Show of 12-6-2003

VoIP ? Major Trend Number 1

What is VoIP and why is it important?
FCC VoIP Forum was conducted December 1, 2003
- Purpose to discuss the regulatory framework of VoIP
- Agenda included
  - Opening Remarks by Chairman
  - Background Presentation by FCC
  - Panel I ? What is VoIP?
  - Panel II ? VoIP and Public Policy
  - Closing Statements by Chairman
- FCC Chairman, Michael K Powell, said in his opening remarks ?I believe that IP-based services such as VoIP should evolve in a regulation-free zone.?
- John Hodulik, CFA, UBS Investment Research believes the ?The FCC needs to take a leadership position, creating one set of rules that distinguish between different types of VoIP. Until this is completed, investors will remain wary about funding new ventures that provide the service.
- Jeffrey Citron, CEO, Vonage Holdings Corp. said, ?VoIP is yet another Internet application and , as such, the mere spector or common carrier regulation opens up a Pandora?s box that has the potential to?? ?slow the growth of VoIP. ?. regulation, will undoutably spread to other applications, perhaps email, instant messaging, Internet conferencing, Internet video, and ?radio? programming.
Pits the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) against the VoIP upstarts like Vonage.
Consumers will be the winners.
Career Tip1: Become familiar with VoIP.
Career Tip 2: Learn IPv6 which is mandated for all networks by 2008.

Linux ? Major Trend Number 2

Linux Kernel 2.6, to be released next month, is scalable
- Under development for last three years
- Includes scalability improvements
  - Support multiprocessing with up to 64 CPUs
  - Supports 64 Gbytes of memory for improved operating on 64-bit Intel and AMD chips
Linux crew is confident that the SCO lawsuit will not have a major impact. The bulk of the code is not in question.
Novell bought SuSe Linux for $210M and IBM invested $50M. May be an SCO defensive play too for IBM.
Last month China selected the Linux OS to be installed in 1 million machines next year. Ultimately in 200 to 300 million machines.
- Open source code very appealing to Chinese who like collaborative projects (i.e. the Great Wall).
- Expect Japan and South Korea to follow
- Open source is like a ?global barn raising? according to Steven Lerman, director of MIT?s Center for Education Computing.
- Similar networks have been built around the human genome project.
Pentagon issue a directive encouraging the use of free and open-source software
In the developing world, Linux and free and open-source software have economic and political attraction.
Expect competition in the server market

Number Portability ? Week Three (link requires free registration)

Hundreds of thousands have switched in the last ten days ( around 80,000 a day)
- Tens of thousands had to wait a few days
- Some had to wait a week
According to the New York Times, the automated systems supposed to fulfill number portability switching requests are failing about 50 percent of the time, forcing employees to transfer customer data manually, which incurs delays.
In particular, AT&T finds itself in the position of losing more customers than others while struggling technically to improve its switching speed, so much that they got a letter from the FCC asking for explanations about their delays.
Winners and losers
- Verizon and T-Mobile gain customers
- Sprint PCS, Nextel and Cingular Wireless are staying even
- AT&T is losing customers

New Spam Bill is a Turkey

Real Solution to Spam is Years Away

A workable solution would requires authenticated source address to keep spammers from spoofing
Vendor alliance supporting sender-authentication includes Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Earthlink, Anti-Spam Research Group
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) are working on a solution
- All proposed protocols would allow the server receiving the message to query the domain that that message purports to be from asking if the server that sent the mail is authorized to send from that domain
- The recipient can then choose to accept or reject email from a particular verified domain.
- One year from final proposal and test. Expect a solution in a couple of years.
In the meantime, grin and bear it. Use some spam filters that are available.

Ron Harris, former Gaming Control Board computer whiz, used his job to cheat casinos out of almost $50K
Inserted a computer program into a device used to control board employees to check the proper functioning of slot machines.
When testing the device, it downloaded a cheating program, call a gaff, into the computer chips in the machines
When a specific series of coin bets were made, the program took over and awarded jackpots
Harris us accomplices to collect jackpots from 6 of the 34 rigged machines.
This hack has important implications relating to electronic voting machine security

Electronic Voting Machines (continued)

Nevada to enlist the expertise of the Nevada Gaming Control Board to ensure the machines are secure and accurate
Will evaluate Sequoia Voting Systems and Diebold Election Systems
Voting machine companies should learn from slot companies
- Background checks on all programmers
- Outside auditors monitor the code

This Christmas It is All About Gadgets

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