Connecting Military Nets Through Open Source Collaboration

Open framework permits each piece of the suite to be made available to users as soon as it is ready. "We don't intend to wait for the entire bundle because we'd be wasting warfighters' time. If there's a piece that's ready, we intend to spiral it out -- and the follow-on pieces as they come," Col. McLarney says.

The U.S. military is developing a suite of software applications Get the facts on wireless solutions suited to your industry. that will allow secure communications between different national computer networks. This capability is essential to both coalition operations and disaster relief missions.

The Cross Domain Collaborative Information Environment (CDCIE) is designed to meet combatant commanders' near-term needs to share data with a variety of networks operating at the secret level and below. Created by the U.S. Joint Forces Command's (JFCOM's) Joint Futures Laboratory in Suffolk, Va., the CDCIE uses an open software architecture that allows it to interoperate with other systems, and to be rapidly modified to meet warfighters' needs.

While the CDCIE was developed to overcome difficulties in multinational information sharing between coalition partners, the software also eases data transfer between the various branches of the U.S. Defense Department, U.S. government civilian agencies, state and local emergency responders, and nongovernment organizations.

"We need to share information in the way we're expected to conduct operations with all of those partners," relates Lt. Col. Edward McLarney, technical deputy for capability engineering, Joint Innovation and Experimentation Directorate, J-9.

Report: Cyberwarfare at Heart of China's Military Strategy

The Chinese People's Liberation Army has more in its arsenal than just missiles -- count computer viruses and other disruptive technologies among its weapons. The PLA is trying to transform itself into an army capable of winning conflicts against high-tech adversaries, according to a recent Department of Defense report.

The Chinese People's Liberation Army has set up "information warfare" units to create viruses for use in attacking enemy computer systems and networks, according to a Department of Defense report released Friday.

"The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is pursuing comprehensive transformation from a mass army designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to one capable of fighting and winning short-duration, high-intensity conflicts against high-tech adversaries -- which China refers to as 'local wars under conditions of informatization,'" the report says.

Viewed by the PLA as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict, such computer-based weapons also include defensive measures to protect the country's own network systems, according to the report.

A Cyberwarfare Arsenal

Together, the efforts add up to a cyberwarfare arsenal that forms the heart of what PLA theorists call the country's Integrated Network Electronic Warfare strategy Barracuda Spam Firewall Free Eval Unit - Click Here to disrupt battlefield network information systems. The PLA began incorporating such technologies into its military exercises in 2005, the report says.

"China's continued pursuit of area-denial and antiaccess strategies is expanding from the traditional land, air and sea dimensions of the modern battlefield to include space and cyberspace," the report notes.
Eyes on Taiwan and Beyond

China has been modernizing its defense systems for several years now, including enhancing its strategic strike capabilities with the DF-31 intercontinental range ballistic missile.

The primary focus of China's military buildup so far has been Taiwan and the potential for conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the report says. "However, official documents and the writings of Chinese military strategists suggest Beijing is increasingly surveying the strategic landscape beyond Taiwan," the report warns.

China became the world's fourth-largest economy in 2006, according to the World Bank.

Ultimately, China "has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages," according to the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report.

More of Same

"This is not that new," Johannes Ullrich, chief technology officer at the SANS Institute, told TechNewsWorld. "For several years, it has been a standard part of their doctrine to use cybermeans to defend or attack."

Such technologies are already being used on an ongoing basis for information-gathering and standard espionage, Ullrich added, and the Chinese have proven their ability in the past to get into U.S. military networks.

"But it's difficult to predict the impact if a real military conflict arose," he said, noting that because of economic ties with the United States, "it may not be in their best interest to attack this country" anyway.
'The Next Battleground'

"This is just the next battleground, but it is something we need to take seriously because everything we have is connected to the Internet in one way or another," cybercrime lawyer and security expert Parry Aftab told TechNewsWorld. "The good thing is, the United States has been preparing for this for a long time."

Security technologies put in place both before and since Sept. 11, along with increased fortifications in financial networks today, have a net effect of helping to protect the country, Aftab added.

"It's all about communications," she explained. "The person who has the best communications will win when it comes to any kind of warfare. If you can stop someone else's communications and keep yours flowing, you'll be OK."

YouTube - Public Access for the Masses

YouTube creators Chad Hurley and Steve Chen aren't worried about the new video sites that have popped into the market, such as Joost and an as-yet unnamed venture from News Corp. The emerging players will offer slick content with high production values, but YouTube wants to focus on amateur, self-produced clips. "We want to entertain, inform and empower people with video around the world," said Hurley.

The media's recent legal and competitive challenges to Internet video pioneer YouTube Latest News about YouTube haven't fazed cofounders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, who have diligently sought to make money for new owner Google. Latest News about Google, as well as the creators of the content that fuels their Web site's whirlwind growth.

"We have been a little bit silent, but we haven't been sleeping," Chen told The Associated Press during the duo's first extensive interview since Google closed its US$1.76 billion purchase of YouTube last November.

The leaders of the online video revolution declined the AP's request to videotape the interview.

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Military Moves

We're now seeing Microsoft's true stripes. The performance of the products is a charade, an unfortunate cost of doing business in a once competitive market. The real means to profits and market share are really about legal positioning, but in essence necessitates a military posture. For what are laws and lawyers but a means to avoid violence and warfare in lieu of a day in court?

The latest moves by Microsoft, however, give them away. Stripped of their proxies, their moves are now more clearly understood to be essentially military. You are the civilians caught between Microsoft's lawyers and their quarry.

The details are now trickling out that Microsoft has real numbers -- some 235 patents across dozens of open source Open Source Hosting Solutions with 24x7x365 Support – Visit HostMySite.com Latest News about open source products -- that define the purported assault on its intellectual property. Like SCO, they can't tell you how you offend. You just need to know that you offend. You should also now know that the remedy to such transgressions shall be levied by Microsoft's legal minions, and through the laws of your great republic, when and if Microsoft feels like it.

Sun's Web 2.0 Strategy: Still the Dot?

The combination of the open sourcing of our technology and the direction of the open source camp are really all directed to attracting people at the earliest stages of development," said Rich Green, executive vice president of software at Sun. "We are a much more diverse company now. So those organizations trying to create the next great thing can talk to Sun about solving the next technical problem.

Sun Microsystems the company that said it was the dot in dot-com during the tech boom of the late '90s, is trying to woo the startup community a second time around.

However, this time, it has free software and cheaper computer servers to appeal to the more cost-conscious Web 2.0 companies.

As part of that ongoing push, the Santa Clara, Calif., developer of computers and software hosted a conference Monday, called "CommunityOne," one day before its JavaOne developer conference. At both conferences in San Francisco this week, Sun touted its wide-reaching embrace of open source Open Source Hosting Solutions with 24x7x365 Support – Visit HostMySite.com Latest News about open source software, the free software developed and improved upon by a community of far-flung programmers around the world. The current wave of penny-pinching startups are also big proponents of open source software.

Red Hat, Intel Cook Up New Desktop Recipe

Fresh on the heels of its recent Linux Enterprise 5.0 release two months ago, Red Hat put forth its new Global Desktop product at its Red Hat Summit. The Global Desktop builds in pass-through certification that links the Red Hat Linux operating system with certifications from Intel for bundled applications.

Red Hat Latest News about Red Hat announced at the Red Hat Summit this week its new operating system for the enterprise. Red Hat Global Desktop is a client product for the Linux Linux hosting solutions with 24x7x365 support – Visit HostMySite.com operating system that delivers an enterprise-class suite of productivity applications.

The Global Desktop is part of Red Hat's strategy of building innovative solutions that change the traditional notion of desktop computing for specific audiences, according to the company. The goal is to create experiences that are more useful, more powerful and more accessible, said Red Hat officials.

"This is a totally separate product designed for our channel partners," J. Gerry Riveros, product marketing manager for client services for Red Hat, told LinuxInsider.

Red Hat collaborated closely with Intel Manage remotely with one interface -- the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server. Latest News about Intel to enable the design, support and distribution of Global Desktop to be as close as possible to the customer, he said.

Obama Wrests MySpace Page From Hapless Supporter

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign organization reportedly has taken over a MySpace page independently created by supporter Joe Anthony in 2004, and has refused to pay for the time and effort he invested in attracting 160,000 "friends" to the senator's cause.

A virtual equivalent of fisticuffs has broken out online, and no, it is not between warring camps of "American Idol" fans or bloggers with too much time on their hands. Rather, the dispute is between a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination and a once-ardent supporter.

While much of the argument falls into "he said, he said" territory, this much is clear: Joe Anthony, a Los Angeles paralegal, set up an unofficial MySpace Latest News about MySpace page for Senator Barack Obama at myspace.com/barackobama, after he heard his speech at the Democratic convention in 2004, and then invested time and energy into its development.

The Obama campaign got in touch with Anthony once his site -- which was rapidly attracting tens of thousands of MySpace "friends" -- appeared on its radar. For a while, a synergy apparently existed between the two.

Then the Obama campaign asked to take over the page, and the relationship quickly turned ugly. Anthony requested financial reimbursement for the time he had put into building the site, but the campaign reportedly refused to pay up. It then approached MySpace to obtain control of the site.

As Anthony says in his own blog posting on the matter: "I was blocked from the profile, and the content was altered to redirect traffic to the new, 'official' profile. MySpace has, in fact, granted access to the profile without my permission."

Yahoo Offers Chat With No Downloads Attached

Yahoo has put its Messenger program on the Web, allowing users to chat on the application without downloading software into their computers. While Yahoo certainly isn't the first to put chat on the browser, the announcement is important due to the sheer number of Yahoo chat users: 88.5 million, according to the company, which named Southeast Asia as a major focus of the initial rollout.

Latest News about Yahoo has introduced a new version of its popular Yahoo Messenger instant messaging service that eliminates the need to download and install software. Still in the beta phase, the new "Yahoo Messenger for the Web" is browser-based.

That means Yahoo Messenger users can log in to chat on any computer or other device with Web access, including PCs at companies that forbid software downloads. The new application is "the first brand-new Messenger in over six years," noted Jeff Bonforte, vice president of product development for Yahoo Messenger, in his blog.

Yahoo is far from the first Internet player to offer a Web-based instant messaging service -- AOL, Google. Latest News about Google, Meebo and eBuddy are among the competitors. However, the announcement is important due to the sheer number of people who use Yahoo Messenger: 88.5 million, according to Yahoo, a number that grew substantially last year when Yahoo and Microsoft Free 30-Day Trial. Seamlessly Integrate UNIX & Linux systems with Active Directory. Latest News about Microsoft announced interoperability between Messenger and Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft's IM product.