March 2007 Archives

OK, maybe the news isn't as catastrophic as that, but it can't be a good thing that the world's self-proclaimed technology leader has plummeted from the top spot to seventh place in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) annual "networked readiness index" released Wednesday.

Yet that's where the United States finds itself in the 2007 index, which measures the ability of 122 countries to use information technology to drive economic growth and development. Ranking ahead of the U.S. (in order) were: Denmark, Sweden, Singapore, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

According to this article, the WEF study "largely blamed increased political and corporate interference in the judicial system."

In Bush's America? Why, that's just absurd!

The study also cites:

the United States' low rate of mobile telephone usage

a lack of government leadership in information technology

the low quality of math and science education

Well, now they're just getting picky. Makes you wonder what kind of anti-American agenda the Geneva-based WEF has! It's enough to make me cancel my WEF membership, if I actually had one.

Perhaps the World Economic Forum should focus instead on ranking countries on something truly important, like how many good singers they have.

How you like us now, Denmark?

All I can say is, for a million dollars, this had better include time-travel functionality -- and smokin' graphics!

The accusations don't get much hotter than this. Enterprise software player Oracle on Thursday filed a complaint in a California court alleging that rival vendor SAP has been robbing them blind.

I doubt it said exactly that in the federal court filing. But according to this internetnews.com article, Oracle's complaint accuses its German competitor of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and of engaging in corporate theft "on a grand scale."

In a complaint filed in California's Northern District Court in San Francisco, Oracle accused the German software company of engaging in "systematic, illegal access" to its computer support systems.

"Through this scheme, SAP has stolen thousands of proprietary, copyrighted software products and other confidential materials that Oracle developed to service its own support customers," the complaint said.

In addition, it said "SAP gained repeated and unauthorized access, in many cases by use of pretextual customer log-in credentials, to Oracle's proprietary, password-protected customer support Web site. From that Web site, SAP has copied and swept thousands of Oracle software products and other proprietary and confidential materials onto its own servers.

My first thought is, it's refreshing to see legal action in the software industry that doesn't involve Microsoft. That said, these are explosive charges and, depending on how things play out, this could be the year's most high-profile courtroom battle between technology giants. And the international angle adds an exotic touch.

This story has a lot of details about the charges. Here's an interesting one:

Oracle said an SAP employee named Wade Walden impersonated the former Oracle customer Honeywell International to repeatedly gain access to Oracle's customer site. Oracle identifies Walden as a former PeopleSoft employee now working for SAP. Oracle acquired PeopleSoft in 2004.

Oracle has requested an injunction prohibiting SAP from further accessing the customer-support site. It also seeks the return of stolen property and demands unspecified restitution and punitive damages.

OK, maybe it's true that many IT jobs in the U.S. are being shipped off to lower-paying countries. But when it comes to launching attacks via the Internet, it appears that only good old American know-how will do!

According to a new report from computer security company Symantec, the United States is the world leader in generating malicious computer activity. That's right, we're No. 1!

Sadly, there are storm clouds on the horizon. Symantec reports that a price war is breaking out in the cyber-underworld, resulting in deals for stolen information that are so low you'll think we're crazy! Which, of course, means that all the good malicious-hacking jobs are headed for Bangalore.

That's the free market at work for you, baby.

All kidding aside, there's a lot of troubling, if not surprising, information in the Symantec report.

If we really want to eliminate cybercrime, there's only one solution: Shut down the Internet.

But since no one really wants to do that, the next best thing is to accept that cyber crime exists and try to minimize it as much as reasonably possible.

One tool for accomplishing that, according to eSecurity Planet columnist Richard Stiennon, is knowing the enemy: Understanding the drivers of cyber crime. Stiennon says they include:

Ubiquitous Internet. Just as every aspect of commerce and communication has been changed by the Internet, crime has evolved to profit from the millions of potential victims connected to one global network. ...

By some measures the number of people connected to the Internet still grows as much as 10% a month. Think of it; that translates into tens of millions of people each month that are not familiar with offers for Human Growth Hormone, Cialis, and instant mortgages. These newbies are prime targets.

New vulnerabilities. The monthly barrage of vulnerability announcements, particularly from Microsoft, give cyber criminals the inroads they need to devise new attacks and continue their practices of installing Trojans, adware, and spyware.

Markets for identities and tools. Online trading sites for identities create a market for thieves to sell to more sophisticated criminals. In the past, to be a successful cyber criminal you needed to be familiar with coding, hacking, credit card merchant accounts, eBay, wire transfers, counterfeiting, and money laundering. Now you can be a specialist.

Financial success. Cyber crime is sucking in more and more players as word spreads about how easy it is to make money online.

As for ways to mitigate the impact of cyber crime, Stiennon offers only a couple -- better security and international cooperation. If that doesn't sound too hopeful, well, that's because Stiennon feels "we are approaching a crisis."

Hey, don't blame the messenger. Blame those cyber criminals.

We launched a new site on Monday that should be of great interest to IT managers -- because it's about them.

Specifically, their jobs and careers. The site is called IT Career Planet, and it features a mix of advice, information and news regarding IT careers, jobs and staff management.

Whether it's the latest IT salary survey, tips on managing "geeks" or how to survive an "idiot" boss, IT Career Planet offers readers content that will help them make the best career choices as well as navigate challenges in their current jobs.

Among the articles and columns on IT Career Planet are:

Nausea, Nightmares and Twitching, an uplifting piece about how stress is making many IT managers physically ill. See how your symptoms compare.

Tech Work From Home: A Survival Guide, which offers tips to at-home IT employees on how to stay productive. Tip No. 2: Get dressed.

Seven Steps For Helping Geeks Grow, advice on how best to keep your IT staff engaged, involved and contributing to the enterprise.

Go check the site out. I'm confident you'll find something useful.

It's getting mighty crowded on the Internet.

Which one of the Internets, I'm not sure, but according to research firm comScore Networks, there was a 10 percent increase of users worldwide in January 2007 from the same month a year ago. comScore estimates that 747 million people aged 15 and up were online in the first month of this year.

While the United States remains the No. 1 country in total Internet users (153.4 million in January, up only 2% from a year before), "Internet users outside the U.S. now account for 80 percent of the world's online population, with rapidly developing countries experiencing double-digit growth rates year-over-year," said Bob Ivins, comScore Europe managing director in a statement.

The No. 2 Internet user is China, with 86.8 million people 15 and older logging on in January. Rounding out the top 15 were:

Japan
Germany
United Kingdom
South Korea
France
India
Canada
Italy
Brazil
Spain
Russian Federation
Netherlands
Mexico

The study also found, not surprisingly, that Internet users in countries with higher broadband penetration spend more time online.

More data from the study can be found here.

I read an interesting column over the weekend on Slate comparing the current housing market to technology stocks in 2000 and 2001.

The premise of the column, as you might have guessed, is this: The real estate industry is poised for the same type of brutal crash that decimated tech stocks and companies beginning in March 2000.

Here's some of the argument:

...eerily similar charts of the NASDAQ composite index in the tech-bubble years and the index of housing-related stocks in the real-estate-bubble years. Both show rapid rises, a swift correction, and a subsequent rally when analysts and insiders proclaimed (prematurely) that the worst was over.

And:

It sounds like a replay of the 2000-01 period, in which software, technology, and dot-com companies, riding a wave of growth, thought the slowdown was a small blip.

There's no doubt we're in the middle of a housing market slowdown, and while it's almost certain we haven't hit bottom, I'm not so sure I buy the premise that it's still a long way from the bottom, as author Daniel Gross argues.

Part of my reasoning is plain wishful thinking (which, of course, worked really well with tech stocks in 2000). But I also believe that housing prices won't plummet as fast or as far as tech stocks did seven years ago because most real estate retains some intrinsic value.

You couldn't say the same for dozens and dozens of tech stocks that were built upon companies with poor business models, little revenue and crushing overhead, ingredients for an exceedingly shaky foundation.

A good column about enterprise security misconceptions and mistakes was posted Thursday over at CIO Update.

The piece addresses the problems that arise when companies misplace trust in people -- employees, customers, partners, vendors, etc. The truth is, they're all crooks!

Not really, or at least not according to Ed Adams, CEO of Security Innovation and author of the column. But Adams says enterprises should make no assumptions regarding either the trustworthiness or security awareness of people with enterprise access, or the security inherent in their enterprise applications. Because when you assume...well, you know the rest.

But before you go dashing off to the link above, I refer you to this link, which is the introduction to Adams' multi-part series on "The Five Most Common Misconceptions of Enterprise Security." You may as well start at the beginning.