Email and Forum Questions Profiles in IT: Phillip Zimmerman Google Releases A Browser Called Chrome T-Mobile First Offer Android CIA, FBI push 'Facebook for spies' Mark Shuttleworth Has a Dream for Ubuntu IT Challenges in China Website of the Week: Drop.io Google Celebrates 10th Anniversary Food Science: Cereals
Email from Teresa: Hi, I had to replace the modem for dial up a 56k v92 modem desktop and now the call waiting will not bump me off while on line. The modem in the lap top also will not bump me off while on line. I have another desktop computer windows xp in the house and the call waiting works fine with Agree MOH. Why is the call waiting not working with the laptop windows XP and the desktop newer graphics, windows XP for my son? I tried to download Agree MOH and Net waiting and they will not download to the other 2 computers. Any help you can give me will be appreciated. I really do not want to add another line and we live in the county DSL is not available. Sincerely Teresa Brown
Tech Talk Answers: The good news is that V.92 modem standard supports Modem-on-Hold (MOH). Doing MoH usually requires an extra program – applet – running on your system. In most cases, an icon will appear in the system tray when the applet is running. Not all V.92 modems are shipped with MoH software. MoH may also require a modem driver upgrade. Go to you vendors site download the latest drivers and MOH applet.
Email from Kirk: Dear Tech Talk. I have a relative who could use a GPS, but has limited intellectual capabilities. Can you recommend a plain vanilla, inexpensive, easy to operate unit? All we need is turn-by-turn directions to the destination. Kirk Randall, Fairfax Virginia.
Tech Talk Answers: There are no really simple GPS systems, but the low end ones with all the advanced features may be the best for you. I would suggest Garmin Nuvi 200 or TomTomOne. They are both the entry-level models and have a list price around $200. They don’t include advanced features like multiple destinations, Bluetooth or MP3 player.
Profiles in IT: Phillip Zimmerman
Philip R. "Phil" Zimmermann Jr. (born February 12, 1954) is the creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), the most widely used email encryption software in the world.
He is also known for his work in VoIP encryption protocols, notably ZRTP and Zfone.
He was born in Camden, New Jersey. His father was a concrete mixer truck driver.
Zimmermann received a B.S. degree in computer science from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton in 1978, and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He was one of the first to make asymmetric or public key, encryption software readily available to the general public.
He released the source code to PGP, and shortly thereafter, it became available overseas via the Internet, though Zimmermann has said he had no part in its distribution outside the US.
Motivation for release: Senate Bill 266, a 1991 omnibus anticrime bill, would have forced manufacturers of secure communications equipment to insert special "trap doors" in their products, so that the government could read anyone’s encrypted messages. Bill was defeated.
The Customs Service started a criminal investigation of Zimmermann, for allegedly violating the Arms Export Control Act.
The US Government had long regarded cryptographic software as a munition, and thus subject to arms trafficking export controls.
At that time, the boundary between permitted ("low strength") cryptography and impermissible ("high strength") cryptography placed PGP well on the too-strong-to-export side (this boundary has since been relaxed).
The investigation lasted three years, but was finally dropped without filing charges.
After the government dropped its case without indictment in early 1996, Zimmermann founded PGP Inc. and released an updated version of PGP and some additional related products.
That company was acquired by Network Associates (NAI) in December 1997, and Zimmermann stayed on for three years as a Senior Fellow.
NAI decided to drop the product line and in 2002, PGP was acquired from NAI by a new company called PGP Corporation.
Zimmermann now serves as a special advisor and consultant to that firm. Zimmermann is also a fellow at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.
He was a principal designer of the cryptographic key agreement protocol (the "association model") for the Wireless USB standard.
In the very first version of PGP, an encryption algorithm was given the humorous name BassOmatic (after a skit on Saturday Night Live).
Pretty Good Privacy itself is named after a Lake Wobegon fictional grocery store named "Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery".
Downloaded and installed in less than a minute using my FIOS connection.
Simple streamlined look almost makes you forget you are using a browser.
Integrated search engine
Each tab is a separate thread so one tab can crash and the others are not affected.
Chrome introduction on Google’s website:
Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.
By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites.
We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.
We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We are making our entire code open source.
T-Mobile First Offer Android
T-Mobile USA will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone based on Google’s Android software.
The phone will be made by High Tech Computer Corp and is expected to challenge
The phone is expected to go on sale in the U.S. before Christmas and perhaps as early as October.
Last November, Google introduced its Android software system for designing mobile phone devices, in a move it promised could help the cellphone industry make the Internet work as smoothly on phones as it does on computers.
CIA, FBI push ‘Facebook for spies’
The CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency are encouraging their staff members to use a new social-networking site designed for spies
The site is like Facebook and YouTube and runs on a secure network.
The program is called A-Space, and it’s a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
Analysts can use A-Space to share information and opinion about al Qaeda movements in the Middle East or Russian naval maneuvers in the Black Sea.
The new A-Space site has been undergoing testing for months and launches officially for the nation’s entire intelligence community September 22.
The goal of A-Space, like intelligence analysis in general, is to protect the United States by assessing all the information available to the spy agencies.
Missing crucial data can have enormous implications, particularly when you try to connect the dots.
Only intelligence personnel with the proper security clearance, and a reason to be examining particular information, can access the site.
The creators of A-Space do not want it to be used by some future double agent.
To protect against such use, the system has a mechanism to track unusual behavior.
Analysts can also collect friends on A-Space the way people can on Facebook.
Hacker breaks into FEMA phone system
A hacker broke into a Homeland Security Department telephone system last month and racked up about $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia.
The hacker made more than 400 calls on a Federal Emergency Management Agency voicemail system in Emmitsburg, Md., according to FEMA.
FEMA is part of Homeland Security, which in 2003 put out a warning about this very vulnerability.
The voicemail system is new and recently was installed. It is a Private Branch Exchange, or PBX, a traditional corporate phone network that is used in thousands of companies and government offices.
This type of hacking is very low-tech and "old school." It was popular 10 to 15 years ago.
Telecommunications security administrators now know to configure security settings, such as having individual users create unique passwords and not continue to use the password assigned to users in the initial setup.
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Yemen are among the countries calls were made to.
Sprint caught the fraud over the weekend and halted all outgoing long-distance calls from FEMA’s National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg.
It appears a "hole" was left open by the contractor when the voicemail system was being upgraded.
DHS warned against this very type of attack in a department information bulletin from June 3, 2003.
Mark Shuttleworth Has a Dream for Ubuntu
Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has big dreams for Linux.
Shuttleworth wants Linux to be more attractive that OS X within two years.
Shuttleworth’s remarks came at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention.
It’s odd to hear Shuttleworth talk about making Linux more beautiful, given Ubuntu’s default dull brown color scheme.
But the operating system and its user interface are already extraordinarily customizable.
IT Challenges in China
IBM Global Technology Services has released a white book called "Chinese IT Development Trend White Book" which analyzes in detail the history of Chinese enterprises’ IT development as well as their development trend in the future.
White Book shows that China’s technology has entered a period of amalgamation.
Three long term trends have emerged
Synchronizing business processes with IT infrastructure
Movement to the delivery of all digital services
Sustaining development pressures pushing the sector to ?go green?
The White Book discusses the major challenges faced by CIOs in China
Shift from basic construction to IT management
IP service management
Network adaptability to accommodate increasingly complicated processes
Disaster recovery and energy consumption
Server optimization and maintenance
Standardization of technology platforms for investment protection
Choose how long the link should be live (up to a year from the last page view)
Sharing the files is then as easy as sending the URL around.
There’s no registration, no cost, and no limit to how many URLs you can use.
You can expand your drops to and shorten the URLs for $10 per gigabyte per year.
Google Celebrates 10th Anniversary
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google Inc. on Sept. 7, 1998, they had little more than their ingenuity, four computers and an investor’s $100,000 bet on their belief that an internet search engine could change the world.
Google now has nearly 20,000 employees and a $150-billion market value to redefine media, marketing and technology.
Google’s expanding control over the flow of internet traffic and advertising already is raising monopoly concerns.
Privacy watchdogs also have sharpened their attacks on Google’s retention of potentially sensitive information about the 650 million people who use its search engine and other internet services like YouTube, Maps and Gmail. If the harping eventually inspires rules that restrict Google’s data collection, it could make its search engine less relevant and its ad network less profitable.
To protect its interests, Google has hired lobbyists to bend the ears of lawmakers and ramped up its public relations staff to sway opinion as management gears up to conquer new frontiers.
Extending Google’s to cellphones and other mobile devices sits at the top of management’s agenda for the next decade.
Eventually, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt wants the entire company to generate $100 billion in annual revenue, which would make it roughly as big as the two largest information-technology companies.
Food Science: Cereals
The first modern and commercial cereal foods were created by the American Seventh-day Adventists.
The Adventists formed the Western Health Reform Institute in the 1860s.
It was renamed the Battle Creek Sanitarium after its location in Battle Creek, MI.
The Adventists manufactured, promoted, and sold wholesome cereals. Cereal or grain is a member of the grass plant family, with starchy seeds used for food. Common cereals are: wheat, rice, rye, oats, barley, corn (maize), and sorghum.
In 1894, Will Keith Kellogg was trying to improve the diet of hospital patients. He was searching for a digestible bread substitute using the process of boiling wheat.
Kellogg accidentally left a pot of boiled wheat to stand and the wheat became tempered (soften). When Kellogg rolled the tempered or softened wheat and let it dry, each grain of wheat emerged as a large thin flake. The flakes turned out to be a tasty cereal. Kellogg had invented corn flakes.
Kellogg received his M.D. from Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York City, in 1875. He was a Seventh-day Adventist.
Will Keith Kellogg founded the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906.