity methods suggests an ecological explanation. It seems most likely that different methods have evolved in response to different environmental pressures.
The orthodox view today is that we are given a plurality of identities from the many organisations we do business with. Our bank account is thought to be an discrete identity, as is our employment, our studentship, our membership of a professional body, and our belonging to a social network. Identity federation seeks to take an identity out of its original context, and present it in another, so that we can strike up new relationships without having to repeat the enrolment processes. But in practice, established identities are brittle; they don't bend easily to new uses unanticipated by their original issuers. Even superficially similar identities are not readily relied upon, because of the contractual fine print. Famously in Australia, one cannot open a fresh bank account on the basis of having an existing accout at another bank, even though their identification protocols are essentially identical, under the law. Similarly, government agencies have historically struggled to cross-recognise each other's security clearances.
I have come to the conclusion that we have abstracted "identity" at too high a level. We need to drop down a level or two and make smarter use of how identities are constructed. It shouldn't be hard to do; we have a lot of the conceptual apparatus already. In particular, one of the better definitions of digital identity holds that it is a set of assertions or claims [Ref:The Laws of Identity]. Instead of federating rolled-up high level identities, we would have an easier time federating selected assertions.
Now, generalising beyond the claims and assertions, consider that each digital identity is built from a broad ensemble of discrete technological and procedural traits, spanning such matters as security techniques, registration processes, activation processes, identity proofing requirements (which are regulated in some industries like banking and the healthcare professions), user interface, algorithms, key lengths, liability arrangements, and so on. These traits together with the overt identity assertions -- like date of birth, home address and social security number -- can be seen as memes: heritable units of business and technological "culture".
The ecological frame leads us to ask: where did these traits come from? What forces acted upon the constituent identity memes to create the forms we see today? Well, we can see that different selection pressures operate in different business environments, and that memes evolve over time in response. Example of selection pressures include fraud, privacy (with distinct pressures to both strengthen and weaken privacy playing out before our eyes), convenience, accessibility, regulations (like Basel II, banking KYC rules, medical credentialing rules, and HSPD-12), professional standards, and new business models like branch-less banking and associated Electronic Verification of Identity. Each of these factors shift over time, usually moving in and out of equilibrium with other forces, and the memes shift too. Successful memes -- where success means that some characteristic like key length or number of authentication factors has proven effective in reducing risk -- are passed on to successive generations of identity solution. The result is that at any time, the ensemble of traits that make up an "identity" in a certain context represents the most efficient way to manage misidentification risks.
The "memome" of any given rolled-up identity -- like a banking relationship for instance -- is built from all sorts of ways doing things, as illustrated. We can have different ways of registering new banking customers, checking their bona fides, storing their IDs, and activating their authenticators. Over time, these component memes develop in different ways, usually gradually, as the business environment changes, but sometimes in sudden step-changes when the environment is occasionally disrupted by e.g. a presidential security directive, or a w business model like branch-less banking. And as with real genomes, identity memes interact, changing how they are expressed, even switching each other on and off.
As they say, things are the way they are because they got that way.
I reckon before we try to make identities work across contexts they were not originally intended for, we need to first understand the evolutionary back stories for each of the identity memes, and the forces that shaped them to fit certain niches in business ecosystems. Then we may be able to literally do memetic engineering to adapt a core set of relationships to new business settings.
The next step is to rigorously document some of the back stories, and to see if the "phylomemetics" really hangs together.
Quantum computing continues to make strides. Now they've made a chip to execute Shor's quantum foctorisation algorithm. Until now, quantum computers were built from bench-loads of apparatus, and had yet to be fabricated in solid state. So this is pretty cool, taking QC from science into engineering.
The promise of quantum computing is that it will eventually render today's core cryptography obsolete, by making it possible to factorise large numbers very quickly. The RSA algorithm for now is effectively unbreakable because its keys are the products of prime numbers hundreds of digits long. The product of two primes can be computed in split seconds; but to find the factors by brute force - and thus crack the code - takes billions of computer-years.
I'm curious about one thing. Current prototype quantum computers are built with just a few qubits because of the "coherence" problem (so they can only factorise little numbers like 15 = 3 x 5). The machinery has to hold all the qubits in a delicate state of quantum uncertainty for long enough to complete the computation. The more qubits they have, the harder it is to maintain coherence. The task ahead is to scale up past the proof-of-concept stage to a manage quite a lot of qubits and thus be able to crack 4096-bit RSA keys for instance.
Evidently it's very hard to build say a 100 qubit quantum computer right now. So my question is: What is the relationship between the difficulty of maintaining coherence and the number of qubits concerned? Is it exponentially difficult? Or worse?
Because if it is, then the way to stay ahead of quantum computing attack might be to simply go out to RSA keys tens of thousands of digits long.
If engineering quantum computers is inherently difficult (as is miniaturizing transistors), then no matter how good we get at it, arbitrarily long qubit computations will remain costly, and the arms race between cryptographic key length and brute force attack may continue indefinitely. The end of conventional encryption is not yet in sight.
These days it's common to hear the modest disclaimer that there are some questions science can’t answer. I most recently came across such a show of humility by Dr John Kirk speaking on ABC Radio National's Ockham's Razor . Kirk says that "science cannot adjudicate between theism and atheism" and insists that science cannot bridge the divide between physics and metaphysics. Yet surely the long history of science shows that divide is fluid.
Science is not merely about the particular answers; it's about the steady campaign on all that is knowable. Science demystifies.
Textbook examples are legion where new sciences have rendered previously fearsome phenomena as firstly explicable and then often manageable: astronomy, physiology, meteorology, sedimentology, seismology, microbiology, psychology and neurology, to name a few.
It's sometimes said that questions matter more in science than the answers. Good scientists ask good questions, but great ones show where there is no question anymore.
Once something profound is no longer beyond understanding, that awareness permeates society. Each wave of scientific advance usually becomes manifest by new technologies, but more important to the human condition is that science gives us confidence. In an enlightened society, those with no scientific training at all still appreciate that science gets how the world works. Over time this tacit rational confidence has energised modernity, supplanting astrologers, shamans, witch doctors, and even the churches. Laypeople may not know how televisions work, nor nuclear medicine, semiconductors, anaesthetics, antibiotics or fibre optics, but they sure know it's not by magic.
The arc of science parts mystery's curtain. Contrary to John Kirk's partitions, science frequently renders the metaphysical as natural and empirically knowable. My favorite example is the work of Galileo. To the pre-Copernican mind, the Sun was perfect and ethereal, but when Galileo trained his new telescope upon it, he saw spots. The imperfections of sunspots were shocking enough, but a real paradigm shift came when Galileo observed the sunspots moving across the face, disappearing off one side, and then returning hours later on the other. Galileo's epiphany must have been heart-stopping: he saw that the Sun is a sphere turning on its axis: geometric, humble, altogether of this world, and very reasonably the centre of a solar system as Copernicus had reasoned a few decades earlier.
An even more dramatic turn was Darwin's discovery that all the world's living complexity was explicable without god. He not only neutralised the Argument from Design for the existence of god, but he also dispelled teleology, the search for ultimate reason. The deepest lesson of Darwinism is that there is simply no need to ask "What am I doing here?" because the wondrous complexity of all of biology, up to and including humanity, are seen to have arisen through natural selection, without a designer and without a reason. It seems philosophers appreciate the deep lessons of Darwinism more than our modest scientists: Karl Marx saw that evolution "deals the death-blow to teleology"; Frederich Nietzsche proclaimed "God is dead ... we have killed him".
So why shouldn't we expect science to keep penetrating metaphysics? We should we doubt ― or perhaps fear ― its power to remove all mystery? Of course many remaining riddles are very hard indeed, and I know there's no guarantee we will solve them. But I don't see any logic in flatly rejecting the possibility. Some physicists feel they're homing in why the physical constants should have their special values. And many cognitive scientists and philosophers of the mind suspect a theory of consciousness is within reach. I'm not saying anyone yet really gets consciousness yet, but surely most would agree that it just doesn't feel a total enigma anymore.
Science is more than the books it produces. It's the power to keep writing new ones.
References. "Why is science such a worry?" Ockham's Razor 18 December 2011 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/ockham27s-razor-18-december-2011/3725968 | <urn:uuid:7b560988-7c33-41b9-b4a1-63d42da58f62> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://lockstep.com.au/blog/science | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00179-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95362 | 8,363 | 2.734375 | 3 |
C++ Falls Short of An A
College computer science programs will have the task, during the next few years, of digesting a cohort of incoming students.College computer science programs will have the task, during the next few years, of digesting a cohort of incoming students who learned C++ as their first programming language. One wonders if remedial programming will overtake remedial writing as a drain on teaching resources. The college-level advanced placement computer science course switched from Pascal to C++ in 1999and has finally seen the error of its ways. But it will take until 2003 or 2004 to make yet another transition to the language (Java) that should have been adopted in the first place.
The College Board decision is driven by three principles: safety, simplicity and object orientation. The advisory report recommending this change makes a telling distinction between "object-based" and "object-oriented" development. I would call this the difference, respectively, between defining modules that merely fit together and designing frameworks that effectively use inheritance and polymorphism for abstraction. Java, I would argue, surpasses C++ in this respect. | <urn:uuid:a91e84b1-5b17-4ec5-8d4a-a6eef5b8447c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/C-Falls-Short-of-An-A | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282110.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00481-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951913 | 224 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Christopher Mims has written a two-part blog at MIT’s Technology Review concerning the historic announcement that China with its 2.5 petaflop machine, Tianhe-1A, had pulled ahead of the US in the worldwide supercomputing race.
In the first part, Mims makes the case for why China’s new supercomputer is only technically the world’s fastest. It probably comes as no surprise that this has to do with the way the machine’s peformance is measured, à la Linpack benchmark, the test used to officially determine the speed of the world’s fastest supercomputers. It measures a computer’s ability to perform calculations in short bursts, but in the real world of scientific computing, sustained performance is a more meaningful designation.
“In other words,” says Mims, “the Tianhe 1A comes on strong, but American supercomputers can last all night or sometimes many days, depending on the scale of the problem they’re tackling.”
A distinction in peak processing power is not a predictor of sustained performance, and, according to Mims, the NVIDIA GPUs in the Tianhe-1A are not so great at the latter. With GPU-based systems, there’s a memory bottleneck that leaves the GPUs sitting idle much of the time.
Thom Dunning, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, is straightforward in expressing the conundrum of the Linpack benchmark:
“The Linpack benchmark is one of those interesting phenomena — almost anyone who knows about it will deride its utility. They understand its limitations but it has mindshare because it’s the one number we’ve all bought into over the years.”
Mims questions whether engineers working on Tianhe-1A will be able to create scientific software that can take advantage of the machine’s peak performance by rarely accessing memory. And parellelizing the code to work with GPUs is perhaps an even greater challenge, one that has stymied programmers in the West.
Says Mims: “It’s not clear that the Linpack benchmark which pegs the machine as the world’s fastest is a useful indicator of its performance in real-world applications.”
The second part of Mim’s one-two punch is that the US is already developing a system that is on track to becoming the world’s fastest supercomputer in 2012. Mims explains that because so much time goes into the development process of the highest-end supers, with long planning, design and implementation stages, generally the experts in the field can predict with some degree of certainty which systems will be game changers and to some extent how they will measure up to one another. This is why Mims says that “it’s possible to predict with some confidence the world’s fastest supercomputers — even, perhaps, the single fastest supercomputer — in the year 2012.” According to Jack Dongarra, the keeper of the TOP500 list of the world’s fastest systems, there are five such systems in line to topple Tianhe-1A’s standing.
One of these potential upstarts is Blue Waters. What sets this machine apart is that it will be powered by the latest IBM Power chip, the Power 7, and will sport a superfast interconnect with greater bandwidth and lower latency than previous incarnations.
According to Dunning, Blue Waters will be installed at NCSA sometime in the first half of 2011 with production ramping up in the Fall of 2011. In 2012, the Blue Waters will be up and running a full range of scientific applications. | <urn:uuid:cc18d1ab-4a4c-4c0b-b39d-2b5ebfe53a63> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.hpcwire.com/2010/11/11/us_in_line_to_win_back_supercomputing_title_in_2012/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00115-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933982 | 772 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Offering another approach to broadband-based home energy management, STMicroelectronics is proposing a line of sensors and controllers that can be distributed around the home that all communicate with a dongle that could plug into almost any device, including PCs, set-tops and gateways.
ST's GreenNet Wireless Sensor Networking technology comprises self-powered nodes that could, for example, sense temperature or carbon monoxide levels, or detect motion, and then relay that data wirelessly to a GreenNet dongle installed in a PC or set-top box.
The data could then be communicated to a smartphone or tablet to enable users to monitor and control their home systems, the company explained.
GreenNet nodes would combine a rechargeable battery and solar cell with an on-chip sensor and STM32W 32-bit wireless microcontroller.
ST said it is now demonstrating the system using a sample node that features an on-chip temperature sensor, a USB dongle and a service platform including a sample app store.
The wireless technology is IEEE 802.15.4, which specifies low-power communications in the license-free 2.4 GHz frequency band. (The ZigBee protocol is based on this standard.)
Solar-powered sensors and monitors can be distributed throughout the home and can connect through a gateway, set-top or PC. | <urn:uuid:c6ba4ed8-d2c6-468e-b723-df30f0a366ee> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.cedmagazine.com/print/news/2012/01/stmicroelectronics-proposes-green-home-control-system | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280308.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00537-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927842 | 276 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Projectors are a critical tool for engaging large groups and play an important role in higher education.
A projector is a tool to teach the masses. This is especially applicable to higher education, where students pile into auditorium-sized lecture halls and standard classrooms to absorb knowledge on the big screen. That’s why experts say projectors are one of the most prominent tools a college has on its campus for teaching purposes.
“You need to have a much larger image to make sure the rest of the audience in that classroom or lecture hall can see it,” says Richard McPherson, Senior Product Manager of Projectors at NEC Display Solutions. “That’s the biggest reason, that they can have a much bigger screen size. Realistically, you can’t do that cost-effectively with flat panel displays. You can do video walls, but that’s a different cost structure. You can’t manipulate it in the same manner.”
But, with big tools like projectors come big decisions that cost big bucks. Before investing a projector for a college classroom, projector experts recommend exploring three key areas: the space that needs the projector, the color brightness and return on investment.
Once you select the perfect projector, the next step is setting it up correctly and then using it to the best advantage going forward. This guide will help make sure that you select the right projector and know how to use it to make lessons come to life. | <urn:uuid:9cd39a94-c70c-4bff-b999-acbafa771ce2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://techdecisions.co/downloads/the-secrets-to-finding-configuring-the-perfect-projector/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280746.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00445-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9327 | 304 | 2.515625 | 3 |
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