Training for your CompTIA A+ has four specialist sections - you'll need exam certification in 2 different areas to be seen as competent in A+. For this reason, the majority of colleges restrict their A+ to just two of the training options. We think this is selling you short - sure, you can pass an exam, but experience of all four will set you apart in your working life, where you'll need to know about all of them. That's why we believe you require information in everything.
Qualifying in CompTIA A+ on its own will give you the ability to repair and fix laptops, Macs and PC's; principally ones that aren't joined to a network - essentially the domestic or small business sector. If you add Network+ training, you'll also have the ability to take care of networks, which means you'll be able to move further up the career path.
We can't make a big enough deal out of this point: Always get full 24x7 professional support from mentors and instructors. You will have so many problems later if you let this one slide. Don't accept certification programs which can only support trainees through a message system after office-staff have gone home. Trainers will try to talk you round from this line of reasoning. Essentially - you need support when you need support - not when it's convenient for them.
Keep looking and you'll come across professional companies that offer direct-access support all the time - no matter what time of day it is. You can't afford to accept anything less. Online 24x7 support is the only kind to make the grade when it comes to computer-based study. Maybe burning the midnight-oil is not your thing; but for the majority of us however, we're out at work when traditional support if offered.
The world of information technology is one of the more thrilling and changing industries that you could be a part of. To be working on the cutting-edge of technology puts you at the fore-front of developments affecting everyone who lives in the 21st century. Technological changes and connections on the web is going to noticeably alter our lifestyles in the near future; overwhelmingly so.
Incomes in IT are not a problem moreover - the usual income in the UK for a typical person working in IT is noticeably higher than in other market sectors. Chances are that you'll receive a much better deal than you could reasonably hope to get in other industries. The search for properly certified IT professionals is certain for many years to come, due to the constant development in the technology industry and the very large deficiency still in existence.
Ask any knowledgeable consultant and they can normally tell you many worrying experiences of how students have been duped by salespeople. Only deal with an experienced industry advisor who asks lots of questions to uncover the best thing for you - not for their pay-packet! You need to find the right starting point of study for you. With some real-world experience or base qualifications, it may be that your starting point of study is very different to someone completely new. It's usual to start with some basic user skills first. It can brush up on your current abilities and make the slope up to the higher-levels a less steep.
Authorised exam preparation and simulation materials are essential Free MCTS Training and MCTS Online Training - and really must be supplied by your training company. Due to the fact that many examination boards in IT tend to be American, you'll need to be used to the correct phraseology. You can't practice properly by simply answering any old technical questions - they have to be in the same format as the actual exams. Ensure that you have some simulated exam questions so you'll be able to check your comprehension at any point. Simulated or practice exams add to your knowledge bank - so you're much more at ease with the real thing.
CompTIA A+ certification validates the latest skills needed by today's computer support professionals. It is an international, vendor-neutral certification recognized by major hardware and software vendors, distributors
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Webcast: “Mango” Jump Start! Aug. 23-24! Pass it on…
That's right, Microsoft MVPs Rob Miles and Andy Wigley are back! Microsoft Learning hosted a Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (plus an update course) last year and it was an absolute smash. Mobile application developers raved about the fast-paced, demo-rich approach, the timeliness of real-world content on new technology, as well as the engaging and often-times humorous delivery. Now that "Mango" has made such a huge splash, they have put together another great course.
This two-day live virtual class, Building Applications for Windows Phone Mango Jump Start, is specially tailored for developers looking to build cool applications and games for the new Windows Phone Mango Platform.
Dates: August 23-24, 2011
Time: 8:00am – 4:00pm PST
Duration: 8 hours/day, including hour lunch break
Registration Link: http://bit.ly/Mango-Jump
Mango is an important leap forward in Microsoft’s overall mobile strategy and the developer community has taken notice. Now is the time to embrace the “tile-and-app” UI and reap the rewards Mango provides your development team and user community. Here's an overview of what Rob and Andy will cover:
Day One — August 23, 2011 | 8am-5pm PDT | Live online training
• Building Windows Phone Apps with Visual Studio 2010
• Silverlight on Windows Phone – Introduction
• Silverlight on Windows Phone – Advanced
• Using Expression to Build Windows Phone Interfaces
• Windows Phone Fast Application Switching
• Windows Phone Multi-tasking & Background Tasks
• Using Windows Phone Resources (Bing Maps, Camera, etc.)
Day Two — August 24, 2011 | 8am-5pm PDT | Live online training
• Application Data Storage on Windows Phone
• Using Networks with Windows Phone
• Windows Azure and Windows Phone
• Notifications on Windows Phone
• XNA for Windows Phone
• Selling a Windows Phone Application
What’s a “Jump Start” Free MCTS Training – MCTS Online Training .Course? | Training specifically designed for experienced developers and technologists whose jobs demand they know how to best leverage new, emerging Microsoft technologies. These advanced courses assume a certain level of expertise and domain knowledge, so they move quickly and cover topics in a fashion that enables teams to effectively map new skills to real-world situations.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Some Requirements For MCITP Certification
Before you take one exam, you should know what kind of questions it will be, which part of the knowledge of this exam that you should pay more attention to. In a word, you should know the requirements of the exam. So, today, I will tell you some requirements for MCITP Certification, just to those who still have no idea of what MCITP Certification requires.
Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at http://www.actualkey.com
Microsoft MCTS Certification, MCITP Certification and over 2000+
Exams with Life Time Access Membership at http://www.actualkey.com
MCITP certification validates the comprehensive skills that are necessary for performing a particular job specialization role which includes enterprise messaging administration or database administration. MCITP certification also builds up technical proficient that are measured in the Microsoft certification informational technology professional. Hence, candidate can obtain more MCITP certifications to earn credentials in this certifications.
Successful candidates who are holding their MCITP certification will be capable of designing, deploying, building, optimizing as well as operating technologies of a particular specialized job role. Successful candidates will also design and make decisions regarding the technology in an effective way to bring successful technology implementation of projects.
MCITP Certification Examination:
In order to obtain the this certificate, candidate has to take up the examination and score a minimum scaled points. The following are the examinations for the MCITP certification.
Windows client:
1) 70-680 or enterprise desktop administration 7
2) 70-686 or enterprise desktop administration 7
3) 70-620 or consumer support technician
4) 70-623 or consumer support technician
5) 70-620 or enterprise support technician
6) 70-622 or enterprise support technician
Windows server:
1) 70-640 MCITP or enterprise administration
2) 70-642
3) 70-643
4) 70-624 or exam 70-620 and exam 70-647
5) 70-640 MCITP or server administrator
6) 70-642
7) 70-646
Microsoft Office Project Server:
1) 70-632 or enterprise project management with MS office server 2007
2) 70-633
3) 70-634
Microsoft exchange server:
1) 70-236 or enterprise messaging administration
2) 70-237
3) 238
All these above examinations are required to take part by the candidates to obtain the certification and they can be taken part in any order.
Successful candidates who are holding their MCITP certification will be capable of designing, deploying, building, optimizing as well as operating technologies of a particular specialized job role. Successful candidates will also design and make decisions regarding the technology in an effective way to bring successful technology implementation of projects.
MCITP Certification Examination:
In order to obtain the this certificate, candidate has to take up the examination and score a minimum scaled points. The following are the examinations for the MCITP certification.
Windows client:
1) 70-680 or enterprise desktop administration 7
2) 70-686 or enterprise desktop administration 7
3) 70-620 or consumer support technician
4) 70-623 or consumer support technician
5) 70-620 or enterprise support technician
6) 70-622 or enterprise support technician
Windows server:
1) 70-640 MCITP or enterprise administration
2) 70-642
3) 70-643
4) 70-624 or exam 70-620 and exam 70-647
5) 70-640 MCITP or server administrator
6) 70-642
7) 70-646
Microsoft Office Project Server:
1) 70-632 or enterprise project management with MS office server 2007
2) 70-633
3) 70-634
Microsoft exchange server:
1) 70-236 or enterprise messaging administration
2) 70-237
3) 238
All these above examinations are required to take part by the candidates to obtain the certification and they can be taken part in any order.
Monday, August 22, 2011
AMD pushes Microsoft virtual desktops through new GPU
AMD's new FirePro V9800P GPU will be able support up to 22 Windows 7 virtual-desktop sessions
Advanced Micro Devices on Monday announced a FirePro graphics processor for businesses that can deliver Windows desktop sessions to remote client PCs through support for Microsoft's desktop virtualization technology.
A single FirePro V9800P GPU will be able to deliver up to 22 Windows 7 virtual-desktop sessions per graphics card, said Mitch Furman, senior product manager at AMD. The virtual desktop sessions can be delivered to a range of remote clients, including PCs and diskless thin clients, through Microsoft's proprietary RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) transport protocol.
The remote desktops are delivered by harnessing the parallel computing power of graphics processors, Furman said. GPUs are considered to be faster than CPUs at specific scientific and math calculations, and AMD is trying to add more commercial applications so graphics processors find wider use in data centers. Graphics processors are used in some of the world's fastest supercomputers for specific calculations.
The V9800P is targeted at customers looking for workstation replacements through virtualization, or at companies like engineering firms looking to create clusters for execution of scientific or math tasks. The GPU supports Microsoft's RemoteFX, a virtual desktop technology in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2011, to deliver a graphics-based desktop environment to client PCs.
The graphics card also supports DirectX 11, a Windows 7 technology that can harness the parallel processing capabilities of GPUs to improve gaming and application performance on PCs. The GPU also supports OpenCL, a set of programming tools to develop and manage parallel task execution.
The GPU does not yet support VMware and Xen hypervisors, and Furman couldn't say when support for the technologies would be added.
Dell is now offering the graphics card with its PowerEdge M610x server, Furman said. The V9800P has 1,600 computing cores, with each core running at 825MHz. The graphics processor draws a maximum of 225 watts of power. The graphics processor is priced starting at US$2,499, and AMD did not immediately comment on worldwide availability.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Inspector Gadgets: Windows 7 Gadgets for Monitoring Your PC
It's been nearly two years since Windows 7 was released, and yet there are still some features that Windows 7 users may not be taking full advantage of -- such as desktop gadgets. Similar to the Mac's Dashboard Widgets, Windows desktop gadgets are mini-applications that reside on your desktop and can display live data, perform simple functions like search or password generation, or give you a sneak peek inside the inner workings of your PC.
Network Meter gadget
Network Meter displays a wealth of information about either a wired or a wireless connection.
Network Meter takes the concept of "utility" to its natural conclusion. It's chock-full of key networking data, including current upload and download speeds as well as total data moved. It even shows your system's internal and external IP addresses.
The gadget can show you data about a wireless or wired connection as well as the network interface card in use. It's a great first step in troubleshooting a faulty Web connection, helping you pinpoint where to start: the router, the broadband connection or inside the PC.
You can adjust the gadget's size, color scheme and how often it gets new data. At any time you can refresh the local or external IP address, which in itself can save a minute or two of clicking. There's also a link to SpeedTest.net to check your online bandwidth.
Download Network Meter (79KB)
DC Wireless Network Monitor
The DC Wireless Network Monitor gadget, on the other hand, shows only the Wi-Fi basics in a tiny rectangle that takes up almost no room on your desktop. Below the main signal strength bar is the name of the network you're connected to as well as the system's IP address and a padlock symbol if it's an encrypted link.
And that's about it, except for the ability to change the color of the gadget. It's ideal for minimalists who just want to keep an eye on their wireless connection.
Download DC Wireless Network Monitor (42KB)
Disk space and usage
O&O DiskStat
Wondering how much space you have left on your hard drive or whether your drive is working too hard or overheating? O&O DiskStat brings that info and more to your desktop.
By default, the gadget shows two circular gauges: One is a pie chart of drive capacity and availability, and the other shows the drive's activity level. When the drive is idle, it shows 0%; when it's maxed out, it shows 100%.
If the S.M.A.R.T. drive-monitoring technology is enabled on your system, DiskStat shows the hard drive's temperature below the gauges. You may be able to enable S.M.A.R.T. in your system's BIOS or use a utility like Ariolic's ActiveSMART ($30), which doesn't require a system restart to work.
Click on any part of the DiskStat gadget and it doubles in size, revealing a new section with more details about the drive, including its size and free space.
O&O DiskStat can look at only one drive or disk partition at a time; you choose which drive to monitor in the setup screen. Click on the monkey wrench icon on the right side to get to it.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Security rundown for week ending Aug. 19
Debate over wisdom of firewalls, passwords and SSL -- plus, Anonymous strikes again
And speaking of anonymity and disruption in the more sinister sense of the words, this week didn't go by without the shadowy hacker group Anonymous yet again hitting more targets for what are apparently their activist causes.
The group Anonymous released personal data belonging to more than 2,000 public transport customers in the San Francisco area in retaliation for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) transit system's shutdown of mobile phone service on Aug. 11.
That mobile phone and Wi-Fi shutdown was a decision made by BART to try to slow a planned public protest against a police-related shooting awhile back.
BART last week officially apologized to the public that its network was hacked and customer data publicly exposed. But it didn't end there. Another hacking break-in took place at the website of the union representing the rank-and-file BART police, an attack which may also be traced back to Anonymous.
Many thought BART went too far in cutting off communications to hundreds of thousands of BART commuters as an attempt to stall a planned protest, and, as an editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle noted, no one held the high ground in the conflict -- not Anonymous, not the BART bureaucracy, not the protesters.
In addition, the Federal Communications Commission also took an interest last week, saying it was investigating what happened. "We are continuing to collect information about BART's actions and will be taking steps to hear from stakeholders about the important issues those actions raised, including protecting public safety and ensuring the availability of communications networks."
It was a pretty busy week for Anonymous, as the group also allegedly hacked yet another U.S. Department of Defense contractor, this time Vanguard Defense Industries. Anonymous says its latest haul, posted at Pastebin, includes internal meeting notes and contracts, schematics and non-disclosure agreement, among other things. Our reporter notes that a cursory look does seem to match the description provided by Anonymous, and one email shows Vanguard's chief executive responding to a U.S. DOJ contact regarding the suitability of its ShadowHawk drone for use by the U.S. Marshals. Anonymous earlier this year said it would be turning its wrath against governments and corporations around the world in retaliation for anything of which it disapproves.
Hackers have a wide variety of motivations. Last week, Jason Cornish, 37, formerly an IT staffer at the U.S. subsidiary of Japanese drug-maker Shionogi, pled guilty to computer-intrusion charges in connection with an attack on that company's network last February. He wiped out 15 VMware host systems running email, order tracking, financial and other services at the Florham Park, N.J., company. The disruption is believed to have cost Shionogi $800,000.
So why did Cornish do this? It's apparently a variant on the disgruntled employee/insider threat. He was a former IT staff employee who was still able to log in to the company's network from a public McDonald's Internet connection with a password. Hmm, maybe the NTSIC program and the Jericho Forum do have a point about reusable passwords ... and should we hope Anonymous one day weighs in on whether firewalls are keeping them out? These days, malicious emails loaded up with malware are apparently a favored route to break into the corporate network. And Google issued a report last week detailing how it's getting harder to detect Web-based malware.
And speaking of anonymity and disruption in the more sinister sense of the words, this week didn't go by without the shadowy hacker group Anonymous yet again hitting more targets for what are apparently their activist causes.
The group Anonymous released personal data belonging to more than 2,000 public transport customers in the San Francisco area in retaliation for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) transit system's shutdown of mobile phone service on Aug. 11.
That mobile phone and Wi-Fi shutdown was a decision made by BART to try to slow a planned public protest against a police-related shooting awhile back.
BART last week officially apologized to the public that its network was hacked and customer data publicly exposed. But it didn't end there. Another hacking break-in took place at the website of the union representing the rank-and-file BART police, an attack which may also be traced back to Anonymous.
Many thought BART went too far in cutting off communications to hundreds of thousands of BART commuters as an attempt to stall a planned protest, and, as an editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle noted, no one held the high ground in the conflict -- not Anonymous, not the BART bureaucracy, not the protesters.
In addition, the Federal Communications Commission also took an interest last week, saying it was investigating what happened. "We are continuing to collect information about BART's actions and will be taking steps to hear from stakeholders about the important issues those actions raised, including protecting public safety and ensuring the availability of communications networks."
It was a pretty busy week for Anonymous, as the group also allegedly hacked yet another U.S. Department of Defense contractor, this time Vanguard Defense Industries. Anonymous says its latest haul, posted at Pastebin, includes internal meeting notes and contracts, schematics and non-disclosure agreement, among other things. Our reporter notes that a cursory look does seem to match the description provided by Anonymous, and one email shows Vanguard's chief executive responding to a U.S. DOJ contact regarding the suitability of its ShadowHawk drone for use by the U.S. Marshals. Anonymous earlier this year said it would be turning its wrath against governments and corporations around the world in retaliation for anything of which it disapproves.
Hackers have a wide variety of motivations. Last week, Jason Cornish, 37, formerly an IT staffer at the U.S. subsidiary of Japanese drug-maker Shionogi, pled guilty to computer-intrusion charges in connection with an attack on that company's network last February. He wiped out 15 VMware host systems running email, order tracking, financial and other services at the Florham Park, N.J., company. The disruption is believed to have cost Shionogi $800,000.
So why did Cornish do this? It's apparently a variant on the disgruntled employee/insider threat. He was a former IT staff employee who was still able to log in to the company's network from a public McDonald's Internet connection with a password. Hmm, maybe the NTSIC program and the Jericho Forum do have a point about reusable passwords ... and should we hope Anonymous one day weighs in on whether firewalls are keeping them out? These days, malicious emails loaded up with malware are apparently a favored route to break into the corporate network. And Google issued a report last week detailing how it's getting harder to detect Web-based malware.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Important IT cert news that you can't miss out
As a 1-Stop IT Certification Solution Provider, Upcert wants to let you know an important news about CompTIA certification:
“As of January 1, 2011, CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA Security+ certifications are no longer valid for lifetime as before. All these 3 certifications obtained after 2010 are valid for three years from the date the candidate becomes certified. A “valid through” date will appear on all certificates and certificate holder CompTIA ID cards.”
For more information about this new renewal policy, please refer to:
http://www.comptia.org/certifications/listed/renewal.aspx#fifteen
Since these 3 CompTIA certs are among those most popular IT certs in 2010 – 2011, we would like to invite you to get your lifetime CompTIA certs before Dec 31st, 2010. As a special promotion, we are offering a $300 discount code for the first 20 customers. Please get your code at the following URL:
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Microsoft IE9 RC Arrives With Improved Privacy, Security Features
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate has a number of enhancements aimed at improving privacy and security controls.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate arrived Feb. 10 with privacy and malware protections built in to protect users.
At the forefront of those features is the new TPL (tracking protection list), which enables users to choose to visit only certain Websites if they click on a link or type in the address. The feature is meant as a privacy protection against online behavioral tracking. By limiting the calls to these Websites and resources from other Web pages, the TPL limits the information these other sites can collect.
“IE9 enables consumers to express their preference for privacy, and also gives consumers a mechanism to enforce specific aspects of that preference,” blogged Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president for Internet Explorer at Microsoft. “Consumers can do this by choosing Tracking Protection Lists from organizations they trust. These lists can block and allow third-party content in order to control what information consumers share with sites as they browse the Web.”
The TPL feature is Microsoft answer to calls for better controls to block tracking online. Other browser vendors are making plays as well. Mozilla recently added a “Do Not Track” HTTP header to the latest beta release of Firefox 4, while Google released an extension called “Keep My Opt-Outs.” However unlike other solutions, IE9’s benefits users even if Websites do not respect the user’s preference not to be tracked, Hachamovitch wrote.
Also new in the release candidate is an ActiveX Filter that gives users more control over ActiveX controls. ActiveX has long been a source of criticism by security researchers due to vulnerabilities and exploits taking advantage of the technology. According to Microsoft, in IE9, the filter makes it easy to turn off ActiveX for all sites, and then re-enable it site by site.
Other security features in IE9 include integration between the SmartScreen Filter and Download Manager. The SmartScreen Filter was introduced in IE8, and works by checking Websites against a list of known phishing sites as well as sites that may contain malware. The integration with Download Manager in IE 9 is meant to use reputation to remove unnecessary warnings for well-known files and show more severe warnings when the download has a higher risk of being malicious, Microsoft has said.
“On today’s Web, consumers are increasingly wary, often out of necessity,” blogged Hachamovitch. “They face security risks like malicious sites and phishing scams. Even on sites consumers know and trust, bad things often happen. It’s easy to almost follow a bad link from a friend on Facebook, or become a victim of malvertising when a malicious advertisement appears on an otherwise trustworthy site.”
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Facial-Recognition Tools, Facebook Photos Threaten End to Anonymity: Study
LAS VEGAS — A Carnegie Mellon University researcher used Facebook photos to demonstrate how facial-recognition technology can be used to identify people as they walk down the street.
Using off-the-shelf facial-recognition software and students' photos posted on Facebook, Alessandro Acquisiti, a CMU researcher, showed attendees at the annual Black Hat security conference how he was able to positively identify 30 percent of students walking around campus.
Acquisti also searched dating sites for users within 50 miles of a zip code and correlated them with approximately 110,000 Facebook profiles of users who also lived in that same area. The cloud-computing cluster at CMU obtained results in 15 hours and was able to positively identify 10 percent of the users on online dating sites, according to Acquisiti. Narrowing the geographic area increased the match rate.
Acquisti also combined the results with his previous research on predicting Social Security numbers and found he could guess within four tries the correct number for 28 percent of the subjects.
“The goal here is not to generate fear, but we are very close to a point where the convergence of technologies will make it possible for online and offline data to blend seamlessly ... and for strangers on the street to predict certain information about you from your picture," Acquisti said.
As more services include facial-recognition capabilities and as developers can create applications using the technology, the privacy implications are staggering, Acquisti said. Law enforcement officials can use publicly available information and government databases to compile detailed information dossiers on everyone in the country. These applications can be used on pictures of crowds at protests and demonstrations, creating a new form of crowd control.
Someone can snap photos of people at a public event and an application can cull through publicly available information on social-networking sites to identify these strangers and their friends, and list their likes and dislikes. Or online dating sites become no longer anonymous as the technology would be able to identify people by the photos.
“Notwithstanding Americans' resistance to a Real ID infrastructure, as consumers of social networks, we have consented to a de facto Real ID that markets and information technology, rather than government and regulation, have created,” Acquisti wrote in his report, titled "Privacy in the Age of Augmented Reality."
Google developed this kind of technology and withheld it because it was deemed to be too dangerous to release publicly, former CEO Eric Schmidt had said.
"That genie is already out of the bottle," Acquisti said.
Facebook has made it easier for people to tag their friends, and there is no way for users to opt out of getting tagged. Security experts have long said Facebook should allow privacy-conscious users to have a one-click option to stop tag-happy friends, instead of having to manually un-tag every instance.
Facebook also integrated facial-recognition technology into the social-networking platform to auto-suggest users to be tagged in photos. As all things privacy-related in Facebook, all users were included in the recognition database by default.
The researchers said the technologies will soon “democratize surveillance,” as sinking costs make peer-to-peer facial recognition cost effective and available to everyone.
German data-protection officials recently requested that Facebook disable its facial-recognition software and delete any previously stored data. Making facial-recognition technology opt-out runs afoul of European and German data-protection laws, John Caspar, Hamburg, Germany's commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, said in a letter to Facebook Aug. 2.
If Facebook does not comply with the request, German authorities would take action and the company could face fines of up to $425,490, or 300,000 euros, Caspar said. Germany, takes online privacy much more seriously than many other countries and its laws generally restrict photographs of people and property, except in public places, such as a sporting event, without a person's consent.
"The legal situation is clear in my opinion," Caspar told German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt. "If the data were to get into the wrong hands, then someone with a picture taken on a mobile phone could use biometrics to compare the pictures and make an identification," Caspar said.
Such a system could be used by undemocratic governments to spy on the opposition or by security services around the world. "The right to anonymity is in danger," said Caspar.
LAS VEGAS — A Carnegie Mellon University researcher used Facebook photos to demonstrate how facial-recognition technology can be used to identify people as they walk down the street.
Using off-the-shelf facial-recognition software and students' photos posted on Facebook, Alessandro Acquisiti, a CMU researcher, showed attendees at the annual Black Hat security conference how he was able to positively identify 30 percent of students walking around campus.
Acquisti also searched dating sites for users within 50 miles of a zip code and correlated them with approximately 110,000 Facebook profiles of users who also lived in that same area. The cloud-computing cluster at CMU obtained results in 15 hours and was able to positively identify 10 percent of the users on online dating sites, according to Acquisiti. Narrowing the geographic area increased the match rate.
Acquisti also combined the results with his previous research on predicting Social Security numbers and found he could guess within four tries the correct number for 28 percent of the subjects.
“The goal here is not to generate fear, but we are very close to a point where the convergence of technologies will make it possible for online and offline data to blend seamlessly ... and for strangers on the street to predict certain information about you from your picture," Acquisti said.
As more services include facial-recognition capabilities and as developers can create applications using the technology, the privacy implications are staggering, Acquisti said. Law enforcement officials can use publicly available information and government databases to compile detailed information dossiers on everyone in the country. These applications can be used on pictures of crowds at protests and demonstrations, creating a new form of crowd control.
Someone can snap photos of people at a public event and an application can cull through publicly available information on social-networking sites to identify these strangers and their friends, and list their likes and dislikes. Or online dating sites become no longer anonymous as the technology would be able to identify people by the photos.
“Notwithstanding Americans' resistance to a Real ID infrastructure, as consumers of social networks, we have consented to a de facto Real ID that markets and information technology, rather than government and regulation, have created,” Acquisti wrote in his report, titled "Privacy in the Age of Augmented Reality."
Google developed this kind of technology and withheld it because it was deemed to be too dangerous to release publicly, former CEO Eric Schmidt had said.
"That genie is already out of the bottle," Acquisti said.
Facebook has made it easier for people to tag their friends, and there is no way for users to opt out of getting tagged. Security experts have long said Facebook should allow privacy-conscious users to have a one-click option to stop tag-happy friends, instead of having to manually un-tag every instance.
Facebook also integrated facial-recognition technology into the social-networking platform to auto-suggest users to be tagged in photos. As all things privacy-related in Facebook, all users were included in the recognition database by default.
The researchers said the technologies will soon “democratize surveillance,” as sinking costs make peer-to-peer facial recognition cost effective and available to everyone.
German data-protection officials recently requested that Facebook disable its facial-recognition software and delete any previously stored data. Making facial-recognition technology opt-out runs afoul of European and German data-protection laws, John Caspar, Hamburg, Germany's commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, said in a letter to Facebook Aug. 2.
If Facebook does not comply with the request, German authorities would take action and the company could face fines of up to $425,490, or 300,000 euros, Caspar said. Germany, takes online privacy much more seriously than many other countries and its laws generally restrict photographs of people and property, except in public places, such as a sporting event, without a person's consent.
"The legal situation is clear in my opinion," Caspar told German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt. "If the data were to get into the wrong hands, then someone with a picture taken on a mobile phone could use biometrics to compare the pictures and make an identification," Caspar said.
Such a system could be used by undemocratic governments to spy on the opposition or by security services around the world. "The right to anonymity is in danger," said Caspar.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Oracle Launches Java 7 as Innovation Sprouts From the Community, Others
The issue of innovation in Java has been a topic of discussion and debate for some time now. Many observers say the incumbents—Oracle/Sun, IBM and Red Hat/JBoss—are no longer running the show in terms of Java innovation and that others, including several newer, smaller companies, are pushing innovation. In fact, many believe Oracle and IBM are content with incrementally pushing enhancements to the platform and enjoying the spoils of the enterprise space where Java appears to be winning over .NET. Last year’s Oracle and IBM deal around OpenJDK signaled how cozy the two companies have become.
Meanwhile, innovation is still happening from the outside of that cabal, with notable contributions coming from the activity of smaller vendors and startups around dynamic languages built on the JVM, the area of development integrated with operations or “devops,” and Agile development and ALM (application lifecycle management). VMware’s SpringSource has been pushing the Java innovation envelope in a variety of ways.
There has also been innovation on the PaaS (platform as a service) front, with technology such as VMware’s CloudFoundry, Amazon’s Elastic Beanstalk, and offerings from CloudBees and others getting into the fray with new runtime environments for Java.
Rod Johnson, general manager of VMware’s SpringSource division, told eWEEK: “Most of the innovation in the Java world is coming from outside the traditional incumbents. And these days just about all innovation in Java is in open source. I think the evolution of the Java language in Java 7 and 8 is sound: real benefits without disruption. Just as with Java 5, I think applications will become that bit simpler and more elegant.”
Johnson ought to know a bit about innovation. He developed the Spring Framework, an enterprise Java development framework that caught on with developers so much that Johnson’s Interface21 startup (later renamed to SpringSource) drew the attention of several bidders, with VMware coming out victorious.
However, it's not just about the language, Johnson says. Java is strong because of the JVM, the class libraries and the frameworks that help people do useful work, he said. “Increasingly, I think we'll see innovation tend to come higher up the stack, where there's more leverage,” Johnson said. “For example, Grails and Spring Roo don't just provide a framework; they help developers while they work, in a similar way to Rails.”
Moreover, Johnson said he believes the industry will see a lot of movement in how the Java ecosystem works with emerging technologies. “For example, how to talk to nonrelational databases and how to write applications that target today's proliferation of nontraditional client devices, which communicate to the server differently,” he said. “And, of course, an increasing number of Java applications will be targeted toward PaaS.”
While some view enhanced innovation as what is needed for Java to continue to thrive, others say a steady hand is probably what Java needs most.
“Oracle has had a major impact on Java,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, which provides popular tools for Java developers.
Indeed, Milinkovich breaks down Oracle’s contribution to Java:
“First, they have invested in the Java platform development team and in the engineering resources to build, test and release a major platform like Java. That is absolutely key for a mature enterprise software platform such as Java. Second, they have provided stability and leadership for Java. They can be criticized for some of their decisions since taking over Java, but there is absolutely no doubt what the rules are, who’s in charge and where they’re taking it. During the last couple of years of Sun’s existence, those attributes were sorely lacking. That clarity is having positive effects on the Java ecosystem, as SAP’s recent decision to join and contribute to OpenJDK clearly shows.”
The Eclipse Foundation also has had an impact on Java over the past couple of years, Milinkovich said. Eclipse has been directly involved at the governance level of both the JCP and OpenJDK. And on the technology side, “Eclipse remains the ubiquitous tooling platform for Java developers, and our recent Indigo release has some of the coolest new features in years,” he added.
IDC’s Hilwa agrees that Oracle has brought balance to the Java landscape. According to Hilwa:
“In many ways Java has been rescued from stagnation. The JCP process had gotten overly political, and the beginnings of the split with Android took roots in Sun’s last year of custody of Java. Oracle brought a no-nonsense attitude to managing Java, pragmatically splitting the features into two new releases, one of which has already shipped. It cleaned up the work around JavaFX, and perhaps unexpectedly kept investing in NetBeans and GlassFish. Overall, it is a good story and they have made progress. Oracle managed to rally everyone around JDK, including IBM, Apple and Red Hat. One of the victims has been the loss of Apache from the JCP, but I have a feeling that over time that rift might get repaired.”
Meanwhile, innovation is still happening from the outside of that cabal, with notable contributions coming from the activity of smaller vendors and startups around dynamic languages built on the JVM, the area of development integrated with operations or “devops,” and Agile development and ALM (application lifecycle management). VMware’s SpringSource has been pushing the Java innovation envelope in a variety of ways.
There has also been innovation on the PaaS (platform as a service) front, with technology such as VMware’s CloudFoundry, Amazon’s Elastic Beanstalk, and offerings from CloudBees and others getting into the fray with new runtime environments for Java.
Rod Johnson, general manager of VMware’s SpringSource division, told eWEEK: “Most of the innovation in the Java world is coming from outside the traditional incumbents. And these days just about all innovation in Java is in open source. I think the evolution of the Java language in Java 7 and 8 is sound: real benefits without disruption. Just as with Java 5, I think applications will become that bit simpler and more elegant.”
Johnson ought to know a bit about innovation. He developed the Spring Framework, an enterprise Java development framework that caught on with developers so much that Johnson’s Interface21 startup (later renamed to SpringSource) drew the attention of several bidders, with VMware coming out victorious.
However, it's not just about the language, Johnson says. Java is strong because of the JVM, the class libraries and the frameworks that help people do useful work, he said. “Increasingly, I think we'll see innovation tend to come higher up the stack, where there's more leverage,” Johnson said. “For example, Grails and Spring Roo don't just provide a framework; they help developers while they work, in a similar way to Rails.”
Moreover, Johnson said he believes the industry will see a lot of movement in how the Java ecosystem works with emerging technologies. “For example, how to talk to nonrelational databases and how to write applications that target today's proliferation of nontraditional client devices, which communicate to the server differently,” he said. “And, of course, an increasing number of Java applications will be targeted toward PaaS.”
While some view enhanced innovation as what is needed for Java to continue to thrive, others say a steady hand is probably what Java needs most.
“Oracle has had a major impact on Java,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, which provides popular tools for Java developers.
Indeed, Milinkovich breaks down Oracle’s contribution to Java:
“First, they have invested in the Java platform development team and in the engineering resources to build, test and release a major platform like Java. That is absolutely key for a mature enterprise software platform such as Java. Second, they have provided stability and leadership for Java. They can be criticized for some of their decisions since taking over Java, but there is absolutely no doubt what the rules are, who’s in charge and where they’re taking it. During the last couple of years of Sun’s existence, those attributes were sorely lacking. That clarity is having positive effects on the Java ecosystem, as SAP’s recent decision to join and contribute to OpenJDK clearly shows.”
The Eclipse Foundation also has had an impact on Java over the past couple of years, Milinkovich said. Eclipse has been directly involved at the governance level of both the JCP and OpenJDK. And on the technology side, “Eclipse remains the ubiquitous tooling platform for Java developers, and our recent Indigo release has some of the coolest new features in years,” he added.
IDC’s Hilwa agrees that Oracle has brought balance to the Java landscape. According to Hilwa:
“In many ways Java has been rescued from stagnation. The JCP process had gotten overly political, and the beginnings of the split with Android took roots in Sun’s last year of custody of Java. Oracle brought a no-nonsense attitude to managing Java, pragmatically splitting the features into two new releases, one of which has already shipped. It cleaned up the work around JavaFX, and perhaps unexpectedly kept investing in NetBeans and GlassFish. Overall, it is a good story and they have made progress. Oracle managed to rally everyone around JDK, including IBM, Apple and Red Hat. One of the victims has been the loss of Apache from the JCP, but I have a feeling that over time that rift might get repaired.”
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