Sun

1) Creative Web-Cam Live! Motion, $180.

This USB 2.0-connected Web cam has a 76-degree field of view, which beats out the typical 52-degree cam by almost 50 per cent. With Smart Face tracking, it can follow your movement and keep you in frame or it can be operated from the computer screen. The quiet motor pans and tilts with ease with 200-degree horizontal and 105-degree vertical viewing. Its base is designed to attach in the perfect place on your monitor for capturing video for messaging or conferencing. With its glowing blue ring, it comes in either pearl white or black. Oh, and if you want, you could use it to monitor a room in your house while you’re away.

2) NHL Optical Aqua Mouse, $29.95

We’re sure you’ve got your favourite NHL team’s pennants flying from either side of your LCD monitor. But that’s not really enough is it? Well, now you can get these NHL Model mice (mouses? meese?) — with a puck floating in water — for your favourite Canadian team. Once they were offered only in an arena version and sold in the likes of GM Place in Vancouver, but now they’re being made available by Pure Orange of Vancouver in retail stores, just in time for Christmas. Stores include CompuSmart and the Source by Circuit City.

3) Panasonic SDR-S100 camcorder, $1,650.

Lightweight and ultra-compact this three CCD camcorder records its images on SD memory cards rather than CDs or tape. It features 10x optical zoom and image stabilization. It is sold along with a two gigabyte memory card with the capacity to hold approximately 100 minutes of MPEG2 video if you record in LP mode. The SDR-S100 records in the 16:9 aspect, the same as widescreen TVs. And it can frame shots for the 4:3 aspect featured on traditional television sets. As well, the unit can be used to take 3.1 megapixel still shots.

4) USB Christmas Tree, just released in Japan, no price.

Yes, there are a number of USB Christmas trees around. Just plug them into the (USB, natch) port of your computer and they glow nicely throughout the Yuletide season. But this one has a little blower motor in it that takes tiny pieces of Styrofoam and scatters them around in an imitation of whirling snow. It also plays four Christmas songs, although it’s hard to make out from the Google translations from the Japanese exactly what these are since one of them is described as Once Upon a Time, Mary Christmas, which we suspect just isn’t true. In any case, it probably has, oh, half an hour’s worth of amusement in it.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Future networks would use matter and light to process information

Sarah Staples
Sun

American researchers have taken a giant leap toward building future “quantum” telecommunications networks and computers that could process information using combinations of matter and light.

In a paper published today in Nature, physicists from the Georgia Institute of Technology show how they stored and retrieved a single photon (or particle of light) within a cloud of atoms (which are particles of matter). And they built the quantum version of a “repeater” — a system in telecommunications that captures photons and reroutes them so they can travel long distances over optical networks.

The result is being called a significant advance in the realm of quantum mechanics, which seeks to harness the mysterious behaviour of atomic and subatomic particles to create faster, more sophisticated machines.

The Georgia Tech experiment could lead to eavesdrop-proof messages being sent by banks, government agencies and militaries around the world, and more secure e-commerce for the masses.

Ultimately, it might help usher in an age of computers and robots that would be capable of processing information at speeds well beyond the fastest, most formidable of today’s supercomputers, the authors say.

Quantum computing “would be very useful for research that takes huge computational power,” said Thierry Chaneliere, the physicist and first author of a paper with professors Alex Kuzmich and Brian Kennedy.

Where modern computers take time to sequentially translate electrical pulses into bits of data encoded mathematically as “ones” or “zeroes,” quantum computers would break the same information down into “qubits” — particles that can access all degrees of computation between the zeroes and ones, conceivably handling multiple computer operations simultaneously.

Scientists estimate that just 50 qubits would be needed to crunch “petaflops” of data — the equivalent of thousands of trillions of computations a second.

“Biology, medical applications like testing new drugs, artificial intelligence, robotics, weather simulation — fields where you really need a lot of intelligence to simulate complex situations would all benefit,” said Chaneliere.

The “repeater” he created traps a single photon, stores it, converts it into matter then back into light, and retransmits it — all with the help of lasers and carefully controlled magnetic fields.

It’s a precision tool that, since it involves only one photon, could instantly recognize attempts by interlopers to intercept data as it travels over a telecom network.

In building a quantum computer, the repeater would become the “memory” system for storing information.

The next, long-sought advance in quantum computing will be to figure out how to build a processor that could take data stored in the memory and perform computations with it.

The quantum processor is “the Holy Grail in a sense, but we’re still a long way from getting there,” he said.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Companies face new hazards now that the Net makes it easier for employees to steal money or information, or commit sabotage

Gillian Shaw
Sun

Employees may also use a company computer to access illegal websites, including child pornography or discrimination sites, putting the employer at risk if its equipment and Internet access is being used for that activity. Also, the prospect of police descending on your business to confiscate computers for a forensic investigation into child porn could hardly be good for your company’s reputation.

Another problem is hacking — even an attempt made in fun to try out hacking tools found online can backfire on the company that owns the computer being used. Iverson tells of a local college that found itself the target of an investigation when a student launched a hack attack just as a lark.

Computers also make it easier for employees to disclose information, since it no longer has to be painstakingly copied on the office machine and hidden in a briefcase. All it takes is a quick e-mail to a browser account to deliver confidential information and trade secrets, or plugging in a keychain storage device to download crucial information and walking out the door with it.

When it comes to litigation, employees should be aware that company e-mails are fair game, so damaging comments made in such mail may come back to haunt the company.

And then there is monetary theft. Re-directing money is so much easier in the digital age. Iverson tells of cases where the salary of a long-departed employee continued to be paid through the company payroll, with the funds going into the account of an employee at the company. Iverson said such schemes often fall apart only when the thieving employee goes on holiday or gets sick and the person filling in discovers the fraud.

In worst-case scenarios, denial-of-service attacks can bring down entire online systems, putting a halt not only to companies that are engaged in e-commerce but seriously impeding business at any company that relies on network communications. Anything from large attachments to website downloads and other non-business-related functions, to a complete virus infection can slow and stall a company’s computer network.

Buchanan, who has represented both employees and employers in cases relating to computers and the Internet, said employees must also be wary of what can go wrong.

“From the point of view of employees, people should be very careful what they put in e-mail and one their computer,” he said. “It can certainly come back to bite you.”

Employers that don’t have a clearly defined policy that entitles them to look at everything in their computers must give employees notice of such a change, Buchanan said. He said companies should expect to give the same notice that would be required of any workplace change deemed to be to the detriment of employees.

“If you already have 150 employees and you have no policy, it is harder to announce, ‘Guess what, tomorrow we might start looking at your computer,’ ” he said. “What you do in those circumstances, is that you treat it like any material change that is to the detriment of the employees.”

So for example, if employees were entitled to six months termination notice, the same notice would be required before a company could expect to freely access information on their computers. In hiring, Buchanan said, employers could make such a requirement a condition of employment.

Employers and employees alike also shouldn’t think that they can easily make information on their computer systems disappear. Iverson said he has been called in to find information on a computer that has been reformatted by an employee before leaving, supposedly erasing any incriminating information. That’s not enough — short of taking a computer hard drive to pieces, such attempts to cover a trail will likely be unsuccessful.

One employee did manage to foil Iverson by putting strong password protection on encrypted files in his computer. Iverson, who was searching for a poison pen letter — a damning letter sent by an employee to a supplier or client to discredit a company — thought it was a lost cause.

“Then I came across a list of passwords in an Excel spreadsheet — the passwords were so complicated in nature that unless you had a fantastic memory, you could never remember them, so the person kept a whole file of passwords on the computer.”

CYBER ABUSE:

Computer misuse can take many forms. Forensic computer specialist Dave Iverson co-wrote with Keri Grenier, a member of the Clark Wilson labour and employment practice group, an alert warning companies to the dangers that could lurk around their employees’ computers, including:

– Time theft: The personal use of company e-mail and Internet access that can erode efficiency.

– Conflict of interest: Using company e-mail and Internet access for personal gain, such as running an online business, gambling online or simply searching for a new job.

– Harassment and defamation: Employees may harass or defame other employees or third parties in their e-mail. Even displaying inappropriate images on a computer screen that can be viewed by others could constitute harassment. With the employer’s name usually appearing on the e-mail, the recipient may look to the employer as the source of the e-mail.

– Violation of copyright and trademark laws: Employees who download information or files that may be protected by copyright and trademark laws could be putting their company at risk of being held liable for the offence.

– Violation of privacy laws: The Personal Information and Protection Act requires employers not to collect, use, or disclose personal information unless an individual’s consent is first obtained. That may put an employer at a disadvantage in investigating the computer use of an employee, who could argue that some of the information found is personal and out of bounds to the employer, even on a company computer.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Cash, not notoriety, now main draw, Sophos says

Jim Jamieson
Province

Writers of malicious code are increasingly motivated by financial gain, not notoriety, says a 12-month review to be released today by global antivirus company Sophos.

The Security Threat Management 2005 report said organized crime is playing a increasing role in the distribution of so-called malware.

Martha Stuart, a Sophos senior security consultant, said that, as the Internet has become more commonly used, criminals have joined forced to produce multi-threat campaigns that co-ordinate viruses, spam, phishing and spyware.

“There is the ability to gain quite a bit of financial success from creating this type of malware,” said Stuart. “As people are using the Internet more, they are seeing quite a lucrative activity when they get into a computer that they can control, whether it’s financial information, denial of service attacks or other activity.”

Financial institutions alone are reported to have lost $400 million US in 2004 due to phishing. Phishing is an attempt through electronic communication to scam a person or group into revealing such things as passwords and credit-card numbers.

Stuart said Sophos has seen the number of attacks increase 48 per cent over the previous year.

The company, which has a large development and sales office in Vancouver, saw 15,907 new threats in 2005, compared to 10,724 the previous year.

© The Vancouver Province 2005

Province

The organization that oversees the Internet has tentatively approved an .asia web domain to unify the Asia-Pacific community, but it has delayed a decision on a .xxx zone for pornography sites.

At its annual meeting this past weekend in Vancouver, the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers said the new .asia domain would supplement suffixes available for individual countries, such as .cn for China and .jp for Japan. A decision on .xxx is expected in early 2006.

© The Vancouver Province 2005

David Carrigg
Sun

A network of high-tech cameras is to be installed on the shoreline around Vancouver to boost security. “We want to be able to track all vessels within our jurisdiction,” said Graham Kee, the Vancouver Port Authority’s director of security. All commercial ships must have a system that electronically advises the port they are visiting what they are doing and where they have come from. But non-commercial ships and yachts that arrive unannounced could be a security threat. To deal with the problem, the Vancouver port will spend much of a $3.6-million federal security grant to install cameras between Deltaport and Indian Arm to monitor boat traffic. The number of cameras required has not been determined. Installation will begin next year. Kee said the Canada Border Services Agency will also install radiation monitors next year to determine if a container holds radioactive materials. The Vancouver port’s $3.6-million security grant is on top of $8 million it got from Ottawa last year to upgrade the cruise ship terminal, port control room and perimeter fencing. The money is part of a $115-million security package for Canadian ports. Three Vancouver Island port communities have also received cash to upgrade security. [email protected] © The Vancouver Province 2005

Vint Cerf likens computers and the ‘Net to colour television in the 1950s

Gillian Shaw
Sun

A dramatic rise in the number of Internet devices coupled with falling prices means the Internet will truly become a worldwide web — with billions more users and a future where nobody need be left offline.

That’s how Vint Cerf, widely regarded as the father of the Internet, sees the future of life online, where the one billion users online today are joined by the billions who aren’t, driven the shrinking cost of accessing the web.

“Remember there are only one billion estimated users on the Net, we still have five-and-a-half billion users to go so there is a lot of work to do — I mean for the Internet community,” said Cerf, chair of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the California-based non-profit corporation that oversees domain names as well as Net addresses.

“There is a lot to be done to bring it to the rest of the world,” said Cerf, who is in Vancouver this week for an ICANN meeting.

Cerf is a computer scientist who has often been dubbed the father of the Internet for his work on the original U.S. Department of Defence project in 1973 that led to today’s global network. He’s now Google’s chief Internet evangelist — and it’s a role he clearly relishes.

“I’m assuming if I get a promotion it will be to archangel,” Cerf said with a laugh referring to the titles that have been bestowed upon him.

“Google is an interesting place to be. It’s full of energy.”

Cerf said the “25-year-old kids,” as he refers to Google staffers, aren’t stopped by the worry that they can’t make something work — he said they go ahead and do it anyway.

Their work in delivering Google Earth — a mapping and satellite photo software that not only picks out locations but allows the users to zoom in and get a bird’s eye view of the location they are seeking — is among examples Cerf points to in the Internet’s trend towards a future where location-based services, combining with GPS to deliver customized information, become the norm.

Internet devices will proliferate, according to Cerf, leaving the Internet with more devices connected to it than people.

“I can see unlimited applications showing up in this environment,” he said. “Devices at the edge of the Net are typically programmable.

“It creates an endless frontier for all those things that are plugged into the Internet.”

The growth in the Internet, according to Cerf, will come in mobile devices.

“There is already a tidal wave coming in the form of mobiles which historically have not been part of the Internet,” he said. “But a large fraction of them are becoming Internet enabled.

“There is in the order of two billion of those devices in the world. In five years time, more and more will be on the Net. The current devices that are on the Net will be joined by those two billion or more mobiles and then we will see set top boxes, household appliances, automobiles, not only on the Net but participating in GPS.”

The economic divide has put the Internet beyond the reach of many people around the globe but Cerf expects that divide will shrink as the cost of both online devices and Internet service drops.

He likened computers and the Internet to colour television back in the 1950s when a colour TV set represented a substantial chunk of income.

“One of the things in technology is that technologies often start out to be very expensive and if it is a popular thing, we get a production learning curve.” he said, adding that he sees costs, “dropping dramatically,” around the Internet delivery and devices.

The launch of this week’s conference was marred by a lawsuit in the U.S. launched against ICANN in a bid to stop it from allowing VeriSign Inc. to maintain control of the “.com” domain until 2012.

The VeriSign proposal is on the agenda for this week’s discussions and Cerf said the lawsuit won’t interrupt that work.

“This is not the first time we had had a lawsuit launched against ICANN and it is also not the first time one was launched on the first day of a week of hard work,” Cerf said. “In my view it is not going to have any material effect on our ability to get our work done this week.”

Cerf said ICANN’s lawyers will be responding to the suit and the request for a restraining order.

A trade group of Internet businesses, The World of Domain Name Developers Inc., filed a lawsuit in federal court in California Monday challenging ICANN’s proposed settlement with VeriSign.

The VeriSign proposal was expected to be finalized by the end of this year. Cerf said members of the Internet community have been invited to submit their responses to the proposed agreement and meetings scheduled for this week will provide a forum for discussion of any issues and problems they raise.

“I don’t expect to resolve any issues will have been resolved in this meeting,” he said. “I do expect to come away with a very clear sense of what the problems will be.

“The next step will be to see if there are any amendments possible that will satisfy those concerns.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Anick Jesdanun
Sun

Internet overseers gather this week in Vancouver

Peter Wilson
Sun

Have you ever stopped to think what would happen if your computer was damaged, destroyed or stolen? Here are a few precautions to help you avoid slowing or even stopping your business:

Sun

1.     Be wary of email fraud.  If the FBI or CIBC or any financial institution needs information from you they won’t ask for it via email!  Click the following link for examples of email fraud:  http://www.cibc.com/ca/legal/fraud-examples.html

2.    Phishing – is a type of scheme that uses fraudulent e-mail and web pages to gather personal, financial and sensitive information for the purpose of identity theft.  The request looks like an authentic email, branded with a corporation’s look & logos…  For more information and examples click the following link:  http://www.cibc.com/ca/legal/phishing-info.html

3.    Keep your anti-virus software up to date. Activate Auto-Update.  New viruses are discovered every day and Norton can update your definitions every few hours to keep you protected.  Other anti-virus products can do the same.  And run Live Update regularly too, to be safe.

4.    Don’t open attachments if you don’t know what they are or who they are from.

5.    If your computer does become infected or if you receive an email warning you about a virus, take a look at www.symantec.com for up-to-date information.   There is a comprehensive search engine and information on how to remove each virus.  Some email warnings are actually hoaxes and simply waste time – you can find information about these too.

6.    Use remax.net as your email forwarding service.  60% of what is sent to the RE/MAX server is discarded as spam / virus infected and it’s a bonus not to receive it!  From my personal experience last week I received dozens of infected files on my other email address and not even one on my remax.net address.  

7.     If you preview messages in Outlook / Outlook Express you are actually opening the email and risk of running and propogating a macro virus.  Technicians recommend that you disable the viewing pane in Outlook.  Select the Inbox folder and click on “View”, “Preview Pane” to toggle it off (Different versions will have other ways of doing the same thing).  Then click on Deleted Items, Junk Mail and other folders and do the same.  

8.    Backup your valuable data and keep your backups off site (What if your computer is stolen and the backup disk is in it? What if your office burns down or gets flooded?).  Do not back up onto the same disk all the time.  Label your backup disks and have a system in place so you know the date of the backup on each disk.

Be safe!

Wendy Chapman on behalf of Deborah Upton

Managing Broker

RE/MAX Crest Realty (Westside)

3215 MacDonald Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6L 2N2 / #2-1012 Beach Ave, Vancouver, BC, V6E 1T7 Canada

Office: 604.732.1336 (ext 220), Toll Free: 1.800.668.3369

www.remax-crest-vancouver-bc.com / www.happystreet.ca