Netizen: US

Showing posts with label US. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Cyber Security: Growing Challenges

So much is happening online. There's much behind firewalls, but hackers have ended up everywhere before. Worms come down to your desktop, and if you are lucky you get to retrieve your work. Recently a teen spread a worm on Twitter. What's next? Gmail? So it is not like the cloud is sacred territory. There is no sacred territory.

There are rogue individuals, pranksters, spammers, spam spewing companies. Then there are the evil ones. They want your computer down. They want your system down. They want to steal your password, your credit card number. They show up in your inbox hoping to lure you to click on something or the other. It is a numbers game for them. They are counting on very few people to click, and those very few routinely do.

But what about hostile states and terrorist organizations? If the Al Qaeda wants to explode a dirty bomb, does it not fantasize of cyber attacks? It has recruited smart doctors before. Could it recruit hackers? What could a cyber cold war look like? What about a hot one?

For the most part we are counting on the good people in the information technology sector to stay numerous and to always stay one step ahead of the evil ones. We are counting on the market forces. But when it comes to global law enforcement coordination, we are as ill-prepared as on a host of other global issues. People in finance talk of tax havens. There are hacker havens all over the world. We count on hackers being not smart enough to create and spread the next deadly worm. But they routinely do. We keep building up the immune system, we keep finding cures for diseases, kind of like for the biological types over history.

And safety is not all about technology. It is also about criminals going high tech to commit crimes they were already committing before the internet came along.

Just like for global finance, for global terrorism, for global warming, there is ultimately only a global solution to cyber security. Cyber security has to be approached from many different angles if it is to be meaningfully tackled.

In The News

The Cold War moves to cyberspace CNet shadowy foes that prefer to cloak their identities. the United States is "under cyberattack virtually all the time, every day" ...... The Wall Street Journal reported that cyberspies had breached the DOD's Joint Strike Fighter project and also had penetrated the Air Force's air-traffic-control system. ..... Chinese hackers attacked private and government Web sites in the U.S. in retaliation after NATO accidentally struck the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo crisis. ....... Russia defines cyberwar as a force multiplier while China views cyber war as a way to get control of an enemy without the need for engaging on a physical field of battle. "It's straight out of Sun Tzu" ........ In March 2007, Estonian Web sites got knocked out after the regime decided to move a Soviet statue from one park to another. Last August, when Russian tanks rolled across the border, Georgia's government ministries also got overwhelmed by a coordinated cyberattack. ....... defenders of Russia attribute the brief cyberwar to nationalists acting independently.
Bill Clinton: Business is the key to climate change
Apple soars during economic gloom
Microsoft opens up its answer to Google AdSense
Would a ratings system improve Craigslist?
IBM puts Oracle to the sword with EnterpriseDB
Report: Kindle 2 costs $185.49 to build
No surprise here: Oprah huge for Twitter
Firefox 3.0.9 targets 12 security vulnerabilities
Security flaw leads Twitter, others to pull OAuth support
Face recognition comes to Flickr
Gates: Cyberattacks a constant threat hackers stole information about $300 billion fighter jet program.
'60 Minutes' video: Cold fusion is hot again

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

That StartUp Mentality

Image via Wikipedia

It is a mindset. It is a personality type. If a tech entrepreneur were not a tech entrepreneur, he/she would be standing at the edge of a cliff, or facing a hurricane on the high seas. There is something innate about risk-taking. Very few attempt it. Very few of those who attempt succeed. That is why the rewards are so astoundingly huge.

But then that startup mentality is being forced upon the rest of the population. The internet and globalization are going to inject the startup mentality into ordinary jobs. There are degrees of risk taking. Ordinary jobs will have low levels, low doses of risk taking, but it will be there. It is there. It is here.

Looks like the worst part of the bad news of a bad economy might be behind us. You can get gloomy about what just happened. Or you can objectively look at it and see capitalism's creative destructions. What will happen next is way more exciting than what was there before. The jobs, companies and industries of tomorrow stand to be created. This is high time for a mega renewal of the human spirit. I am optimistic. I was throughout the past six months of bad news. All hard economic times of the past decades have also been periods of major innovation, of companies launched that went on to do big, bold things. I don't wish a bad economy upon anyone, but you have to wonder why.

You have to stay hungry also during good times, or success will get the better of you. The trick is to stay hungry during good times. What gets your juices flowing? Do you got fire in your belly?

On The Web

AT&T And Verizon's Start-Up Mentality - Forbes.com
Techcrunch takes on Israeli startup mentality | ISRAELITY
Teaching the Startup Mentality
Startup Mentality
European vs US startup mentality | anders.tyckr.com how often would you say that two of your friends start the same business idea - separately - without them knowing about each other ..... reports keep coming in that the mobile social network market is going to be huge. ..... Europeans do not aim big enough, and on the other hand, US startups go super big with sometimes very crazy ideas. But crazy ideas are only crazy and funny if they are done with bad timing. ...... Going too slow might be a problem, and is probably as hard to fix as going too fast. ..... I would not want to miss a minute of the action to come.

In The News

EBay Unveils Skype IPO Plans BusinessWeek Skype sales surged 44%, to $551 million, last year and the company expects them to top $1 billion in 2011. The user base surged 47%, to 405 million, in 2008. ..... Zennstrom and Friis reportedly offered less than $2 billion for Skype. An IPO could fetch $3 billion to $5 billion ...... Skype could find itself in closer competition with such sites as Facebook or Twitter. ..... "I see [Skype] as a Ferrari that's only firing some of its cylinders."
Plus: Skype in Your Pocket
Google's Trademark Tussle
Business Exchange: Search Advertising
Goldman, Give it All Back
Taxing Grandma to Pay Goldman Sachs
Intel Says PC Demand 'Bottomed'
IBM Roars into Business Consulting
Cuba: How Much, How Fast?
Obama Pitches His Economic Plan
China Faces a Water Crisis
Learning from Recession, the Japanese Way
Nokia: Signs of Stabilization?
Can Widgets Save the Television Industry?
How to Make Acquisitions in a Down Economy
Time to Buy TV, Radio, and Internet Ads?
Put a Human Face on Your Presentations
Today's Tip: Sales Strategy for Tough Economic Times
Getting Ready for the Recovery
Preparing Now to Drive Future Growth
Options for MBAs Without Jobs
Getting to Know Yourself
It's Now a Renter's Market

Monday, August 22, 2005

China, India And The World

I mean I was born in India. This pertains to me. People who live on a dollar a day are people in my personal circle. I know quite a few of them: some of them have nicknames for me, from my homevillage.

BusinessWeek has come up with a fabulous story cluster around the big topics of the economic resurgence of the two Asian giants. But perspective has to be maintained. Look at the per capita income. The PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) for 2004 for China is $5,600. For India it is $3,100. Fro Nepal it is $1,500. I had to throw Nepal in because, well, I grew up in Nepal.

The same figure for the US is $40,100.

My point being it will be a while before India and China jump over to the $50,000 range.

But the GDP figures, adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity, are US $11.75 trillion, China $7.262 trillion and India $3.319 trillion. At that level the differences are less stark.

The 19th century was Britain's, the 20th was America's, this one is Asia's. Cisco's Scheinman: "We came to India for the costs, we stayed for the quality, and we're now investing for the innovation."

Africa could compete. Both India and China are living testimonies to economic unions and free trade. A China that were 20 different countries would be less efficient. Africa could compete by becoming a single economic unit, a single market. Snuff out civil wars, introduces democracies, and work towards becoming a single market. The recipe is no rocket science.

Friday, July 08, 2005

Google Again

I might as well rename this the Google blog. Where do they keep coming up with these new ideas? I think it is that all their worker bees are required to spend a day a week thinking up new ideas. Maybe that is the trick not emulated elsewhere. Like their click through text ads. It is turning the ad industry upside down.

Now Google is in news investing into a broadband over power lines company. Once something like that happens, Google stands to conquer the world. With universal broadband, the entire humanity is one mind. One big mind. One huge mind. Each particular human mind is but a neuron then.

You can't have internet access without electric power. And so marry the two. The electric power and broadband. Now that is revolution, it was not Lenin's 1917.

Plus, broadband is not one thing. It is a spectrum. There is really slow broadband like in the US, and a really fast one like in Korea. The electric line broaband is much faster than even the one in Korea. Now that would be broadband.

Google's got the vision. Kudos. Looks great from the angle of the end user.

Okay Google, now integrate MathML to Blogger. That is one gaping hole. And it is not even difficult. The know-how is already there. It just has not emerged a priority.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Internet Phones, Video Blogging, Nano

Say if a city like New York is bathed in Wi-Max, wireless broadband, do we end up with mobile phones that are internet based that are very cheap, like $10 a month, or maybe even free, because imagine the boost to a city's productivity! Already Vonage offers unlimited calls to US and Canada for $25 a month. A nice reason to ditch your traditional landline altogether. And because of its features like being able to check voice mail over email from anywhere, and your ability to take the phone anywhere with you that has broadband internet, it can give some serious competition to the traditional cellphone.

For me, I like the regular size keyboard of my laptop. That is why I am not big on comupters that are the size of cellphones. Plus, being offline and away from phone rings is also important: for solitude and reflection, for study time, reading paper books, time to listen and watch uninterrupted, thinking, for face time and socializing, bonding. Always-on is not good. On-whenever-you-want, but not always-on.

I can't wait for video blogging to become an option, like text and audio are now with Google's Blogger. Perhaps Google will take its Blogger to that level. You want to be able to upload and not have to worry about hosting, kind of like digital photos at Yahoo Photos. At that point, everyone anywhere becomes a media house in his or her own right. Ah, communication.

And, I just found a bunch of articles on Nano at the BusinessWeek site, a few also 0n BioTech.

Come to the think of it, Newton was an alchemist. The nano people join his ranks. I guess the idea is to set up industries at the level of atoms. Some possibilities: "superefficient fuel cells," so you don't have to keep recharging your batteries that often, your laptop can stay unplugged for days and still perform, talk about mobile; "golf balls designed to fly straight," "carry computing beyond today's silicon and transistors," "pint size laboratories" for doctors and nurses, "nano sensors" to detect "anthrax and sarin," and so on.

What really makes my day - I am not a golfer, it is not physical enough for me - is this: "Toward the end of the decade ... new computer memories composed of nanoparticles could conceivably pack the digital contents of the Library of Congress into a machine the size of a yo-yo." Every human thought that ever came into any human mind and got recorded could be stored away forver. Every scientific writing, every painting, every piece of music, every book, article. Ever written, produced, composed, painted. To be written, produced, composed, painted. Everyone will have access to everything. For free. To be supported by the ad model. Food, water, and internet access for everyone on the planet.

You can't even begin to imagine the synergies.

Economic growth can be limitless because it is not to do with natural resources, it is to do with the human mind. And the mind knows no limits to its creative power. This generation's greatest achievement is the next's virgin territory.

The human mind is the least tapped natural resource. And much of the hindrance comes from our primitive arrangements in group dynamics, where we tolerate people getting in each other's way. The scarcities are truly "artificial," man-made.

It is possible to imagine the per capita global income hit $20,000. Within decades.

Pages