Computers

Twan Eikelenboom from the Netherlands is currently studying Media & Culture at the University of Amsterdam. He has a special interest in “navigating and exploring this seemingly endless space that new media realities give us.”

When the invitation for the Benelux Google Geoday 2007, shaped in the form of the Google Maps marker which has risen to fame in the past years, landed in my mailbox it promised to become an interesting day in Amsterdam’s EXPO XXI this Thursday. With presentations by Bernhard Seefeld (Google/Endoxon), Brandon Badger (Google) and Remco Kouwenhoven (Nederkaart) in the morning and workshops on Google Earth and the Google Maps API in the afternoon. With a big thanks to the people at Generation Next who were responsible for my ticket in the first place.

Google’s Geo development (Google Earth and Google Maps) has taken a big step in the previous years, with the coming of Earth and Maps there is a definite focus on adding layer after layer of information on the globe. Like graffiti on a wall everyone can apply meanings to the maps made available by the Google Geo team. As Lev Manovich noticed in The Poetics of Augmented Space: Learning from Prada when talking about Augmented Space: The 90s were about the virtual, the 2000s will probably be about the physical. Not the infinite Internet, but the finite space of the physical land. And it seems that Google eagerly agrees with this prophecy. Below is my account of the day.

Keynote by Bernhard Seefeld

Dangerous dragons were used in the early days of mapping if parts of the map were not known yet to the cartographer. This is one of the examples Seefeld uses from the early mapping practices, which stands for the improving of the image and the filling of the gaps. The early cartographers did not have the information to fill in the holes so they just drew dragons. Another example given is the map of New Holland, or what is now called Australia. The interesting thing is that the Portuguese probably reached this land first, but the Dutch were the first to draw a map of it and therefore being ’responsible’ for the discovery of the land (a discovery from a Western perspective, anyway, as the Aboriginees were already there).

Seefeld takes the first example and also the mapping of New Holland, which was not accurate at first to say the least as the shape of the land on this image shows, to the present. He notices that the Google Geo team faces a similar situation in pasting together the best available satellite imagery to create the globe of Google Earth. Sometimes the information is available, sometimes not and in that case lesser detailed imagery has to be used. It is not about drawing dragons, but about improving satellite images.

So now we have an explanation of Google’s basemap philosophy, pasting together a globe in a way that perhaps reminds us of the patched body of Frankenstein’s monster. Building on top of that basemap is the next step and this is also the core of the Google Geo team’s stated mission: Organize the world’s geographic information and make it universally accessible and usable. Which is derived from Google’s overall mission statement, which is actually the same but doesn’t include the term geographic.

Instead of discovering new land, like in the age of navigation and in the second example given above, the user is now able to discover new information, the era of the information age. The emphasis here was especially on the enhanced content applied to the base like web links, reviews of places, photographs and featured content. Seefeld actually went as far as too say that the base is nice and the content makes it great. The base is always the same, just like the physical. But it is information and meanings applied to the physical space that make it what it is. The new idea is that meaning is applied with the use of the virtual, leaving aside the physical. Through the geo applications, new discoveries can be done in the physical space. As an example Seefeld showed the Google ant; a species that got discovered with the help of geo applications.

But all this information applied to the surface of the earth requires a way to search the information. This is the territory of the spatial web, which is all about geotagging, KML and more. Making the meanings applied to the earth searchable. But nowadays discovering the earth isn’t as dangerous as it used to be. The dragons are gone; discovery has become a safe practice. Boring? Perhaps. You can always try the navigation option in Google Maps and Earth and follow the directions, even if it asks you to swim across the Atlantic Ocean.

What is fascinating is the applying of so many meanings to the finite globe with the help of this virtual reality. I asked Seefeld the question what his views are on potential conflicting meanings. He emphasized the role of the user and also said that it is important to have access to all opinions. Getting everything 100% true is very difficult but the goal is to fix it again and again until it is good, with the help of user opinions. This really reminded me of the already infamous Wikipedia wars, which are more about events, persons, etc. while Google Earth is about space and meaning. As Dorling & Fairbairn say in the chapter Alternative Views from their book Mapping: Ways of Representing the World: “Maps have always presented pictures of ’truth’ and just as many people have many different truths, so there are many maps to be drawn.”

“From API to mashup” by Brandon Badger

The key to presenting all these various views on planet earth and what a website developer can show his/her visitor are mashups. Using the base map and applying content, meaning, to it. Badger emphasizes the essential role of the user and giving us a rather simple and commercial equation: Google’s tools + You = Victory. A more convincing model for the concept of the mashup was that the sum of its parts is greater than the whole: 1 + 1 = 2,53542. I guess it is a good thing Time magazine named us as persons of the year, but it also makes us a lot busier with supplying content for Web2.0 applications. When will “we” get too busy with supplying content until the point that we don’t want to do it anymore? It will probably mark the end of Web2.0: The death of the user.

Mashups by Remco Kouwenhoven

On his website Nederkaart.nl Remco Kouwenhoven shows lots of examples of mashups with the use of the Google Maps API. He showed us some of these on the screen, but the one that struck me the most was this map about the air traffic above Schiphol. What it intends to show is the high density of airplanes at Schiphol airport paired with complaints about the noise.

This reminded me of a remark by Mark Monmonier in the Dorling & Fairbairn piece I already mentioned above: “Cartographic propaganda can be an effective intellectual weapon against an unresponsive, biased, or corrupt bureaucracy.” These mashups can provide this cartographic propaganda in real-time. Current issues can be addressed with the help of real-time information gathering. On Kouwenhoven’s website a lot more examples can be seen and it is a definitely worth browsing and importing some of the examples into Google Earth.

More impressions from the Geoday and Google’s Amsterdam office (with Google bikes) courtesy of Remco Kouwenhoven.

The Workshops

After a morning of presentations the afternoon was reserved for us, the user, to start creating content using the tools supplied by Google as Badger pointed out. Although I’m not sure for how long these links will be online you can check out the small assignments of the workhops at these links: Google Earth workshop and Google Maps API workshop. More technical info is also available through code.google.com. There was one jawdropping example in the Google Earth workshop that I didn’t know about, which is an incredibly detailed 3D city model of Berlin. Definitely a must-see.

After spending two hours being immersed in the representation of the physical space on the screen, the pavement on my way to the train station also had some new meaning applied to it. A strange awareness of how easy meaning can be applied to the physical space we navigate each day, or to the places where we live. Being unaware which meaning has been applied in the virtual to the places we call home. What also struck me after this day is the dependence of Google on the user, who is responsible for supplying the content. It makes you think, but for some reason I’m just feeling lucky right now.

[By Twan Eikelenboom | Original post | Comments]

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Google managing counsel Michael Kwun wrote a peppered letter to the Washington Post in regards to the Viacom/ YouTube court case. His choice of language makes it sound as if the two parties involved are really wearing their battle gear, and you can only imagine the screaming and biting that went on in the background negotiations before Viacom started to sue! Some quotes (my emphasis):

<<Viacom’s lawsuit is an attack on the way people communicate on the Web and on the platforms that allow people to make the Internet their own. (...)

Content-hosting sites such as YouTube, Craigslist and MySpace that want to take advantage of the DMCA’s safe harbors must promptly remove infringing content if the copyright owner so requests, giving owners a quick remedy that doesn’t require going to court. Copyright owners, in return, have the responsibility to identify infringing material they want removed. Viacom’s lawyers helped craft this law but apparently don’t like it, after all. (...)

Viacom is attempting to rewrite established copyright law through a baseless lawsuit. In February, after negotiations broke down, Viacom requested that YouTube take down more than 100,000 videos. We did so immediately, working through a weekend. Viacom later withdrew some of those requests, apparently realizing that those videos were not infringing, after all. Though Viacom seems unable to determine what constitutes infringing content, its lawyers believe that we should have the responsibility and ability to do it for them. Fortunately, the law is clear, and on our side.>>

I dunno. It seems unrealistic both to expect of Viacom to monitor YouTube, or for Google/ YouTube to do so themselves – both models make it almost impossible to get a social media site running. The “safe harbor” seems to be favoring sites like YouTube in favor of the content owners like Viacom, because it puts the burden of proof on Viacom, not YouTube. But which solution would be feasible while making everyone happy – Viacom, the YouTube users, and Google/ YouTube? Is it enough if in the future, content creators like Viacom’s network simply don’t own their content (or the content location) anymore, but they’ll just be benefitting from the side-effects of increased attention (if they’re smart enough to provide the right means to fulfill the expectations of the attention stream, e.g. by offering high-quality subscriptions downloads of Colbert Report)?

[Thanks Ricardo R.!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

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The six first positions of the March top ten are the same as the previous month:

1: Adware/Lop 
2: Adware/Gator
3: Application/MyWebSearch 
4: Adware/SaveNow 
5: Adware/nCase
6: Application/Winantivirus2006

The version of fakecodecs that is most extended currently, that is, Adware/VideoActiveXObject rises from the 8th to the 7th position.

Spyware/Virtumonde rises from 17th to 9th position. This malware is continually displaying banners belonging to rogue antispywares and error-repairing programs. Some versions also send information about the programs that the user has installed in the computer. They also download the toolbar Application/VSToolbar, which is in 38th position.

Adware/NaviPromo rises from 35th to 27th position. It is an adware that promotes dialers and uses rootkit functionalities in order to go unnoticed.

Trj/Torpig.A gains the 37th position. The families belonging to Trj/Torpig and Trj/Sinowal are very similar. We explained the techniques used by Trj/Sinowal in the eCrime Congress. You can take a look at the paper here.

(InfoWorld) - If you like cooking, you may have played the same game that I sometimes play while waiting in line at the grocery store: Checking out what other shoppers have in their baskets and trying to guess what meals they have in mind.

Silly? Perhaps, but it's better than reading the tabloids.

Watching storage vendors often triggers in me the same type of curiosity to figure out what’s cooking -- that is, in terms of their acquisitions.

The latest vendor to get me guessing is Cisco with its recent one-two punch of NeoPath and WebEx. Those two acquisitions both suggest an expansion of Cisco's menu beyond the traditional data transport focus.

I won't speculate on what Cisco plans to do with WebEx because Ephraim Schwartz has already posted some good thoughts on that, but looking at NeoPath, I see a more elaborate dish in the making than just file virtualization. The "secret ingredient" that NeoPath brings to the table is policy-driven file administration, a powerful feature that can save money and add superb flexibility to storage management.

Here's why: You may have millions of files parked on expensive first-tier storage that is getting full. Using policy-driven file migration, you can move those files to a less expensive storage tier using criteria based on, say, size, age, and content, and postpone (or avoid altogether) purchasing additional, more expensive arrays.

Will users be affected by that move? Not if you are using solutions such as NeoPath’s SMARTtouch, which provides seamless redirection from the old file location to the new one. Your users may not even notice that their files have been moved.

If you think that policy-driven file management is just nice to have but not a critical feature, consider that EMC made it a priority to add a similar capability to its newly acquired file virtualization technology from Rainfinity.

I'll wait to see how Cisco plays the NeoPath card, but to get the data migration features of EMC Rainfinity, you need to purchase that solution and comply with all its hardware requirements.

If buying more expensive hardware is not in your plans, be aware that an Australian startup, Moonwalk, made its U.S. debut this week with a software-only solution that enables policy-driven file management without adding more hardware to your datacenter.

In fact, Moonwalk 6.0 is based on lightweight, small-footprint agents that, driven by a centralized schedule and a set of rules, identify files that should be moved elsewhere using typical metadata attributes. 

Moonwalk uses an HTTP-based management console, where you define your source and target directories. From the same GUI, you create rules to select files according to criteria such as how old they are, how recently they were accessed, the filename, or the file type.

You can make a policy by applying one or more rules to selected source and destination directories. Moreover, by creating tasks, you can finally put those policies to work according to a schedule. After that, just sit back and watch your primary storage slim down as those files fly automatically to their new home.

Moving files from Novell Netware and Windows servers creates placeholders (also called "stubs") that make the change seamless to end-users. According to Moonwalk, a similar feature should shortly become available for Linux and Unix.

The purpose of leaving a stub when moving a file is twofold. First of all, it's a reminder that your file was once there and has moved elsewhere. Perhaps more important, the stub also acts as a teleport station: click it, and the system will immediately open the destination directory and provide access to the original file.

I also find it interesting that Moonwalk can use specialized connectors (called "plug-ins") to write files to nonconventional architectures, such as the EMC Centera, which creates an easy migration path for archiving files to more secure platforms.

Moonwalk starts at about $4,000 per node, a cost that can be easily justified with the savings you'll have from putting your storage on a diet. I'd say it's worth checking out this new startup (the company provides a free trial, too) before purchasing more storage.

Join me on The Storage Network with questions or comments.

(InfoWorld) - I'm having a strange moment of inner peace. I'm without a rant. Often my column is full of vinegar over some false security product claim, some incorrectly-held security belief, or some strange, insecure maneuver made by a recent client of mine. This week, it's all daisies and rainbows: I want to share a few cool security tidbits instead.

A few months ago, while giving a security presentation along with Symantec's senior vice president to a group of business leaders, I was approached by Pete Hernandez, a salesman from Emsec Systems. He told me about two cool products they are developing and selling for the wireless security world. These products recently started generating media buzz again and resparked my interest.

Emsec is headquartered in Hampton, VA, right down the street from Langley Air Force Base, the home base for spy planes, robotic warriors, and secret devices of all types. It's full of top-secret material and ripe for wireless spies.

Emsec's newest star product is an anti-EMI paint (really a polymer coating) that blocks most EMI and wireless emissions from entering or leaving a room, confined space, or box. You apply the coating, and you end up with an instant "cone of silence". Emsec originally developed the anti-EMI coating to shield small electronic avionic housing devices, radio control units, and transceivers, but it can now be applied to nearly any room for any anti-EMI or anti-wireless application.

What was once a military-only option has spread out to commercial companies. Robert Boyd, vice president and director of technology for Emsec says that "most of our commercial clients are DoD-related. But nonmilitary corporate espionage is becoming a bigger problem in our society, and CEOs are paying attention."

Emsec's coating blocks EMI and wireless transmissions in the 100 KHz to 18 GHz range up to 60 or more dBM (decibels per meter), including 802.11 transmissions, RF signatures, cell phones, Blackberries, monitors, cables, and printers. If your company is concerned about EMI or wireless transmissions, you might want to give Emsec a call. Prices run from $3-$4 per square foot, or about the same price you might pay for carpet.

An even cooler related product sold by Emsec's parent company, Unitech, is a "paint-on" antenna. It's the opposite of stopping EMI: Unitech can "paint" an antenna on nearly any material, including walls, fabrics, and double-curved surfaces. Unitech is experimenting with prototypes involving soldiers' ballistic helmets with the antenna fabricated in. In the future, soldiers may be wearing their transmitting and receiving antennas for battlefield transmissions, GPS device tracking, and live, real-time battle picture updates.

It kind of humbles me when I think about how I struggle to get 802.11i working at home with my open source firmware kit.

Another wonderful announcement is the fact that SANS has developed certification exams to test developers' understanding of security and secure code practices. The GIAC Secure Software Programmer has four different language platforms choices -- .NET/ASP, C/C++, Java/J2EE, and Perl/PHP.

This is wonderful news. Among the security world's biggest problems is that most programmers don't care about security, and security people usually don't program. That's one of the major reasons why most programs contain many security vulnerabilities.

While certification tests don't mean you're an expert in a particular subject, they do test your minimal knowledge. As the holder of more than 50 computer certifications, I know that every time I study for a new cert, I learn something I didn't know before. I applaud SANS for its leadership. Along with all the Secure Design Lifecycle courses being taught this year, I think there is finally a maturing set of education options for programmers. Find out more about the new SANS certification exams and learning material at http://www.sans-ssi.org.

Lastly, I often get asked what online security news sources I subscribe to. My favorites include:

*anything from www.securityfocus.com

*the Patch Management mailing list

*InfoWorld (of course)

*Bugtraq (bugtraq@securityfocus.com)

*Vulnerability Watch (vulnwatch@vulnwatch.org)

*Full Disclosure (full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com)

*Dshield (www.dshield.org)

*SANS (www.sans.org)

*Secunia (www.secunia.com)

*FRSIRT (www.frsirt.com)

Another favorite computer news source, not strictly security-related but always full of interesting stories, is The Register. It's got a British flair and slant to the news stories, and I don't always understand the jargon. But the reporting is topically informative, and it's only fair payback for all the stuff we Americans force on everyone else.

Well, that's all for now. I must get back to communing with nature.