Army Adds Macs To Improve Security By Richard Koman One of Apple’s major marketing themes is that Macs are less susceptible to viruses, Trojans, and other hacker attacks than Windows PCs. While that argument has yet to hold much sway with enterprise I.T. departments, it is causing the U.S.

 Army to add some Macs to its networks. Lt. Col. C.J. Wallington, a division chief in the Army’s office of enterprise information systems, told Forbes that the Army is adding Macs to make its networks harder to hack. Wallington said that making networks more heterogeneous might make it more difficult for attackers to compromise an entire group of computers. These things don’t just happen overnight.

The Army’s CIO, Gen.  Steve Boutelle, called for more diverse computer networks back in August 2005. He said the Army should deal with a broader range of vendors to increase competition and harden I.T. defenses. But thus far, the Army has allowed only a trickle of Macs to enter military facilities. The Army buys only about 1,000 Macs during its twice-a-year buying seasons. Macs ‘Shrug Off’ Attacks  One key barrier — besides Apple’s price premium and the general I.T. resistance to Apple — has been incompatibility with Common Access Cards, a security key card program the military uses heavily.

Early in 2008, the Army will adopt software that will allow Macs to use CACs.  The Army is impressed with Apple Xserve servers’ ability to withstand attacks, Wallington said. “Those are some of the most-attacked computers there are. But the attacks used against them are designed for Windows-based machines, so they shrug them off,” he said. 

 The Army’s Apple program is being led by Jonathan Broskey, a former Apple employee. He says it’s not just that Macs are a less inviting target than Windows; Apple’s version of Unix is inherently more secure than Windows, he says.  But some observers point out that as Macs have become more popular, Apple has had to release increasingly substantial security updates. Apple’s QuickTime was recently shown to suffer from fairly serious security holes.

And security company F-Secure has identified over 100 Mac-specific exploits over the last two months.  Macs ‘Behind the Curve’  Broskey, however, maintains that the large number of patches shows the strength of Apple’s reliance on open-source software for its operating system, but that military I.T. will have to be aggressive about deploying the updates.

“The Army’s no different from any corporation,” he was quoted by Forbes as saying. At least one security expert isn’t all that impressed with the Mac as a battle-hardened OS. Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators said Apple had to patch security flaws five times as much as Microsoft.

“I love my Macs, but in terms of security, they’re behind the curve, compared to Windows,” Miller told Forbes. Miller added that the Army needs a better security strategy than just adding Macs to the mix.

He said attackers will just target whichever platform is weaker, which might just be the Macs that are supposedly more secure.

“In the story of the three little pigs, did diversifying heir defenses help? Not for the pig in the straw house.”   

Source: http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Army-Adds-Macs-To-Improve-Security/story.xhtml?story_id=12000DED7L5C

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The iPhone was great, except for its restrictions. And guess who’s dialing up a better mobile Web now?

By Farhad Manjoo 

You’ll balk if I label 2007 “The Year of the iPhone.” True, news of Apple’s new device hit the world within two weeks of New Year’s 2007 and dominated tech coverage pretty much incessantly afterward. But as several cynical Salon letter writers pointed out at its launch in late June, the iPhone, cool as it was, failed to revolutionize human relations. “Hey, did your iPhone end the war? No, it didn’t, so shut up!”

But tech doesn’t work that way. Only a handful of Macheads seriously expected the iPhone to deliver an exit strategy in Iraq, cure AIDS and forestall foreclosure on millions of subprime mortgages. Most techies had lower expectations, and it’s true that for some of us, the iPhone didn’t meet even those. As a phone, the thing didn’t stand out. It lacked, moreover, several necessary features, and more than a few people still can’t get the hang of its damned keyboard.

Still, every conversation about tech in 2007 spirals into a conversation about the iPhone; the device, as I wrote after two weeks using it, marks a new way of living. For some people constant access to the Internet is a pleasant dream, while for others it’s a dreaded nightmare. This year, for all of us, it became a reality, the unavoidable future.

Apple skeptics point out that cellphones have offered on-the-go access to the Web for years, long before the iPhone came along. But that’s a bit like deriding the utility of the internal combustion engine on the basis that horses did basically the same thing. The iPhone’s mobile Web is fundamentally different from anything that has come before — hassle-free, easy to use and functionally the same as the browser on your desktop.
 
And this suggests the iPhone’s true impact — it forced us, for the first time, to confront the thorny public policy issues that the mobile Web will raise, issues sure to consume Silicon Valley, Hollywood and regulators in Washington for the foreseeable future.

Take telecom policy. Until recently, “network neutrality” — the proposal to prohibit Internet service providers from imposing discriminatory rules on the network lines coming into our homes — was an issue most experts associated with the wired Internet, not wireless networks.

We get mad when Comcast or AT&T monkeys with what we can do on the Web at home, but few took notice that cellular carriers have always restricted our behavior on wireless networks — they dictate what phones we can use, which programs we can run on those phones, and what we can do with those programs. For a long while, the prohibitions raised few objections because the mobile Internet was too useless to get very worked up about.

The iPhone altered our calculus of concern. By illustrating the possibilities of the mobile Web, the phone cast wireless networks as ground zero in the battle for computing freedom.

Ironically, Apple itself wound up on the wrong side of the fight. Among my chief complaints about the iPhone was Apple’s policy prohibiting third-party developers from creating programs for it. The restriction undoubtedly came about as a consequence of Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T, which, like other wireless companies, is afraid of wayward applications hurting its bottom line. If you were free to use the Internet phone service Skype on your iPhone, you might make very cheap calls overseas — and why would AT&T want to let you do that?

The restrictions showed up Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ idea that his phone was a full-fledged mobile computer. The iPhone did seem to have the potential to act as a true minicomputer — but if it remained closed, it could never match the wizardry we’re used to on the desktop.

In late September, Apple moved to shut down hackers who had rigged the phone to run in unapproved ways. Many customers were apoplectic. Apple subsequently promised that it would offer a way for programmers to create their own iPhone apps — a recognition that the iPhone’s true utility lies in the innovation that developers across the world will bring to it.

If Apple’s innovation pointed to the possibilities of a wireless Web, another company moved aggressively to realize those possibilities. Right, Google.

During the summer, the search firm pushed the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a set of “openness principles” on the 700 MHz band of radio space, a wireless bounty that the government will offer to high rollers at a grand auction early in 2008.

Google did not persuade regulators to make the spectrum fully open, but it did win some benefits for consumers. Specifically, the FCC set aside a block of radio space on which wireless firms will not be allowed to prohibit customers from running devices and applications of their choice. Google also announced it would bid for wireless space, and it unveiled Android, an open-source operating system for mobile phones that will allow developers to create applications that run on a wide range of phones.

Google’s not doing these things altruistically, of course. The company sees billions in the wireless Web: More people using the Internet means more people using Google’s services.
Fans of the search firm see its moves as a rare instance when private ambition aligns with the public good. After all, Google’s gambit has already produced gains for customers.

Phone companies wary of a direct fight with Google are now tripping over themselves to bring a measure of openness to their networks.

But how long can we trust Google — a firm that now dominates every aspect of our digital lives — to protect our interests? The year ends with that cliffhanger.

When, a decade from now, you think back on these times, you may well remember the iPhone’s launch as a mere footnote to a more momentous story: 2007, the year the mobile Internet got its start — or, you know, the year Google finalized plans to take over the world.

Source: http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2007/12/24/year_end_review/index.html

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In this MSNBC interview the Snr. V.P. of Network Solutions covers what any business needs for page one search rankings.

Content is definitely king. Stephanie suggests writing articles about your product or service as one of the best ways to add good content. SEO copy writing will not only produce content that is written for the search engines, but also information that gets responses from your visitors. She points out that articles online give you the opportunity to educate your public about your products and services.

The next thing you need is links. One strategy Stephanie did not cover was using RSS feeds to syndicate your content If you have someone who does SEO writing you can add links on the keywords in the articles. When your article get picked up and republished in blogs or other websites those links lead traffic back to you..

She mentions meta tags - another important part of SEO copywriting services. Meta tags are the technical text using the right keywords that get progammed into the page, making it possible for a search engine to find your site when a search is done. SEO is vital for any business. Good content based on keyword research, built-in links on those keywords in the text and syndicated articles should be the stock-in-trade of a good SEO copywriter.

It’s a proven strategy that produces high search ranking every time..

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2007/12/17/the-importance-of-seo-copy-writing-to-high-rankings

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Posted by yes_no 2 Day agoMessenger Plus! is the most popular add-on for Windows/MSN Messenger, which started as a small add-on for enthusiasts and is now used by millions.

Source: http://www.9down.com/Messenger-Plus-Live-4-50-312-20337/

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posted by baselkanaan

Kaspersky® Internet Security 7.0 is a fully integrated solution that protects your computer from all of the most common Internet threats, including viruses, hacker attacks, adware, spam and spyware.

Today, threats to PCs are appearing in ever-greater numbers and diversity. Cyber criminals on the Internet are well organized and tend to target PCs with combined threats. A standalone antivirus solution is no longer enough to fully protect your PC. Kaspersky Internet Security combines reactive detection methods with the latest proactive technologies, protecting your PC from viruses, hacker attacks, spam and spyware. Seamless integration of all product components eliminates system conflicts and provides fast performance.

 Source :http://www.9down.com/Kaspersky-Anti-Virus-Internet-Security-v7-0-1-321-Beta-20387/

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By Jim Dalrymple, Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

While the update was available on Friday for adventurous users that wanted to manually install it, Apple on Monday officially released iPhone 1.1.2.

The update is available through iTunes and will show up when the iPhone is connected. Unfortunately, there are no details of what changed with the new version — Apple only says the update includes “new features and bug fixes.”

However, there are a few noticeable changes, mostly for international users. With the new version you can change the language to French, German or Italian and change the keyboard layout to English (UK), French, German and Italian.

Other smaller changes are also included with iPhone Update 1.1.2. The phone’s battery charge now shows up in iTunes, next to your phone icon. Apple changed the sorting of ringtones, too — tones from Apple or applications like iToner now show up in a section labeled “Custom,” while ringtones that came with the phone are listed under “Standard.”

The widely reported TIFF exploit has also been fixed with this update. That bug patch is a bit of a mixed blessing for iPhone enthusiasts. While it fixes a critical security vulnerability with the way that the phone renders TIFF images, that flaw had been used by iPhone developers in the unauthorized Jailbreak software that is used to run third-party applications. The update makes it difficult for users of brand-new iPhones to install Jailbreak.

Apple has been in a tug of war with some developers who have had to circumvent Apple’s security measures in order to get their software to run on the iPhone. Apple initially wanted to prevent all third-party code from running directly on its mobile device, but in recent months the company has promised to give developers a way to run their code on the iPhone. This software development kit will become available in February 2008.

The iPhones’s unauthorized software developers have already found a way to stay ahead of Apple’s latest software update.

Users with Jailbreak on their iPhone 1.1.1 systems are being advised to first install an application called OktoPrep, according to a post on the Unofficial Apple Weblog. This allows them to update to 1.1.2 without compromising their ability to run unauthorized software on the device.

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