id
stringlengths 4
8
| url
stringlengths 32
188
| title
stringlengths 2
122
| text
stringlengths 143
226k
|
|---|---|---|---|
33708448 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad%20Tablet | ThinkPad Tablet | The ThinkPad Tablet is a tablet computer made by Lenovo as part of its series of Android-based tablet devices and is targeted towards business users. Lenovo's tablet offerings are available in both ThinkPad and IdeaPad variants. While the ThinkPad Tablets are designed for business, the IdeaPad tablets, like the laptops of the same name, are meant for home and personal use. These tablets are different from Lenovo's X Series tablets, which are laptop/tablet hybrids and which use Microsoft Windows as their operating system.
Description
Released in August 2011, the ThinkPad Tablet is the first in Lenovo's line of business-oriented Tablets with the ThinkPad brand. The tablet has been described by Gadget Mix as a premium business tablet. Since the Tablet is primarily business-oriented, it includes features for security, such as anti-theft software, the ability to remotely disable the tablet, SD card encryption, layered data encryption, and Cisco Virtual Private Network (VPN).
Additionally, the ThinkPad Tablet is able to run software such as IBM's Lotus Notes Traveler. The stylus could be used to write notes on the Tablet, which also included software to convert this handwritten content to text. Another feature on the Tablet was a drag-and-drop utility designed to take advantage of the Tablet's touch capabilities. This feature could be used to transfer data between USB devices, internal storage, or an SD card.
Slashgear summarized the ThinkPad Tablet by saying, "The stylus and the styling add up to a distinctive slate that doesn’t merely attempt to ape Apple’s iPad."
The ThinkPad Tablet was discontinued upon the launch of the Windows 8-based ThinkPad Tablet 2 in October 2012. At the same time, Lenovo discontinued the use of Android on its ThinkPad-branded tablets; subsequent models, beginning with the Tablet 2, have exclusively used Windows as their operating system.
Design and development
David Hill of Lenovo said he believed the ThinkPad Tablet to be "the weapon of choice for business success". In his article on the development of the Tablet, he indicated that every design detail was subjected to multiple design reviews, including basic elements such as the placement of the logo.
Digitizer pen
A challenge was indicated to be designing and integrating a digitizer pen into the Tablet, which already had a "crowded interior". This required a study of pen barrel diameter and the balancing of batteries, digitizer technology components, ergonomics, and storage space constraints for the pen itself. Additionally, dowel rods were used for diameter studies and sharpened pencils were used to study the appropriate length with users. The final pen developed based on this was 120 mm long.
Folio keyboard
The ThinkPad Tablet was launched with an optional, dedicated . The folio offered a Lenovo keyboard and an optical trackpoint. The presence of this folio was appreciated by PC World as well, with the reviewer calling the folio the Tablet's best feature.
The folio was designed to offer users of the ThinkPad Tablet a typing experience similar to that of a ThinkPad laptop, as well as cursor control. The full-size keyboard on the folio reputedly offered users the same typing experience as that of the ThinkPad X1. Using a standard strain gauge based TrackPoint would have increased the folio thickness, making it necessary for innovation in the implementation of cursor control. Optical sensor technology was chosen for this, providing capabilities for traditional TrackPoint placement as well as the familiarity of a Touchpad.
ThinkPad Tablet Dock
The ThinkPad tablet dock is useful to charge the tablet. It only supports the tablet in vertical mode.
On the back side there in audio output port, microphone input port, a micro USB port and support for the Thinkpad 20V power adapter. On its side it has a full size USB port.
Security
According to Lenovo, eight major security vulnerabilities typical for tablet devices have been addressed in the ThinkPad Tablet. These are:
Encryption: The ThinkPad Tablet's internal storage device and removable SD card are encrypted via functionality built into the Android OS used on the tablet.
Anti-malware: The ThinkPad Tablet offers McAfee anti-malware preloaded, with options to upgrade to a corporate managed anti-malware solution.
Data Leakage: Features on the Tablet allow the USB ports, SD card slot, camera and microphone to be disabled and controlled by an IT administrator. The Tablet is certified by Good Technology, which encrypts email as well and prevents email data from being copied from the Tablet.
User authentication: In addition to Android's support for a user-defined PIN password, the ThinkPad Tablet also includes the capacity to lock the Tablet using Active Directory credentials.
Application control: Lenovo offers preloaded images on the ThinkPad Tablet, allowing users to customize the applications on the Tablet. Additionally, IT departments can create customized App Shops to restrict the applications that can be downloaded and installed to the Tablet. The Tablet also included Citrix receiver, which allows businesses to host and run applications on their own servers.
Anti-theft and recovery: The ThinkPad Tablet includes Absolute Computrace with Persistence, allowing Tablet data to be remotely wiped in case of loss or theft.
Rooted device detection: The ThinkPad Tablet automatically detects if it has been rooted, sending a report to a company's IT department. This allows an IT department to determine if the Tablet should be retrieved from the user or if access to resources should be restricted.
Business-grade features
According to Matt Kohut, the ThinkPad Tablet is the industry's first business-class Tablet because Lenovo is "the only vendor who can provide a full suite of services to make our customers more productive and secure." He substantiated this by discussing the warranty on the ThinkPad Tablet, ThinkPad Protection, custom 'images' and asset tags.
The warranty on the ThinkPad Tablet was a standard one year which could be upgraded to three years. This was indicated as being different from other Tablet warranties, which were anywhere between 90 days and a maximum of two years. ThinkPad Protection was described as being a method to protect the Tablet against common accidents. Again, Matt Kohut claimed that accidental damage protection was not on offer by many leading Tablet vendors, even at additional cost.
The custom image allowed businesses to deploy Tablets that adhere to company security policies and with company applications preloaded. Finally, custom asset tags were also available and designed to attach to the bottom of the Tablet.
Specifications
The ThinkPad Tablet offered the following specifications:
Processor: NVIDIA Tegra 2 Dual-Core 1 GHz processor
Operating system: Android 3.1 (Upgradable to 4.0)
Display: 10.1 inch, 1280x800, 16:10, IPS, multitouch display screen
Weight: starting at
Battery life: up to 8 hours
Storage: up to 64GB storage
Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G
Ports: USB 2.0, micro-USB, mini-HDMI
Speakers and Connectors: SD card reader, Mini-HDMI out, SIM card slot (on selected models), mic, headphone
Card reader: 3 in 1
Camera: 2 megapixel (front), 5 megapixel (rear)
Additional features: accelerometer, gyroscope, ambient light sensor
Reviews
In its review, PC World listed the pros of the ThinkPad Tablet as the full size USB port and SD card slot, the optional keyboard portfolio carry case, and the digitizer pen. The cons were listed as the thickness (14mm) and the bland design.
The Tablet was described as serving "both work and play with key security and manageability features". The Corning Gorilla glass display uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology and offers a 178-degree viewing angle.
Locked bootloader
Some models of this tablet came with a locked bootloader. This means if the Android software and Recovery Menu fails, the tablet will brick with a software error without a way to recovering it. The only solution Lenovo offers is to replace the motherboard of the tablet. Lenovo has explained that this happens because the tablet contains DRM protected software and Lenovo proprietary code on the Android image.
Hardware issues
Users on different forums have reported that the following hardware components on this tablet are prone to failure:
The on/off switch.
The micro-USB port.
References
External links
Official website
Lenovo
Tablet computers introduced in 2011
Android (operating system) devices
Tablet computers |
33716463 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC%20Laboratories%20America | NEC Laboratories America | NEC Laboratories America, Inc. (NEC Labs America), formerly known as NEC Research Institute (1988 – 2002), is the US-based center for NEC Corporation’s global network of corporate research laboratories. It was established in 1988 with the primary location in Princeton, New Jersey and subsequently, a second location in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its mission is to generate significant new knowledge and create innovative solutions for society in collaboration with industry, academia and governments.
Most research results from NEC Labs America are published in the open scientific literature. The lab leverages NEC Corporation’s 120-year history and global resources to envision technological advances. NEC Labs America is a subsidiary of the NEC Corporation of America, which is headquartered in Irving, Texas.
History
NEC Labs America was created through the merger of the NEC Research Institute (NECI) and the NEC C&C Research Laboratories (CCRL). NECI was founded in 1988 to conduct long-term basic research in sciences underlying the computer and communications (C&C) technologies of the future. Its founding board was composed of thought leaders in computing and physical sciences, including Joseph Giordmaine, C. William Gear, Stuart Solin, Peter Wolff, Robert Tarjan and Leslie Valiant, with the goal of making important contributions to the basic research community and applying their results to improve the quality of human life. CCRL was established in Oct 1991 under the leadership of Kojiro Watanabe and its Silicon Valley Office, headed by Yoshinori Hara, was established in Aug 1995. NECI and CCRL merged in 2002.
Initial research areas in the physical sciences included device physics, materials science, optical and quantum electronics, circuits and implementations of neural, optical, and other novel computer architectures. Research areas in computer science included parallel computing, software, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. During the past two decades, its focus has adapted in favor of computer science disciplines.
Research Areas
Research emphasis at NEC Labs America has evolved over time and in the current era, reflects a focus on artificial intelligence and its potential applications. Current research areas at NEC Labs America include the following:
Data Science and System Security
Integrated Systems
Machine Learning
Media Analytics
Mobile Communications and Networking
Optical Networking and Sensing
Key People
Presidents
The current president of NEC Labs America is Christopher White, who assumed the position in March 2020. The founding president of NEC Research Institute was Dawon Kahng, who served from the inception of the organization until his death in May 1992 and was succeeded by C. William Gear (1992 – 2000) and David Waltz (2000 – 2002). Previous presidents of NEC Labs America in its current form include Robert Millstein (2002 – 2005), Roger Tran (2005 – 2017) and Akihiro Uchida (2017 – 2020).
Fellows
Robert Tarjan: A computer scientist and expert on graph algorithms, winner of the 1986 ACM Turing Award, currently distinguished professor at Princeton University and chief scientist at Intertrust Technologies.
Leslie Valiant: A theoretical computer scientist, winner of the 1986 Nevanlinna Prize, the 1997 Knuth Prize and the 2010 ACM Turing Award, currently professor of computer science and applied mathematics at Harvard University.
Joe Giordmaine: The first VP of Physical Sciences, who previously managed the Bell Labs group that originated the field of fiber optics and whose graduate research developed maser amplifiers in pursuit of microwave spectroscopy with Charlie Townes (Nobel Prize 1964).
Stuart Solin: A Fellow at NEC who worked on magnetoresistive materials in pursuit of higher density recording structures and subsequently became a professor of physics at Washington University, St. Louis.
Peter Wolff: A pioneer in semiconductor research, who subsequently led the industry forum at the physics department of MIT.
C. William Gear: An expert in numerical analysis, who was previously the head of the computer science department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and led NECI during 1992- 2000.
David Waltz: The first VP of Computer Sciences, who was an expert in computer vision and AI, subsequently joining Columbia University where he was the director of Center for Computational Learning Systems.
Boris Altshuler: A leading researcher in condensed matter physics, who is currently a professor of theoretical physics at Columbia University, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Dirac Medal winner.
Ingemar Cox: Founder of the computer vision group who pioneered techniques in digital watermarking and commercialized them as CTO of the NEC spin-off Signafy, currently a professor of computer science at University College, London.
Major Achievements
CiteSeer: A digital library and search engine that indexes citations for scientific articles, allows ranking them by citation impact and supports queries by document attributes and citation details. It was created in 1997 by NEC Labs America researchers Lee Giles, Kurt Bollacker and Steve Lawrence.
Fiber optic communication and sensing world records: NEC Labs America has established various world records in fiber optic communication and sensing. In 2011, a research team led by Dayou Qian and Ting Wang at NEC Labs America demonstrated the transmission of data at 101 Tbit/s through a single fiber optic core, which at the time was the world record for single fiber optic core data bandwidth. In 2013, NEC Labs America and Corning Inc. demonstrated the transmission of data at 1.05 Pbit/s over a multi-core fiber optic, which at the time was a record for single fiber optic bandwidth. In 2019, NEC Labs America teamed with Verizon to demonstrated the ability to use fiber optic communication and sensing over existing fiber optic telecommunication infrastructure.
Torch: A machine learning library based on the Lua programming language that found widespread usage in deep learning. Created by NEC Labs America researcher Ronan Collobert and colleagues, it saw active development until 2018 and formed the basis for the popular PyTorch library.
Signafy: A spin-off that commercialized digital watermarking technology developed at NEC Labs America in 1997, for protecting copyrighted content in DVDs and other multimedia.
Vidient Systems: An NEC Labs America spin-off founded in 2004 to commercialize accurate and cost-effective behavior analysis software over networks of video cameras, which was initially deployed at major airports and public institutions in the US.
CachePortal: A commercial solution to manage dynamic Web application content between end-users and the application, which improved user response times and application scalability through its proprietary content-mapping software architecture.
NEC HYDRAstor: A disk-based grid storage system with several nodes integrated into a single storage pool with the HYDRAStor software, providing for data deduplication for backups and archiving, content addressable storage, data encryption and load balancing. The prototype was developed in 2004 and the latest stable version was released in 2016.
ePathologist: Machine learning system developed at NEC Labs America to detect tissue and cell features within these images in order to identify regions of interest and make quantitative measurements of structures, to assist pathologists in making decisions relating to the clinical treatment of cancer in individual patients. In 2011, NEC and Royal Philips Electronics signed an agreement to jointly develop and market the technology.
System Invariant Analysis: An AI software solution launched in 2018 that visualizes a system's operational status and detects errors through the automatic modeling of behaviors or complex systems. It has been deployed in power plants, manufacturing and petrochemical industries.
RAPID: A framework that seeks to simplify adoption and deployment of machine learning solutions for inspection applications, with a focus on enabling effective decision-making by end users.
NEC EVA: An extensible and scalable video analytics platform capable of processing and analyzing multiple video streams both live and offline, to extract and store relevant attributes, especially for applications that require face recognition and behavior analysis.
SENNA: Based on work led by NEC Labs America researchers Ronan Collobert, Jason Weston and co-authors, SENNA is a deep neural network architecture for natural language processing tasks such as part-of-speech tagging, chunking, named entity recognition and semantic role labeling.
Notable alumni
Yann LeCun: One of the pioneers of deep learning, recipient of the 2018 ACM Turing Award, currently professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University and Chief AI Scientist at Facebook.
Vladimir Vapnik: One of the co-developers of the Vapnik–Chervonenkis theory in machine learning, the co-inventor of support vector machines and recipient of the 2017 IEEE John von Neumann Medal.
Leon Bottou: An expert in machine learning, an early proponent of the stochastic gradient descent method for training and co-developer of the DjVu image compression technology.
David Jacobs: An expert in computer vision who developed fundamental theories for how lighting affects reconstruction and recognition of objects, currently professor of computer science at the University of Maryland.
Kai Yu: An expert in machine learning who headed the computer vision team at NEC Labs America, before founding the Baidu Institute of Deep Learning and subsequently Horizon Robotics, where he is now the CEO.
Lee Giles: An expert in information retrieval who was part of the NEC team that created the CiteSeer digital library, currently professor at Pennsylvania State University.
Steve Lawrence: A computer scientist who helped create the CiteSeer digital library at NEC and subsequently developed the Google Desktop.
Gary Flake: Led the web data-mining program at NEC, before becoming head of Yahoo! Research Labs, founding Microsoft Live Labs and most recently CTO of Salesforce.com.
Peter Yianilos: An expert in algorithmic linguistics, who developed early linguistic softwares including spellers, dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Richard Linke: The first NECI scientist, who previously worked with the Bell Labs Radio Astronomy group with Arno Penzias and Bob Wilson and is now retired as an executive director of the IEEE Photonics Society.
Thomas Ebbesen: A physical chemist who made fundamental contributions to the mass production of carbon nanotubes at NEC and later for surface plasmons and the discovery of extraordinary optical transmission.
Tom Leighton: A visiting researcher who worked on digital watermarking, before becoming a professor at MIT and co-founding Akamai Technologies where he is now the CEO, winner of the 2018 Marconi Prize and a 2017 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
References
External links
NEC Laboratories America, Inc.
NEC R&D
NEC Corporation of America
NEC
Computer science research organizations
Research and development organizations
NEC Corporation |
33736801 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM%20Blueworks%20Live | IBM Blueworks Live | IBM Blueworks Live is a business process modeller, belonging under the set of IBM SmartCloud applications.
The application is designed to help organizations discover and document their business processes, business decisions and policies in a collaborative manner. It is designed to be simple and intuitive to use, while still having the capabilities to implement more complex models. Blueworks Live adheres to the BPMN 2.0 standard developed and maintained by BPMN.org.
Purpose
Blueworks Live is intended to be a business-user focused process & decision discovery and documentation tool. There are a number of more complicated BPMN 2.0 specification attributes that are left out in the aim of creating simple, understandable processes & decisions in Blueworks Live. All data is stored in the cloud eliminating the need for infrastructure beyond a computer with a web browser.
Blueworks Live is also fully integrated with IBM's BPM product enabling customers to quickly take their processes from discovery to implementation if so desired.
History
The original concept for business process modeler with a SaaS deployment model came with BluePrint, an application developed by Lombardi Inc. The company with its range of BPM products caught IBM's attention, so in January 2010 they made an acquisition of Lombardi. IBM already had a product in the same space known as IBM Blueworks, but that was superseded by the new technology of Lombardi's Blueprint and became Blueworks Live. IBM launched the Blueworks Live on 20 November 2010.
Features
Discovery and documentation
Capturing processes & decisions
Blueworks Live provides various tools for companies to capture business processes & decisions, using a collaborative approach to discovering those processes with maximum accuracy.
There are three different views for process data, the Discovery Map, Process Diagram, and Documentation. The Discovery Map is intended to enable business users to quickly and efficiently get the process activities and milestones out on 'paper'. This view is all about getting the information out there as quickly as possible without worrying about the process logic. When you have sufficiently identified the process in the Discovery Map, use the details popup to provide the Participant data, and then Blueworks Live can generate the Process Diagram where you will add the details of the process logic and flows. Each Participant identified in the Discovery Map will have a swimlane and the activities assigned will be in their swimlane. The Documentation view is intended to read like a Microsoft Word document with all of the process documentation that you have added in the details popup.
Decisions only have one view, the Decision Diagram. This is a graphical representation of the decision, the flows, and sub-decisions involved. Each decision and sub-decision has inputs and outputs that can be defined to populate the decision table. Blueworks Live is compliant with the DMN 1.0 specification.
Data import and export
Blueworks Live allows users to import diagrams from:
Microsoft Visio using the vdx XML format
BPMN 2.0 XML
XPDL 2.1 XML
In terms of export, users can automatically generate outputs in following formats:
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel Process Data (Export Process option)
BPMN 2.0 (Export Process option) (Note: This output format does not contain the diagrams or diagram elements)
XPDL 2.1 (Export Process option)
IBM WebSphere Business Modeler XML 7.0 (Export Process option)
Centralized collaboration
Blueworks Live uses many social networking features, enabling team collaboration:
Instant messaging
Live news feeds
Commenting (process changes)
Newsfeed - current work statistics and reports on the site's main page
Public and private communities
Blueworks Live use its main page to inform users about all the changes occurring to company processes, where the user is involved (private), or about information regarding useful and news about wider BPM communities. This involves blogs, tutorials or application changes and updates.
Licensing
Blueworks Live distinguishes between four types of license: Editors, Contributors, Viewers, and Community.
Editors are able to:
Create and modify processes & decisions
Publish processes & decisions
Automate processes
Manage spaces
Utilize the Analyze and Playback features
Contributors are able to:
Add Comments to processes & decisions
Participate in process automation
Viewers are able to:
View published processes and decisions
Viewers can follow the link to open published process in Blueworks Live.
Viewers can review process & decision details: Discovery map, Process diagram & Process documentation
The viewer capabilities are to enable a wider adoption across an enterprise. In cases where a customer utilizes SSO for login, and has viewer licenses, the account administrator can enable JIT provisioning.
Community users can:
View the Community tab
Perform the role of account Admin
Automating simple processes
Blueworks Live provides its users also with automate process feature. There are two different types of process allowed in Blueworks Live, workflow and checklist.
The workflow process application will allow you to create either parallel or sequential activities. This is useful for review and approval types of processes. This process type will distribute the tasks in a very precise manner determined by the design of the workflow you create.
The checklist process application is useful when you want to disseminate information all at once, without caring in what order people respond.
Privacy and security
Data privacy and security
All the information and data stored in Blueworks live is private, and inaccessible by IBM unless specifically given written permission for access by a customer.
Network security
Servers are protected by firewall configured to block all traffic on ports other than 80 or 443 (HTTP, HTTPS). Blueworks live also uses 256-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL 3.0 / TLS 1.2) for server authentication and data encryption. User authentication is ensured by providing every user a unique password tied with his personal or company e-mail address.
Authentication
IBM lets the users choose their own preferred level of authentication in application settings.
There are two security levels: Medium and High.
Medium: The password is required when changing it to new one, user is locked out, if he fails to log in several times in a row.
High: Password policy, maximizing password strength, requires user to change it every 90 days.
Compatibility
Since Blueworks Live is a web application, it can be accessed from any workstation with Internet connectivity and a web browser, regardless of the operating system.
Some of the basic features are also accessible through a mobile phone. Browsers currently supported include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome.
Sources
List of Blueworks Live features, Official Blueworks Live site - https://www.ibm.com/products/blueworkslive
IBM launches Blueworks Live, business process fixes as a service, Larry Dignan, October 11, 2010, ZDNET.com - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/ibm-launches-blueworks-live-business-process-fixes-as-a-service/40286
Blueworks Live article, BPM geek Initiative website - http://bpmgeek.com/blueworks-live
Automate manual processes with IBM Blueworks Live, Belinda Chang, Staff Software Engineer, IBM developer works - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/bpmjournal/1106_chang/1106_chang.html?ca=drs-
IBM Blueworks Live sneak-peak [sic], Column 2 BPM blog - http://www.column2.com/2010/11/ibm-blueworks-live-sneak-peak/
Blueworks Live Update, April 4, 2011 by Scott Francis, BP3 BPM blog - http://www.bp-3.com/blogs/2011/04/blueworks-live-update-april-2011/
IBM Announces Blueworks Live, 'Lite' SaaS Based BPM, by David Roe, CMS Wire - http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/ibm-announces-blueworks-live-lite-saas-based-bpm-008844.php
Blueworks Live: A Curate’s Egg, Mike Gammage, November 11, 2010, posted in "Cloud", Business Computing World - http://www.businesscomputingworld.co.uk/blueworks-live-a-curates-egg/
References
External links
Official website
Free trial
Workflow applications
Blueworks Live
Cloud infrastructure |
33741859 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocat | Cryptocat | Cryptocat is a discontinued open-source desktop application intended to allow encrypted online chatting available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. It uses end-to-end encryption to secure all communications to other Cryptocat users. Users are given the option of independently verifying their buddies' device lists and are notified when a buddy's device list is modified and all updates are verified through the built-in update downloader.
Cryptocat was created by Nadim Kobeissi and further developed along with a community of open source contributors and is published under the terms of the GPLv3 license, although it has since been discontinued.
History
Cryptocat was first launched on 19 May 2011 as a web application.
In June 2012, Kobeissi said he was detained at the U.S. border by the DHS and questioned about Cryptocat's censorship resistance. He tweeted about the incident afterwards, resulting in media coverage and a spike in the popularity of the software.
In June 2013, security researcher Steve Thomas pointed out a security bug that could be used to decrypt any group chat message that had taken place using Cryptocat between September 2012 and 19 April 2013. Private messages were not affected, and the bug had been resolved a month before. In response, Cryptocat issued a security advisory, requested that all users ensure that they had upgraded, and informed users that past group conversations may have been compromised.
In February 2014, an audit by iSec Partners criticized Cryptocat's authentication model as insufficient. In response, Cryptocat made improvements to user authentication, making it easier for users to authenticate and detect man-in-the-middle attacks.
In February 2016, citing dissatisfaction with the project's current state after 19 months of non-maintenance, Kobeissi announced that he would be taking Cryptocat temporarily offline and discontinuing the development of its mobile application, pending a complete rewrite and relaunch of the software. In March 2016 Kobeissi announced the re-release of Cryptocat, rewritten completely as desktop software instead of the original web application software, as a public beta and the resumption of the service. The new desktop-centric approach allowed Cryptocat to benefit from stronger desktop integration, in a style similar to Pidgin.
In February 2019, it was announced that Cryptocat would be discontinued. As of December 2019, the cryptocat domain is for sale and links to the site for the Wire messenger.
Features
Cryptocat allows its users to set up end-to-end encrypted chat conversations. Users can exchange one-to-one messages, encrypted files, photos as well as create and share audio/video recordings. All devices linked to Cryptocat accounts will receive forward secure messages, even when offline.
All messages, files and audio/video recordings sent over Cryptocat are end-to-end encrypted. Cryptocat users link their devices to their Cryptocat account upon connection, and can identify each other's devices via the client's device manager in order to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. Cryptocat also employs a Trust on first use mechanism in order to help detect device identity key changes.
Cryptocat also includes a built-in auto-update mechanism that automatically performs a signature check on downloaded updates in order to verify authenticity, and employs TLS certificate pinning in order to prevent network impersonation attacks.
Originally in 2013, Cryptocat offered the ability to connect to Facebook Messenger to initiate encrypted chatting with other Cryptocat users. According to the developers, the feature was meant to help offer an alternative to the regular Cryptocat chat model which did not offer long-term contact lists. This feature was disconnected in November 2015.
Reception and usage
In June 2013, Cryptocat was used by journalist Glenn Greenwald while in Hong Kong to meet NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for the first time, after other encryption software failed to work.
In November 2013, Cryptocat was banned in Iran, shortly after the election of Iran's new president Hassan Rouhani who had promised more open Internet laws.
Cryptocat was listed on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Secure Messaging Scorecard" from 4 November 2014 until 13 March 2016. During that time, Cryptocat had a score of 7 out of 7 points on the scorecard. It had received points for having communications encrypted in transit, having communications encrypted with keys the provider did not have access to (end-to-end encryption), making it possible for users to independently verify their correspondent's identities, having past communications secure if the keys were stolen (forward secrecy), having its code open to independent review (open-source), having its security designs well-documented, and having completed an independent security audit.
Architecture
Encryption
Cryptocat uses a Double Ratchet Algorithm in order to obtain forward and future secrecy across messages, after a session is established using a four-way Elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman handshake. The handshake mixes in long-term identity keys, an intermediate-term signed pre-key, and a one-time use prekey. The approach is similar to the encryption protocol adopted for encrypted messaging by the Signal mobile application. Cryptocat's goal is for its messages to obtain confidentiality, integrity, source authenticity, forward and future secrecy and indistinguishability even over a network controlled by an active attacker. The forward secrecy features of the protocol that Cryptocat uses are similar to those first introduced by Off-the-Record Messaging.
Cryptocat uses the Advanced Encryption Standard in Galois/Counter Mode for authenticated encryption, Curve25519 for Elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman shared secret agreement, HMAC-SHA256 for key derivation and Ed25519 for signing. In order to limit the effect of a long-term identity key compromise, long-term keys are used exclusively once for the initial Authenticated Key Exchange, and once for signing a newly generated intermediate-term signed prekey.
For the transport layer, Cryptocat adopts the OMEMO Multi-End Message and Object Encryption standard, which also gives Cryptocat multi-device support and allows for offline messaging.
Network
Cryptocat's network relies on a XMPP configuration served over WebSockets. According to the project's mission statement, Cryptocat's network only relays encrypted messages and does not store any data. In addition to the Cryptocat client's end-to-end encryption protocol, client-server communication is protected by TLS.
Distribution
From March 2011 until March 2016, Cryptocat was officially distributed through the Google Chrome Web Store, the Apple App Store and other official channels controlled by targeted platforms. After Cryptocat's re-write into desktop software in March 2016, the software became distributed exclusively through Cryptocat's own servers, which also handle signed update delivery.
See also
Comparison of instant messaging clients
Freedom of information
GNU Project
Hacktivism
Internet privacy
References
Further reading
External links
Cryptocat on GitHub
Cryptographic software
Internet privacy software
Free security software
Free instant messaging clients
Free software
Software using the GPL license |
33755616 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-storage%20model | Noisy-storage model | The noisy-storage model refers to a cryptographic model employed in quantum cryptography. It assumes that the quantum memory device of an attacker (adversary) trying to break the protocol is imperfect (noisy).
The main goal of this model is to enable the secure implementation of two-party cryptographic primitives, such as bit commitment, oblivious transfer and secure identification.
Motivation
Quantum communication has proven to be extremely useful when it comes to distributing encryption keys. It allows two distant parties Alice and Bob to expand a small initial secret key into an arbitrarily long secret key by sending qubits (quantum bits) to each other. Most importantly, it can be shown that any eavesdropper trying to listen into their communication cannot intercept any information about the long key. This is known as quantum key distribution (QKD).
Yet, it has been shown that even quantum communication does not allow the secure implementation of many other two-party cryptographic tasks. These all form instances of secure function evaluation. An example is oblivious transfer. What sets these tasks apart from key distribution is that they aim to solve problems between two parties, Alice and Bob, who do not trust each other. That is, there is no outside party like an eavesdropper, only Alice and Bob. Intuitively, it is this lack of trust that makes the problem hard. Unlike in quantum key distribution, Alice and Bob cannot collaborate to try and detect any eavesdropping activity. Instead, each party has to fend for himself.
Since tasks like secure identification are of practical interest, one is willing to make assumptions on how powerful the adversary can be. Security then holds as long as these assumptions are satisfied. In classical cryptography, i.e., without the use of quantum tools, most of these are computational assumptions. Such assumptions consists of two parts. First, one assumes that a particular problem is difficult to solve. For example, one might assume that it is hard to factor a large integer into its prime factors (e.g. 15=5x3). Second, one assumes that the adversary has a limited amount of computing power, namely less than what is (thought to be) required to solve the chosen problem.
Bounded storage
In information theoretic cryptography physical assumptions appear, which do not rely on any hardness assumptions, but merely assume a limit on some other resource. In classical cryptography, the bounded-storage model introduced by Ueli Maurer assumes that the adversary can only store a certain number of classical bits. Protocols are known that do (in principle) allow the secure implementation of any cryptographic task as long as the adversary's storage is small. Very intuitively, security becomes possible under this assumption since the adversary has to make a choice which information to keep. That is, the protocol effectively overflows his memory device leading to an inevitable lack on information for the adversary. It was later discovered that any classical protocol which requires the honest parties to store bits in order to execute it successfully can be broken by an adversary that can store more than about bits. That is, the gap between what is required to execute the protocol, and what is required to break the security is relatively small.
Bounded quantum storage
This gap changes dramatically when using quantum communication
. That is, Alice and Bob can send qubits to each other as part of the protocol. Likewise, one now assumes that the adversary's quantum storage is limited to a certain number of qubits. There is no restriction on how many classical bits the adversary can store. This is known as the bounded-quantum-storage model. It was shown that there exist quantum protocols in which the honest parties need no quantum storage at all to execute them, but are nevertheless secure as long as Alice transmits more than twice the number of qubits than the adversary can store.
Noisy storage
More generally, security is possible as long as the amount of information that the adversary can store in his memory device is limited. This intuition is captured by the noisy-storage model, which includes the bounded-quantum-storage model as a special case. Such a limitation can, for example, come about if the memory device is extremely large, but very imperfect. In information theory such an imperfect memory device is also called a noisy channel. The motivation for this more general model is threefold. First, it allows one to make statements about much more general memory devices that the adversary may have available. Second, security statements could be made when the signals transmitted, or the storage device itself, uses continuous variables whose dimension is infinite and thus cannot be captured by a bounded storage assumption without additional constraints. Third, even if the dimension of the signals itself is small, the noisy-storage analysis allows security beyond the regime where bounded-storage itself can make any security statement. For example, if the storage channel is entanglement breaking, security is possible even if the storage device is arbitrarily large (i.e., not bounded in any way).
Assumption
The assumption of the noisy-storage model is that during waiting times introduced into the protocol, the adversary can only store quantum information in his noisy memory device. Such a device is simply a quantum channel that takes input states to some noisy output states . Otherwise, the adversary is all powerful. For example, he can store an unlimited amount of classical information and perform any computation instantaneously.
The latter assumption also implies that he can perform any form of error correcting encoding before and after using the noisy memory device, even if it is computationally very difficult to do (i.e., it requires a long time). In this context, this is generally referred to as an encoding attack and a decoding attack . Since the adversary's classical memory can be arbitrarily large, the encoding may not only generate some quantum state as input to the storage device but also output classical information. The adversary's decoding attack can make use of this extra classical information, as well as any additional information that the adversary may gain after the waiting time has passed.
In practise, one often considers storage devices that consist of memory cells, each of which is subject to noise. In information-theoretic terms, this means that the device has the form , where is a noisy quantum channel acting on a memory cell of dimension .
Examples
The storage device consists of qubits, each of which is subject to depolarizing noise. That is, , where is the 2-dimensional depolarizing channel.
The storage device consists of qubits, which are noise-free. This corresponds to the special case of bounded-quantum-storage. That is, , where is the identity channel.
Protocols
Most protocols proceed in two steps. First, Alice and Bob exchange qubits encoded in two or three mutually unbiased bases. These are the same encodings which are used in the BB84 or six-state protocols of quantum key distribution. Typically, this takes the form of Alice sending such qubits to Bob, and Bob measuring them immediately on arrival. This has the advantage that Alice and Bob need no quantum storage to execute the protocol. It is furthermore experimentally relatively easy to create such qubits, making it possible to implement such protocols using currently available technology.
The second step is to perform classical post-processing of the measurement data obtained in step one. Techniques used depend on the protocol in question and include privacy amplification, error-correcting codes, min-entropy sampling, and interactive hashing.
General
To demonstrate that all two-party cryptographic tasks can be implemented securely, a common approach is to show that a simple cryptographic primitive can be implemented that is known to be universal for secure function evaluation. That is, once one manages to build a protocol for such a cryptographic primitive all other tasks can be implemented by using this primitive as a basic building block. One such primitive is oblivious transfer. In turn, oblivious transfer can be constructed from an even simpler building block known as weak string erasure in combination with cryptographic techniques such as privacy amplification.
All protocols proposed to date allow one of the parties (Alice) to have even an unlimited amount of noise-free quantum memory. I.e., the noisy-storage assumption is applied to only one of the parties (Bob). For storage devices of the form it is known that any two-party cryptographic task can be implemented securely by means of weak string erasure and oblivious transfer whenever any of the following conditions hold.
For bounded-quantum-storage (i.e., ), security can be achieved using a protocol in which Alice sends BB84 encoded qubits. That is, security can be achieved when Alice sends more than twice the number of qubits than Bob can store. One can also look at this from Bob's perspective and say that security can be achieved when Bob can store strictly less than half of the qubits that Alice sent, i.e., .
For bounded-quantum-storage using higher-dimensional memory cells (i.e., each cell is not a qubit, but a qudit), security can be achieved in a protocol in which Alice sends higher-dimensional qudits encoded one of the possible mutually unbiased bases. In the limit of large dimensions, security can be achieved whenever . That is, security can always be achieved as long as Bob cannot store any constant fraction of the transmitted signals. This is optimal for the protocols considered since for a dishonest Bob can store all qudits sent by Alice. It is not known whether the same is possible using merely BB84 encoded qubits.
For noisy-storage and devices of the form security can be achieved using a protocol in which Alice sends BB84 encoded qubits if
, where is the classical capacity of the quantum channel , and obeys the so-called strong converse property, or, if
, where is the entanglement cost of the quantum channel . This is generally much better than the condition on the classical capacity, however it is harder to evaluate .
For noisy-storage and devices of the form security can be achieved using a protocol in which Alice sends qubits encoded in one of the three mutually unbiased bases per qubit, if
, where is the quantum capacity of , and the strong converse parameter of is not too small.
The three mutually unbiased bases are the same encodings as in the six-state protocol of quantum key distribution. The last condition does form the best known condition for most channels, yet the quantum capacity as well as the strong converse parameter are generally not easy to determine.
Specific tasks
Using such basic primitives as building blocks is not always the most efficient way to solve a cryptographic task. Specialized protocols targeted to solve specific problems are generally more efficient. Examples of known protocols are
Bit commitment in the noisy-storage model, and in the case of bounded-quantum-storage
Oblivious transfer in the noisy-storage model, and in the case of bounded-quantum-storage
Secure identification in the bounded-quantum-storage model
Noisy-storage and QKD
The assumption of bounded-quantum-storage has also been applied outside the realm of secure function evaluation. In particular, it has been shown that if the eavesdropper in quantum key distribution is memory bounded, higher bit error rates can be tolerated in an experimental implementation.
See also
Stephanie Wehner
References
Quantum cryptography
Cryptography |
33823512 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codebook%20%28disambiguation%29 | Codebook (disambiguation) | A codebook is a type of document used for gathering and storing codes.
Codebook may also refer to:
CodeBook, software used in building information modeling
The Code Book, a 1999 book by Simon Singh
Codebook algorithm, an algorithm used in cryptography
Codebook, a password management software by Zetetic LLC
Codebook excited linear prediction, a speech coding algorithm
Electronic codebook (ECB), a mode of encryption in cryptography |
33843979 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verifiable%20computing | Verifiable computing | Verifiable computing (or verified computation or verified computing) enables a computer to offload the computation of some function, to other perhaps untrusted clients, while maintaining verifiable results. The other clients evaluate the function and return the result with a proof that the computation of the function was carried out correctly. The introduction of this notion came as a result of the increasingly common phenomenon of "outsourcing" computation to untrusted users in projects such as SETI@home and also to the growing desire of weak clients to outsource computational tasks to a more powerful computation service like in cloud computing. The concept dates back to work by Babai et al., and has been studied under various terms, including "checking computations" (Babai et al.), "delegating computations", "certified computation", and verifiable computing. The term verifiable computing itself was formalized by Rosario Gennaro, Craig Gentry, and Bryan Parno, and echoes Micali's "certified computation".
Motivation and overview
The growing desire to outsource computational tasks from a relatively weak computational device (client) to a more powerful computation services (worker), and the problem of dishonest workers who modify their client's software to return plausible results without performing the actual work motivated the formalization of the notion of Verifiable Computation.
Verifiable computing is not only concerned with getting the result of the outsourced function on the client's input and the proof of its correctness, but also with the client being able to verify the proof with significantly less computational effort than computing the function from scratch.
Considerable attention has been devoted in verifying the computation of functions performed by untrusted workers including the use of secure coprocessors, Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs), interactive proofs, probabilistically checkable proofs, efficient arguments, and Micali's CS proofs. These verifications are either interactive which require the client to interact with the worker to verify the correctness proof, or are non-interactive protocols which can be proven in the random oracle model.
Verification by replication
The largest verified computation (SETI@home) uses verification by replication.
The SETI@home verification process involves one client machine and many worker machines.
The client machine sends identical workunits to multiple computers (at least 2).
When not enough results are returned in a reasonable amount of time—due to machines accidentally turned off, communication breakdowns, etc.—or the results do not agree—due to computation errors, cheating by submitting false data without actually doing the work, etc.—then the client machine sends more identical workunits to other worker machines.
Once a minimum quorum (often 2) of the results agree, then the client assumes those results (and other identical results for that workunit) are correct.
The client grants credit to all machines that returned the correct results.
Verifiable computation
Gennaro et al. defined the notion of verifiable computation scheme as a protocol between two polynomial time parties to collaborate on the computation of a function F: {0,1}n → {0,1}m. This scheme consists of three main phases:
Preprocessing. This stage is performed once by the client in order to calculate some auxiliary information associated with F. Part of this information is public to be shared with the worker while the rest is private and kept with the client.
Input preparation. In this stage, the client calculates some auxiliary information about the input of the function. Part of this information is public while the rest is private and kept with the client. The public information is sent to the worker to compute F on the input data.
Output computation and verification. In this stage, the worker uses the public information associated with the function F and the input, which are calculated in the previous two phases, to compute an encoded output of the function F on the provided input. This result is then returned to the client to verify its correctness by computing the actual value of the output by decoding the result returned by the worker using the private information calculated in the previous phases.
The defined notion of verifiable computation scheme minimizes the interaction between the client and the worker into exactly two messages, where a single message sent from each party to the other party during the different phases of the protocol.
An example scheme based on fully homomorphic encryption
Gennaro et al. defined a verifiable computation scheme for any function F using Yao's garbled circuit combined with a fully homomorphic encryption system.
This verifiable computation scheme VC is defined as follows:
VC = (KeyGen, ProbGen, Compute, Verify) consists of four algorithms as follows:
KeyGen(F, λ) → (PK, SK): The randomized key generation algorithm generates two keys, public and private, based on the security parameter λ. The public key encodes the target function F and is sent to the worker to compute F. On the other hand, the secret key is kept private by the client.
ProbGenSK(x) → (σx, τx): The problem generation algorithm encodes the function input x into two values, public and private, using the secret key SK. The public value σx is given to the worker to compute F(x) with, while the secret value τx is kept private by the client.
Compute(PK, σx) → σy: The worker computes an encoded value σy of the function's output y = F(x) using the client's public key PK and the encoded input σx.
VerifySK (τx, σy) → y ∪ ⊥: The verification algorithm converts the worker's encoded output σy into the actual output of the function F using both the secret key SK and the secret “decoding” τx. It outputs y = F(x) if the σy represents a valid output of F on x, or outputs ⊥ otherwise.
The protocol of the verifiable computations scheme defined by Gennaro et al. works as follows:
The function F should be represented as a Boolean circuit on which the key generation algorithm would be applied. The key generation algorithm runs Yao's garbling procedure over this Boolean circuit to compute the public and secret keys. The public key (PK) is composed of all the ciphertexts that represent the garbled circuit, and the secret key (SK) is composed of all the random wire labels. The generated secret key is then used in the problem generation algorithm. This algorithm first generates a new pair of public and secret keys for the homomorphic encryption scheme, and then uses these keys with the homomorphic scheme to encrypt the correct input wires, represented as the secret key of the garbled circuit. The produced ciphertexts represent the public encoding of the input (σx) that is given to the worker, while the secret key (τx) is kept private by the client. After that, the worker applies the computation steps of the Yao's protocol over the ciphertexts generated by the problem generation algorithm. This is done by recursively decrypting the gate ciphertexts until arriving to the final output wire values (σy). The homomorphic properties of the encryption scheme enable the worker to obtain an encryption of the correct output wire. Finally, the worker returns the ciphertexts of the output to the client who decrypts them to compute the actual output y = F(x) or ⊥.
The definition of the verifiable computation scheme states that the scheme should be both correct and secure. Scheme Correctness is achieved if the problem generation algorithm produces values that enable an honest worker to compute encoded output values that will verify successfully and correspond to the evaluation of F on those inputs. On the other hand, a verifiable computation scheme is secure if a malicious worker cannot convince the verification algorithm to accept an incorrect output for a given function F and input x.
Practical verifiable computing
Although it was shown that verifiable computing is possible in theory (using fully homomorphic encryption or via probabilistically checkable proofs), most of the known constructions are very expensive in practice. Recently, some researchers have looked at making verifiable computation practical. One such effort is the work of UT Austin researchers. The authors start with an argument system based on probabilistically checkable proofs and reduce its costs by a factor of 1020. They also implemented their techniques in the Pepper system. The authors note that "Our conclusion so far is that, as a tool for building secure systems, PCPs and argument systems are not a lost cause."
The overall area, which now includes a number of implementations by different groups, has been surveyed.
References
Secure communication
Distributed computing |
33854598 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viber | Viber | Viber, or Rakuten Viber, is a cross-platform voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) software application owned by Japanese multinational company Rakuten, provided as freeware for the Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux platforms. Users are registered and identified through a cellular telephone number, although the service is accessible on desktop platforms without needing mobile connectivity. In addition to instant messaging it allows users to exchange media such as images and video records, and also provides a paid international landline and mobile calling service called Viber Out. As of 2018, there are over a billion registered users on the network.
The software was developed in 2010 by Cyprus-based Viber Media, which was bought by Rakuten in 2014. Since 2017, its corporate name has been Rakuten Viber. It is based in Luxembourg. Viber's offices are located in Minsk, London, Manila, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore, and Tokyo.
History
Founding
Viber was founded in 2010 to solve the problem of long distance relationships. Co-founder, Talmon Marco's girlfriend at the time was based in Hong Kong while he was living out in New York City. Living apart but communicating all the time led to very expensive phone bills. Trying to overcome this issue, Marco turned to his friend Igor Magazinnik to find a solution.
Viber Media was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2010 by Marco and Magazinnik, who are friends from the Israel Defense Forces where they were chief information officers. Marco and Magazinnik are also co-founders of the P2P media and file-sharing client iMesh. The company was run from Israel, with much of its development outsourced to Belarus in order to lower labor costs. It was registered in Cyprus. Sani Maroli and Ofer Smocha soon joined the company as well. Marco commented that Viber allows instant calling and synchronization with contacts because the ID is the user's cell number, unlike Skype which is modeled after a "buddy list" requiring registration and a password.
Monetisation
In its first two years of availability, Viber did not generate revenues. It began doing so in 2013, via user payments for Viber Out voice calling and the Viber graphical messaging "sticker store". The company was originally funded by individual investors, described by Marco as "friends and family". They invested $20 million in the company, which had 120 employees .
On July 24, 2013, Viber's support system was defaced by the Syrian Electronic Army. According to Viber, no sensitive user information was accessed.
Acquisition
On February 13, 2014, Rakuten announced they had acquired Viber Media for $900 million. The sale of Viber earned the Shabtai family (Benny, his brother Gilad, and Gilad's son Ofer) some $500 million from their 55.2% stake in the company. At that sale price, the founders each realized over 30 times return on their investments.
Djamel Agaoua became Viber Media CEO in February 2017, replacing co-founder Marco who left in 2015.
In July 2017 the corporate name of Viber Media was changed to Rakuten Viber and a new wordmark logo was introduced. Its legal name remains Viber Media, S.à r.l. based in Luxembourg.
Viber has been the official "communication channel" of F.C. Barcelona since Rakuten partnered with the football club in 2017.
Market share
, Viber had 800 million registered users. According to Statista, there are 260 million monthly active users as of January 2019. The Viber messenger is very popular in Greece, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and some Asian markets.
India was the largest market for Viber as of December 2014 with 33 million registered users, the fifth most popular instant messenger in the country. At the same time there were 30 million users in the United States, 28 million in Russia and 18 million in Brazil. Viber is particularly popular in Eastern Europe, being the most downloaded messaging app on Android in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine as of 2016. It is also popular in Iraq, Libya and Nepal. As of 2018, Viber has an over 70 percent penetration rate in the CIS and CEE regions, but only 15 percent in North America.
Russia
Viber is one of the more popular messenger applications in Russia.
In January 2016, Viber surpassed WhatsApp in Russia, with about 50 million users. Viber was growing especially rapidly in urban areas like Moscow and St. Petersburg. In April 2016 the usage of Viber in Russia was twice higher than in 2015, it reached 66 million users. By 2018, Viber had reached 100 million users in Russia.
Another report from 2017 shows that Russian IM users prefer to use Viber or WhatsApp over other services. In Russia Viber plans to use the method of payment for shopping for goods and services.
Nikolay Nikiforov of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media has declined to comment on the effect that law № 241-FZ (which has restricted use of some other encrypted chats such as Telegram) would have on Viber.
Ukraine
In 2020 Viber Messenger is Ukraine's most popular IM, it is installed on 97% of all Ukrainian smartphones.
Applications
Platforms
Viber was initially launched for iPhone on December 2, 2010, in direct competition with Skype. It was launched on BlackBerry and Windows Phone on May 8, 2012, followed by the Android platform on July 19, 2012, and Nokia's Series 40, Symbian and Samsung's Bada platform on July 24, 2012, by which time the application had 90 million users.
In May 2013 with Viber 3.0, a desktop version for Windows and macOS was released. In August 2013, Viber for Linux was released as a public beta and in August 2014 a final version. In June 2016 a UWP-based desktop application for Windows 10 was released in the Windows Store. The desktop versions are tied with a user's registered Viber mobile number, but can operate independently afterwards. In 2015, a version for the iPad tablet and Apple Watch smartwatch was released.
Features
Viber was originally launched as a VoIP application for voice calling. On March 31, 2011, Viber 2.0 was released which added instant messaging (IM) capabilities. In July 2012 group messaging and an HD Voice engine were added to both Android and iOS applications.
In December 2012 Viber added 'stickers' to the application. In October 2013, Viber 4.0 was announced featuring a sticker 'market' where Viber would be selling stickers as a source of revenue. In addition, version 4.0 introduced push-to-talk capabilities, and Viber Out, a feature that provides users the option to call mobile and landline numbers via VoIP without the need for the application. Viber Out became temporarily free in the Philippines to help Typhoon Haiyan victims connect with their loved ones.
Voice support was officially added for all Windows Phone 8 devices on April 2, 2013. In September 2014, Viber 5.0 was released and introduced video calling.
In November 2016, Viber version 6.5 launched Public Accounts to allow brands to engage in promotion and customer service on the platform, with initial partners including The Huffington Post, Yandex and The Weather Channel. The app integrates with CRM software and offers chatbot APIs for customer service. Viber Communities, an enhanced group chat feature, was introduced in February 2018.
Group calling was introduced with version 10 in February 2019.
Security
On November 4, 2014, Viber scored 1 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Secure Messaging Scorecard". Viber received a point for encryption during transit but lost points because communications were not encrypted with keys that the provider did not have access to (i.e. the communications were not end-to-end encrypted), users could not verify contacts' identities, past messages were not secure if the encryption keys were stolen (i.e. the service did not provide forward secrecy), the code was not open to independent review (i.e. the code was not open-source), the security design was not properly documented, and there had not been a recent independent security audit. On November 14, 2014, the EFF changed Viber's score to 2 out of 7 after it had received an external security audit from Ernst & Young's Advanced Security Centre.
On April 19, 2016 with the announcement of Viber version 6.0, Rakuten added end-to-end encryption to their service, but only for one-to-one and group conversations in which all participants are using the latest Viber version for Android, iOS, Windows (Win32) or Windows 10 (UWP). The company said that the encryption protocol had only been audited internally, and promised to commission external audits "in the coming weeks". In May 2016, Viber published an overview of their encryption protocol, saying that it is a custom implementation that "uses the same concepts" as the Signal Protocol.
See also
Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients
Comparison of VoIP software
References
External links
Viber App Support
IOS software
Android (operating system) software
Proprietary cross-platform software
Instant messaging clients
VoIP software
VoIP services
VoIP companies
BlackBerry software
Companies based in Luxembourg City
Windows Phone software
Social media
Symbian software
Rakuten
Israeli companies established in 2010
2010 software
Universal Windows Platform apps
Mergers and acquisitions of Israeli companies
2014 mergers and acquisitions |
33892403 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoVerif | CryptoVerif | CryptoVerif is a software tool for the automatic reasoning about security protocols written by Bruno Blanchet.
Supported cryptographic mechanisms
It provides a mechanism for specifying the security assumptions on cryptographic primitives, which can handle in particular
symmetric encryption,
message authentication codes,
public-key encryption,
signatures,
hash functions.
Concrete security
CryptoVerif claims to evaluate the probability of a successful attack against a protocol relative to the probability of breaking each cryptographic primitive, i.e. it can establish concrete security.
References
External links
Cryptographic software |
33902286 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STM32 | STM32 | STM32 is a family of 32-bit microcontroller integrated circuits by STMicroelectronics. The STM32 chips are grouped into related series that are based around the same 32-bit ARM processor core, such as the Cortex-M33F, Cortex-M7F, Cortex-M4F, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M0+, or Cortex-M0. Internally, each microcontroller consists of the processor core, static RAM, flash memory, debugging interface, and various peripherals.
Overview
The STM32 is a family of microcontroller ICs based on the 32-bit RISC ARM Cortex-M33F, Cortex-M7F, Cortex-M4F, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M0+, and Cortex-M0 cores. STMicroelectronics licenses the ARM Processor IP from ARM Holdings. The ARM core designs have numerous configurable options, and ST chooses the individual configuration to use for each design. ST attaches its own peripherals to the core before converting the design into a silicon die. The following tables summarize the STM32 microcontroller families.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! STM32 Series !! ARM CPU Core
|-
| L5, U5 || Cortex-M33F
|-
| F7, H7 || Cortex-M7F
|-
| F3, F4, G4, L4, L4+, WB || Cortex-M4F
|-
|WL
|Cortex-M4
|-
| F1, F2, L1 || Cortex-M3
|-
| G0, L0 || Cortex-M0+
|-
| F0 || Cortex-M0
|}
History
The STM32 is the third ARM family by STMicroelectronics. It follows their earlier STR9 family based on the ARM9E core, and STR7 family based on the ARM7TDMI core. The following is the history of how the STM32 family has evolved.
In October 2006, STMicroelectronics (ST) announced that it licensed the ARM Cortex-M3 core.
In June 2007, ST announced the STM32 F1-series based on the ARM Cortex-M3.
In November 2007, ST announced the low-cost "STM32-PerformanceStick" development kit in partner with Hitex.
In October 2009, ST announced that new ARM chips would be built using the 90 nm process.
In April 2010, ST announced the STM32 L1-series chips.
In September 2010, ST announced the STM32VLDISCOVERY board.
In November 2010, ST announced the STM32 F2-series chips based on the ARM Cortex-M3 core, and future development of chips based on the ARM Cortex-M4 and ARM Cortex-M3 cores.
In February 2011, ST announced the STM32L-DISCOVERY board.
In March 2011, ST announced the expansion of their STM32 L1-series chips with flash densities of 256 KB and 384 KB.
In September 2011, ST announced the STM32 F4-series chips based on the ARM Cortex-M4F core and STM32F4DISCOVERY board.
In February 2012, ST announced the STM32 F0-series chips based on the ARM Cortex-M0 core.
In May 2012, ST announced the STM32F0DISCOVERY board.
In June 2012, ST announced the STM32 F3-series chips based on the ARM Cortex-M4F core.
In September 2012, ST announced full-production of STM32 F3-series chips and STM32F3DISCOVERY board. The STM32 F050-series will also be available in a TSSOP20 package.
In January 2013, ST announced full Java support for STM32 F2 and F4-series chips.
In February 2013, ST announced STM32 Embedded Coder support for MATLAB and Simulink.
In February 2013, ST announced the STM32 F4x9-series chips.
In April 2013, ST announced the STM32 F401-series chips.
In July 2013, ST announced the STM32 F030-series chips. The STM32 F030-series will also be available in a TSSOP20 package.
In September 2013, ST announced the STM32F401C-DISCO and STM32F429I-DISCO boards.
In October 2013, ST announced the STM32F0308DISCOVERY board.
In December 2013, ST announced that it is joining the mbed project.
In January 2014, ST announced the STM32 F0x2-series chips, STM32F072B-DISCO board, and STM32072B-EVAL board.
In February 2014, ST announced the STM32 L0-series chips based on the ARM Cortex-M0+ core.
In February 2014, ST announced multiple STM32 Nucleo boards with Arduino headers and mbed IDE.
In February 2014, ST announced the release of free STM32Cube software tool with graphical configurator and C code generator.
In April 2014, ST announced the STM32F30x chips are now available in full production. A new NUCLEO-F302R8 board was also announced.
In September 2014, ST announced the STM32 F7 series, the first chips based on the Cortex-M7F core.
In October 2016, ST announced the STM32H7 series based on the ARM Cortex-M7F core. The device runs at 400 MHz and is produced using 40 nm technology.
In November 2017, ST announced the STM32L4+ series, an upgrade to the STM32L4 series Cortex-M4 MCUs.
In October 2018, ST announced the STM32L5 series, ultra-low-power MCUs based on the ARM Cortex-M33 core with a variety of security features, such as TrustZone, Secure Boot, active IO tamper detection, Secure Firmware Install loader, certified cryptolib etc.
In February 2021, ST announced the STM32U5 series, ultra-low-power MCUs based on the ARM Cortex-M33 core with a variety of low power and security features, such as TrustZone, Secure Boot, active IO tamper detection, hardware-based protection targeting PSA and SESIP assurance level 3, etc.
Series
The STM32 family consists of 14 series of microcontrollers: H7, F7, F4, F3, F2, F1, F0, G4, G0, L5, L4, L4+ L1, L0. Each STM32 microcontroller series is based upon either a Cortex-M7F, Cortex-M4F, Cortex-M33, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M0+, or Cortex-M0 ARM processor core. The Cortex-M4F is conceptually a Cortex-M3 plus DSP and single-precision floating-point instructions.
STM32 H7
The STM32 H7-series is a group of high performance STM32 microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M7F core with double-precision floating point unit and optional second Cortex-M4F core with single-precision floating point. Cortex-M7F core can reach working frequency up to 480 MHz, while Cortex-M4F - up to 240 MHz. Each of these cores can work independently or as master/slave core.
The STM32H7 Series is the first series of STM32 microcontrollers in 40 nm process technology and the first series of ARM Cortex-M7-based microcontrollers
able to run up to 480 MHz, allowing a performance boost versus previous series of Cortex-M microcontrollers, reaching new performance records of 1027 DMIPS and 2400 CoreMark.
STM32 F7
The STM32 F7-series is a group of STM32 microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M7F core. Many of the F7 series are pin-to-pin compatible with the STM32 F4-series.
Core:
ARM Cortex-M7F core at a maximum clock rate of 216 MHz.
STM32 F4
The STM32 F4-series is the first group of STM32 microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M4F core. The F4-series is also the first STM32 series to have DSP and floating-point instructions. The F4 is pin-to-pin compatible with the STM32 F2-series and adds higher clock speed, 64 KB CCM static RAM, full-duplex I²S, improved real-time clock, and faster ADCs. The summary for this series is:
Core:
ARM Cortex-M4F core at a maximum clock rate of 84 / 100 / 168 / 180 MHz.
Memory:
Static RAM consists of up to 192 KB general-purpose, 64 KB core-coupled memory (CCM), 4 KB battery-backed, 80 bytes battery-backed with tamper-detection erase.
Flash consists of 512 / 1024 / 2048 KB general-purpose, 30 KB system boot, 512 bytes one-time programmable (OTP), 16 option bytes.
Each chip has a factory-programmed 96-bit unique device identifier number.
Peripherals:
Common peripherals included in all IC packages are USB 2.0 OTG HS and FS, two CAN 2.0B, one SPI + two SPI or full-duplex I²S, three I²C, four USART, two UART, SDIO for SD/MMC cards, twelve 16-bit timers, two 32-bit timers, two watchdog timers, temperature sensor, 16 or 24 channels into three ADCs, two DACs, 51 to 140 GPIOs, sixteen DMA, improved real-time clock (RTC), cyclic redundancy check (CRC) engine, random number generator (RNG) engine. Larger IC packages add 8/16-bit external memory bus capabilities.
The STM32F4x7 models add ethernet MAC and camera interface.
The STM32F41x/43x models add a cryptographic processor for DES / TDES / AES, and a hash processor for SHA-1 and MD5.
The STM32F4x9 models add a LCD-TFT controller.
Oscillators consists of internal (16 MHz, 32 kHz), optional external (4 to 26 MHz, 32.768 to 1000 kHz).
IC packages: WLCSP64, LQFP64, LQFP100, LQFP144, LQFP176, UFBGA176. STM32F429/439 also offers LQFP208 and UFBGA216.
Operating voltage range is 1.8 to 3.6 volt.
STM32 F3
The STM32 F3-series is the second group of STM32 microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M4F core. The F3 is almost pin-to-pin compatible with the STM32 F1-series. The summary for this series is:
Core:
ARM Cortex-M4F core at a maximum clock rate of 72 MHz.
Memory:
Static RAM consists of 16 / 24 / 32 / 40 KB general purpose with hardware parity check, 0 / 8 KB core coupled memory (CCM) with hardware parity check, 64 / 128 bytes battery-backed with tamper-detection erase.
Flash consists of 64 / 128 / 256 KB general purpose, 8 KB system boot, and option bytes.
Each chip has a factory-programmed 96-bit unique device identifier number.
Peripherals:
Each F3-series includes various peripherals that vary from line to line.
Oscillators consists of internal (8 MHz, 40 kHz), optional external (1 to 32 MHz, 32.768 to 1000 kHz).
IC packages: LQFP48, LQFP64, LQFP100, UFBGA100.
Operating voltage range is 2.0 to 3.6 volt.
The distinguishing feature for this series is presence of four fast, 12-bit, simultaneous sampling ADCs (multiplexer to over 30 channels), and four matched, 8 MHz bandwidth op-amps with all pins exposed and additionally internal PGA (Programmable Gain Array) network. The exposed pads allow for a range of analog signal conditioning circuits like band-pass filters, anti-alias filters, charge amplifiers, integrators/differentiators, 'instrumentation' high-gain differential inputs, and other. This eliminates need for external op-amps for many applications. The built-in two-channel DAC has arbitrary waveform as well as a hardware-generated waveform (sine, triangle, noise etc.) capability. All analog devices can be completely independent, or partially internally connected, meaning that one can have nearly everything that is needed for an advanced measurement and sensor interfacing system in a single chip.
The four ADCs can be simultaneously sampled making a wide range of precision analog control equipment possible. It is also possible to use a hardware scheduler for the multiplexer array, allowing good timing accuracy when sampling more than 4 channels, independent of the main processor thread. The sampling and multiplexing trigger can be controlled from a variety of sources including timers and built-in comparators, allowing for irregular sampling intervals where needed.
The op-amps inputs feature 2-to-1 analog multiplexer, allowing for a total of eight analog channels to be pre-processed using the op-amp; all the op-amp outputs can be internally connected to ADCs.
STM32 F2
The STM32 F2-series of STM32 microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M3 core. It is the most recent and fastest Cortex-M3 series. The F2 is pin-to-pin compatible with the STM32 F4-series. The summary for this series is:
Core:
ARM Cortex-M3 core at a maximum clock rate of 120 MHz.
Memory:
Static RAM consists of 64 / 96 / 128 KB general purpose, 4 KB battery-backed, 80 bytes battery-backed with tamper-detection erase.
Flash consists of 128 / 256 / 512 / 768 / 1024 KB general purpose, 30 KB system boot, 512 bytes one-time programmable (OTP), 16 option bytes.
Each chip has a factory-programmed 96-bit unique device identifier number.
Peripherals:
Common peripherals included in all IC packages are USB 2.0 OTG HS, two CAN 2.0B, one SPI + two SPI or I²S, three I²C, four USART, two UART, SDIO/MMC, twelve 16-bit timers, two 32-bit timers, two watchdog timers, temperature sensor, 16 or 24 channels into three ADCs, two DACs, 51 to 140 GPIOs, sixteen DMA, real-time clock (RTC), cyclic redundancy check (CRC) engine, random number generator (RNG) engine. Larger IC packages add 8/16-bit external memory bus capabilities.
The STM32F2x7 models add Ethernet MAC, camera interface, USB 2.0 OTG FS.
The STM32F21x models add a cryptographic processor for DES / TDES / AES, and a hash processor for SHA-1 and MD5.
Oscillators consists of internal (16 MHz, 32 kHz), optional external (4 to 26 MHz, 32.768 to 1000 kHz).
IC packages: WLCSP64, LQFP64, LQFP100, LQFP144, LQFP176, UFBGA176.
Operating voltage range is 1.8 to 3.6 volt.
STM32 F1
The STM32 F1-series was the first group of STM32 microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M3 core and considered their mainstream ARM microcontrollers. The F1-series has evolved over time by increasing CPU speed, size of internal memory, variety of peripherals. There are five F1 lines: Connectivity (STM32F105/107), Performance (STM32F103), USB Access (STM32F102), Access (STM32F101), Value (STM32F100). The summary for this series is:
Core:
ARM Cortex-M3 core at a maximum clock rate of 24 / 36 / 48 / 72 MHz.
Memory:
Static RAM consists of 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 / 16 / 20 / 24 / 32 / 48 / 64 / 80 / 96 KB.
Flash consists of 16 / 32 / 64 / 128 / 256 / 384 / 512 / 768 / 1024 KB.
Peripherals:
Each F1-series includes various peripherals that vary from line to line.
IC packages: VFQFPN36, VFQFPN48, LQFP48, WLCSP64, TFBGA64, LQFP64, LQFP100, LFBGA100, LQFP144, LFBGA144.
STM32 F0
The STM32 F0-series are the first group of ARM Cortex-M0 chips in the STM32 family. The summary for this series is:
Core:
ARM Cortex-M0 core at a maximum clock rate of 48 MHz.
Cortex-M0 options include the SysTick Timer.
Memory:
Static RAM consists of 4 / 6 / 8 / 16 / 32 KB general purpose with hardware parity checking.
Flash consists of 16 / 32 / 64 / 128 / 256 KB general purpose.
Each chip has a factory-programmed 96-bit unique device identifier number. (except STM32F030x4/6/8/C and STM32F070x6/B,)
Peripherals:
Each F0-series includes various peripherals that vary from line to line.
Oscillators consists of internal (8 MHz, 40 kHz), optional external (1 to 32 MHz, 32.768 to 1000 kHz).
IC packages: TSSOP20, UFQFPN32, LQFP/UFQFN48, LQFP64, LQFP/UFBGA100.
Operating voltage range is 2.0 to 3.6 volt with the possibility to go down to 1.65 V.
STM32 G4
The STM32 G4-series is a next generation of Cortex-M4F microcontrollers aiming to replace F3 series, offering the golden mean in productivity and power efficiency, e.g. better power efficiency and performance compared to the older F3/F4 series and higher performance compared to ultra low power L4 series, integrated several hardware accelerators.
Core:
ARM Cortex-M4F core at a maximum clock rate of 170 MHz with FPU and DSP instructions
Mathematical accelerators:
CORDIC (trigonometric and hyperbolic functions)
FMAC (filtering functions)
Memory:
Flash memory with error-correcting code (ECC) and sizes of 128 to 512 KB.
Static RAM sizes of 32 to 128 KB with hardware parity checking and CCM-SRAM routine booster, 32x 32-bit battery-backed registers with tamper-detection erase.
Rich advanced analog peripherals (comparator, op-amps, DAC)
ADC with hardware oversampling (16-bit resolution) up to 4 Msps
High-resolution timer version 2
USB Type-C interface with Power Delivery including physical layer (PHY)
Securable memory area
AES hardware encryption
STM32 G0
The STM32 G0-series is a next generation of Cortex-M0/M0+ microcontrollers for budget market segment, offering the golden mean in productivity and power efficiency, e.g. better power efficiency and performance compared to the older F0 series and higher performance compared to ultra low power L0 series
Core:
ARM Cortex-M0+ core at a maximum clock rate of 64 MHz.
Debug interface is SWD with breakpoints and watchpoints. JTAG debugging isn't supported.
Memory:
Static RAM sizes of 8 to 128 KB general purpose with hardware parity checking, 5x 32-bit battery-backed registers with tamper-detection erase.
Flash sizes of 16 to 512 KB.
STM32 U5
The STM32 U5-series is an evolution of STM32L-series of ultra-low power microcontrollers:
ARM Cortex-M33 32-bit core
160 MHz max CPU frequency
STM32 L5
The STM32 L5-series is an evolution of STM32L-series of ultra-low power microcontrollers:
ARM Cortex-M33 32-bit core
110 MHz max CPU frequency
STM32 L4+
The STM32 L4+-series is expansion of STM32L4-series of ultra-low power microcontrollers, providing more performance, more embedded memory and richer graphics and connectivity features while keeping ultra-low-power capability.
Main features:
ARM 32-bit Cortex-M4 core
120 MHz max CPU frequency
VDD from 1.71 V to 3.6 V
Ultra low power consumption: down to 41 μA/MHz, 20 nA power consumption in power-down mode.
Up to 2048 KB Flash, up to 640 KB SRAM
Rich and advanced peripherals, including TFT-LCD controller, Chrom-ART Accelerator, Camera interface etc.
STM32 L4
The STM32 L4-series is an evolution of STM32L1-series of ultra-low power microcontrollers. An example of L4 MCU is STM32L432KC in UFQFPN32 package, that has:
ARM 32-bit Cortex-M4 core
80 MHz max CPU frequency
VDD from 1.65 V to 3.6 V
256 KB Flash, 64 KB SRAM
General purpose timers (4), SPI/I2S (2), I2C (2), USART (2), 12-bit ADC with 10 channels (1), GPIO (20) with external interrupt capability, RTC
Random number generator (TRNG for HW entropy).
STM32 L1
The STM32 L1-series was the first group of STM32 microcontrollers with a primary goal of ultra-low power usage for battery-powered applications. The summary for this series is:
Core:
ARM Cortex-M3 core at a maximum clock rate of 32 MHz.
Memory:
Static RAM consists of 10 / 16 / 32 / 48 / 80 KB general purpose, 80 bytes with tamper-detection erase.
Flash consists of 32 / 64 / 128 / 256 / 384 / 512 KB general purpose with ECC, 4 / 8 KB system boot, 32 option bytes, EEPROM consists of 4 / 8 / 12 / 16 KB data storage with ECC.
Each chip has a factory-programmed 96-bit unique device identifier number.
Peripherals:
Common peripherals included in all IC packages are USB 2.0 FS, two SPI, two I²C, three USART, eight 16-bit timers, two watchdog timers, temperature sensor, 16 to 24 channels into one ADC, two DACs, 37 to 83 GPIOs, seven DMA, real-time clock (RTC), cyclic redundancy check (CRC) engine. The STM32FL152 line adds a LCD controller.
Oscillators consists of internal (16 MHz, 38 kHz, variable 64 kHz to 4 MHz), optional external (1 to 26 MHz, 32.768 to 1000 kHz).
IC packages: UFQFPN48, LQFP48, LQFP64, TFBGA64, LQFP100, UFBGA100.
Operating voltage range is 1.65 to 3.6 volt.
STM32 L0
The STM32 L0-series is the first group of STM32 microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M0+ core. This series targets low power applications. The summary for this series is:
Core:
ARM Cortex-M0+ core at a maximum clock rate of 32 MHz.
Debug interface is SWD with breakpoints and watchpoints. JTAG debugging isn't supported.
Memory:
Static RAM sizes of 8 KB general purpose with hardware parity checking, 20 bytes battery-backed with tamper-detection erase.
Flash sizes of 32 or 64 KB general purpose (with ECC).
EEPROM sizes of 2 KB (with ECC).
ROM which contains a boot loader with optional reprogramming of the flash from USART1, USART2, SPI1, SPI2.
Each chip has a factory-programmed 96-bit unique device identifier number.
Peripherals:
two USART, one low-power UART, two I²C, two SPI or one I²S, one full-speed USB (only L0x2 and L0x3 chips).
one 12-bit ADC with multiplexer, one 12-bit DAC, two analog comparators, temperature sensor.
timers, low-power timers, watchdog timers, 5 V-tolerant GPIOs, real-time clock, DMA controller, CRC engine.
capacitive touch sense and 32-bit random number generator (only L0x2 and L0x3 chips), LCD controller (only L0x3 chips), 128-bit AES engine (only L06x chips).
Oscillators consists of optional external 1 to 24 MHz crystal or oscillator, optional external 32.768 kHz crystal or ceramic resonator, multiple internal oscillators, and one PLL.
IC packages are LQFP48, LQFP64, TFBGA64.
Operating voltage range is 1.8 to 3.6 volt, including a programmable brownout detector.
Development boards
Arduino boards
The following are Arduino header-compatible boards with STM32 microcontrollers. The Nucleo boards (see next section) also have Arduino headers.
Maple board by Leaflabs has a STM32F103RB microcontroller. A C/C++ library called libmaple is available to make it easier to migrate from Arduino.
OLIMEXINO-STM32 board by Olimex has a STM32F103RBT6 microcontroller and similar to the Maple board.
Netduino with support for .NET Micro Framework
Nucleo boards
All Nucleo boards by STMicroelectronics support the mbed development environment, and have an additional onboard ST-LINK/V2-1 host adapter chip which supplies SWD debugging, virtual COM port, and mass storage over USB. There are three Nucleo board families, each supporting a different microcontroller IC package footprint. The debugger embedded on Nucleo boards can be converted to the SEGGER J-Link debugger protocol.
Nucleo-32 boards
This family has 32-pin STM32 ICs and Arduino Nano male pin headers (DIP-30 with 0.6-inch row-to-row).
Low power ICs are L011, L031, L412, L432. Mainstream ICs are F031, F042, F301, F303, G031, G431. High performance ICs are n/a.
NUCLEO-F031K6 board for STM32F031K6T6 MCU with 48 MHz Cortex-M0 core, 32 KB flash, 4 KB SRAM (HW parity).
NUCLEO-F042K6 board for STM32F042K6T6 MCU with 48 MHz Cortex-M0 core, 32 KB flash, 6 KB SRAM (HW parity).
NUCLEO-F301K8 board for STM32F301K8T6 MCU with 72 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 64 KB flash, 16 KB SRAM. (obsolete board)
NUCLEO-F303K8 board for STM32F303K8T6 MCU with 72 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 64 KB flash, 16 KB SRAM (HW parity).
NUCLEO-G031K8 board for STM32G031K86U MCU. Announced in Nucleo-32 datasheet.
NUCLEO-G431KB board for STM32G431KB6U MCU with 170 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 128 KB flash (HW ECC), 16 KB SRAM (HW parity), 6 KB SRAM, 10 KB CCM SRAM, STLINK-V3E.
NUCLEO-L011K4 board for STM32L011K4T6 MCU with 32 MHz Cortex-M0+ core, 16 KB flash (HW ECC), 2 KB SRAM, 0.5 KB EEPROM (HW ECC).
NUCLEO-L031K6 board for STM32L031K6T6 MCU with 32 MHz Cortex-M0+ core, 32 KB flash (HW ECC), 8 KB SRAM, 1 KB EEPROM (HW ECC).
NUCLEO-L412KB board for STM32L412KBU6 MCU with 80 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 128 KB flash (HW ECC), 32 KB SRAM, 8 KB SRAM (HW parity), external quad-SPI memory interface.
NUCLEO-L432KC board for STM32L432KCU6 MCU with 80 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 256 KB flash (HW ECC), 48 KB SRAM, 16 KB SRAM (HW parity), external quad-SPI memory interface.
Nucleo-64 boards
This family has 64-pin STM32 ICs, Arduino Uno Rev3 female headers, and ST Morpho male pin headers (two 19x2).
Low power ICs are L053, L073, L152, L433, L452, L452, L476. Mainstream ICs are F030, F070, F072, F091, F103, F302, F303, F334. High performance ICs are F401, F410, F411, F446.
NUCLEO-F030R8 board for STM32F030R8T6 MCU with 48 MHz Cortex-M0 core, 64 KB flash, 8 KB SRAM (HW parity).
NUCLEO-F070RB board for STM32F070RBT6 MCU with 48 MHz Cortex-M0 core, 128 KB flash, 16 KB SRAM (HW parity).
NUCLEO-F072RB board for STM32F072RBT6 MCU with 48 MHz Cortex-M0 core, 128 KB flash, 16 KB SRAM (HW parity).
NUCLEO-F091RC board for STM32F091RCT6 MCU with 48 MHz Cortex-M0 core, 256 KB flash, 32 KB SRAM (HW parity).
NUCLEO-F103RB board for STM32F103RBT6 MCU with 72 MHz Cortex-M3 core, 128 KB flash, 20 KB SRAM, external static memory interface.
NUCLEO-F302R8 board for STM32F302R8T6 MCU with 72 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 64 KB flash, 16 KB SRAM.
NUCLEO-F303RE board for STM32F303RET6 MCU with 72 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 512 KB flash, 32 KB SRAM, 48 KB SRAM (HW parity), external static memory interface.
NUCLEO-F334R8 board for STM32F334R8T6 MCU with 72 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 64 KB flash, 16 KB SRAM (HW parity).
NUCLEO-F401RE board for STM32F401RET6 MCU with 84 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 512 KB flash, 96 KB SRAM.
NUCLEO-F410RB board for STM32F410RBT6 MCU with 100 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 128 KB flash, 32 KB SRAM.
NUCLEO-F411RE board for STM32F411RET6 MCU with 100 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 512 KB flash, 128 KB SRAM.
NUCLEO-F446RE board for STM32F446RET6 MCU with 180 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 512 KB flash, 128 KB SRAM, external quad-SPI memory interface, external flexible memory interface.
NUCLEO-L053R8 board for STM32L053R8T6 MCU with 32 MHz Cortex-M0+ core, 64 KB flash (HW ECC), 8 KB SRAM, 2 KB EEPROM (HW ECC).
NUCLEO-L073RZ board for STM32L073RZT6 MCU with 32 MHz Cortex-M0+ core, 192 KB flash (HW ECC), 20 KB SRAM, 6 KB EEPROM (HW ECC).
NUCLEO-L152RE board for STM32L152RET6 MCU with 32 MHz Cortex-M3 core, 512 KB flash (HW ECC), 80 KB SRAM, 16 KB EEPROM (HW ECC).
NUCLEO-L433RC-P board for STM32L433RCT6P MCU with 80 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 256 KB flash (HW ECC), 48 KB SRAM, 16 KB SRAM (HW parity), external quad-SPI memory interface, SMPS power.
NUCLEO-L452RE-P board for STM32L452RET6P MCU with 80 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 512 KB flash (HW ECC), 128 KB SRAM, 32 KB SRAM (HW parity), external quad-SPI memory interface, SMPS power.
NUCLEO-L452RE board for STM32L452RET6 MCU with 80 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 512 KB flash (HW ECC), 128 KB SRAM, 32 KB SRAM (HW parity), external quad-SPI memory interface.
NUCLEO-L476RG board for STM32L476RGT6 MCU with 80 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 1024 KB flash (HW ECC), 96 KB SRAM, 32 KB SRAM (HW parity), external quad-SPI memory interface, external static memory interface.
NUCLEO-G071RB board for STM32G071RBT6 MCU with 64 MHz Cortex-M0+ core, 128 KB flash, 32 KB SRAM.
Nucleo-144 boards
This family has 144-pin STM32 ICs, Arduino Uno Rev3 female headers, ST Zio female headers, ST Morpho male pin headers (two 19x2), second Micro-AB USB connector, and RJ45 Ethernet connector (some boards).
Low power ICs are L496, L496-P, L4A6, L4R5, L4R5-P. Mainstream IC is F303. High performance ICs are F207, F412, F413, F429, F439, F446, F722, F746, F756, F767, H743.
NUCLEO-F207ZG board for STM32F207ZGT6 MCU with 120 MHz Cortex-M3 core, 1024 KB flash (HW ECC), 128 KB SRAM, 4 KB battery-back SRAM, external static memory interface, ethernet.
NUCLEO-F303ZE board for STM32F303ZET6 MCU with 72 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 512 KB flash (HW ECC), 32 KB SRAM, 48 KB SRAM (HW parity), external static memory interface.
NUCLEO-F412ZG board for STM32F412ZGT6 MCU with 100 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 1024 KB flash, 256 KB SRAM, external quad-SPI memory interface, external static memory interface.
NUCLEO-F429ZI board for STM32F429ZIT6 MCU with 180 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 2048 KB flash, 256 KB SRAM, 4 KB battery-back SRAM, external flexible memory interface, ethernet.
NUCLEO-F439ZI board for STM32F439ZIT6 MCU with 180 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 2048 KB flash, 256 KB SRAM, 4 KB battery-back SRAM, external flexible memory interface, ethernet, cryptographic acceleration.
NUCLEO-F446ZE board for STM32F446ZET6 MCU with 180 MHz Cortex-M4F core, 512 KB flash, 128 KB SRAM, 4 KB battery-back SRAM, external quad-SPI memory interface, external flexible memory interface.
NUCLEO-F746ZG board for STM32F746ZGT6 MCU with 216 MHz Cortex-M7F core (4 KB data cache, 4 KB instruction cache), 1024 KB flash, 336 KB SRAM, 4 KB battery-back SRAM, 1 KB OTP, external quad-SPI memory interface, external flexible memory interface, ethernet.
NUCLEO-F767ZI board for STM32F767ZIT6 MCU with 216 MHz Cortex-M7F-DP core (16 KB data cache, 16 KB instruction cache), 2048 KB flash, 528 KB SRAM, 4 KB battery-back SRAM, external quad-SPI memory interface, external flexible memory interface, ethernet.
Note: The unofficial suffix "-DP" means the ARM core includes double-precision floating point unit, where as all other chips are single-precision only.
Discovery boards
The following Discovery evaluation boards are sold by STMicroelectronics to provide a quick and easy way for engineers to evaluate their microcontroller chips. These kits are available from various distributors for less than US$20. The STMicroelectronics evaluation product licence agreement forbids their use in any production system or any product that is offered for sale.
Each board includes an on-board ST-LINK for programming and debugging via a Mini-B USB connector. The power for each board is provided by a choice of the 5 V via the USB cable, or an external 5 V power supply. They can be used as output power supplies of 3 V or 5 V (current must be less than 100 mA). All Discovery boards also include a voltage regulator, reset button, user button, multiple LEDs, SWD header on top of each board, and rows of header pins on the bottom.
An open-source project was created to allow Linux to communicate with the ST-LINK debugger.
ChibiOS/RT, a free RTOS, has been ported to run on some of the Discovery boards.
STM32L476GDISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32L476VGT6 microcontroller with 80 MHz ARM Cortex-M4F core, 1024 KB flash, 128 KB RAM in LQFP100 package
STM32F429IDISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32F429ZIT6 microcontroller with 180 MHz ARM Cortex-M4F core, 2048 KB flash, 256 KB RAM, 4 KB battery-backed RAM in LQFP144 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, 8 MB SDRAM (IS42S16400J), 2.4-inch 320x200 TFT LCD color display (SF-TC240T), touchscreen controller (STMPE811), gyroscope (L3GD20), 2 user LEDs, user button, reset button, Full-Speed USB OTG to second Micro-AB USB connector, and two 32x2 male pin headers.
STM32F4DISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32F407VGT6 microcontroller with 168 MHz ARM Cortex-M4F core, 1024 KB flash, 192 KB RAM, 4 KB battery-backed RAM in LQFP100 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, accelerometer (LIS302DL), microphone (MP45DT02), audio codec (CS43L22), 3.5 mm audio jack, 4 user LEDs, user button, reset button, Full-Speed USB OTG to second Micro-AB USB connector, and two 25x2 male pin headers.
A separate STM32F4DIS-BB baseboard is available.
STM32F401CDISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32F401VCT6 microcontroller with 84 MHz ARM Cortex-M4F core, 256 KB flash, 64 KB RAM in LQFP100 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, accelerometer/compass (LSM303DLHC), gyroscope (L3GD20), microphone (MP45DT02), audio codec (CS43L22), 3.5 mm audio jack, 4 user LEDs, user button, reset button, Full-Speed USB OTG to second Micro-AB USB connector, and two 25x2 male pin headers.
STM32F3DISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32F303VCT6 microcontroller with 72 MHz ARM Cortex-M4F core, 256 KB flash, 48 KB RAM (24K with parity) in LQFP100 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, accelerometer/compass (LSM303DLHC), gyroscope (L3GD20), 8 user LEDs, user button, reset button, Full-Speed USB to second Mini-B USB connector, and two 25x2 male pin headers.
STM32VLDISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32F100RBT6 microcontroller with 24 MHz ARM Cortex-M3 core, 128 KB flash, 8 KB RAM in LQFP64 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK debugger via Mini-B USB connector, 2 user LEDs, user button, reset button, and two 28x1 male pin headers.
STM32L-DISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32L152RBT6 microcontroller with 32 MHz ARM Cortex-M3 core, 128 KB flash (with ECC), 16 KB RAM, 4 KB EEPROM (with ECC) in LQFP64 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, 24-segment LCD, touch sensors, 2 user LEDs, user button, reset button, and two 28x1 male pin headers.
This board is currently End-Of-Life and replaced by the 32L152CDISCOVERY board.
STM32L152CDISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32L152RCT6 microcontroller with 32 MHz ARM Cortex-M3 core, 256 KB flash (with ECC), 32 KB RAM, 8 KB EEPROM (with ECC) in LQFP64 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, 24-segment LCD, touch sensors, 2 user LEDs, user button, reset button, and two 28x1 male pin headers.
STM32L100CDISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32L100RCT6 microcontroller with 32 MHz ARM Cortex-M3 core, 256 KB flash (with ECC), 16 KB RAM, 4 KB EEPROM (with ECC) in LQFP64 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, 2 user LEDs, user button, reset button, and two 33x1 male pin headers.
STM32F072BDISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32F072RBT6 microcontroller with 48 MHz ARM Cortex-M0 core, 128 KB flash, 16 KB RAM (with parity) in LQFP64 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, gyroscope (L3GD20), 4 user LEDs, user button, reset button, linear touch keys, Full-Speed USB to second Mini-B USB connector, and two 33x1 male pin headers.
STM32F0DISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32F051R8T6 microcontroller with 48 MHz ARM Cortex-M0 core, 64 KB flash, 8 KB RAM (with parity) in LQFP64 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, 2 user LEDs, user button, reset button, and two 33x1 male pin headers.
A prototyping perfboard with 0.1-inch (2.54 mm) grid of holes is included.
STM32F0308DISCOVERY
A discovery board for STM32F030R8T6 microcontroller with 48 MHz ARM Cortex-M0 core, 64 KB flash, 8 KB RAM (with parity) in LQFP64 package.
This board includes an integrated ST-LINK/V2 debugger via Mini-B USB connector, 2 user LEDs, user button, reset button, and two 33x1 male pin headers.
A prototyping perfboard with 0.1-inch (2.54 mm) grid of holes is included.
Evaluation boards
The following evaluation kits are sold by STMicroelectronics.
STM32W-RFCKIT
An RF evaluation board for STM32 W-series.
It contains two boards, each with a STM32W108 SoC microcontroller in VFQFPN40 and VFQFPN48 packages.
The evaluation board has a built-in 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 transceiver and Lower MAC (so supports 802.15.4, ZigBee RF4CE, ZigBee Pro, 6LoWPAN (Contiki) wireless protocols). The SoC contains 128-Kbyte flash and 8-Kbyte RAM memory. Flash memory is upgradable too via USB. It has an ARM Serial Wire Debug (SWD) interface (Remote board) and is designed to be powered by USB or with 2 AAA batteries (Remote board). There are two user-defined LEDs (green and yellow) and five push buttons to create easy-to-use remote functions (remote board).
STM3220G-JAVA
A ready-to-use Java development kits for its STM32 microcontrollers. The STM3220G-JAVA Starter Kit combines an evaluation version of IS2T's MicroEJ® Software Development Kit (SDK) and the STM32F2 series microcontroller evaluation board providing everything engineers need to start their projects.
MicroEJ provides extended features to create, simulate, test and deploy Java applications in embedded systems. Support for Graphical User Interface (GUI) development includes a widget library, design tools including storyboarding, and tools for customizing fonts. STM32 microcontrollers that embed Java have a Part Number that ends with J like STM32F205VGT6J.
Partner boards
The following evaluation kits are sold by partners of STMicroelectronics and listed on the ST website.
STM32-PerformanceStick
An evaluation board for STM32 F1-series.
It contains a STM32F103RBT6 microcontroller at 72 MHz with 128 KB flash and 20 KB RAM in LQFP64 package.
This board also includes in-circuit debugger via USB, 3 V battery, LEDs, edge card connector.
The price is approximately US$65.
EvoPrimers for STM32
A prototyping environment for a variety of STM32 variants, which allows users to create their applications using an application programming interface (API) to implement device peripherals and a range of evaluation features on the EvoPrimer base including TFT color touchscreen, graphical user interface, joy stick, codec-based audio, SD card, IrDA and standard peripherals such as USB, USART, SPI, I2C, CAN, etc.
EvoPrimer target boards are available for several variants including STM32F103, STM32F107, STM32L152 and STM32F407.
The EvoPrimer base includes a device programming and application debugging interface and comes with a Raisonance software tool set for coding, compiling and debugging the user's application.
The CircleOS utility allows the user to code their applications relying on an application programming interface, making it possible to program the application without having to master the configuration of device peripherals.
The price is US$100 to $120.
Development tools
Cortex-M
STM32
Design utilities
Simulink, by MathWorks provides model-based design solutions to design embedded systems. The Embedded Coder Support Package for STMicroelectronics Discovery Boards and the Simulink Coder Support Package for STMicroelectronics Nucleo Boards provide parameter tuning, signal monitoring and one-click deployment of Simulink algorithms to STM32 boards with access to peripherals like ADC, PWM, GPIOs, I²C, SPI, SCI, TCP/IP, UDP, etc.
Flash programming via USART
All STM32 microcontrollers have a ROM'ed bootloader that supports loading a binary image into its flash memory using one or more peripherals (varies by STM32 family). Since all STM32 bootloaders support loading from the USART peripheral and most boards connect the USART to RS-232 or a USB-to-UART adapter IC, thus it's a universal method to program the STM32 microcontroller. This method requires the target to have a way to enable/disable booting from the ROM'ed bootloader (i.e. jumper / switch / button).
STM32CubeMX
Eclipse Java based tool for selecting, initializing and configuring STM32 products (link).
STM32CubeIDE
Eclipse Java based IDE for STM32 products (link)
STM32CubeProgrammer
Eclipse Java based tool for programming STM32 products (link)
Replaces STM32 ST-Link Utility (STSW-LINK004)
STM32 C/C++ software libraries
HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) Drivers
LL (Low Layer) Drivers
Standard peripheral library (depracated)
embOS
FreeRTOS
USB device library.
DSP library.
Encryption library.
Motor control library.
MP3 / WMA / Speex codecs and audio engine.
Self-test routines.
Documentation
The amount of documentation for all ARM chips is daunting, especially for newcomers. The documentation for microcontrollers from past decades would easily be inclusive in a single document, but as chips have evolved so has the documentation grown. The total documentation is especially hard to grasp for all ARM chips since it consists of documents from the IC manufacturer (STMicroelectronics) and documents from CPU core vendor (ARM Holdings).
A typical top-down documentation tree is: manufacturer website, manufacturer marketing slides, manufacturer datasheet for the exact physical chip, manufacturer detailed reference manual that describes common peripherals and aspects of a physical chip family, ARM core generic user guide, ARM core technical reference manual, ARM architecture reference manual that describes the instruction set(s).
STM32 documentation tree (top to bottom)
STM32 website.
STM32 marketing slides.
STM32 datasheet.
STM32 reference manual.
ARM core website.
ARM core generic user guide.
ARM core technical reference manual.
ARM architecture reference manual.
STMicroelectronics has additional documents, such as: evaluation board user manuals, application notes, getting started guides, software library documents, errata, and more. See External Links section for links to official STM32 and ARM documents.
Part number decoding
STM32F051R8
STM32xxwwyz
xx – Family
ww – subtype: differs in equipment of peripherals and this depend on certain family
y – Package pin count
z – FLASH memory size
See also
ARM architecture, List of ARM microprocessor cores, ARM Cortex-M
Microcontroller, List of common microcontrollers
Embedded system, Single-board microcontroller
Interrupt, Interrupt handler, Comparison of real-time operating systems
JTAG, SWD
References
Further reading
The Insider's Guide To The STM32 ARM Based Microcontroller; 2nd Edition (v1.8); Trevor Martin; Hitex; 96 pages; 2009; . (Download) (Other Guides)
µC/OS-III: The Real-Time Kernel for the STMicroelecronics STM32F107; 1st Edition; Jean Labrosse; Micrium; 820 pages; 2009; .
µC/TCP-IP: The Embedded Protocol Stack for the STMicroelectronics STM32F107; 1st Edition; Christian Légaré; Micrium; 824 pages; 2010; .
External links
STM32 Official Documents
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! STM32Series !! STM32Website !! STM32Slides !! STM32Reference !! ARMCPU Core
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | H7 || Link || || || Cortex-M7F, Cortex-M4F
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | F7 || Link || || || Cortex-M7F
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | F4 || Link || || F4x5/7/9,F401 || Cortex-M4F
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | F3 || Link || || F37x / F38x,F30x / F31x || Cortex-M4F
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | F2 || Link || Slides || F20x / F21x || Cortex-M3
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | F1 || Link || Slides || F101/2/3/5/7F100 || Cortex-M3
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | F0 || Link || || F0x1/2/8,F030 || Cortex-M0
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | G4 || Link || || || Cortex-M4F
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | G0 || Link || || || Cortex-M0+
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | U5 || Link || ||
|Cortex-M33F
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | L5 || Link || || || Cortex-M33F
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | L4+ || Link || || || Cortex-M4F
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | L4 || Link || || || Cortex-M4F
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | L1 || Link || Slides || L1xx || Cortex-M3
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | L0 || Link || || L0xx || Cortex-M0+
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | WB || Link || || || Cortex-M4F, Cortex-M0+
|-
| style="background: LightCyan" | WL || Link || || || Cortex-M4, Cortex-M0+
|}
ARM Official Documents
Other
STM32 Communities: Primer
STM32 USART bus: Article 1, Article 2, Article 3
STM32 SPI bus: Article 1
STM32 ADC: Article 1
STM32 Bit Band Memory: Article 1
Libraries: ARM CMSIS, libopencm3
Embedded microprocessors
Microcontrollers
ARM architecture |
33921476 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper%20Systems | Whisper Systems | Whisper Systems was an American enterprise mobile security company that was co-founded by security researcher Moxie Marlinspike and roboticist Stuart Anderson in 2010. The company was acquired by Twitter in November 2011. Some of the company's software products were released under open-source licenses after the acquisition. An independent group called Open Whisper Systems later picked up the development of this open-source software, which led to the creation of the Signal Technology Foundation.
History
Security researcher Moxie Marlinspike and roboticist Stuart Anderson co-founded Whisper Systems in 2010. The company produced proprietary enterprise mobile security software. Among these were an encrypted texting program called TextSecure and an encrypted voice calling app called RedPhone. They also developed a firewall and tools for encrypting other forms of data.
On November 28, 2011, Whisper Systems announced that it had been acquired by Twitter. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by either company. The acquisition was done "primarily so that Mr. Marlinspike could help the then-startup improve its security". Shortly after the acquisition, Whisper Systems' RedPhone service was made unavailable. Some criticized the removal, arguing that the software was "specifically targeted [to help] people under repressive regimes" and that it left people like the Egyptians in "a dangerous position" during the events of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
Twitter released TextSecure as free and open-source software under the GPLv3 license in December 2011. RedPhone was also released under the same license in July 2012.
Marlinspike later left Twitter and founded Open Whisper Systems as a collaborative Open Source project for the continued development of TextSecure and RedPhone. Open Whisper Systems consisted of a large community of volunteer Open Source contributors, as well as a small team of dedicated grant-funded developers. In November 2015, Open Whisper Systems merged TextSecure with RedPhone and renamed it as Signal. In 2018, Signal Messenger was incorporated as an LLC by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton and then rolled under the independent non-profit Signal Technology Foundation. Today, the Signal app is developed by Signal Messenger LLC, which is funded by the Signal Foundation. The foundation has stated publicly that they are not tied to any major technology companies and "can never be acquired by one either."
Products
Whisper Systems' products were all made for Android and included:
TextSecure: An app that allowed the user to exchange end-to-end encrypted SMS messages with other TextSecure users.
RedPhone: An app that allowed the user to make end-to-end encrypted VoIP calls to other RedPhone users.
Flashback: An app that allowed the user to store encrypted backups of their device in the cloud.
WhisperCore: An app that integrated with the underlying Android OS to protect everything the user kept on their phone. The initial beta featured full disk encryption, network security tools, encrypted backup, selective permissions, and basic platform management tools for Nexus S and Nexus One phones.
WhisperMonitor: An app that worked with WhisperCore to provide a software firewall capable of dynamic egress filtering and real-time connection monitoring, giving the user control over where their data was going and what their apps were doing.
See also
List of mergers and acquisitions by Twitter
References
External links
Android (operating system) software
Cryptographic software
Mobile software
Secure communication
Twitter acquisitions
2011 mergers and acquisitions |
33961555 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20products%20that%20support%20SMB | List of products that support SMB | List of products that support the proprietary Server Message Block protocol by IBM and later Microsoft.
Implementations
The list below explicitly refers to "SMB" as including an SMB client or an SMB server, plus the various protocols that extend SMB, such as the Network Neighborhood suite of protocols and the NT Domains suite.
Microsoft Windows includes an SMB client and server in all members of the Windows NT family and in Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me.
The Linux kernel includes two SMB client implementations that use the Linux VFS, providing access to files on an SMB server through the standard file system API: smbfs and cifs. Also it is possible to mount the whole hierarchy of workgroups/servers/shares ("neighborhood") through FUSE kernel module and its userspace counterpart fusesmb. CIFSD, which is an In-kernel CIFS/SMB server implementation for Linux kernel, is available. It has the following advantages over user-space implementations: 1. It provides better performance, 2. It's easier to implement some features like SMB Direct.
In HELIOS Universal File Server UB64, the PCShare component is an SMB/CIFS file and print server for Apple Mac OS X, Linux, Oracle Solaris, and IBM AIX servers.
Plan 9 from Bell Labs contained both a CIFS/SMB server aquarela and client cifs.
FreeBSD includes an SMB client implementation called smbfs that uses its VFS.
NetBSD and macOS include SMB client implementations called smbfs, originally derived from the FreeBSD smbfs; they use the NetBSD and macOS VFSes, respectively.
macOS, starting with Mac OS X Lion, has an Apple-developed SMB server implementation called SMBX.
Solaris has a project called CIFS client for Solaris, based on the Mac OS X smbfs.
OpenSolaris added in-kernel CIFS server support in October 2007. This is also present in OpenIndiana and NexentaStor.
Sun Microsystems Cascade, which became known as PC-Netlink, represents a port of Advanced Server for Unix. Sun took over two years making the code useful, due to the poor quality of the original port.
Novell NetWare version 6 and newer has a CIFS server implementation providing access to NetWare volumes for Microsoft Network clients.
Novell Open Enterprise Server includes a SMB/CIFS server implementation to provide access to NSS volumes for different client platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux).
Samba, which re-implements the SMB protocol and the Microsoft extensions to it as free software, includes an SMB server and a command-line SMB client. Version 3.0 or later is required for NTLMv2 authentication support, while versions 3.6+ or 4.0+ are required for SMB2 interoperability.
FreeNAS, a dedicated small-sized NAS server, runs FreeBSD for Network-attached storage (NAS) services, and supports protocols including CIFS/SMB.
Advanced Server for Unix (AS/U) comprises a port of Windows NT 3.51's SMB server code to Unix. Microsoft licensed the code to AT&T, which then licensed it to major Unix vendors.
VERITAS Software has an implementation of SMB.
Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) had a port of Advanced Server for Unix.
SCO also had VisionFS, a re-implementation of SMB intended to distribute SCO components and have easier configuration than Samba.
Samba TNG: a fork of Samba.
agorum core, open source enterprise content management system with fully integrated CIFS-Server for accessing documents.
EMC Corporation has an SMB server with its Celerra platforms.
NetApp has an SMB server implementation.
Isilon Systems OneFS File System has a clustered NAS SMB server implementation which was originally developed by Likewise Software. Previous versions of Isilon System's was based on Samba. Subsequent versions of OneFS integrated Likewise Software's implementation of an SMB Server.
Likewise Software has offered Likewise-CIFS, an open source SMB/CIFS file server with support for both SMB1 and SMB2.
Objective Development's Sharity provides an SMB file-system client for Unix.
Tuxera develops and sells a proprietary SMB server and client implementation for Linux that supports all SMB protocols.
The Alfresco content-management system includes JLAN, a Java implementation of an SMB server.
The LogicalDOC document management system includes a client for connecting to SMB, implemented in Java
JCIFS offers an implementation of a CIFS/SMB1 client in Java
jNQ, a commercial SMB2, SMB3 and SMB 3.1.1 client implementation written in Pure Java
SMBJ offers an implementation of an SMB2, SMB3 and SMB 3.1.1 compatible client in Java
RTSMB, a CIFS/SMB implementation written in ANSI C. EBS designed RTSMB from scratch, independently of MS or SAMBA design reference, to run in embedded devices.
Visuality Systems YNQ™, commercial SMB 3.1.1 Server and Client solutions for embedded devices — ported to many popular real-time operating systems (RTOSs).
Thursby Software Systems developed DAVE, the first commercial implementation of SMB/CIFS for Classic Mac OS in 1996, co-writing the Mac standards with Microsoft in 2002. It was later ported to Mac OS X. Thursby's DAVE, ADmitMac and ADmitMac PKI products include both an SMB client and an SMB server, and support Microsoft's DFS.
An iPhone application named Flash Files has an SMB server implementation.
Some Sony-Ericsson mobile phones have an SMB server built in.
The Huawei Y9 Prime smartphone (2019) has a built-in CIFS server called Huawei Share.
SymSMB is a Symbian application that allow SMB file sharing.
Connected Way, a portable commercial embedded SMBv1/v2/v3 Client/Server for ThreadX, android, and other RTOSes.
pysmb A python implementation of SMB/CIFS Client.
impacket Python implementation of SMB (v1, v2 and v3) client including a pure python SMB Server. MS-RPC also supported.
CodeFX eCIFS, a C source code client for embedded systems.
MoSMB Product (SMB with Mojo) A proprietary SMB3 stack for Linux targeted for NAS solutions supporting HyperV, AD with kerberos authentication, multi-channel, witness & clustering support.
Microsoft Azure. Cloud file server supporting SMB3 (and SMB2.1).
BT Smart Hub routers use SMB1 for NAS functionality.
JFileServer, a Java file server implementing SMB v1, v2 and v3, with support for virtual filesystems and database filesystems.
Bloombase has a CIFS/SMB implementation for transparent data-at-rest encryption use cases.
References
Windows communication and services
Network file systems
Network protocols
Application layer protocols
Inter-process communication |
33975453 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUDEK | DUDEK | The TgS-1 DUDEK (Polish: hoopoe) (Dalekopisowe Urządzenie Do Elektronicznego Kodowania -- Teleprinter Device for Electronic Coding) was an on-line and off-line encryption system developed during the Cold War in the 1960s in the Polish People's Republic by the Telkom Teletra company and the Ministry of Interior for use on teleprinter circuits. The units saw use in the Polish Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych networks serving the (Milicja Obywatelska), the (Służba Bezpieczeństwa), the Polish Ministry of National Defense (Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych) and the National Bank of Poland (Narodowy Bank Polski). The Poles also pressed Warsaw Pact states to adopt the DUDEK sets for international traffic.
The DUDEK series used random symmetric keys provided on paper tapes, which were XORed by the unit with the plaintext provided from the teleprinter or recorded on different paper tapes. The DUDEK sets were to be used in conjunction with teleprinters like the Siemens/Ceska Zbrojovka T-100 or the RFT T-51. The maximum transmission speed was at 50 or 75 Baud. The system was cleared up to the top secret level by the Poles provided that it served within the Tempested environment.
A newer and slightly improved model using the TTL technology instead of toroid cores logic was developed in the late 1970s and named the TgS-3 DUDEK.
The last DUDEK sets were retired by the Policja as of January 1, 2011.
Versions
At least four basic versions are known to have existed:
TgS-1 - basic version.
TgS-1M - mobile version.
TgS-1MS - mobile version.
TgS-3 - a newer version introduced into the service in Poland in the early 1980s, which used the TTL technology instead of toroid cores logic.
Each version also had derivative models, which differed with regard to the type of punched paper readers and the associated ancillaries.
The T-352 and T-353 were the Stasi adopted names of the TgS-1 and TgS-1M DUDEK sets respectively.
References
Jan Bury, From the Archives: Inside a Cold War Crypto Cell. Polish Cipher Bureau in the 1980s, Cryptologia 32(4), October 2008, pp. 351–367.
External links
A T-352 / T-353 DUDEK derivative version, which served with the ZCO.
A TgS-3 Dudek photo.
Encryption devices |
33993923 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data%20at%20rest | Data at rest | Data at rest in information technology means data that is housed physically on computer data storage in any digital form (e.g. cloud storage, file hosting services, databases, data warehouses, spreadsheets, archives, tapes, off-site or cloud backups, mobile devices etc.). Data at rest includes both structured and unstructured data. This type of data is subject to threats from hackers and other malicious threats to gain access to the data digitally or physical theft of the data storage media. To prevent this data from being accessed, modified or stolen, organizations will often employ security protection measures such as password protection, data encryption, or a combination of both. The security options used for this type of data are broadly referred to as data at rest protection (DARP).
Data at rest is used as a complement to the terms data in use and data in transit which together define the three states of digital data (see Figure 1).
Alternative definition
There is some disagreement regarding the difference between data at rest and data in use. Data at rest generally refers to data stored in persistent storage (disk, tape) while data in use generally refers to data being processed by a computer central processing unit (CPU) or in random access memory (RAM, also referred to as main memory or simply memory).
Definitions include:
"...all data in computer storage while excluding data that is traversing a network or temporarily residing in computer memory to be read or updated."
"...all data in storage but excludes any data that frequently traverses the network or that which resides in temporary memory. Data at rest includes but is not limited to archived data, data which is not accessed or changed frequently, files stored on hard drives, USB thumb drives, files stored on backup tape and disks, and also files stored off-site or on a storage area network (SAN)."
Data in use has also been taken to mean “active data” in the context of being in a database or being manipulated by an application. For example, some enterprise encryption gateway solutions for the cloud claim to encrypt data at rest, data in transit and data in use.
While it is generally accepted that archive data (i.e. which never changes), regardless of its storage medium, is data at rest and active data subject to constant or frequent change is data in use. “Inactive data” could be taken to mean data which may change, but infrequently. The imprecise nature of terms such as “constant” and “frequent” means that some stored data cannot be comprehensively defined as either data at rest or in use. These definitions could be taken to assume that Data at Rest is a superset of data in use; however, data in use, subject to frequent change, has distinct processing requirements from data at rest, whether completely static or subject to occasional change.
The division of data at rest into the sub-categories "static" and "inconstant" addresses this distinction (see Figure 2)..
Concerns about data at rest
Because of its nature data at rest is of increasing concern to businesses, government agencies and other institutions. Mobile devices are often subject to specific security protocols to protect data at rest from unauthorized access when lost or stolen and there is an increasing recognition that database management systems and file servers should also be considered as at risk; the longer data is left unused in storage, the more likely it might be retrieved by unauthorized individuals outside the network.
Encryption
Data encryption, which prevents data visibility in the event of its unauthorized access or theft, is commonly used to protect data in motion and increasingly promoted for protecting data at rest.
The encryption of data at rest should only include strong encryption methods such as AES or RSA. Encrypted data should remain encrypted when access controls such as usernames and password fail. Increasing encryption on multiple levels is recommended. Cryptography can be implemented on the database housing the data and on the physical storage where the databases are stored. Data encryption keys should be updated on a regular basis. Encryption keys should be stored separately from the data. Encryption also enables crypto-shredding at the end of the data or hardware lifecycle. Periodic auditing of sensitive data should be part of policy and should occur on scheduled occurrences. Finally, only store the minimum possible amount of sensitive data.
Tokenization
Tokenization is a non-mathematical approach to protecting data at rest that replaces sensitive data with non-sensitive substitutes, referred to as tokens, which have no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. This process does not alter the type or length of data, which means it can be processed by legacy systems such as databases that may be sensitive to data length and type.
Tokens require significantly less computational resources to process and less storage space in databases than traditionally encrypted data. This is achieved by keeping specific data fully or partially visible for processing and analytics while sensitive information is kept hidden. Lower processing and storage requirements makes tokenization an ideal method of securing data at rest in systems that manage large volumes of data.
Federation
A further method of preventing unwanted access to data at rest is the use of data federation especially when data is distributed globally (e.g. in off-shore archives). An example of this would be a European organisation which stores its archived data off-site in the US. Under the terms of the USA PATRIOT Act the American authorities can demand access to all data physically stored within its boundaries, even if it includes personal information on European citizens with no connections to the US. Data encryption alone cannot be used to prevent this as the authorities have the right to demand decrypted information. A data federation policy which retains personal citizen information with no foreign connections within its country of origin (separate from information which is either not personal or is relevant to off-shore authorities) is one option to address this concern. However, data stored in foreign countries can be accessed using legislation in the CLOUD Act.
References
Computer data
Cryptography |
33994571 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRESOR | TRESOR | TRESOR (recursive acronym for "TRESOR Runs Encryption Securely Outside RAM", and also the French word for a treasure) is a Linux kernel patch which provides CPU-only based encryption to defend against cold boot attacks on computer systems by performing encryption outside usual random-access memory (RAM). It is one of two proposed solutions for general-purpose computers (the other uses CPU cache for the same purpose), was developed from its predecessor AESSE, presented at EuroSec 2010 and presented at USENIX Security 2011. The authors state that it allows RAM to be treated as untrusted from a security viewpoint without hindering the system.
A 2012 paper called TRESOR-HUNT showed how a DMA attack can break this system, by injecting code that would invisibly function at ring 0 (the highest privilege level), which would allow it to read the keys and transfer them to usual memory. The paper also proposed ways to mitigate such attacks.
Motivation
In computer security, a common problem for data security is how an intruder can access encrypted data on a computer. Modern encryption algorithms, correctly implemented and with strong passwords, are often unbreakable with current technology, so emphasis has moved to techniques that bypass this requirement, by exploiting aspects of data security where the encryption can be "broken" with much less effort, or else bypassed completely.
A cold boot attack is one such means by which an intruder can defeat encryption despite system security, if they can gain physical access to the running machine. It is premised on the physical properties of the circuitry within memory devices that are commonly used in computers. The concept is that when a computer system has encrypted data open, the encryption keys themselves used to read or write that data are usually stored on a temporary basis in physical memory, in a plain readable form. (Holding these keys in "plain" form during use is hard or impossible to avoid with usual systems since the system itself must be able to access the data when instructed by the authorized user). Usually this is no benefit to an unauthorised intruder, because they cannot access or use those keys—for example due to security built into the software or system. However, if the memory devices can be accessed outside the running system without loss of contents, for example by quickly restarting the computer or removing the devices to a different device, then the current contents—including any encryption keys in use—can be plainly read and used. This can be important if the system cannot be used to view, copy or access that data—for example the system is locked, or may have booby traps or other intrusion controls, or is needed in a guaranteed untouched form for forensic or evidentiary purposes.
Since this is a physical property of the hardware itself, and based on physical properties of memory devices, it cannot be defeated easily by pure software techniques, since all software running in memory at the point of intervention becomes accessible. As a result, any encryption software whose keys could be accessed this way is vulnerable to such attacks. Usually a cold boot attack involves cooling memory chips or quickly restarting the computer, and exploiting the fact that data is not immediately lost (or not lost if power is very quickly restored) and the data that was held at the point of intervention will be left accessible to examination.
Cold boot attacks can therefore be a means of unauthorized data theft, loss or access. Such attacks can be nullified if the encryption keys are not accessible at a hardware level to an intruder–i.e., the devices in which the keys are stored when in use are not amenable to cold boot attacks–but this is not the usual case.
TRESOR's approach
TRESOR is a software approach that seeks to resolve this insecurity by storing and manipulating encryption keys almost exclusively on the CPU alone, and in registers accessible at ring 0 (the highest privilege level) only—the exception being the brief period of initial calculation at the start of a session. This ensures that encryption keys are almost never available via user space or following a cold boot attack. TRESOR is written as a kernel patch that stores encryption keys in the x86 debug registers, and uses on-the-fly round key generation, atomicity, and blocking of usual access to the debug registers for security.
TRESOR was foreshadowed by a 2010 thesis by Tilo Muller which analyzed the cold boot attack issue. He concluded that modern x86 processors had two register areas where CPU-based kernel encryption was realistic: the SSE registers which could in effect be made privileged by disabling all SSE instructions (and necessarily, any programs relying on them), and the debug registers which were much smaller but had no such issues. He left the latter for others to examine, and developed a proof of concept distribution called Paranoix based on the SSE register method.
Its developers state that "running TRESOR on a 64-bit CPU that supports AES-NI, there is no performance penalty compared to a generic implementation of AES", and run slightly faster than standard encryption despite the need for key recalculation, a result which initially surprised the authors as well.
Potential vulnerabilities
The authors' paper notes the following:
Although they cannot rule out CPU data leaking into RAM, they were unable to observe any case this happened during formal testing. Any such case is expected to be patchable.
Root access to the encryption keys via the kernel of a running system is possible using loadable kernel modules or virtual memory () and physical memory (), if compiled to support these, but otherwise appears not to be accessible in any known way on a standard running system.
ACPI sleep and low power states: - on real processors registers are reset to zero during ACPI S3 states (suspend-to-ram) and S4 (suspend-to-disk) states since the CPU is switched off for these.
Cold boot attacks on the CPU: - on real processors registers are cleared to zero on both hardware resets and software resets ("Ctrl-Alt-Delete"). However CPU registers are currently vulnerable on virtual machines, since they are reset during simulated hardware resets but not during software resets. The authors deem this an apparent flaw in many implementations of virtual machines, but note that virtual systems would be inherently vulnerable even if this were rectified, since all registers on a virtual machine are likely to be accessible using the host system.
TRESOR is resistant to timing attacks and cache-based attacks by design of the AES-NI instruction, where the CPU supports AES instruction set extensions. Processors capable of handling AES extensions as of 2011 are Intel Westmere and Sandy Bridge (some i3 excepted) and successors, AMD Bulldozer, and certain VIA PadLock processors.
In 2012 a paper called TRESOR-HUNT showed how a DMA attack could break this system, by injecting code that would invisibly function at ring 0 (the highest privilege level), bypassing the "lockout" imposed by TRESOR, which would allow it to read the keys from the debug registers and transfer them to usual memory. The paper also proposed ways to mitigate such attacks.
See also
Disk encryption
Cold boot attack
Computer security
Secure by design
Linux kernel
References and notes
External links
TRESOR home page
Cryptography
Disk encryption
Side-channel attacks
Computer security exploits |
34007513 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE%20802.15.6 | IEEE 802.15.6 | The IEEE 802.15.6 standard is the latest international standard for Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN).
WBAN supports a variety of real-time health monitoring and consumer electronics applications. The latest international standard for WBAN is the IEEE 802.15.6 standard which aims to provide an international standard for low power, short range, and extremely reliable wireless communication within the surrounding area of the human body, supporting a vast range of data rates for different applications. Short-range, wireless communications in the vicinity of, or inside, a human body (but not limited to humans) are specified in this standard. It uses existing industrial scientific medical (ISM) bands as well as frequency bands approved by national medical and/or regulatory authorities. Support for quality of service (QoS), extremely low power, and data rates up to 10 Mbps is required while simultaneously complying with strict non-interference guidelines where needed. This standard considers effects on portable antennas due to the presence of a person (varying with male, female, skinny, heavy, etc.), radiation pattern shaping to minimize the specific absorption rate (SAR) into the body, and changes in characteristics as a result of the user motions.
Security
The IEEE 802.15.6 standard aims to provide the confidentiality, authentication, integrity, privacy protection, and replay defense. All nodes and hubs must choose three security levels: unsecured communication (level 0), authentication but no encryption (level 1), and authentication and encryption (level 2). During the security association process, a node and a hub need to jointly select a suitable security level. In unicast communication, a pre-shared or a new MK is activated. A Pairwise Temporal Key (PTK) is then generated that is used only once per session. In multicast communication, a Group Temporal Key (GTK) is generated that is shared with the corresponding group. All nodes and hubs in a WBAN have to go through certain stages at the MAC layer before data exchange.
A security association is a procedure to identify a node and a hub to each other, to establish a new Master Key (MK) shared between them, or to activate an existing MK pre-shared between them. The security association in the IEEE 802.15.6 standard is based on four key agreement protocols that have security problems. There are some interesting proposals in the published academic literature which resolve the security and privacy problems of the current security association procedures of IEEE 802.15.6 in a suitable manner, however, the fact that such proposals have yet not being included with in the standard by IEEE is incomprehensible.
See also
Body Area Network
IEEE 802.15
References
IEEE 802 |
34039510 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap%20card | Leap card | The TFI Leap Card is a contactless smart card for automated fare collection overseen by Transport for Ireland (TFI). It was introduced in the Greater Dublin area in 2011 for Luas, DART, Iarnród Éireann and Dublin Bus, but acceptance has significantly expanded. Initially, Leap Cards offered only a pre-paid electronic wallet system for single-trip fares; since May 2014, it has also been possible to load it with weekly, monthly and annual subscriptions. In September 2017, there were over 2.5 million Leap Card users according to the National Transport Authority. The Leap Card is the result of many years' work by the Railway Procurement Agency and the National Transport Authority as part of the rollout of an integrated ticketing scheme for public transport in Dublin city. Fares are generally discounted compared to cash prices, and limited integrated ticketing is offered via multi-trip discounts and daily fare caps. The minimum top-up for the card is currently €5.
History
The Railway Procurement Agency, now part of Transport Infrastructure Ireland, was responsible for the development of light railway and metro infrastructure and developing an integrated smart card system. First plans were made at the end of the last century and initially it was planned to introduce an integrated card when the Luas system would start to operate in 2004 or 2005. The development of the new system had many delays and setbacks, including the withdrawal of all three bidders in a 2005 tender; and the costs for the new system were far higher than budgeted. This led to the development of the Leap card platform from scratch; with the first cards becoming available to the general public in December 2011.
Prior to this, both Luas and Iarnród Éireann (in the Greater Dublin Area only) had rolled out their own, non-interoperable smartcard systems with both e-purse and long-term period pass options in 2005 and 2010 respectively. Additionally, Dublin Bus started providing long-term period passes on smartcards from 2009 but did not offer an e-purse option. Smartcard tickets were generally slightly cheaper than cash fares on these systems, but without any consistency or any multi-operator offerings. The reader infrastructure installed at tram stops, rail stations and buses from this period was all physically compatible with the Leap system when introduced and did not need replacement.
Initially, only discounted cash fare equivalents were offered; but the ability to load period passes to the card was added in 2013 with all Taxsaver products converted from paper or the operators' prior smartcards by 2014.
The fully integrated ticketing element of the project has not been fully delivered as of 2019. Greater Dublin Area fare capping was introduced for single operators in 2012 with a multi-operator cap introduced in 2013. A further step towards the planned 90-minute all-mode fare was introduced in 2015, with the Leap90 discount of €1 on each journey within 90 minutes of a prior journey.
The Leap platform has also been used for the rollout of the Public Services Cards, allowing the replacement of the paper (rural) or paper + cardboard photocard (Dublin) Free Travel Pass for older people and those with disabilities. This removes the need to get a paper concessionary ticket issued for many rail journeys, reduces fraud opportunities and allows for the cancellation of passes.
Using the Leap Card
Anonymous Leap cards can be purchased at Payzone outlets or from certain Luas or Irish Rail ticketing machines. A new card will cost €10 and that card will have an initial credit of €5. Value from an existing smart-card cannot be transferred onto a Leap Card, but it was possible to get a free Leap Card for holders of the 'old' Luas or Rail smart-cards until 30 September 2014. Personalised cards for use with period tickets are provided free-of-charge but without any credit. Customers can only use the card for e-purse transactions when the card is in credit; although a fare can bring the card to a negative balance of up to -€5.
Cards can be topped-up via Payzone outlets, or any Luas or Irish Rail ticketing machines, They can also be anonymously topped up, and recent ticket history viewed, using an app on a NFC-enabled compatible iPhone or Android smartphone.
It is also possible to reload a card using the Leap Card website, but it must then be registered online. When a Leap Card is registered, the cardholder can check their travel/purchase history online, but the card is no longer anonymous.
Transport operators
Acceptance has extended beyond the original three operators, and now covers
Ashbourne Connect
Bus Éireann - all non-Expressway services
City Direct
Collins Coaches
Dualway Coaches - certain scheduled services
Dublin Bus
Go-Ahead Ireland
Iarnród Éireann - Greater Dublin and Cork Commuter services, point to point period passes
JJ Kavanagh - Route 139
Liffey Ferry
Matthews Coaches
Swords Express
Wexford Bus
Current capabilities
The capabilities of the card have been extended to reach almost all groups. The following are currently in operation:
Transfer rebates: when a journey includes several modes of transport (where one has to pay individually for each) a "transfer rebate" is credited to the card. This scheme was introduced on 1 November 2014.
Monthly and yearly passes. All the former Dublin Bus tickets were migrated to the Leap Card as well as the Luas year-passes and monthly Tax-Saver subscriptions. This process was completed in May 2014.
Special fares for students and schoolchildren. This scheme was completed on 1 August 2014 with the new Personalised Child Leap Card for children 16 to 18 years of age. This card expires on the child's 19th birthday. Children from the age of 4 to the age of 15 use an Anonymous Child Leap Card. In August 2018, University College Dublin Students' Union suspended the sale of student Leap cards due to data privacy concerns.
Technical detail
The Leap Card uses a chip inside the card that can be read from and written to without direct contact: a so-called proximity card or RFID card. The original Luas and Iarnród Éireann cards used the MIFARE classic card, which became notorious because of the ease with which they can be hacked into. Because of the security concerns of the Mifare classic the company that designed the card, NXP Semiconductors, have developed RFID cards that use a better encryption method. The RPA has not disclosed which card is being used for the Leap Card but scanning the card with a generic RFID reader shows it as a MIFARE DESFire EV1 (in detail: cardtype=ISO/IEC 14443-4 Smart Card, Mifare DESFire EV1 (MF3ICD41)). The terminals used in Dublin Bus (both the bus-driver terminal as well as the right-hand card reader), are made by Mifare/NXP and the 'pole terminals' are also made by Mifare (as the original Luas smart card is a Mifare classic).
While the Leap Card is a MiFare DESFire EV1, the standard (carton/paper) Dublin bus RFID tickets were using MiFare Ultralight (Type A (ISO/IEC 14443 Type A)) while the Rail Smart Card (Dublin short-hop zone) from Iarnród Éireann used the Mifare Classic 1k.
The Leap Card system has cost €55 million to date. However, since its launch in December 2011, it has had a turnover of €263 million as of April 2015. Later on, the National Transport Authority sought a partner to operate the Leap Card system on the authority's behalf. The partner would have to pull together the myriad facets required to operate the ITS, handling the complexities associated with the core financial process management (FPM), Contact Centre and card management functions. The National Transport Authority ended choosing DXC Technology. The IT Services and Solutions company currently outsources NTA's integrated ticketing back-office operations, IT management, retail network and web portal delivery.
References
Contactless smart cards
Fare collection systems
Transport in Ireland
2011 establishments in Ireland |
34058192 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Flashpoint%20%28comics%29%20characters | List of Flashpoint (comics) characters | This is a list of DC Comics characters that appear in the Flashpoint reality.
Major characters
The Flash – Barry Allen is the main character of Flashpoint and is one of the few characters who remembers the original timeline. Despite being from the original timeline, Barry's personal history is different: Barry initially does not have his super-speed or his secret identity as the Flash; his mother is alive and; he has no relationship with Iris West. Despite having memories from the initial timeline, Barry's memories change sporadically throughout the series, causing him to recall the events of the Flashpoint timeline such as Aquaman's flooding of Europe and Wonder Woman's conquest of England. With the aid of Batman, Barry manages to convince various heroes and villains to collaborate in stopping Aquaman and Wonder Woman from escalating their conflict into a world war. However, during the heroes' final assault on the Amazonian kingdom, Barry's efforts are almost proven futile, as Professor Zoom appears in the wake of the battle, taunting him due to his inability to prevent Zoom's manipulations from taking effect. Thawne then reveals to the Flash that the entire Flashpoint timeline is actually the result of Barry's attempt to prevent Zoom from murdering his mother, and that Zoom now has the ability to kill the Flash at his own leisure without negating his own existence. After learning his inadvertent role in the creation of the Flashpoint timeline, Barry tries to set things right by trying to stop his younger self from changing history. However, the cursed immortal Pandora takes advantage of the situations and creates another alternate timeline slightly different from the original, and Barry fails to realize it.
Reverse-Flash – Professor Eobard "Zoom" Thawne, the Reverse-Flash, serves as a red herring of the Flashpoint timeline, and, unlike Barry, the Reverse-Flash still has his powers at their fullest. Eobard constantly toys with Barry by speaking to Barry's mother while running at super-speed and replacing the costume inside the Flash's ring with a Reverse-Flash costume. He is revealed to have caused tragedy in Barry's life after realizing that preventing Barry from becoming the Flash would wipe out his own existence. In the penultimate issue, Reverse-Flash appears before the Flash during the battle between the Amazons and the Atlanteans. He then reveals to Barry that the Flashpoint timeline was actually created by Barry himself, after he traveled back in time to stop Eobard from killing his mother. According to Zoom, these actions transformed him into a living paradox, no longer requiring Barry to exist, and allowing him to kill the Flash without erasing his own existence. Zoom continues to taunt Barry with this knowledge until he is stabbed in the back by an Amazonian sword and killed by Batman. He later returns as an alternate timeline version, before his pre-Flashpoint memories are restored.
Booster Gold – When Earth and the rest of the universe entered into an alternate timeline as the result of the feud between the Flash and the Reverse-Flash, Booster Gold and Skeets awaken and are the only ones who remember the original timeline. Booster Gold travels to Coast City, but the U.S. soldiers attack him mistaking him to be an Atlantean threat. Skeets is damaged when Booster Gold is attacked by the military's Project Six, which is revealed to be Doomsday. During the battle in Coast City, Booster Gold discovers that Doomsday is controlled by General Nathaniel Adam. Booster Gold then escapes from Doomsday and then saves a woman named Alexandra Gianopoulos from Doomsday's attack. Booster Gold learns the timeline has been changed, suspecting that Eobard Thawne was behind it. Alexandra and Booster Gold split up, but she secretly has powers allowing her to take others' powers and follows him. Later, Booster Gold flies to Gotham City when Doomsday attacks him. General Adam's control link is destroyed by Alexandra in an attempt to rescue Booster Gold. During the fight, Doomsday beats Booster Gold nearly to death, but he is rescued by Alexandra. Booster Gold tries to prevent Doomsday from killing innocent people, and manages to put Doomsday's helmet back on. Doomsday's control is restored to General Adam, who grabs Booster, hoping to kill him. Fortunately, General Adam takes Booster Gold back to the base for interrogation, allowing Booster Gold to escape when the sight of "Project Superman" causes Doomsday's true personality to resurface again. Alexandra manages to defeat Doomsday by using the control helmet to make Doomsday tear himself apart, subsequently asking Booster Gold to take her with him when he restores history to normal. However, Alexandra subsequently sacrifices herself to save Booster Gold from an Atlantean attack, leaving Booster Gold to return to the Vanishing Point as history resets itself without any clear memory of his time in the Flashpoint universe.
Kid Flash – Bart Allen wakes up in the 31st century in Brainiac's stasis pod chamber without his super-speed. After failing to avoid being recaptured by Brainiac, he is confronted by a female Hot Pursuit and escapes with her help. Hot Pursuit reveals herself to be Patty Spivot, Barry Allen's assistant. Kid Flash learns that Patty stole Hot Pursuit's motorcycle and has taken his place. Bart allows himself to be recaptured by Brainiac and is placed into a statis pod, destroying Brainiac's security program from the inside. Patty holds off Brainiac and breaks an energy projector, which returns Bart's super-speed to him. Bart then runs through time to the 21st century, and promises Patty that he will return and rescue her. However, Bart's body transforms into the Black Flash, causing him to kill the speedsters Max Mercury, Jay Garrick, and Wally West. Bart reverts from the Black Flash and meets Barry, where he realizes that the Speed Force is encased in him. Bart is transformed into the living embodiment of the Speed Force's light, or the "White Flash", and he gives Barry his power and tells him to save the world.
Heroes
Abin Sur – As the "Blackest Night" falls across the universe, Abin Sur, or Green Lantern of Sector 2814, is dispatched to Earth by the Guardians of the Universe with the mission to retrieve the White Entity and bring it back to Oa. While reaching planet Earth, Abin Sur's ship is damaged by a laser that he is forced to crash on the land. Survived, he is approached by Hal Jordan, but he is subsequently taken into custody by Cyborg and the U.S. government to be questioned about his reasons for being on Earth. Although he initially agrees to work with the Earth's heroes to deal with the Amazon/Atlantean War, he declines later on when Batman refuses to join. He is attacked by Sinestro, who reveals that he has learned of the prophecy of the Flashpoint as well as the original world that existed before this one. Sinestro plans to use the Flash to change the history to his own liking and cuts off Abin Sur's hand, severing his connection with his ring. The ring then flies onto Abin Sur's other hand, and he manages to defeat and imprison Sinestro. The Guardians then contact Abin Sur, demanding that he bring the Entity to them, yet refusing to listen to Sinestro's talk of the Flashpoint. They discharge Abin Sur from the Corps, telling him that his ring will find a new wielder when it runs out of power. Abin joins the battle in Europe when a cataclysmic earthquake starts. He dives into the crevice just before his ring runs out of power. The Entity then bonds with Abin Sur and he sees a vision of his sister telling him to truly experience life rather than just living it. Abin Sur is then given the power of the White Lantern and flies into space where he attempts to heal the damage done to the Earth.
Batman – Thomas Wayne is the Batman of the Flashpoint reality. Having long abandoned practicing medicine, Thomas Wayne runs Wayne Casinos and has taken up the identity of Batman. On the other hand, Batman in the Flashpoint timeline is an unhinged vigilante who dispenses murderous justice on the streets of Gotham and works out of an underequiped Batcave under the decaying ruins of Wayne Manor. He also has the gun that Joe Chill used to shoot his son as a trophy, indicating that Wayne had gotten his revenge on Bruce Wayne's murder. Wayne has brought gambling into Gotham as a means of controlling and strategically eliminating crime within the city, and he is also seen working with Oswald Cobblepot. Subsequently, he has killed the Flashpoint versions of Killer Croc, Hush, Poison Ivy, and Scarecrow. With Bruce Wayne dying in his and his wife's place, Thomas becomes the Batman. Judge Harvey Dent asks Thomas to save his children, who have been kidnapped by the Joker. Thomas later meets Barry Allen and learns that as a result of the Reverse-Flash's manipulations, an alternate timeline was created. Upon finding out that Bruce originally survived the mugging instead of him and his wife, Batman allies himself with Barry in a quest to search and defeat Zoom to restore the timeline and bring his son back to life, regardless the cost of his own. While Allen is recovering in the Batcave after the first attempt to restore his speed, Thomas resumes locating the Joker with Police Chief James Gordon. Later, Batman sees the footage of the Joker murdering Gordon and confronts the Joker in Wayne Manor, revealing her to be his wife Martha. It is revealed that after Bruce's death, Martha disfigured her face after being driven mad by the loss of her child. Later on, Batman resumes in pursuing his wife after he successfully saves one of Dent's children. In the final battle, Batman reveals of what he has learned from the Flash to the Joker; that he and his wife were supposed to die that night at Crime Alley and how they are alive now. Thomas promises her that he would do everything it takes just to bring their son back to life. When Martha asks her husband of what Bruce was like after they have died, Thomas reluctantly reveals that their son would become Batman. Knowing the sufferings her son would endure after their deaths puts Martha further into madness, and she falls to her demise in the Batcave. Batman later aids Barry Allen in his attempt to lead the world's remaining heroes and villains in preventing the Amazons and Atlanteans from starting a world war. In the climax of the series, Batman manages to kill Professor Zoom by stabbing him with an Amazonian sword. Before the Flash runs to stop his younger self from altering the timeline, Thomas thanks him for all he has done and gives Barry a letter addressed to his son. After the timeline had reset, Bruce Wayne placed his father's letter in a display case at the Batcave after reading it.
Captain Thunder – The Marvel Family of the Flashpoint timeline consists of six children who were caught on a subway car that took them to the Rock of Eternity. As a result, each of the youths were given a different one of the wizard's attributes, and go by the name "S!H!A!Z!A!M!". The six children possess the collective ability to turn into Captain Thunder, this timeline's version of Captain Marvel. While the children are in their foster home in Fawcett City, they are approached by Cyborg, Flash, Batman, Enchantress, and Element Woman. Billy is swayed to the heroes' cause since he is able to use his abilities to sift through the Flash's memories and see himself as Captain Marvel back in the proper, more heroic universe. After hearing about a massive battle between Aquaman's Atlantean army and Wonder Woman's Amazonian forces, the kids transform into Captain Thunder and accompany the other heroes to the battlefield in a last-ditch effort to stop the war. Captain Thunder briefly fights Wonder Woman to a draw before being transformed back into the six children by Enchantress who is revealed to be a spy working for the Amazons. Before the kids can reform Captain Thunder, Billy is stabbed by Penthesileia killing him. The six children include:
Billy Batson – The De facto leader of S!H!A!Z!A!M! who possesses the courage of Achilles.
Mary Batson - Sister of Billy Batson who possesses the stamina of Atlas.
Freddy Freeman - Friend of Billy and Mary Batson, who possesses the power of Zeus. He is crippled in this timeline and walks with the aid of a pair of canes.
Eugene Choi - An Asian-American boy who possesses the wisdom of Solomon.
Pedro Peña - An overweight Latino boy who possesses the strength of Hercules.
Darla Dudley - An African-American girl who possesses the speed of Mercury.
Citizen Cold – Leonard Snart a.k.a. Citizen Cold is the local hero of Central City. Citizen Cold, much like his DC Universe counterpart, is mainly motivated by money and women. He is using his superhero identity as a way to gain celebrity status in his fights against supervillains. Despite Citizen Cold's brutal treatment of his foes, the people of Central City widely admire him to the extent of giving him the key to the city multiple times and building a museum in his honor, similar to the Flash's own museum. Also like the Flash, Citizen Cold's main enemies are mostly members of the Rogues, such as the Pied Piper, and it is implied that he has killed Miss Alchemy. Later, Citizen Cold is contacted by the heroes of Earth and attends a meeting that Cyborg has arranged to talk about the possibility of creating a group of heroes to deal with the Amazon/Atlantean War. When Batman refuses to join, Citizen Cold declines as well. After, Citizen Cold defeats Mr. Freeze and kills him, he returns home to see a news report that his sister Lisa has been arrested for killing their brutal father. When Wally West discovers Citizen Cold's true identity, that of a former low-level criminal, Citizen Cold confronts him before he can reveal this information and freezes Wally in a block of ice. Later, Citizen Cold invites Iris West to dinner, but it is interrupted by calls saying that his sister Lisa has been kidnapped by the Rogues. Citizen Cold tries to rescue Lisa, but the Rogues attack him in revenge for what he has done. Citizen Cold is too late and Lisa is killed. When he confronts Iris after being injured while escaping, Iris brings him to her home. After he recovers, he gives her a key to his penthouse and an offer to join him when he leaves Central City. He then goes after the Rogues, killing them all for the murder of his sister. When he returns home, he is confronted by Iris and the Pied Piper, who had revealed to her his murder of Wally. Citizen Cold attempts to kill the Pied Piper, but Iris uses one of his own weapons to freeze Citizen Cold in a block of ice, just as he did to Wally.
Creatures of the Unknown – Lt. Matthew Shrieve was ambushed by Nazi soldiers, but then saved by Frankenstein. Later, Shrieve and Frankenstein are invited by Project M to join the Creature of the Unknown. Led raid with the Creatures, Frankenstein personally killed Adolf Hitler. After the end of World War II, Project M is deemed obsolete by Robert Crane's government services. Frankenstein refuses to accept, but is subdued and put into stasis by the G.I. Robot. Later, Frankenstein and the Creatures are revived and escape from the lab facility where they are imprisoned for 65 years. General Nathan Adam then contacts Shrieve's granddaughter Miranda to hunt down the Creatures. Frankenstein and the Creatures subsequently travel to Gotham City, where Dr. Mazursky last lived and find his cabin, only to learn he has moved to Romania. The group is then ambushed by Miranda, along with the G.I. Robot and a platoon of soldiers. Miranda tells them that her grandfather attempted to assemble a second incarnation of the Creatures of the Unknown, consisting of Solomon Grundy, Man-Bat and Doctor Phosphorus, who revolted and killed him and his family. Miranda blames the monsters for ruining her life. Velcoro saved Frankenstein from the G.I. Robot and Miranda shot Griffith with silver. The team is then saved by Bride, Frankenstein's wife who is still alive. After Miranda is taken captive, Bride of Frankenstein explains to the Creatures of the Unknown that she is working as an agent of S.H.A.D.E. She then reveals to Miranda that the second Creatures of the Unknown had been working for General Sam Lane, who is responsible for the deaths of Miranda's family. Later, the Creatures travel to Romania where they find a small village populated by monsters. The village is then attacked by a giant G.I. Robot. Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein combat the G.I. Robot while Miranda helps Nina attend to Griffith's wounds. She also suggests the nearby castle where Dr. Mazursky is alive, who is then reunited with his daughter. Mazursky explains that the village's inhabitants were peaceful and that they were the basis for creating the Creatures of the Unknown. When Project M is deemed obsolete, Dr. Mazursky escapes and returns to the village for eternal life. After Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein destroy the G.I. Robot, Velcoro dies from the sunrise, while Griffith is returned to being human again and develops a relationship with Nina. Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Miranda depart from the Creature Commandos and participate in the Atlantean/Amazon War.
Cyborg – Victor Stone is America's greatest superhero. Cyborg is attempting to amass a superhero resistance against Aquaman and Wonder Woman's forces. However, the heroes he approaches all refuse after Batman declines. Afterwards, Cyborg is seen talking with the President in his headquarters in Detroit. The President states that Steve Trevor sent a signal to the resistance but was intercepted by a traitor among the heroes that Cyborg tried to recruit and suspicion led to the Outsider. Later, Cyborg is called by Batman and the Flash for help in tracking down "Project: Superman", the government branch responsible for 'raising' Superman after his rocket destroyed Metropolis upon its arrival. They and Cyborg agree to join the cause to stop Wonder Woman and Aquaman, but only if Batman gets to choose whom to recruit. Cyborg agrees as long as he comes with them. The three sneak into the government underground bunkers and the group comes across a giant vault door bearing the Superman logo. Cyborg opens the door and sees a weakened Kal-El. With the arrival of guards, they're forced to escape, Kal-El's powers begin to manifest and he flies off, leaving them at the hands of the guards. While they are fending off the guards, they are rescued by Element Woman. Later, Cyborg and other heroes arrive at the Marvel Family's place, helping the Flash from drastically forgetting his memories. After the Flash has recovered, he asks them to stop the Atlantean/Amazon war from casualties, although Cyborg and the heroes are not willing to unless Batman wants to join them; Cyborg explains to him that they believe Batman is invincible. However, the Flash convinces him that no one is invincible and the group of heroes agree to join the Flash. The heroes arrive at New Themyscira to stop the Atlantean/Amazon War, and the Flash tells Cyborg to find Aquaman's ultimate bomb to dispose of it.
General Nathaniel Adam – General Nathaniel Adam never went through with the Dilustel experiment and is consequently much older than in the original timeline. General Adam controls "Project Six"'s body, using it to attack Booster Gold as he believes Booster Gold to be an Atlantean threat. During the battle, General Adam's control link is destroyed by Metahuman interference, causing Project Six's true personality to surface. General Adam loses control of Project Six, but Booster Gold fixes the control link. General Adam then attempts to use the link to kill Booster Gold. Fortunately, General Adam takes Booster Gold back to the base for interrogation, allowing Booster Gold to escape when the sight of "Project Superman" causes Project Six's true personality to resurface again. Doomsday's attack causes the ceiling to collapse on General Adam, knocking him unconscious.
Haly's Circus – A circus group traveling through Europe, providing entertainment for various cities and a means of survival on the run from the war. The circus group include:
Deadman – Boston Brand is an acrobat, featured in a show alongside the Flying Graysons. Boston is still as obnoxious and arrogant as he was before he died, and he does not wish to be a part of the circus. Brand makes fun of the circus' fortune teller, Doctor Fate, until Fate gives him a vision of Boston standing over a dead Dick Grayson. Before the next show, Deadman tries to convince Dick to go solo, but Dick tells him that family means too much to him. Dick poses the question that Deadman's seeming fearlessness could stem from his insecurity of being alone. Haley Circus is attacked by Amazons who want the Helm of Nabu. While Boston, along with the circus, is running away from the Amazons, they are rescued by Resistance member Vertigo. When they are hiding, Boston tells Dick to leave his father since he is fatally wounded, but Dick refuses. Before he dies, Dick's father asks Boston to protect his son. Later, Boston and Dick are running around the countryside looking for reinforcements when they are caught in an explosion. It appears that they both have survived the explosion, but when Boston tells Dick he is okay, Dick walks through him towards Boston's dead body behind him. Boston realizes that he is now a ghost whose presence cannot be seen or heard. He helps Dick, keeping him safe from the Amazons. Meeting up with the Resistance, Boston aids Dick, who has become the new Doctor Fate, and lets him know that he is not alone.
Dick Grayson – He is a part of the Haley Circus acrobats, featured in a show alongside Boston Brand. In a vision that Doctor Fate gives Boston Brand, Boston is standing over Dick's body. Before the next show, Boston tries to convince Dick to perform solo. However, Dick tells him that family means too much to him. Dick poses the question that Boston's seeming fearlessness could stem from his insecurity of being alone. During the attack on Haley Circus by the Amazons, Dick's mother falls to the ground in the ensuing madness. When Dick, along with the circus, is running away from the Amazons, they are rescued by Resistance member Vertigo. While they are hiding, Dick's father is fatally wounded by the Amazons. Deadman tells him to leave his father, but Dick refuses. Later, Dick's dying father makes Deadman promise to protect his son. Afterwards, Dick and Boston run to the countryside looking for reinforcements, when they are caught in an explosion. Dick survives, but his friend Boston is killed. When Dick walks towards his friend's body, he is unaware of the fact that he walks through the ghost of Boston. Dick manages to take the Amazons down with a gasoline explosion. Meeting up with the Resistance, Dick becomes the new Doctor Fate. He is aided by the ghostly Boston, who lets him know that he is not alone.
The Flying Graysons – Dick Grayson's parents are the trapeze artists in Haley's Circus; they are famed for always working without a net. When Haley Circus is attacked by Amazons, Dick's mother falls to the ground and his father is fatally wounded after being impaled by Amazons. While hiding, Dick's father asks Boston Brand to promise him to protect his son Dick. He dies next to his son and Boston.
Doctor Fate – Haley Circus' fortune teller. He tells co-worker Boston Brand of a vision of the death of Brand's fellow acrobat, Dick Grayson. Haley Circus is attacked by Amazons who want to steal the Helm of Nabu. However, Kent is impaled and killed by an Amazon before the circus manages to escape with the Helm due to the help of Resistance member Vertigo. Dick Grayson, who escapes the Amazons' slaughter, becomes the new Doctor Fate after using the Helm of Nabu.
King Shark – Haley Circus' strongman. King Shark is killed by the Amazons while trying to save Doctor Fate.
Rag Doll – Haley Circus' contortionist. During the attack of the Amazons, Rag Doll is rescued by Resistance member Vertigo. When looking for reinforcements, Rag Doll is killed by an Amazon who breaks Rag Doll's back over her knee.
Hal Jordan - Jordan, a member of U.S. Air Force, and Carol Ferris are in F-22 Raptors entering Western European territory when the Shark attacks. Hal forces the Shark to crash his jet into Carol's jet, and both of them barely eject in time. Upon their return to America, Hal witnesses a spaceship crash to Earth and is approached by the ship's survivor, Abin Sur, who asks for help. However, Abin Sur is subsequently taken into custody by Cyborg and the government to be questioned about his reasons for being on Earth. Later, when Amazonian invisible planes invade over Coast City, Hal and Carol manage to shoot down the invisible planes and the Hydra that they drop. Later, Hal is recruited by the President of the United States for a mission to use a Green Arrow Industries nuclear weapon to bomb western Europe. Later, Hal is ready to fly on the F-35 with the Green Arrow nuclear weapon attempting to destroy western Europe at the end of the Atlantean/Amazon war. During the battles on New Themyscira, Hal attempts to use the remaining nuclear weapon, but his firing mechanism jams. Hal's only option is to fly through New Themyscira in a suicide attack, causing a process which destroys not only New Themyscira's invisible shield but Hal with it. Afterwards, Thomas Kalmaku gives Carol a note saying that Hal was afraid to say that he had always loved her. Carol sees the engagement ring with which he was going to propose to her.
Subject One - Kal-El's rocket crashed directly into Metropolis, resulting in the deaths of over thirty-five thousand people. The infant inside was subsequently taken into government captivity. Years later, young Kal-El is found to have been placed in a government facility for aliens to control his powers for uses to make super-soldiers. Sam Lane takes a liking to him as he has become the son that Lane never had. Kal-El later makes a friendship with Krypto, who was also being held in the facility. However, after Kal-El fails to appease his government handlers, he is separated from him. Later, Kal-El was helped by Neil Sinclair to free himself and then attacks Sam Lane. Kal-El makes his way to Lane's office where he finds Sam's young daughter Lois Lane. Sinclair appears to kill Lois although Kal-El wishes to protect her after seeing her innocence. Sam Lane shows up and uses a Phantom Zone gun to send himself and Sinclair into the Phantom Zone. Afterward, Kal-El is deemed Subject 1 again and he is placed in a government underground bunker under a life sentence by General Nathaniel Adam. Sometime later, attempting to rally support in his attempt to restore the timeline to normal, the Flash, Batman, and Cyborg break into the facility where Kal-El is being kept only to find a very thin man incapable of speech who seems terrified just at the sight of others. Once they break out into daylight, Kal-El rises into the air. He then uses his heat vision and flies away. Kal-El arrives in Western Europe and rescues Lois from the Amazons that attempt to kill her. Just as the two reunite, Sinclair attacks them. While Sinclair fights some Amazons, Lois tells him he must leave. Kal-El refuses and says that he learned from Sam that they must protect people from monsters like Sinclair. Kal-El manages to overload Sinclair's body with energy, and punches him through the chest, killing him in a huge explosion. Sadly, Lois is caught in the blast. Kal-El holds the dying Lois in his arms and Lois tells him to save the people. Kal-El mourns Lois' death. Kal-El arrives at the scene of the Atlantean/Amazon war and intends to attack both leaders Aquaman and Wonder Woman in the last battle. He starts by landing fast on Enchantress.
Oliver Queen - The head of Green Arrow Industries, a major military contracting company. He led an ex-military band of Green Arrows. Even though Oliver is an inventive genius, he steals advanced gadgets from super-villains for military use. One day, Oliver discovers his Green Arrows were killed by a female raider. Taking his weapons and gadgets to hunt down the woman in battle, Oliver is shocked when the woman reveals to him that she is a daughter of Vixen, making them targets for the super-villains looking to regain their weapons. Shocked by her revelation, Oliver had only been stalling before his daughter is killed by his reserve teams he earlier called.
The Outsider - Michael Desai was born in Chandigarh, India, an infant Metahuman with alabaster-white skin and superhuman durability. When his mother died during his childbirth (an accident which Desai's father blamed him for causing) Desai created a massive sinkhole within a three-mile radius of Chandigarh, killing thousands of people and leaving him as the only survivor. How Desai managed to accomplish this feat and the extent of this power is initially unknown. Years later, Michael adopted the alias of "The Outsider" as he is both "outside" the law and the human race. He manages to accumulate considerable wealth through implied illegal activities, allowing Desai to effectively elevate India's status as a world power. Subsequently, he turns the entire country into a multinational criminal operation that is completely under his control. However, the Outsider has also managed to garner many enemies. In particular, after Desai admittedly framed them for unknown crimes when they uncovered some of the Outsider's illegal activities, ising Sun and Mister and Missus Terrific attacked him in an attempt to assassinate him. The Outsider then killed all three would-be assassins and set out the man who hired them. Desai is also engaged in a manhunt to find and capture a teenage electricity-based metahuman named Blackout, whom he believes can efficiently provide power in Mainland India with his abilities. Later, the Outsider was contacted by the heroes of Earth and attended a meeting that Cyborg has arranged to talk about the possibility of creating a group of heroes to deal with the Amazon/Atlantean War. The Outsider's reasons for supporting the heroes revolve entirely around maintaining his empire, but when Batman refuses to join the team, the Outsider declines as well. Later on, Desai is revealed to have some degree of longevity, as he is shown to be active in Indian criminal and political affairs since the late 1970s. In 1979, the Outsider quelled the Bombay riots by manipulating and subsequently killing the crime leaders responsible for the violence, and then uniting their organizations under his leadership. In 1996, the Outsider captured Isis in his Siberian Express on Novaya Zemlya in a bid to blackmail Black Adam into selling Desai his home country Khandaq. However, when the two negotiated terms for Isis' release, the Outsider attacked and defeated Black Adam using Durlan technology. The Outsider then shot Adam and threw him off of the Siberian Express to join Isis as his trophy/prisoner. In the present day, the Outsider is shown interrogating the warden at Bombay Prison responsible for allowing the assassins to escape. Although the warden states that he knows nothing about the prisoners' breakout, the Outsider shoots him and has his family sold into slavery for his incompetence. The Outsider's investigation then led him to Khandaq, where he uncovers an encryption key, linking Blackout to the assassination attempt. Later, Desai confronts Blackout, but realizes that the man he is fighting is not Blackout at all but rather J'onn J'onzz in disguise. In 1985, the Outsider is revealed to have kept J'onn J'onzz captive within a secret research facility after stealing Doctor Erdel's teleportation device. After studying him and learning his weaknesses, the Outsider sold J'onn to Russia, where he subsequently escaped and took over the country. In the present day, after the Outsider talks with J'onn about the past, J'onn admits to pursuing revenge against Desai for torturing him and moves to kill him. During the battle, Outsider uses a salvaged teleportation device to trap J'onn within several instances of the Multiverse. After questioning J'onn about his future assassination attempts and getting no answers, the Outsider closed the device with J'onn still trapped inside, cutting in half and killing him. Later, the Outsider returned to his base and contacts the heroes to join the assault on New Themiscyra. The Outsider arrives at the scene to join the attacks in Atlantean/Amazon war.
Resistance – A group of individuals gathered by Grifter to face the menace of the war between the Atlanteans and the Amazons. The group includes:
Britannia – Penelope "Penny" Black was a British Navy officer working on the Tintagel, a ship that was testing the Lionheart, an experimental engine. However, the Lionheart malfunctioned during a test run, causing the ship to teleport from the sea to the middle of dry land. The ship's entire crew was killed, except for Penny who had a metagenic trait, allowing her to fuse with the Lionheart technology and survive. To help her channel her powers, the Navy built the Britannia armor. Britannia becomes a famous war hero. When the Amazons invaded the United Kingdom, the Britannia armor is lost, so the British government sent Penny to New Themyscira and assigned her to recover the Mark Two armor and to extract Lois Lane. After meeting up with the recovering Penny, she uses Cyborg's device to locate her missing armor at Westminster. The Resistance head there, but Resistance member Miss Hyde betrays them and contacts the Furies. However, Hyde reappears and fights the Amazons, allowing the Resistance to fight the Amazons evenly. Lois and Penny get to a reserve bunker that contains the Britannia armor. Penny wears the armor and kills Artemis. She then fights Wonder Woman, taking her to one of her prison ships. There, Britannia realizes that Wonder Woman did not sanction the prison ships, the purple ray treatment and the training compounds. Wonder Woman then releases the captured prisoners, while Britannia takes them to the Resistance. Britannia and Grifter then led the Resistance and the civilians in an all-out battle against the Amazons.
Canterbury Cricket - Jeramey Chriqui was once an arrogant con man of a university student; that is until the Amazons attacked. With the campus being invaded, Jeramey sought refuge in Canterbury Cathedral. Tracked by an Amazon, Jeramey pleaded for his life to the Amazon and to God. In a flash, the cathedral was bombed by overhead invisible jets with Jeramey being the sole survivor. In silence, all that he heard was a chirp. Whether by way of a miracle or a curse, Jeramey had been transformed, and out from the rubble rose the Canterbury Cricket. Jeramey is now the most loyal of the loyal to England and will fight to protect it until his very last breath. Canterbury Cricket assembles the Ambush Bugs to fight the Amazons, until they were killed while Canterbury Cricket escaped. Later, Canterbury Cricket rescues some resistance fighters. The heroes hide in the bush and learn Canterbury Cricket's origins until Amazons breach their hideout. During this same period, Canterbury Cricket joins the Resistance. Etrigan remarks that Cricket smells like an archbishop he once encountered.
Etrigan the Demon - While Etrigan and the heroes are running from Amazons, they are rescued by Canterbury Cricket. The heroes hide in the bush and learn Canterbury Cricket's origins, until Amazons breach their hideout. During this same period, Etrigan join the Resistance. After an ambush by the Furies, Etrigan is seen eating Furies member Cheetah. While the Resistance head to Westminster, Resistance member Miss Hyde betrays them and contacts the Furies. Etrigan is shot by the magic arrow. However, Miss Hyde regains control of the body and fights the Amazons, allowing Etrigan and the Resistance to gain the upper hand.
Godiva - While Godiva and the heroes are running from Amazons, they are rescued by Canterbury Cricket. The heroes hide in the bush and learn Canterbury Cricket's origins, until Amazons breach their hideout. During this same period, Godiva join the Resistance. After an ambush by the Furies, Godiva rescues Grifter from the Furies member Vixen. While the Resistance head to Westminster, Resistance member Miss Hyde betrays them and contacts the Furies. However, Miss Hyde regains control of the body and fights the Amazons, allowing Godiva and the Resistance to gain the upper hand.
Grifter - He is the leader of the United Kingdom's Resistance movement against the Amazons. In a flashback, Grifter assembles Team 7 to battle against insurgents in the Middle East, until they were killed. Grifter is saved by Penny Black and is able to escape from the Middle East. While Grifter is recovering, the United Kingdom is invaded by Amazons. Grifter assembles the Resistance to fight against the Amazons. In the present, Grifter, Lois Lane and the Resistance are helping Penny's armor prototype at Westminster. While the Resistance head to Westminster, Resistance member Miss Hyde betrays them and contacts the Furies. However, Hyde regains control of the body and fights the Amazons, allowing the Resistance to gain the upper hand. After escaping the Westminster Palace, Grifter gathers with Britannia, who has recovered her armor and found a group of released prisoners. The two lead the Resistance in an all-out battle against the Amazons. Grifter and the Resistance arrive at the scene to attack in Atlantean/Amazon war, but Grifter is killed in battle by Enchantress.
Kid Devil - He is a member of the Resistance.
Lois Lane – A young Lois sneaked into the facility that her father was stationed to bring him a birthday cake. During a breakout, Lois briefly encounters Kal-El and Neil Sinclair. Sinclair attempts to pursue revenge against her father for the experiments performed on him. However, Sam traps Sinclair and himself in the Phantom Zone. Years later, Lois is reporting on a fashion show in Mountmatre when the Atlanteans flooded Europe. She is saved by the Amazons after getting to the steeple of a church, who took her to New Themiscyra (actually the United Kingdom). Once there, she learned that Jimmy Olsen, an agent of Cyborg, died in the flood while trying to save an old man. After this, she is contacted using Jimmy's camera, which can transform into different forms for concealment. Lois agrees to spy on the Amazons for Cyborg. However, when the time comes for her to undergo a near-fatal "conversion" into the Amazonian ranks, she escapes, aided by Penny Black, who is wounded by Artemis in the process. During this same period, Lois is walking through the remains of London and encounters the Resistance. Lois joins the Resistance soon after they help save her from the Amazons. After meeting up with the recovering Penny, she uses Cyborg's device to locate her missing armor at Westminster. The Resistance head there, but member Miss Hyde betrays them, revealing that the Furies have offered her a cure for her condition, and induction into their ranks. Hyde coerces the Resistance to surrender by holding a knife to Lois' neck. However, the possessed form of Miss Hyde controls her and attacks the Furies, and the Resistance fights off the Furies. While Lois helps Penny to receive her armor in Westminster's lair, Lois then broadcasts a message to the world that the Amazons have imprisoned people in internment camps, but the Amazons in Westminster's lair attempt to kill her. Lois is then rescued by Kal-El, who comes to protect her from Sinclair upon his return. During the fight, Kal-El manages to destroy Sinclair, but Lois is caught in the blast. Before Lois dies in the arms of Kal-El, she tells Kal-El to save the people.
Miss Hyde - Bobbie Stephenson suffered an accident, resulting in her being able to change into a muscle-bound form she calls "Miss Hyde". After the Resistance reach Winchester, Miss Hyde betrays them, revealing that the Furies have offered her a cure for her condition, and indictment into their ranks. Miss Hyde bullies the Resistance to surrender by holding a knife to Lois' neck. However, Miss Hyde regains control of Bobbie's body and attacks the Furies, allowing the Resistance to fight the Amazons evenly.
Question – He is a member of the Resistance.
Steve Trevor – He is sent to New Themyscira to extract Lois Lane, but is eventually captured and interrogated by Wonder Woman.
Vertigo - He lost his family in the Amazon/Atlantean war. He volunteered to rescue Boston Brand, Dick Grayson and Rag Doll from the Amazons' attack in Eastern Europe. Vertigo and the other circus members run to the countryside for reinforcements, but Vertigo is killed by a spear thrown by an Amazon. A dying Vertigo tells Dick to take the Helm and secure it.
Secret Seven - A secret organization of magic users.
Shade, the Changing Man – The leader of the Secret Seven. Shade is contacted by the heroes of Earth and attends a meeting that Cyborg has arranged to talk about the possibility of creating a group of heroes to deal with the Amazon/Atlantean war. When Batman refuses to join, Shade declines as well.
Abra Kadabra – A television presenter and member of the Secret Seven. He sends a message about Shade, the Changing Man, believing that Shade is a dangerous lunatic, and then reveals the Secret Seven members.
Amethyst - Member of the Secret Seven.
Enchantress - Member of the Secret Seven. She is revealed to be a spy working for the Amazons. Enchantress is killed by Kal-El when he swiftly lands on her.
Mindwarp - Member of the Secret Seven.
Raven - Member of the Secret Seven. She has corrupted her father Trigon.
Zatanna – Member of the Secret Seven. She is a member of a motorcycle gang.
Traci Thirteen – Traci rescued her father from Paris before it was destroyed by the Atlanteans, though she feels guilty as she was unable to save her mother and siblings. She discovers that her father and the superhero representatives from around the world are preparing to take drastic action to stop the Amazons and Atlanteans from destroying the rest of the world. She still remembers details of how reality should be, and meets Madam Xanadu for advice. When she tries to stop the use of nuclear weapons, defeating several of the council, her father injects her with a drug and proceeds to start the countdown. Failing to stop him, Traci teleports around the world to find help. Without the desired help, Traci returns to face her father. Apparently possessed, Doctor Thirteen magically attacks her. Failing to defeat her father, Traci decides to teleport to Western Europe to sacrifice herself from nuclear weapons. Doctor Thirteen arrives and refuses to let his daughter be killed. After their struggle, Doctor Thirteen finally accepts his daughter back and apologizes for blaming themselves. Traci is impaled by Amazons, enraging her father and allowing his anger to be corrupted by his dark magic to attack anyone. However, Traci is restored to life from her spiritual connection to Earth and manages to free her father by showing him the planetary consciousness. As the nuclear countdown goes under two minutes; Doctor Thirteen flies over and uses his magic to destroy the nuclear weapons in deep space. Traci rescues her father and they teleport themselves back to Earth with the remnants of her magic and reunites with her father. It is revealed that they have both used up all of their magic.
Villains
The Amazons - When a failed attempt by the Amazons to unite the Atlanteans have met with unfortunate demises, they ended up in a war with the Atlanteans. The Amazons caused havoc in Western Europe where they have conquered the United Kingdom where 12 million people were killed in the process. The Amazons include:
Queen Hippolyta – The Queen of the Amazons. Her death was the cause of the war between the Atlateans and Amazons.
Queen Diana – Wonder Woman was ready to marry Arthur Curry when her mother was killed on their wedding day while protecting her from an arrow. What she did not know was the one who killed her mother was Artemis. She and her Amazons have caused havoc in Western Europe and have conquered the United Kingdom, killing 12 million in the process. Wonder Woman and Aquaman are both approached by the Flash and the heroes who are here to stop the war. Later on, Wonder Woman fights Kal-El, who intends to attack her at the last battle.
Artemis – Artemis, along with Penthesileia and Orm, plotted to prevent the union of Arthur Curry and Diana, which resulted of the death of Diana's mother. She then framed Garth for the murder. Later, Artemis has bombs dropped on Themyscira before Aquaman, and the Atlanteans visit Themyscira to negotiate for peace. During this same period, Artemis attempts to kill Lois Lane. Although Lois is rescued by Resistance member Britannia using the smoke grenades to escape, Britannia is seriously wounded by Artemis. Later, when Artemis and the Furies battle the Resistance, Artemis follows Lois and Britannia in Westminster's lair. When Lois prevents her attack, Artemis grabs her and attempts to kill her, but Britannia flies through Artemis' body to save Lois, cutting her in half and killing her.
Penthesileia – Hippolyta's sister. She was the mastermind behind the plot to prevent Prince Arthur and Princess Diana's union by orchestrating the death of Princess Diana, and is in league with Ocean Master. Penthesileia is later caught by Wonder Woman, kissing Ocean Master, which prompted Diana's discovery that the war between the Atlanteans and the Amazons was a ruse planned by them both. Later, they plan to stop each of the opposing powers to make them look like heroes and be the rulers of the world. She later kills Billy Batson before he and the other kids can reform Captain Thunder.
Philippus – One of the Amazons present at the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Arthur. She kills an already-defeated Garth, who had been himself framed by Artemis for the murder of Hippolyta. She is found killed by the Atlanteans.
The Furies - A group of female warriors loyal to the Amazons. However, this loyalty appears to be due to fear of Wonder Woman and the Amazons.
Arrowette – She joined with the Amazons.
Cheetah – She joined with the Amazons. After the Furies attack Grifter and the Resistance, Cheetah is eaten by Etrigan.
Cheshire – She joined with the Amazons.
Giganta – She joined with the Amazons and is shown guarding Westminster. Giganta is killed by F-35 fighter pilot Hal Jordan trying to defend New Themyscira.
Hawkgirl – She joined with the Amazons. Later, Hawkgirl is seen aiding Artemis in her attempt to kill the Resistance member Lois Lane. Although Lois is rescued by Resistance member Penny Black using the smoke grenades, Penny is seriously wounded. Later, when the Furies attack Grifter and the Resistance, Hawkgirl pins Grifter down, but he pulls Hawkgirl down and then stabs her in the chest with a trench knife.
Huntress – She joined with the Amazons.
Katana - She joined with the Amazons.
Lady Vic - She joined with the Amazons.
Silver Swan - She joined with the Amazons.
Starfire - She joined with the Amazons. She intends to burn the city to the ground. Starfire then went after circus members Dick Grayson and Boston Brand for Doctor Fate's Helm of Nabu. Starfire and the Amazons with her are killed in a gasoline explosion caused by Dick.
Terra – Tara Markov is Geo-Pulse's half-sister. It was through her that New Themyscira was saved from destruction when Aquaman flooded Western Europe. Later, Terra is targeted by Siren and Ocean Master, but their plans are foiled when Penthesileia showed up. Terra joins them because her half-brother, Geo-Pulse, is used by Aquaman to sink Western Europe.
Vixen - She is a supervillainess and former lover of industrialist Oliver Queen. Vixen and Oliver have a daughter who tries to assassinate her father, but is killed by his security team. Vixen later joins with the Amazons prior to her attack on Oliver Queen.
The Atlanteans - When a failed attempt by the Amazons to unite the Atlanteans have met with unfortunate demises, they ended up in a war with the Atlanteans. Outside the Amazons, the Atlanteans have caused havoc in Western Europe. The following Atlanteans include:
Emperor Aquaman – Aquaman is taken to live with the Atlanteans years before, meaning he has not learnt compassion. He had fallen in love with Princess Diana after saving her from a sea creature and was ready to marry her when Diana's mother was killed on their wedding day. He later married Mera instead, but she dies at the hands of the Amazons. Subsequently, he, along with his Atlanteans, wage war against the Amazons, and have caused havoc in Western Europe. Aquaman and Wonder Woman are both approached by the Flash and the heroes who are here to stop the war. Aquaman is struggled by Kal-El, who intends to attack him at the last battle.
Garth – He was framed by Artemis for the death of Hippolyta on the wedding day of Aquaman and Wonder Woman. Garth is killed by Philippus before he can tell Aquaman that Artemis was collaborating with Orm.
Mera – She is the Queen of Atlantis and was killed by Wonder Woman at some point. Her death prompted Aquaman to cause Western Europe to sink into the sea, hoping to destroy New Themyscira as well.
Prince Orm – The half-brother of Aquaman, Orm assists Aquaman in causing havoc in Western Europe. Unbeknownst to Aquaman, he secretly had joined forces with a group of Amazons in a plot to avoid the union of Aquaman and Wonder Woman. The plot resulted in the death of Diana's mother which set in motion the war between the two civilizations. Aquaman reassigns Ocean Master and Siren to assassinate Terra in New Themyscira. The mission fails with Siren being killed by Penthesileia. Ocean Master is later revealed to having been caught by Wonder Woman after she saw him and her aunt kissing, prompting her discovery that the war between the Atlanteans and the Amazons is a ruse planned by them. Later, they plan to stop each of the opposing powers to make them look like heroes, and they plan to rule the world together.
Rodunn - An Atlantean General.
Shark - An agent of the Atlanteans. He attacks Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris of F-22 Raptors for entering the Western Europe territory. Shark is later killed when Hal forces him to crash his jet into Carol's jet, with both Hal and Carol barely escaping using the ejector system.
Siren - Mera's twin sister. She, along with Orm, tried to kill Terra because of her value in battle and mostly because Siren wanted revenge for her sister's death. Siren is, however, easily slain by Penthesileia.
Vulko - He designed a device that when attached to the King of Markovia, Brion Markov, it amplifies Brion's powers of manipulation of the Earth's gravitational field. It is through this device that Aquaman managed to cause Western Europe to sink into the sea.
Brainiac - He is the ruler of the 31st Century Earth. He has captured Kid Flash, whom he then placed in stasis. However, Hot Pursuit manages to rescue the young speedster. Escaping from Brainiac's base, Kid Flash and Hot Pursuit formulate a plan to return the 21st century. Kid Flash allows himself to be recaptured by Brainiac and placed into stasis. Kid Flash uses his super-speed in the virtual reality access port to stop the security program and Hot Pursuit then blasts Brainiac from behind. While they used his ord energy to return the past, Brainiac impales Hot Pursuit and attacks Kid Flash. Hot Pursuit breaks the ord energy projector to allow Kid Flash's super-speed to return. Kid Flash then returns to the 21st century, promising to rescue Hot Pursuit from Brainiac.
Caretaker - The leader of a group of pirates who kidnapped Deathstroke's daughter Rose.
Deathstroke – The leader of a group of pirates. He and his pirates search for any sunken loot to steal in the flooded remains of Europe. He is seen in the flooded remains of Paris searching for his daughter Rose, who has been kidnapped by persons unknown. While continuing their journey, the pirates are ambushed by the fleet of Warlord and forced to surrender, but are then saved by Jenny Blitz who destroys one of Warlord's ships. Afterward, Blitz agrees to join Deathstroke in searching for his daughter and a relationship develops. Soon, Deathstroke and Blitz are alerted that his crew are planning a mutiny. They fight and kill the treacherous crew, but Sonar manages to contact another pirate fleet under the leadership of the Caretaker before Deathstroke shoots him. Later, Deathstroke and Jenny approaches the Caretaker's fleet and discovers Rose is held captive. Deathstroke formulates a plan by offering to exchange Caretaker with Jenny in stasis for Rose's freedom. However, the Caretaker double-crosses on their deal and has his crew to attack him. Deathstroke unleashes Jenny from her stasis upon Caretaker's fleet. During the battle, Deathstroke ignites a grenade at a weapon stockpile which destroys Caretaker's ship and its crew with it. Deathstroke and Blitz are rescued by Rose. Reunited with his daughter, Deathstroke sails towards an unknown destination.
Clayface – A version of Clayface is a member of Deathstroke's pirates after being broken out of a floating prison by Deathstroke. During an ambush by Aquaman and Ocean Master, Clayface is pushed by Aquaman into the water apparently killing him.
Eel – Member of Deathstroke's pirates after being broken out of a floating prison by Deathstroke. After Warlord's ships are destroyed by Jenny Blitz, Eel joined a mutiny against Deathstroke. However, Deathstroke and Blitz overhear this and kill the crew members for their treachery. The Eel is killed by Deathstroke with a sword driven through his chest.
Icicle – Member of Deathstroke's pirates. Icicle aids Deathstroke attacking Warlord's fleet ship. After an attack by Aquaman and Ocean Master, Icicle is asked by Sonar to free him, which Icicle agreed. After Warlord's ships are destroyed by Jenny Blitz, Icicle joins a mutiny against Deathstroke. However, Deathstroke and Blitz overhear this and kill the crew members for their treachery. Icicle is killed by having his head blown off by Blitz.
Machiste – Member of Deathstroke's pirates. During an ambush by Aquaman and Ocean Master, Machiste is about to strike Aquaman, but Aquaman slashes his throat with his own prosthesis axe.
Scavenger - Member of Deathstroke's pirates after being broken out of a floating prison by Deathstroke. During an ambush by Aquaman and Ocean Master, Scavenger opens fire at Aquaman with a gun blaster. However, Aquaman dodges, causing the blast to hit his shipmate, Tattooed Man. Aquaman then snaps Scavenger's body into two by breaking his back over his knee.
Sonar – Member of Deathstroke's pirates. After being broken out of a floating prison by Deathstroke, Clayface tells Deathstroke about how Sonar could use his abilities to detect the sunken treasures. He is not in the prison due to a superhuman trade, but Deathstroke catches up with him. He is imprisoned in Deathstroke's ship and is used as a living radar system. After an attack by Aquaman and Ocean Master, Sonar asks Icicle to free him and then tells Deathstroke that he can save him from critical wounds in return for being made second in command, which Deathstroke agrees to. Using his sonic abilities, Sonar removes a piece of Aquaman's trident from Deathstroke's chest, allowing his healing factor to restore him. After Warlord's ships are destroyed by Jenny Blitz, Sonar joins in a mutiny against Deathstroke. However, Deathstroke and Blitz overhear this and kill the crew members for their treachery. Sonar manages to contact another pirate fleet led by the Caretaker before Deathstroke shoots him.
Tattooed Man - Member of Deathstroke's pirates. During an ambush by Aquaman and Ocean Master, Tattooed Man is stabbed by Ocean Master's spear. Shipmate Scavenger opens fires on Aquaman, who dodges the blasts, shredding Tattooed Man upon his dodges.
Neil Sinclair - Neil Sinclair volunteered for a government super-soldier program as the government is looking to create "the hero of tomorrow". The government grafts Project Six DNA to Sinclair and over time, he gains numerous superpowers. When his powers begin to get out of hand, he is locked away deep in a government bunker. He keeps the rest of his powers a secret and uses only his X-ray vision to see throughout the bunker instead. Kal-El is later confined to the bunker when his rocket crashes into Metropolis. Sinclair telepathically mentors young Kal as he grows up. This eventually culminates in Kal setting Neil free. By this time, he has grown to a great size. Sinclair goes on a rampage throughout the facility, eventually reaching Sam Lane's office. There, he finds a young Lois Lane. He wishes to kill her as revenge for his confinement, but he is opposed by Kal. Sam Lane appears with a Phantom Zone gun and he and Sam are sent into the Phantom Zone. Years later, Sinclair is freed from the Phantom Zone and kills Sam Lane. Sinclair absorbs the Project Six's corpse to regain his powers. He then locates Kal-El and Lois in Western Europe and attacks them. During the fight with Kal-El, Sinclair's energy body is overloaded. Kal-El punches through Sinclair's chest, destroying him.
Eel O'Brian – When Heat Wave is sent to death row at Queen's Row Penitentiary after killing Jason Rusch, Plastic Man arrives to break him out, having been hiding in the body of his cellmate Cluemaster. During the prison break, O'Brian dislikes being called "Plastic Man" when inmate Sportsmaster calls him by this name, causing O'Brian to kill Sportsmaster. While O'Brian helps him to retrieve his weapons, he discovers Heat Wave attacking the guards' control room and attempting to ram the flying prison at Cyborg's home city of Detroit. O'Brian refuses to let him destroy the city, but Heat Wave turns on him, apparently killing him by using his flame gun to melt his body. After Heat Wave is defeated by Cyborg and imprisoned in Belle Reve, O'Brian is revealed to have survived and smuggles himself into the prison in the body of Heat Wave's new cellmate, advancing on him.
Gorilla Grodd – Gorilla Grodd became the ruler of Gorilla City by overthrowing Emperor Solovar and eventually conquered all of Africa. Despite his great success, Gorilla Grodd feels unfulfilled since none of his enemies have been able to prove a challenge to him, and the war between Aquaman and Wonder Woman has overshadowed his actions, constantly frustrating him. He decides to begin a campaign of conquest in Europe. Gorilla Grodd arrives on the scene to attack all parties in the Atlantean/Amazon War.
Heat Wave – In hopes to become the current Firestorm, Heat Wave kills Jason Rusch in an attempt to take his place in the Firestorm Matrix, but is defeated by Cyborg. He is then sent to death row at Queen's Row Penitentiary only to be broken out by Eel O'Brian. During the prison break, Heat Wave forces an inmate to join him, after taking out another inmate and corrections officer Atom who controls the actions of Amazo. While retrieving his weapons, Heat Wave then attacks the guards' control room and attempts to ram Cyborg's home city of Detroit with the Doom prison. Heat Wave then betrays O'Brian and apparently kills him with his flamethrower. Cyborg arrives and moves the Doom prison with his sonic weapon away from the city. When the Doom prison crashes, Heat Wave attempts to escape, but Cyborg challenges him to a fight. During the fight, Cyborg manages to defeat Heat Wave and the inmates are willing to surrender. Later, Heat Wave is imprisoned in Belle Reve with his new cellmate. O'Brian is revealed to be alive in his new cellmate's body, and plans to get revenge on him.
Joker – Martha Wayne becomes the Joker of this universe after the death of her son Bruce. She kidnaps the children of Harvey Dent. The Joker tricks James Gordon into shooting Dent's daughter by taping her mouth shut and disguising her as the Joker. She slashes Gordon's throat before Batman confronts her. Thomas confronts her about Bruce's death and informs her he has a way to rewrite history and save Bruce's life. Martha ceases her attacks but when she learns what Bruce will become if he lives, she runs away falling down a hole into the caves beneath Wayne Manor, killing her.
Project Six – After being discovered lying dormant in an underground vault, Project Six's DNA is used by the government Sam Lane to create supersoldiers. The volunteer supersoldier is Neil Sinclair. Later, Project Six, controlled by General Nathaniel Adam via a mental interface, is sent to attack Booster Gold, who is believed to be an Atlantean threat. During the battle, Adam's control is destroyed by Metahuman interference, which caused Project Six's true personality to surface. Project Six attacks and nearly beats Booster Gold to death. Project Six then begins to rampage, killing innocent people. After recovering, however, Booster Gold put Project Six's helmet back on, giving General Adam back control. However, the General Adam then turned on Booster Gold, commanding Project Six to kill him. When General Adam attempts to have Booster Gold subjected to mind-crippling interrogation, Booster Gold shoots down a girder, knocking the control helmet off him. At the same time, an image of "Project Superman" appears on a computer screen. The two events cause Project Six's true personality to resurface again. As Project Six rampages, badly beating Booster Gold, Alexandra puts on the control helmet, forcing him to rip open his own chest, killing himself.
Queen's Row Penitentiary Inmates - These are the inmates of Queen's Row Penitentiary.
Clock King - A prison inmate.
Cluemaster – Cluemaster is featured as Heat Wave's cellmate. He is subsequently killed by Eel O'Brian who was himself hiding inside Cluemaster's body to break Heat Wave out.
Killer Wasp – A prison inmate.
Meta Gang - A prison gang of metahumans.
Animal Man - A superhero who was imprisoned at Queen's Row Penitentiary who upon being framed for the murder of his family. He was defeated and killed by Heat Wave.
Atomic Skull – A prison inmate and member of the Meta Gang.
KGBeast - A prison inmate and member of the Meta Gang. He was killed by Amazo.
Psimon - A prison inmate and member of the Meta Gang.
Shadow Thief - A prison inmate and member of the Meta Gang.
Non-Meta Gang - A prison gang of non-metahumans.
Black Manta - A prison inmate and member of the Non-Meta Gang.
Lock-Up - A prison inmate and member of the Non-Meta Gang. He was blinded and killed by Eel O'Brian.
Sportsmaster - A prison inmate and member of the Non-Meta Gang. He was killed by Eel O'Brian.
Victor Zsasz – A prison inmate and member of the Non-Meta Gang. He was killed by Heat Wave.
Slipknot - A prison inmate.
Thinker - A prison inmate.
Rogues - Assembled by Mirror Master against Citizen Cold.
Fallout - Member of Mirror Master's Rogues. He escaped from Iron Heights and pursued revenge against Citizen Cold for murdering his friend Mister Freeze. Citizen Cold killed Fallout after he killed his sister Lisa, revealing that Mister Freeze is searching a cure for him.
Mirror Master - Assembles the Rogues. He is imprisoned in the mirrors called the mirrorverse: it is mostly assumed Citizen Cold killed him, and he cannot leave the mirrors or he will die. Anyone entering the mirrors will die. He escaped from Iron Heights and pursued revenge against Citizen Cold for imprisoning him. Citizen Cold kills the Rogues members and then enters Mirror Master's mirrorverse without warning. Mirror Master attempts to kill him, but Citizen Cold pushes him out of the mirrorverse and he dies.
Tar Pit - Member of Mirror Master's Rogues. He escaped from Iron Heights and pursued revenge against Citizen Cold for stealing his family's money. Citizen Cold killed Tar Pit while also revealing that his brother Jack Monteleone was dealing drugs of their family fortune.
Trixter - He is imprisoned in Iron Heights. The prisoners are forced to shut Trixter up for the whack of jokes. He and the Rogues escape from Iron Heights and he then follows Mirror Master's Rogues; however, the Rogues did not invite him. The Trixter claims that he plans to kidnap Citizen Cold's sister. The Trixter pursued revenge against Citizen Cold for murdering the original Trickster. The Rogues, however, find out that the Trixter has been working for Citizen Cold. Mirror Master kills him by making him enter his mirrorverse, causing him to die.
Weather Wizard - Member of Mirror Master's Rogues. He escaped from Iron Heights and pursued revenge against Citizen Cold for murdering his brother, Clyde. Citizen Cold killed Weather Wizard revealing that his brother Clyde hired Citizen Cold to kill him, but Citizen Cold also tells him that he have done it for free.
Other characters
Alexandra Gianopoulo - A woman who can absorb the talents and powers of those she touches and whose father died fighting Emperor Aquaman. She later encounters and aids Booster Gold in fighting Project Six, who was controlled by General Nathaniel Adam via a mental interface. During the battle, Adam's control is destroyed by Alexandra, which caused Project Six's true personality to surface. As Project Six rampaged, badly beating Booster Gold, Alexandra put on the control helmet, forcing him to rip open his own chest, killing himself. Alexandra subsequently sacrifices herself to save Booster Gold from an Atlantean attack, leaving Booster Gold to return to Vanishing Point as history resets itself without any clear memory of his time in the Flashpoint universe. Before the Time Masters: Vanishing Point, Alexandra appeared and leaves the message on the chalkboard before vanishing.
Amanda Waller - An advisor to the President of the United States who tells him that Hal Jordan is insubordinate and irresponsible. However, the President tells her that the world needs Hal as a hero.
Ambush Bugs - A group of insect-themed heroes gathered together by the Canterbury Cricket to fight the Amazons. However, they are all killed by the Amazons.
Blue Beetle -
Cockroach -
Firefly -
Queen Bee -
Atrocitus – A Red Lantern who is imprisoned on the planet Ysmault. Atrocitus killed William Hand in this timeline, which unleashed Nekron and triggered the Blackest Night. Atrocitus is visited by Thaal Sinestro, who had hoped to understand the meaning of the Flashpoint prophecy. Atrocitus tells the Flashpoint prophecy is a moment when the entire history will be changed, and "Flash" will then change history by using his power to reset the universe to what he believes it should be. Sinestro killed him after what Atrocitus told him.
Black Adam - He challenged the Outsider who used technology to summon the magic lightning to change him back to Teth Adam. He is then knocked off by the train they were fighting on, suffering severe injuries afterward. Black Adam is later killed by J'onn J'onzz.
Blackhawks - Squadron of F-35, along with the fighters Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris, are to attack on New Themyscira, but the Blackhawks are killed by the Amazons' forces.
Black Orchid - She is a member of the original Secret Seven who had been killed years earlier. Black Orchid apparently returns from the dead to contact her former teammate Shade, the Changing Man, but is ultimately revealed to be a monster who had merely assumed Orchid's form.
Baron Blitzkrieg – He is killed by Frankenstein with a sword driven through his chest.
Brother Blood - He is developing drug lord.
Carol Ferris - She, along with Hal Jordan, is on a F-22 Raptor entering Western Europe territory before the Shark attacks. Hal forces the Shark to crash his jet into Carol's jet, and both of them barely escape using the ejection system. Upon their return to America, Carol thinks Hal is not living up to his potential. Later, Amazon Invisible planes invade over Coast City, and Hal and Carol manage to shoot down the invisible planes and the Hydra they dropped on the city. Afterward, Carol is angry at Hal for taking a mission for the US government. Carol insists on joining him in the dropping of the Green Arrow Industries nuclear missile. When Hal refuses however, she goes anyway. During the battles, Carol sees Hal drop the missile through New Themyscira's invisible shield, but he is killed in the process. Afterwards, Carol return to Coast City where Thomas Kalmaku gives her a note saying that Hal is too afraid to say that he had always loved her. Carol sees the engagement ring that he was going to propose to her with.
Catman – He is killed by Gorilla Grodd.
Changeling - He is a member of the hyper-intelligent gorillas attacking in Namibe (now Moçâmedes). When Traci Thirteen freed the citizens, Changeling betrays the gorillas. He is told by Traci Thirteen to care for the citizens.
Circe - Imprisoned by Hippolyta's sister Penthesileia in Antarctica for uncovering the truth of the Western European Amazon/Atlantean war. Circe is freed by Traci Thirteen.
Congorilla – He is killed by Gorilla Grodd in the Gorilla City arena.
Doctor Phosphorus - He is invited by Matthew Shrieve to be the new member of Creatures of the Unknown, but Doctor Phosphorus then betrays him killing his family. It is revealed that Doctor Phosphorus had been working under General Sam Lane, who is responsible for the deaths of Miranda's family.
Doctor Thirteen – Terrence Thirteen is Traci Thirteen's father. Doctor Thirteen is rescued from Paris before its destruction by his daughter, and is a member of the H.I.V.E., who vote on using nuclear weapons to end the Atlantean/Amazonian threat in Western Europe. When Traci tries to stop this, he injects her with a drug and proceeds to start the countdown. Traci teleports to find help. When she returns to face her father after without desired help, an apparently possessed Doctor Thirteen now uses magic to attack her. During the battle, Traci teleports herself to Paris, showing her father that if the nuclear weapons are used she will die, along with 118 million people. She becomes badly injured from an Amazon spear. This snaps Doctor Thirteen out of his rampage. The two reconcile and Doctor Thirteen uses his remaining magic to stop the satellite, less than two minutes before it attacks. Traci then saves him, and it is revealed they have both used up all their magic.
Element Woman - She is contacted by the heroes of Earth and attends a meeting that Cyborg has arranged to talk about the possibility of creating a group of heroes to deal with the Amazon/Atlantean War. She offers her help, but is dismissed by Shade, the Changing Man, who uses his M-Vest to reveal to the others that Element Woman is insane. Element Woman sneaks into Cyborg's headquarters. Later, she subsequently reappears in Metropolis, where she rescues Cyborg, Batman and the Flash from a group of soldiers working for the mysterious Project Superman. She then reveals that she has been following Cyborg ever since his initial failed attempt to recruit the heroes to stop the war, and that she wishes to help him.
Firestorm
Ronald Raymond – Ronald's friend Jason is killed by Heat Wave so that he can take his place in the Firestorm Matrix, but Ronald told him that it will not work. Heat Wave attempts to kill him, but is defeated by Cyborg.
Jason Rusch – Jason is killed by Heat Wave in an attempt to take his place in the Firestorm Matrix.
Frankenstein – Leader of the Creatures of the Unknown who departs the Creatures to fight against the Atlantean/Amazon War.
G.I. Robot – It replaces Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown after they are deemed obsolete by Robert Crane's government services. At present, G.I. Robot is revived by Doctor Robert Crane to join the soldiers to eliminate Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown after they escape from the lab facility. During attacks of the Creatures of the Unknown in Gotham City forest, G.I. Robot sprung at Frankenstein and then tries to subdue him again, but Creatures of the Unknown member severed G.I. Robot's head.
Geo-Pulse – Brion Markov is the king of Markovia. At some point, he is contacted by Mera. He is later captured by Aquaman, who attached him to a machine constructed by Vulko in order to amplify Brion's powers of manipulation of the Earth's gravitational field. It is through Brion that Aquaman managed to cause Western Europe to sink into the sea.
Guardians of the Universe – They tasked Abin Sur the mission to travel to Earth and recover the White Entity, and bring it to Oa. The Guardians contact him once again to retrieve the Entity which Abin Sur refuses, stating that he will retrieve the Entity after he helps the Earth population against the Atlantis/Amazon war. The Guardians grow impatient with Abin Sur, discharging from the Corps. However, the White Lantern Entity chooses Abin Sur to be his champion.
Guy Gardner - A bartender in Queensland, Australia. He is also a pacifist who overcomes his anger problems by finding Buddhism.
H.I.V.E. – An organization whose council members take a vote on using nuclear weapons to end the Amazon/Atlantean war in Western European.
Adeline Kane – Deathstroke's ex-wife and member of H.I.V.E council. She voted against using nuclear weapons to end the war in Western European Amazon/Atlantean.
August General in Iron – Member of H.I.V.E council. He voted for civilians to live in Western European Amazon/Atlantean war before using nuclear weapons.
Captain Nazi – Member of H.I.V.E council. He voted against using nuclear weapons to end the war in Western European Amazon/Atlantean.
Dr. Kimiyo Hoshi – Member of H.I.V.E council. She voted against using nuclear weapons to end the war in Western European Amazon/Atlantean.
Impala – He voted for civilians to live in Western European Amazon/Atlantean war before using nuclear weapons.
Naif al-Sheikh – Member of H.I.V.E council. He voted for civilians to live in Western European Amazon/Atlantean war before using nuclear weapons.
Prince Osiris – He is the prince of Kahndaq and a member of H.I.V.E council. He voted against using nuclear weapons to end the war in Western European Amazon/Atlantean.
Ra's al Ghul – He is a young boy and member of H.I.V.E council. He voted against using nuclear weapons to end the war in Western European Amazon/Atlantean.
Red Star – Member of H.I.V.E council. He voted for civilians to live in Western European Amazon/Atlantean war before using nuclear weapons.
Harvey Bullock - An alcoholic whom Batman interrogated for information on the Joker.
Harvey Dent – In this reality, Harvey Dent did not become Two-Face. Harvey Dent is a judge who has a wife and kids. When the Joker kidnaps Dent's children, Harvey asks Thomas Wayne for help in their search, agreeing to do anything he asks of him. When Harvey asks Thomas for his help, he warns Wayne that will shut down everything he owns including Wayne Casinos unless his children are saved. Chief James Gordon locates the Joker in Wayne Manor, and he goes in without any backup. Gordon is tricked into shooting Dent's daughter, having been disguised as the Joker. The Joker then appears and kills Gordon before Batman arrives. Batman rushes in and manages to save Dent's daughter by resuscitating her. Batman then moves them away from the Joker.
Hector Hammond - Private consultant of Ferris Aircraft with his test pilots Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris. While inspecting Abin Sur's crashed aircraft, Hammond did not trust Abin Sur and believes him to be preparing an alien invasion. However, the engineer Thomas Kalmaku tells him to rebuke his statement. Later, Hammond designs the aircraft into the F-35, and when it is ready to take off, he assigns the pilot Hal to it.
Hush – He is killed by Batman.
Isis - She is mentioned by her brother Osiris believing that she has been killed by the Atlanteans/Amazons. Isis is shown to be powerless and held captive by the Outsider, who has taken over the country of Khandaq. It is revealed that Isis is held captive by the Outsider for Black Adam into selling the Outsider his home country, Khandaq. The Outsider then shot Black Adam and threw him off of his train, joining Isis as his trophy/prisoner.
Iris West – Iris is a television reporter who investigates Central City's hero, Citizen Cold. She is Wally West's aunt, and is in a relationship with John at the Central City Citizen. One day, Iris is invited to dinner by Citizen Cold. When she asks him for an interview, he is interrupted by his emergency calls. When Citizen Cold is about to collapse near his car after being injured from his battle with the Rogues, he is confronted by Iris. Iris then brings him to her home. After he recovers, he gives her a key to his penthouse, and an offer to join him when he leaves Central City. When Iris learns from Pied Piper that Citizen Cold is a criminal who murders her nephew, Citizen Cold attacks Pied Piper. However, Iris uses one of his own weapons to freeze him in a block of ice, just as he did to Wally. Afterwards, Iris visits her nephew's grave along with her husband John.
J'onn J'onzz - J'onn is teleported to Earth and held captive in one of the Outsider's research facilities. After studying and torturing J'onn, the Outsider then sold him to the Russian government, after which J'onn attacked them and took over the country. He disguises himself as Blackout for undercover work against the Outsider. After a confrontation with the Outsider, J'onn's cover is blown when the Outsider tells him that Blackout has no skill. During the battle, Outsider uses the recovered teleportation technology device to trap J'onn. The Outsider then threatens J'onn to tell him about any future assassins. When J'onn refuses, the Outsider closes the teleport, cutting J'onn in half and killing him.
Jack Ryder - He is a news broadcaster who relays the message that Wonder Woman led the Amazons in conquering the United Kingdom, renaming it New Themyscira during the war.
James Gordon – The chief of the police and works with Thomas Wayne. Later, Gordon tries to convince Batman that he does not have to fight villains by himself; however, Batman refused. When Gordon locates the Joker in the old Wayne Manor, he goes in without any help or backup. Gordon is then tricked into shooting Harvey Dent's daughter, having been disguised as the Joker. Joker then appears and slashes Gordon's throat, who then died by Joker Venom before Batman confronts him.
Jason Todd - He is portrayed as a former drug-addict and a follower of Brother Blood. He eventually turns his life around and becomes a priest.
Jay Garrick - He is apparently dead after Kid Flash, who is being controlled by the Speed Force, reduces Jay's speed to give the Flash power and to stop the near-past Flash himself.
Jimmy Olsen – An agent of Cyborg to spy the Amazons. He is with Lois Lane reporting on a fashion show in Mountmatre when the Atlanteans flooded Europe. Jimmy is one of the thousands to perish in Western Europe. Later on, Jimmy's place in the Resistance is then taken by Lois Lane.
Joe Chill - He killed a young Bruce Wayne with the gunshot, leaving Thomas and Martha's son dead. Thomas seeks revenge on Chill for his son's death. He located Chill attempting to inject him with a drug, but instead he punches Chill in the face and beats him to death with a hammer. Afterwards, Chill's gun is in a trophy display in the Batcave by Thomas.
Killer Croc – He kidnapped the people of Gotham and imprisoned them in the sewer. Batman then arrives and attacks Killer Croc. Killer Croc is about to strike back at Batman, but Batman stabs him in the head with his own machete. Batman then rescues the people Croc had imprisoned.
Kilowog - The Green Lantern of Space Sector 674. He is subsequently killed by Nekron.
Krypto - Skeletal remains are seen in a government underground bunkers labeled as Subject 2. In a flashback, Subject 2 is shown with young Kal-El, but they separate after Kal fails to appease the government. Later, Sam tours Lionel Luthor and his son Lex to see a captive Krypto. Neil Sinclair gives Subject 2 energy to break free and attack in a rage, killing guards and attacking Lex. Subject 2 is killed by soldiers with a Kryptonite gun.
Lex Luthor - A young child alongside his father, Lionel Luthor, who tours Sam Lane's facility of aliens. When they are shown Subject 2 held captive in a glass, Subject 2 breaks out and attacks the guards and the young Lex. Lionel, in an effort to save his own life, uses Lex as a human shield. It is unknown if he is killed or seriously injured.
Lionel Luthor - Lex Luthor's father.
Lisa Snart – Citizen Cold's sister who is beaten brutally by her father. Later, Lisa killed her father with a gunshot and is arrested for the crime. Lisa is taken to Iron Heights and is then kidnapped by the Rogues. Citizen Cold arrives to try and rescue her, but finds she has been killed by the Rogues member Fallout.
Madame Xanadu – In this reality, Madame Xanadu is still a fortune-teller. When Traci Thirteen teleported to Madame Xanadu's location, she discovers that Madame Xanadu is dying. Before dying, Madame Xanadu tells her to stop the instigated Doctor Thirteen.
Man-Bat – He is invited by Matthew Shrieve to be the new member of Creatures of the Unknown, but Man-Bat then betrays him by killing his family. He is killed by Miranda Shrieve, granddaughter of Matthew Shrieve. It is revealed that Man-Bat had been working by General Sam Lane who is responsible for the deaths of Miranda's family.
Mr. Freeze – He attacks the S.T.A.R. Labs in Central City for the cure of his wife Nora Fries. However, Citizen Cold attacks and uses his cold gun to freeze Mister Freeze's body. Mister Freeze tries to escape on robotic legs, but Citizen Cold froze him to death and tells him that Nora is dead. Mister Freeze was a friend of Fallout who pursued revenge against Citizen Cold for murdering him. It is later revealed that the cure Mister Freeze is searching for was the radiation produced by Fallout.
Mister Terrific – He is attempting to assassinate the Outsider who was framed for unknown crimes when they discovered the Outsider's illicit schemes. Mister Terrific is killed by Outsider's guardian statue.
Mrs. Terrific – The wife of Mister Terrific. She is attempting to assassinate the Outsider who was framed for unknown crimes when they discovered the Outsider's illicit schemes. Mrs. Terrific is killed by Outsider's guardian statue.
Natasha Irons - Member of Brazilian Army who battles against the Nazis in Brazil.
Nekron – Unleashed into the Universe when Atrocitus killed William Hand. Where Nekron and his Black Lanterns waged war, is left unknown.
Nina Mazursky – A gill-woman and daughter of Doctor Mazursky who is in a relationship with Griffith.
Nora Allen - Mother of The Flash (Barry Allen) and widow of Professor Henry Allen.
Oracle - Selina Kyle becomes Oracle, having been apparently paralyzed under unspecified circumstances. She also serves as Thomas Wayne's psychiatrist, helping him deal with his rage since the murder of his son.
Oswald Cobblepot - In this reality, Oswald Cobblepot did not become Penguin. He works for Thomas Wayne as the chief of security at Wayne Casinos.
Pandora - An enigmatic being who merged the DC, Vertigo, and Wildstorm Universes into one after Barry Allen stops his younger self from altering the timeline. She quoted to Barry that the world was split into three to weaken them for an impending threat, and must now be reunited to combat it. Only the Phantom Stranger is aware of her actions. She is an interpretation of Greek mythology figure of the same name, who opened the pithos given to her by Zeus and released all the evils of humanity. Pandora seeks atonement for her mistakes and hopes the Justice League would help her in The New 52 reality, but her misguided attempts leads her to cause chaos in the universe once more, setting in motion of the "Trinity War" and "Forever Evil" events.
Pied Piper - He is a hero who has had his vocal chords ripped out by Citizen Cold, forcing him to rely on a cybernetic replacement. Pied Piper was also a childhood friend of Wally West. He arrives at Wally's lair and discovers that Wally has been killed by Citizen Cold. Pied Piper takes Wally's place in uncovering evidence of Citizen Cold's true identity. Pied Piper runs in through the sewers and intends to rescue Iris West from the Rogues, but is apparently killed by Citizen Cold's exploding ice sculpture. He is later revealed to have survived, and revealed to Iris that Citizen Cold had killed her nephew. After threatening to reveal Citizen Cold's true, criminal identity, Pied Piper is briefly attacked by Citizen Cold.
Poison Ivy - She is subsequently killed by Batman.
Queens' Row Penitentiary Staff - The staff members of Queens' Row Penitentiary.
Atom - Ray Palmer lost a leg to radiation poisoning and became a corrections officer at Queen's Row Penitentiary, acting as a controller of Amazo. Due to losing a leg, Atom uses a pair of crutches to get around. During the prison break, the Atom's control is pulled out by Eel O'Brian and Heat Wave, who then force him to retrieve their weapons. After Atom does it, Heat Wave crushes his skull with his fingers.
Amazo – A corrections officer of Queen's Row Penitentiary. Amazo is controlled by the Atom via a mental interface.
Red Tornadoes - Created by Doctor Morrow. They defended in Japan from the war between the Amazon forces and the Atlantean forces.
Doctor Morrow - Created the Red Tornadoes.
Renee Montoya - She is a bar owner and a bartender.
Rising Sun - He is attempting to assassinate the Outsider who was framed for unknown crimes when he discovered the Outsider's illicit schemes. Rising Sun is killed by the Outsider who punches him through his chest.
Robert Crane – He is a human scientist and works in the government services. They are responsible for shutting Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown's Project M down. In the modern era, Robert Crane is still alive and now a doctor. He also helps the government revive G.I. Robot to join the soldiers to eliminate Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown after they have escaped from the lab facility.
Rose Wilson - Daughter of Deathstroke. She is kidnapped by persons unknown, where her father Deathstroke, a pirate, is searching for her. Deathstroke and his shipmate Jenny Blitz locate Rose, who is being held captive on the Caretaker's fleet. Deathstroke formulates a plan, while he and Jenny battle Caretaker's crew, and manages to save Rose. After battling Caretaker's fleet, Rose rescues Deathstroke and Jenny from drowning, and is then reunites with her father. They sail towards an unknown destination afterwards.
Roy Harper – He is a member of a mercenary squad working for industrialist Oliver Queen. Early in the story, however, Roy and his fellow mercenaries are killed by an unknown explosion set of by Vixen and a group of anti-Queen activists. The explosion kills everyone in the facility besides him; he is remarkably unscathed even though he had been standing right next to Roy while discussing the possibility of becoming a group of actual heroes rather than mercenaries.
Sam Lane - Sam Lane runs a facility for aliens where Kal-El had been imprisoned.
Scarecrow - He was subsequently killed by Batman.
Sinestro – Green Lantern of Sector 1417, and his teacher Abin Sur. The duo's friendship has become strained due to the death of Abin's sister Arin. After Abin is sent to Earth by the Guardians, Sinestro approaches the imprisoned Red Lantern Atrocitus on Ysmault, seeking information about the prophecy related with the Flashpoint. Having learned that the Flashpoint is a moment when all of history will be changed, Sinestro travels to Earth to confront Abin Sur, determined to find the "Flash" who will change history and use his power to reset the universe to what he believes it should be. During the struggle, Abin Sur destroyed his ring and imprisons him. Abin Sur then contacts the Guardians of the Universe to expel Sinestro.
Solomon Grundy - He is invited by Matthew Shrieve to be the new member of Creatures of the Unknown, but Solomon Grundy then betrays him, killing his family. It is revealed that Solomon Grundy had been working under General Sam Lane, who is responsible for the deaths of Miranda's family.
Tawky Tawny – A tiger and companion of Captain Thunder. He is also affected by the transformation and often seen with S!H!A!Z!A!M! being held on a leash by Pedro. It is claimed that he is the last of the great striped cats of Khandaq, but nearly everybody sees him as a house cat.
Team 7 - An elite unit of soldiers led by Grifter. Most of the team is ultimately killed during a botched attack on a Jihadist training camp.
David Reid -
Gunner -
John Stewart -
Kate Kane -
Sgt. Rock -
Zinda Blake -
Thomas Kalmaku - In this reality, Tom is still Hal Jordan's aide. While inspecting an alien who survived from a crashing aircraft, Tom and Hector Hammond are also studying the spaceship technology as a stealth aircraft. After Hal's death, Tom gives Carol Ferris a gift from Hal saying that he always loved her.
Vicki Vale – She is a television reporter and is present on the wedding day of Aquaman and Wonder Woman.
Vincent Velcoro – A vampire. He disintegrated in the sunrise.
Wally West – Wally acts as an assistant and cameraman for his aunt Iris West. Investigating Central City's hero, Citizen Cold, Wally discovers that his true identity is that of a former low-level criminal. Cold confronts him before he can reveal this information, and freezes him in a block of ice. Wally was a friend of Pied Piper, who arrives at Wally's lair and discovers Wally is frozen by Citizen Cold. Afterwards, a grave for Wally is held by his aunt Iris along with her husband John.
Warlord - The pirate of a fleet. He is attacked by pirate Deathstroke in a battle stealing their loot. During the battle, Warlord's crew is killed while Warlord escaped using the hovercraft. Later, Warlord plans to attack Deathstroke and retrieve Jenny Blitz, who has been in stasis since she was stolen from him. Warlord ambushed Deathstroke and his fleet and demanded that they surrender. However, Deathstroke shoots Warlord's right eye using a scoped sniper rifle. He had been aiming for Warlord's mouth. Deathstroke fired once more at Warlord's ship only to have it unexpectedly blow up. Each ship in Warlord's fleet subsequently exploded. The ships had been destroyed by Jenny Blitz, now released from her stasis tube due to an earlier skirmish between Ocean Master and Icicle, one of Deathstroke's crewmen. Jenny appears to be able to project explosive force from her hands.
Warren Griffith – A werewolf and the remission in human form by Doctor Mazursky. He is in relationship with Nina.
White Lantern Entity – The Entity is hidden on Earth. Concerned for its safety, the Guardians of the Universe ordered Abin Sur to evacuate it from the Earth and bring it back to Oa before the planet Earth itself would be destroyed. However, Abin Sur enters the Earth and becomes the Earth's hero. The Guardians contact him once again to retrieve the Entity, which he refuses stating that he will only retrieve the Entity after he helps the Earth's population against the Atlantis/Amazon war. The Guardian grows impatient with Abin Sur, and he discharges the Corps. During the climactic battle of the Atlantis/Amazon War, a device triggered by the Atlanteans begins a shattering earthquake. Abin Sur leaps into a crevice in an attempt to stop the destruction, only for his ring to run out of power. The Entity then joins with Abin Sur, giving him the power to restore the Earth.
Windrunner - Wild West of the 18th century. He was approached by Kid Flash, who was being controlled by the Speed Force and then reduces Windrunner's speed, killing him to give the Flash power to stop the near-past Flash himself.
William Hand – Revealed to have been killed by Atrocitus which unleashed Nekron in the process.
Yo-Yo – Joker's female assistant who is loosely based on Harley Quinn.
Zatara – Father of Zatanna. He is transformed into Zatanna's motorcycle bike.
References
Lists of DC Comics characters |
34151582 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%20Hannigan | Robert Hannigan | Robert Peter Hannigan CMG (born 1965) is a cybersecurity specialist who has been Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, since 2021. He was a senior British civil servant who previously served as the director of the signals intelligence and cryptography agency the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and established the UK's National Cyber Security Centre. His sudden resignation as director was announced on 23 January 2017, and he stepped down at the end of April 2017 to pursue a career in private sector cyber security, academia and as a security commentator. In 2021 he became Warden of Wadham College, Oxford.
Early and family life
Hannigan was born in Gloucestershire and brought up in Yorkshire. He studied classics at Wadham College, Oxford, and continued his education at Heythrop College, University of London. He is married with a son and a daughter.
Career
Northern Ireland Peace Process
After an early career in the private sector, Hannigan became Deputy Director of Communications for the Northern Ireland Office in 2000, Director of Communications for the Northern Ireland Office in 2001 and Associate Political Director for the Northern Ireland Office in 2004. He served as the Director-General, Political at the Northern Ireland Office from 2005, taking over from Jonathan Phillips.
Hannigan has not spoken of his role in the Northern Ireland peace process but he is the only British civil servant involved to be singled out in Tony Blair's autobiography, where Blair describes him as "a great young official who had taken over as the main Number 10 person [on Northern Ireland]" and cites him as an example of creativity. Hannigan appears regularly in other accounts, notably by Blair's Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell, attending private crisis meetings with Irish Republican leaders, including Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, at Stormont Castle and Clonard Monastery. Powell describes his key role in brokering agreement with Ian Paisley and the Democratic Unionist Party during and after the St Andrews Agreement talks. He is described as chairing the first meeting between the DUP and Sinn Féin and designed the diamond shaped table which brought Adams and Paisley together at a public meeting on 26 March 2007, which is widely regarded as marking the end of the Northern Ireland 'Troubles'.
Number 10 Downing St and Cabinet Office
In 2007, he was appointed to a new post of Prime Minister's Security Adviser in 10 Downing St, as well as replacing Sir Richard Mottram as the Head of Security, Intelligence and Resilience at the Cabinet Office, responsible for co-ordinating between the intelligence services and government, and acting as Accounting Officer for the Single Intelligence Account which funds MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. During his time in office, Hannigan led the review into the loss of the nation's child benefit data, a major data breach incident; the subsequent report is informally called the "Hannigan Report".
Hannigan moved to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as the Director-General of Defence and Intelligence with effect from 1 March 2010.
He was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to national security. He was made an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, in November 2015. He became a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology in 2017 and is one of the few non-US citizens known to have been awarded the US National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Medal. He is a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute and a Senior Fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
Director of GCHQ
It was announced in April 2014 that Hannigan would succeed Iain Lobban as the Director of the signals intelligence and cryptography agency the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in the autumn of the year, taking over in November 2014 after revelations by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 exposed mass surveillance by the agency. As of 2015, Hannigan was paid a salary of between £160,000 and £164,999 by GCHQ, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.
Dialogue with Silicon Valley
On his first day in the role, Hannigan wrote an article in the Financial Times on the topic of Internet surveillance, stating that "however much [large US technology companies] may dislike it, they have become the command and control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals" and that GCHQ and its sister agencies "cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from the private sector", arguing that most Internet users "would be comfortable with a better and more sustainable relationship between the [intelligence] agencies and the tech companies". Since the 2013 surveillance disclosures, large US technology companies have improved security and become less co-operative with foreign intelligence agencies, including those of the UK, generally requiring a US court order before disclosing data. However the head of the UK technology industry group TechUK rejected these claims, stating that they understood the issues but that disclosure obligations "must be based upon a clear and transparent legal framework and effective oversight rather than, as suggested, a deal between the industry and government".
Encryption
Hannigan developed this thinking in a speech at MIT in March 2016, in which he appeared to take a more conciliatory line with the tech companies. He highlighted the importance of strong encryption and argued against 'back doors'. He also set out the role of James Ellis and other GCHQ mathematicians in the invention of public key cryptography and published for the first time facsimiles of Ellis' original papers on the possibility of digital and analogue secure non-secret encryption. Interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme in July 2017, Hannigan argued against further legislation on encryption and said 'back doors' would be a 'bad idea', suggesting instead that governments and companies should work together against those abusing strong encryption by targeting devices and the 'end of the network'.
Terrorist material online
Returning to the debate on terrorist material on the internet after the London Bridge attack in June 2017, Hannigan commented on the polarised stand-off between politicians and tech companies. He noted an improved relationship between the Silicon Valley companies and government since 2014, but called on the big companies to come together to address extremism and to preserve the freedom of the internet from state control. Interviewed alongside his former counterpart Admiral Michael Rogers, Head of the NSA and US Cyber Command, at the 2017 Aspen Security Forum, Hannigan said that since 2014 the companies had accepted responsibility for the content they carried and were making progress on extremist material, pointing to Mark Zuckerberg's comments on the subject.
Cyber security
Hannigan's major external change to the organisation during his tenure was the creation of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) as an operational part of GCHQ. The NCSC's London headquarters was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 14 February 2017. In a speech welcoming the Queen and Prince Philip, Hannigan described the historical line between Bletchley Park and the NCSC and set out the challenge of cyber security at a national level. In a final interview with Financial Times editor Lionel Barber, at CyberUK 2017, Hannigan described his thinking in creating the NCSC and his involvement in cyber security over the years, from the creation of the first UK Cyber Security Strategy for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, to framing the coalition government's ambition of making the UK "the safest place to live and do business online"; against a '"rising tide" of cyber security incidents, governments could not do this alone but only "with industry". Hannigan has made frequent interventions on cyber security issues. In a speech in November 2015, he said that the usual market mechanisms were failing on cyber security: "The normal drivers of change, from regulation and incentivisation to insurance cover and legal liability, are still immature". He also pointed to a critical cyber skills gap, and has called for a "culture shift" within Boardrooms to meet the cyber threat, with less reliance on the "well-meaning generalist". Other Financial Times articles have covered the sophistication of cyber crime groups and the threat from North Korea.
In July 2017 Hannigan blamed Russia for causing a "disproportionate amount of mayhem in cyberspace", identifying state-linked crime as a major problem: "There is an overlap of crime and state, and a deeply corrupt system that allows crime to flourish, but the Russian state could do a lot to stop that and it could certainly rein in its own state activity." Asked at the 2017 Aspen Security Forum what had changed in Russian cyber behaviour, Hannigan referred to the "brazen recklessness" of Russian agencies who scarcely tried to hide their activity. In December 2017 he joined General Lord Houghton in drawing attention to Russian threats to undersea internet cables, endorsing a report by Rishi Sunak MP for the Policy Exchange thinktank. Hannigan was involved in monitoring Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, including the Democratic National Committee cyber attacks.
Resignation
On 23 January 2017, Hannigan announced that he had decided to resign once a successor to his role as director had been found, explaining in a letter to the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, that his resignation was for personal reasons. This exchange of letters between Hannigan and Johnson revealed that he had "initiated the greatest internal change within GCHQ for thirty years"; no further details were given but the letters refer to a "focus on technology and skills", to make GCHQ "fit for the digital age". He was widely credited with bringing greater transparency to GCHQ, not least through the use of cryptographic puzzles; his Christmas card puzzle in 2015 inspired some 600,000 attempts worldwide to solve it. This led to the publication of The GCHQ Puzzle Book in 2016, with Forewords by the Duchess of Cambridge and Hannigan. It became a Christmas best-seller, and by April 2017 had raised £240k for the Heads Together mental health charities. According to the Guardian, his resignation was sudden and prompted speculation that it might be related to "British concerns over shared intelligence with the US in the wake of Donald Trump becoming president."
In February 2017, Hannigan was appointed to the UK Government's new Defence Innovation Advisory Panel, along with McLaren Chairman Ron Dennis and astronaut Tim Peake. He has written about the shift in technological innovation from government to private sector and West to East, expressing some concern about the tone of the Brexit debate and its impact on the UK academic tech sector.
In December 2021, the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) reported that it had been misled by the government over the reasons for Hannigan's sudden resignation. Hannigan had in fact resigned because he had given a character reference some years earlier while working in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office using his FCO title, for Father Edmund Higgins, who had been found guilty of possessing 174 child pornography images, but the priest later reoffended. The report said the ISC is entrusted with oversight of the intelligence community, and ensuring their probity, and must be fully informed in such circumstances, instead of discovering it much later from a Mail on Sunday report. He was also heavily criticised in the ISC report for later revealing operational information on a TV programme of how intelligence agencies had discovered the identity of Islamic State executioner Mohammed Emwazi, commonly known as Jihadi John. The successor Director of GCHQ had written to Hannigan to remind him of his ongoing responsibility to safeguard sensitive information and to seek approval in advance of discussing such matters in the media, but without any substantive sanctions which the ISC viewed as giving the wrong message to other former intelligence staff.
Later career
He has served as chairman of BlueVoyant, a US-based cyber security services company, and as an adviser to a number of governments and international companies. He has been a paid commentator on security matters in the media and a public speaker.
In May 2021, it was announced that Hannigan was to be the next Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, from summer 2021.
References
External links
Foresight Review on Cyber Security for the industrial Internet of things
Organising a Government for Cyber: the Creation of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (RUSI)
Official website
|-
|-
|-
Living people
1965 births
Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford
Wardens of Wadham College, Oxford
Civil servants in the Northern Ireland Office
Civil servants in the Cabinet Office
Civil servants in the Foreign Office
Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George
Directors of the Government Communications Headquarters |
34201152 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows%20Server%202012 | Windows Server 2012 | Windows Server 2012 is the fifth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows 8 and succeeds Windows Server 2008 R2, which is derived from the Windows 7 codebase, released nearly three years earlier. Two pre-release versions, a developer preview and a beta version, were released during development. The software was officially launched on September 4, 2012, two months before the release of Windows 8. A successor was released on October 18, 2013, entitled Windows Server 2012 R2. Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows Server 2012 on October 9, 2018, and extended support will end on October 10, 2023.
Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 has no support for Itanium-based computers, and has four editions. Various features were added or improved over Windows Server 2008 R2 (with many placing an emphasis on cloud computing), such as an updated version of Hyper-V, an IP address management role, a new version of Windows Task Manager, and ReFS, a new file system. Windows Server 2012 received generally good reviews in spite of having included the same controversial Metro-based user interface seen in Windows 8, which includes the Charms Bar for quick access to settings in the desktop environment.
History
Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the fifth release of Windows Server family of operating systems developed concurrently with Windows 8. It was not until April 17, 2012 that the company announced that the final product name would be "Windows Server 2012".
Microsoft introduced Windows Server 2012 and its developer preview in the BUILD 2011 conference on September 9, 2011. However, unlike Windows 8, the developer preview of Windows Server 2012 was only made available to MSDN subscribers. It included a graphical user interface (GUI) based on Metro design language and a new Server Manager, a graphical application used for server management. On February 16, 2012, Microsoft released an update for developer preview build that extended its expiry date from April 8, 2012 to January 15, 2013.
Before Windows Server 2012 was finalized, two test builds were made public. A public beta version of Windows Server 2012 was released along with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on February 29, 2012. The release candidate of Windows Server 2012 was released on May 31, 2012, along with the Windows 8 Release Preview.
The product was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012 (along with Windows 8) and became generally available on September 4, that year. However, not all editions of Windows Server 2012 were released at the same time. Windows Server 2012 Essentials was released to manufacturing on October 9, 2012 and was made generally available on November 1, 2012. As of September 23, 2012, all students subscribed to DreamSpark program can download Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter free of charge.
Windows Server 2012 is based on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 8 and requires x86-64 CPUs (64-bit), while Windows Server 2008 worked on the older IA-32 (32-bit) architecture as well. Coupled with fundamental changes in the structure of the client backups and the shared folders, there is no clear method for migrating from the previous version to Windows Server 2012.
Features
Installation options
Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 can switch between "Server Core" and "Server with a GUI" installation options without a full reinstallation. Server Core – an option with a command-line interface only – is now the recommended configuration. There is also a third installation option that allows some GUI elements such as MMC and Server Manager to run, but without the normal desktop, shell or default programs like File Explorer.
User interface
Server Manager has been redesigned with an emphasis on easing management of multiple servers. The operating system, like Windows 8, uses the Metro-based user interface unless installed in Server Core mode. Windows Store is available in this version of Windows but is not installed by default. Windows PowerShell in this version has over 2300 commandlets, compared to around 200 in Windows Server 2008 R2.
Task Manager
Windows Server 2012 includes a new version of Windows Task Manager together with the old version. In the new version the tabs are hidden by default, showing applications only. In the new Processes tab, the processes are displayed in varying shades of yellow, with darker shades representing heavier resource use. Information found in the older versions are now moved to the new Details tab. The Performance tab shows "CPU", "Memory", "Disk", "Wi-Fi" and "Ethernet" graphs. Unlike the Windows 8 version of Task Manager (which looks similar), the "Disk" activity graph is not enabled by default. The CPU tab no longer displays individual graphs for every logical processor on the system by default, although that remains an option. Additionally, it can display data for each non-uniform memory access (NUMA) node. When displaying data for each logical processor for machines with more than 64 logical processors, the CPU tab now displays simple utilization percentages on heat-mapping tiles. The color used for these heat maps is blue, with darker shades again indicating heavier utilization. Hovering the cursor over any logical processor's data now shows the NUMA node of that processor and its ID, if applicable. Additionally, a new Startup tab has been added that lists startup applications, however this tab does not exist in Windows Server 2012. The new task manager recognizes when a Windows Store app has the "Suspended" status.
IP address management (IPAM)
Windows Server 2012 has an IP address management role for discovering, monitoring, auditing, and managing the IP address space used on a corporate network. The IPAM is used for the management and monitoring of Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are fully supported.
Active Directory
Windows Server 2012 has a number of changes to Active Directory from the version shipped with Windows Server 2008 R2. The Active Directory Domain Services installation wizard has been replaced by a new section in Server Manager, and a GUI has been added to the Active Directory Recycle Bin. Multiple password policies can be set in the same domain. Active Directory in Windows Server 2012 is now aware of any changes resulting from virtualization, and virtualized domain controllers can be safely cloned. Upgrades of the domain functional level to Windows Server 2012 are simplified; it can be performed entirely in Server Manager. Active Directory Federation Services is no longer required to be downloaded when installed as a role, and claims which can be used by the Active Directory Federation Services have been introduced into the Kerberos token. Windows Powershell commands used by Active Directory Administrative Center can be viewed in a "Powershell History Viewer".
Hyper-V
Windows Server 2012, along with Windows 8, includes a new version of Hyper-V, as presented at the Microsoft BUILD event. Many new features have been added to Hyper-V, including network virtualization, multi-tenancy, storage resource pools, cross-premises connectivity, and cloud backup. Additionally, many of the former restrictions on resource consumption have been greatly lifted. Each virtual machine in this version of Hyper-V can access up to 64 virtual processors, up to 1 terabyte of memory, and up to 64 terabytes of virtual disk space per virtual hard disk (using a new format). Up to 1024 virtual machines can be active per host, and up to 8000 can be active per failover cluster. SLAT is a required processor feature for Hyper-V on Windows 8, while for Windows Server 2012 it is only required for the supplementary RemoteFX role.
ReFS
Resilient File System (ReFS), codenamed "Protogon", is a new file system in Windows Server 2012 initially intended for file servers that improves on NTFS in some respects. Major new features of ReFS include:
Improved reliability for on-disk structures ReFS uses B+ trees for all on-disk structures including metadata and file data. Metadata and file data are organized into tables similar to a relational database. The file size, number of files in a folder, total volume size and number of folders in a volume are limited by 64-bit numbers; as a result ReFS supports a maximum file size of 16 exabytes, a maximum of 18.4 × 1018 folders and a maximum volume size of 1 yottabyte (with 64 KB clusters) which allows large scalability with no practical limits on file and folder size (hardware restrictions still apply). Free space is counted by a hierarchical allocator which includes three separate tables for large, medium, and small chunks. File names and file paths are each limited to a 32 KB Unicode text string.
Built-in resilience ReFS employs an allocation-on-write update strategy for metadata, which allocates new chunks for every update transaction and uses large IO batches. All ReFS metadata has built-in 64-bit checksums which are stored independently. The file data can have an optional checksum in a separate "integrity stream", in which case the file update strategy also implements allocation-on-write; this is controlled by a new "integrity" attribute applicable to both files and directories. If nevertheless file data or metadata becomes corrupt, the file can be deleted without taking the whole volume offline. As a result of built-in resiliency, administrators do not need to periodically run error-checking tools such as CHKDSK when using ReFS.
Compatibility with existing APIs and technologies ReFS does not require new system APIs and most file system filters continue to work with ReFS volumes. ReFS supports many existing Windows and NTFS features such as BitLocker encryption, Access Control Lists, USN Journal, change notifications, symbolic links, junction points, mount points, reparse points, volume snapshots, file IDs, and oplock. ReFS seamlessly integrates with Storage Spaces, a storage virtualization layer that allows data mirroring and striping, as well as sharing storage pools between machines. ReFS resiliency features enhance the mirroring feature provided by Storage Spaces and can detect whether any mirrored copies of files become corrupt using background data scrubbing process, which periodically reads all mirror copies and verifies their checksums then replaces bad copies with good ones.
Some NTFS features are not supported in ReFS, including object IDs, short names, file compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, hard links, extended attributes, and disk quotas. Sparse files are supported. Support for named streams is not implemented in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, though it was later added in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. ReFS does not itself offer data deduplication. Dynamic disks with mirrored or striped volumes are replaced with mirrored or striped storage pools provided by Storage Spaces. In Windows Server 2012, automated error-correction with integrity streams is only supported on mirrored spaces; automatic recovery on parity spaces was added in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Booting from ReFS is not supported either.
IIS 8.0
Windows Server 2012 includes version 8.0 of Internet Information Services (IIS). The new version contains new features such as SNI, CPU usage caps for particular websites, centralized management of SSL certificates, WebSocket support and improved support for NUMA, but few other substantial changes were made.
Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0
Remote Desktop Protocol has new functions such as Adaptive Graphics (progressive rendering and related techniques), automatic selection of TCP or UDP as transport protocol, multi touch support, DirectX 11 support for vGPU, USB redirection supported independently of vGPU support, etc. A "connection quality" button is displayed in the RDP client connection bar for RDP 8.0 connections; clicking on it provides further information about connection, including whether UDP is in use or not.
Scalability
Windows Server 2012 supports the following maximum hardware specifications. Windows Server 2012 improves over its predecessor Windows Server 2008 R2:
System requirements
Windows Server 2012 does not support Itanium and runs only on x64 processors.
Upgrades from Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are supported, although upgrades from prior releases are not.
Editions
Windows Server 2012 has four editions: Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter.
Reception
Reviews of Windows Server 2012 have been generally positive. Simon Bisson of ZDNet described it as "ready for the datacenter, today," while Tim Anderson of The Register said that "The move towards greater modularity, stronger automation and improved virtualisation makes perfect sense in a world of public and private clouds" but remarked that "That said, the capability of Windows to deliver obscure and time-consuming errors is unchanged" and concluded that "Nevertheless, this is a strong upgrade overall."
InfoWorld noted that Server 2012's use of Windows 8's panned "Metro" user interface was countered by Microsoft's increasing emphasis on the Server Core mode, which had been "fleshed out with new depth and ease-of-use features" and increased use of the "practically mandatory" PowerShell. However, Michael Otey of Windows IT Pro expressed dislike with the new Metro interface and the lack of ability to use the older desktop interface alone, saying that most users of Windows Server manage their servers using the graphical user interface rather than PowerShell.
Paul Ferrill wrote that "Windows Server 2012 Essentials provides all the pieces necessary to provide centralized file storage, client backups, and remote access," but Tim Anderson contended that "Many businesses that are using SBS2011 and earlier will want to stick with what they have", citing the absence of Exchange, the lack of ability to synchronize with Active Directory Federation Services and the 25-user limit, while Paul Thurott wrote "you should choose Foundation only if you have at least some in-company IT staff and/or are comfortable outsourcing management to a Microsoft partner or solution provider" and "Essentials is, in my mind, ideal for any modern startup of just a few people."
Windows Server 2012 R2
A second release, Windows Server 2012 R2, which is derived from the Windows 8.1 codebase, was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013 and became generally available on October 18, 2013, by Microsoft. A service pack, formally designated Windows Server 2012 R2 Update, was released in April 2014.
See also
Comparison of Microsoft Windows versions
Comparison of operating systems
History of Microsoft Windows
List of operating systems
Microsoft Servers
Notes
Extended Security Updates
Microsoft Announced in July 2021 they will distribute Extended Security Updates for SQL Server 2012, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2, for a maximum of three years after the end of Extended Support date.
End of Support
Microsoft originally planned to end support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on January 10, 2023, but in order to provide customers the standard transition lifecycle timeline, Microsoft extended Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 support in March 2017 by 9 months. With a final set end date, Windows Server 2012 will end Extended Support on October 10, 2023.
References
Further reading
External links
Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012 on TechNet
Windows Server 2012 R2 on MSDN
Windows Server 2012 on MSDN
Tutorials and Lab Manual Articles of Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server
X86-64 operating systems
2012 software |
34201473 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption%20by%20date | Encryption by date | This is a timeline of the public releases or introductions of computer encryption algorithms.
References
Horst Feistel. Block Cipher Cryptographic System, US Patent 3,798,359. Filed June 30, 1971. (IBM)
Joe Kilian and Phillip Rogaway, How to protect DES against exhaustive key search (PostScript), Advances in Cryptology - Crypto '96, Springer-Verlag (1996), pp. 252–267.
Ingrid Schaumuller-Bichl, Zur Analyse des Data Encryption Standard und Synthese Verwandter Chiffriersysteme, Ph.D. Thesis, Linz university, May 1981. (In German).
History of cryptography |
34249411 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring%20your%20own%20device | Bring your own device | Bring your own device (BYOD )—also called bring your own technology (BYOT), bring your own phone (BYOP), and bring your own personal computer (BYOPC)—refers to being allowed to use one's personally owned device, rather than being required to use an officially provided device.
There are two major contexts in which this term is used. One is in the mobile phone industry, where it refers to carriers allowing customers to activate their existing phone (or other cellular device) on the network, rather than being forced to buy a new device from the carrier.
The other, and the main focus of this article, is in the workplace, where it refers to a policy of permitting employees to bring personally owned devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.) to work, and to use those devices to access privileged company information and applications. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as IT consumerization.
BYOD is making significant inroads in the business world, with about 75% of employees in high-growth markets such as Brazil and Russia and 44% in developed markets already using their own technology at work. Surveys have indicated that businesses are unable to stop employees from bringing personal devices into the workplace. Research is divided on benefits. One survey shows around 95% of employees stating they use at least one personal device for work.
History
The term was initially used by a VoIP service provider BroadVoice in 2004 (initially for AstriCon, but then continued as a core part of the business model) with a service allowing businesses to bring their own device for a more open service provider model. The phrase and the "BYOD" acronym is a take-off on "BYOB", a party invitation term first recorded in the 1970s, standing for "bring your own beer/booze/bottle".
The term BYOD then entered common use in 2009, courtesy of Intel, when it recognized an increasing tendency among its employees to bring their own smartphones, tablets and laptop computers to work and connect them to the corporate network. However, it took until early 2011 before the term achieved prominence, when IT services provider Unisys and software vendor Citrix Systems started to share their perceptions of this emergent trend. BYOD has been characterized as a feature of the "consumer enterprise" in which enterprises blend with consumers. This is a role reversal in that businesses used to be the driving force behind consumer technology innovations and trends.
In 2012, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adopted a BYOD policy, but many employees continued to use their government-issued BlackBerrys because of concerns about billing, and the lack of alternative devices.
New trends
The proliferation of devices such as tablets and smartphones, now used by many people in their daily lives, has led to a number of companies, such as IBM, to allow employees to bring their own devices to work, due to perceived productivity gains and cost savings. The idea was initially rejected because of security concerns but more and more companies are now looking to incorporate BYOD policies.
According to a 2018 study, only 17 percent of enterprises provide mobile phones to all employees, while 31 percent provide to none and instead rely entirely on BYOD. The remaining 52 percent have some kind of hybrid approach where some employees receive corporate mobile phones and others are expected to bring their own.
Prevalence
The Middle East has one of the highest adoption rates (about 80%) of the practice worldwide in 2012.
According to research by Logicalis, high-growth markets (including Brazil, Russia, India, UAE, and Malaysia) demonstrate a much higher propensity to use their own device at work. Almost 75% of users in these countries did so, compared to 44% in the more mature developed markets.
In the UK, the CIPD Employee Outlook Survey 2013 revealed substantial variations by industry in the prevalence of BYOD.
Advantages
While some reports have indicated productivity gains by employees, the results have drawn skepticism. Companies such as Workspot believe that BYOD may help employees be more productive. Others say that using their own devices increases employee morale and convenience and makes the company look like a flexible and attractive employer. Many feel that BYOD can even be a means to attract new hires, pointing to a survey that indicating that 44% of job seekers view an organization more positively if it supports their device.
Some industries are adopting BYOD more quickly than others. A recent study by Cisco partners of BYOD practices found that the education industry has the highest percentage of people using BYOD for work, at 95.25%.
A study by IBM says that 82% of employees think that smartphones play a critical role in business. The study also suggests that the benefits of BYOD include increased productivity, employee satisfaction, and cost savings for the company. Increased productivity comes from a user being more comfortable with their personal device; being an expert user makes navigating the device easier, increasing productivity. Additionally, personal devices are often more up-to-date, as the devices may be renewed more frequently. BYOD increases employee satisfaction and job satisfaction, as the user can use the device they have selected as their own rather than one selected by the IT team. It also allows them to carry one device rather than one for work and one for personal use. The company can save money as they are not responsible for furnishing the employee with a device, though this is not guaranteed.
Disadvantages
Although the ability of staff to work at any time from anywhere and on any device provides real business benefits, it also brings significant risks. Companies must deploy security measures to prevent information ending up in the wrong hands. According to an IDG survey, more than half of 1,600 senior IT security and technology purchase decision-makers reported serious violations of personal mobile device use.
Various risks arise from BYOD, and agencies such as the UK Fraud Advisory Panel encourage organisations to consider these and adopt a BYOD policy.
BYOD security relates strongly to the end node problem, whereby a device is used to access both sensitive and risky networks and services; risk-averse organizations issue devices specifically for Internet use (termed Inverse-BYOD).
BYOD has resulted in data breaches. For example, if an employee uses a smartphone to access the company network and then loses that phone, untrusted parties could retrieve any unsecured data on the phone. Another type of security breach occurs when an employee leaves the company; they do not have to give back the device, so company applications and other data may still be present on their device.
Furthermore, people may sell their devices and forget to wipe sensitive information before the handover. Family members may share devices such as tablets; a child could play games on a parent's tablet and accidentally share sensitive content via email or other means such as Dropbox.
IT security departments wishing to monitor usage of personal devices must ensure that they monitor only activities that are work-related or access company data or information.
Organizations adopting a BYOD policy must also consider how they will ensure that the devices which connect to the organisation's network infrastructure to access sensitive information will be protected from malware. Traditionally if the device was owned by the organisation, the organisation can dictate for what purposes the device may be used or what public sites may be accessed from the device. An organisation can typically expect users to use their own devices to connect to the Internet from private or public locations. The users could be susceptible from attacks originating from untethered browsing or could potentially access less secure or compromised sites that may contain harmful material and compromise the security of the device.
Software developers and device manufacturers constantly release security patches to counteract threats from malware. IT departments that support organisations with a BYOD policy must have systems and processes to apply patches protecting systems against known vulnerabilities of the devices that users may use. Ideally, such departments should have agile systems that can quickly adopt the support necessary for new devices. Supporting a broad range of devices obviously carries a large administrative overhead. Organisations without a BYOD policy have the benefit of selecting a small number of devices to support, while organisations with a BYOD policy could also limit the number of supported devices, though this could defeat the objective of allowing users the freedom to choose their preferred device freely.
Several market and policies have emerged to address BYOD security concerns, including mobile device management (MDM), containerization and app virtualization. While MDM allows organizations to control applications and content on the device, research has revealed controversy related to employee privacy and usability issues that lead to resistance in some organizations. Corporate liability issues have also emerged when businesses wipe devices after employees leave the organization.
A key issue of BYOD which is often overlooked is BYOD's phone number problem, which raises the question of the ownership of the phone number. The issue becomes apparent when employees in sales or other customer-facing roles leave the company and take their phone number with them. Customers calling the number will then potentially be calling competitors, which can lead to loss of business for BYOD enterprises.
International research reveals that only 20% of employees have signed a BYOD policy.
It is more difficult for the firm to manage and control the consumer technologies and make sure they serve the needs of the business. Firms need an efficient inventory management system that keeps track of the devices employees are using, where the device is located, whether it is being used, and what software it is equipped with. If sensitive, classified, or criminal data lands on a U.S. government employee's device, the device is subject to confiscation.
Another important issue with BYOD is of scalability and capability. Many organisations lack proper network infrastructure to handle the large traffic generated when employees use different devices at the same time. Nowadays, employees use mobile devices as their primary devices and they demand performance which they are accustomed to. Earlier smartphones used modest amounts of data that were easily handled by wireless LANs, but modern smartphones can access webpages as quickly as most PCs do and may use radio and voice at high bandwidths, increasing demand on WLAN infrastructure.
Finally, there is confusion regarding the reimbursement for the use of a personal device. A recent court ruling in California indicates the need of reimbursement if an employee is required to use their personal device for work. In other cases, companies can have trouble navigating the tax implications of reimbursement and the best practices surrounding reimbursement for personal device use. A 2018 study found that 89 percent of organizations with a BYOD policy provide a full or partial stipend to compensate employees for their mobile phone expenses. On average, these organizations paid employees $36 per month as a BYOD stipend.
Personally owned, company enabled (POCE)
A personally owned device is any technology device that was purchased by an individual and was not issued by the agency. A personal device includes any portable technology such as cameras, USB flash drives, mobile wireless devices, tablets, laptops or personal desktop computers.
Corporate-owned, personally enabled (COPE)
As part of enterprise mobility, an alternative approach are corporate-owned, personally enabled devices (COPE). Under such policies, the company purchases and provides devices to their employees, but the functionality of a private device is enabled to allow personal usage. The company maintains all of these devices similarly to simplify its IT management; the organization will have permission to delete all data on the device remotely without incurring penalties and without violating the privacy of its employees.
BYOD policy
A BYOD policy must be created based on the company's requirements. BYOD can be dangerous to organizations, as mobile devices may carry malware. If an infected device connects to the company network, data breaches may occur. If a mobile device has access to business computing systems, the company's IT administrator should have control over it. A BYOD policy helps eliminate the risk of having malware in the network, as the management team can monitor all contents of the device and erase data if any suspicious event is captured. BYOD policies may specify that the company is responsible for any devices connected to a company network.
Additional policies
BYOD policies can vary greatly from organization to organization depending on the concerns, risks, threats, and culture, so differ in the level of flexibility given to employees to select device types. Some policies dictate a narrow range of devices; others allow a broader range of devices. Related to this, policies can be structured to prevent IT from having an unmanageable number of different device types to support. It is also important to state clearly which areas of service and support are the employees' responsibilities versus the company's responsibility.
BYOD users may get help paying for their data plans with a stipend from their company. The policy may also specify whether an employee is paid overtime for answering phone calls or checking email after hours or on weekends. Additional policy aspects may include how to authorize use, prohibited use, perform systems management, handle policy violations, and handle liability issues.
For consistency and clarity, BYOD policy should be integrated with the overall security policy and the acceptable use policy. To help ensure policy compliance and understanding, a user communication and training process should be in place and ongoing.
See also
Bring your own encryption
Bring your own operating system
Mobile security
One to one computing
Remote mobile virtualization
References
Mobile phones
Mobile computers
Mobile telecommunication services
Mobile device management |
34278662 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKDF | HKDF | HKDF is a simple key derivation function (KDF) based on HMAC message authentication code. It was initially proposed by its authors as a building block in various protocols and applications, as well as to discourage the proliferation of multiple KDF mechanisms. The main approach HKDF follows is the "extract-then-expand" paradigm, where the KDF logically consists of two modules: the first stage takes the input keying material and "extracts" from it a fixed-length pseudorandom key, and then the second stage "expands" this key into several additional pseudorandom keys (the output of the KDF).
It can be used, for example, to convert shared secrets exchanged via Diffie–Hellman into key material suitable for use in encryption, integrity checking or authentication.
It is formally described in the RFC 5869. One of its authors also described the algorithm in a companion paper in 2010.
NIST SP800-56Cr2 specifies a parameterizable extract-then-expand scheme, noting that RFC5869 HKDF is a version of it and citing its paper for the rationale for the recommendations' extract-and-expand mechanisms.
There are implementations of HKDF for C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and other programming languages.
Mechanism
HKDF extracts a pseudorandom key (PRK) using an HMAC hash function (e.g. HMAC-SHA256) on an optional salt (acting as a key) and any potentially weak input key material (IKM) (acting as data). It then generates similarly cryptographically strong output key material (OKM) of any desired length by repeatedly generating PRK-keyed hash-blocks and then appending them into the output key material, finally truncating to the desired length.
For added security, the PRK-keyed HMAC-hashed blocks are chained during their generation by appending the previous hash block with an incrementing 8-bit counter with an optional context string in the middle before being hashed by HMAC to generate the current hash block.
An important property of HKDF is that it does not amplify entropy but does allow a large source of weaker entropy to be utilised more evenly and effectively.
Uses
HKDF has two primary and potentially independent uses:
To "extract" (condense/blend) entropy from a larger random source to provide a more uniformly unbiased and higher entropy but smaller output (e.g., an encryption key). This is done by utilising the diffusion properties of cryptographic MACs.
To "expand" the generated output of an already reasonably random input such as an existing shared key into a larger cryptographically independent output, thereby producing multiple keys deterministically from that initial shared key, so that the same process may produce those same secret keys safely on multiple devices, as long as the same inputs are utilised.
These two functions may also be combined and used to form a PRNG to improve a random number generator's potentially-biased output, as well as to protect it from analysis and help defend the random number generation from malicious inputs.
Example: Python implementation
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import hashlib
import hmac
from math import ceil
hash_len = 32
def hmac_sha256(key, data):
return hmac.new(key, data, hashlib.sha256).digest()
def hkdf(length: int, ikm, salt: bytes = b"", info: bytes = b"") -> bytes:
"""Key derivation function"""
if len(salt) == 0:
salt = bytes([0] * hash_len)
prk = hmac_sha256(salt, ikm)
t = b""
okm = b""
for i in range(ceil(length / hash_len)):
t = hmac_sha256(prk, t + info + bytes([i + 1]))
okm += t
return okm[:length]
okm = hkdf(length=42,
ikm=bytes.fromhex('0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b0b'),
salt=bytes.fromhex('000102030405060708090a0b0c'),
info=bytes.fromhex('f0f1f2f3f4f5f6f7f8f9'))
assert okm == bytes.fromhex(
'3cb25f25faacd57a90434f64d0362f2a2d2d0a90cf1a5a4c5db02d56ecc4c5bf34007208d5b887185865')
References
Cryptography
Key derivation functions |
34289606 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exelis%20Inc. | Exelis Inc. | Exelis Inc., was a global aerospace, defense, information and services company created in October 2011 as a result of the spinoff of ITT Corporation's defense business into an independent, publicly traded company. The company was headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, USA and was led by CEO and President David F. Melcher. The Washington Post highlighted Exelis as a top company in the Washington, D.C. region in 2011. It was acquired by the Harris Corporation for $4.75 billion in 2015.
History
For more detailed company history prior to October 31, 2011, see ITT Corporation
Exelis Inc. was one of three major companies that made up ITT Corporation, a company that provided numerous communications, defense and water services.
ITT was founded as the small communications company Puerto Rico Telephone Company by brothers Sosthenes and Hernan Behn. Through a series of business and patent acquisitions, the company grew and was renamed International Telephone and Telegraph in 1920.
ITT continued to grow before appointing Harold Geneen as CEO in 1959. Until his retirement from the position in 1977, Geneen was responsible for growing the company from a medium-sized business earning $765 million in 1961 to an international conglomerate making $17 billion in sales in 1970. The company acquired more than 350 companies during Geneen's tenure; at one point the acquisition rate reached one deal per week. Ownership extended over such notable companies as Continental Baking, maker of Wonder Bread and the Twinkie, Sheraton Hotels and Avis Rent-A-Car. For a brief period in the mid-1960s, ITT was in talks to acquire the ABC television and radio networks in the US, but that deal fell through under regulatory scrutiny.
Following Geneen's retirement, ITT went through a restructuring phase under CEO Rand Araskog and was split into three companies in 1995: ITT Corporation (formerly ITT Industries), ITT Sheraton, and The Hartford, an insurance company.
2011 Spin-Off
On January 12, 2011, the ITT Corporation Board of Directors approved a plan to split the firm. On October 31, 2011, ITT Corporation spun off its defense and water technology businesses to form three separate, publicly traded companies:
Exelis Inc., a global aerospace, defense, information and services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia.
Xylem Inc., a water technology firm.
ITT Corporation, a manufacturing firm.
From the spin off to Nov. 1, 2013, Exelis was known as ITT Exelis to help ease the transition of the company's brand. Exelis employed approximately 19,000 people and generated $5.5 billion in sales in 2012.
2015 Purchase
In February 2015, Exelis announced that plans had been approved for the sale of the company through a cash/stock purchase to competitor Harris Corporation. The purchase price of 4.75 billion dollars was reported as being one of the highest such defense company purchases, since the Lockheed/Martin merger. When finalized in June 2015, the purchase was expected to make Harris/Exelis one of the top 10 defense contractors in the United States.
Company structure
Exelis had six businesses that specialize in different technologies and services.
Aerostructures
Located in Salt Lake City, Utah the Exelis Aerostructures business is a designer and manufacturer of lightweight composite aerospace structures, subassemblies and components.
Major Products:
Exelis Aerostructures is a subcontractor for the Boeing 7-series family of aircraft, including composite air-frame substructures for the 787 Dreamliner, the Airbus A380 aircraft as well as the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter. For defense programs, they provide complete structural assemblies, flight critical components as well as primary and secondary structural elements for platforms such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, the Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion Heavy Lift Helicopter, the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III and the Lockheed Martin Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). Exelis also produces the Bear Claw line of down-hole drillable plugs used in oil and gas well completions.
Electronic Systems
Headquartered in Clifton, New Jersey, with a major division in Salt Lake City, Utah, the electronics systems division of the company offers a variety of electronic warfare and surveillance technologies, including air traffic control technology for both military and domestic use, radar and sonar systems, antennas and signal-jamming devices to disarm improvised explosive devices (IED).
Major Products:
ALQ-214 IDECM (Integrated Electronic Countermeasures)
Geospatial Systems
With facilities located in Clifton, New Jersey and Rochester, New York, the geospatial systems division manufactures and provides GPS technology (Clifton), surveillance systems (Rochester) and data encryption services, as well as remote sensing and navigation technology. The company also included facilities in Ft. Wayne that designed and manufactured instruments for weather tracking system..
Major Products and Solutions:
Information Systems
The information systems division is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia. The division specializes in creating secure information and electronics systems for specific and often challenging environments, including defense and intelligence missions, the Census Bureau, homeland security, air traffic control and space missions.
Mission Systems
Headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado., Mission systems provides facilities, engineering, logistics and security support for U.S. military bases domestically and abroad.
Night Vision & Communications Solutions
Located in Ft. Wayne, Indiana and Roanoke, Virginia, Exelis Night Vision & Communications Solutions (NVCS) provides products and services for secure voice and data communications, battlefield situational awareness, and night vision systems in the global defense, security, and battlefield management sectors.
Major Products
SINCGARS – Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System, military communications system.
GNOMAD (Global Network On the Move – Active Distribution), satellite military data communications system
Exelis Action Corps
Exelis Action Corps is the company's volunteer-service program designed to create large-scale, team and individual volunteer activities and projects to support and engage service members, veterans and their families in local communities. Activities can range from providing interviewing coaching to a military service member, to painting a house for a disabled veteran, to tutoring the children of a service member serving abroad.
Leadership
Board of Directors
Ralph W. Hake
Chairman of the Board
David F. Melcher
Chief Executive Officer
John J. Hamre
Paul J. Kern
Herman E. Bulls
Patrick Moore
Mark L. Reuss
Billie I. Williamson
R. David Yost
Management Team
David F. Melcher
President
Peter J. Milligan
Chief Financial Officer
Ann D. Davidson
Chief Legal Officer
A. John Procopio
Chief Human Resources Officer
Robert E. Durbin
Strategy and Government Relations
Mike Blair
Vice President of Aerostructures
Richard D. Sorelle
President of Electronic Systems
Christopher D. Young
President of Geospatial Systems
Pamela A. Drew
President of Information Systems
Kenneth W. Hunzeker
President of Mission Systems
David J. Albritton
Chief Communications Officer
Nicholas E. Bobay
President of Night Vision & Communications Systems
Vincent Thomas
Vice President of Operations
Customers
Customers currently include:
US Army
US Navy
US Air Force
US Marine Corps
Department of Homeland Security
Federal Aviation Administration
NASA
The company also has clients in more than 50 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, as well as Australia.
References
External links
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Manufacturing companies established in 2011
Manufacturing companies based in Virginia
Companies based in Fairfax County, Virginia
Aerospace companies of the United States
Defense companies of the United States
ITT Inc.
2015 mergers and acquisitions
Corporate spin-offs
L3Harris Technologies |
34290491 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20copy%20protection%20schemes | List of copy protection schemes | This is a list of notable copy protection schemes for various medias.
Computer Software protection schemes
Dongle
Hardware key containing electronic serial number required to run the software; relatively expensive and has no recovery when the hardware breaks.
Product Activation
Requiring user to verify the license, often by entering a Product key in order to activate and use the software; some activation schemes require sending registration information over internet to prevent the same product key from being used by multiple users. In some cases, users are required to call a number to register and receive device-specific serial number.
Bus encryption
Use of encrypted code together with Secure cryptoprocessor so only the machine with cryptoprocessor could execute the program; used in systems that require high security such as ATMs.
Keyfile
A file with activation key that needs to be installed in same directory as software; similarly, a disc media (often installation disc) may be required as key disk for activation.
Code Morphing
Hiding intermediate code by means of code obfuscation so that execution logic is not visible. This method does not protect against runtime tracing.
Commercial CD/DVD protection schemes
Commercial Blu-ray Disc protection schemes
AACS
The encrypted content can only be decrypted using combination of media key (obtained from Media Key Block by one of device keys available for each reproduction devices) and the Volume ID (unique identifiers stored on each disk) of the media.
BD+
The BD+ virtual machine embedded in authorized players will execute programs included in Blu-ray discs, allowing to verify the player's keys, transform the output so that content is unscrambled, and/or execute native code to patch the system against vulnerabilities. Based on concept of self-protecting digital content.
ROM-Mark
Recorders will check for watermark that cannot be duplicated by consumer-level recorders, allowing authentic media for movies, musics and games.
Digital Audio/Video Transmission protection schemes
DTCP
Encrypts interconnection between devices so "digital home" technologies such as DVD players and televisions are restricted.
HDCP
Transmitting device checks before sending that receiver is authorized to receive the data. The data is encrypted during transmission to prevent eavesdropping.
Serial Copy Management System
Records in the sub code data bits that expresses whether the media is copy allowed(00), copy once(10) or copy prohibited(11).
Traitor Tracing
Rather than directly preventing copying, embeds user information into files so if they are uploaded, the copyright holder could find out exactly who uploaded the file.
Protection Schemes for Other Media
CGMS-A (Analog Television Signals)
Inserts a waveform into the non-picture Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI) of the analog video signal so compatible device can block or restrict recording when the waveform is detected.
Spiradisc (Floppy Disk)
Writes data on spiraling paths rather than in concentric circles.
USB-Cops (USB-stick)
Using a normal USB-stick as a key.
References
Digital rights management
Compact Disc and DVD copy protection
Copy protection |
34303527 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoToTraining | GoToTraining | GoToTraining is a web-hosted online training service. It is an online classroom and desktop sharing software that enables the user to present their screen to other trainees and students via the Internet in real time.
Technology and business development
GoToTraining was developed by the Online Services division of Citrix in Santa Barbara, California, and released in February 2010.
GoToTraining allows the desktop view of a host computer to be broadcast to a group of computers connected to the host through the Internet. Transmissions are protected with high-security encryption. By combining a web-hosted subscription service with software installed on the host computer, transmissions can be passed through highly restrictive firewalls.
Editions and features
GoToTraining has been sold by itself and as part of GoToMeeting. GoToTraining features currently include:
End-to-end encryption and authentication security provided by a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) website with 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption and optional passwords
Specific application sharing for showing only selected programs with attendees
Content library
Integrated PayPal payment processing
Multi-monitor support for a client PC
Session recording and playback for recording and saving meetings to a user desktop for later review
Toll-based phone or conferencing via VoIP
Support for 200 users
Citrix web-based solutions
GoToTraining is a part of a collection of web-based software from LogMeIn. In addition to GoToTraining, Citrix develops GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, GoToAssist, Podio and HiDef Corporate.
References and notes
External links
GoToTraining website
Citrix Systems
Telecommunications companies of the United States |
34352431 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notational%20Velocity | Notational Velocity | Notational Velocity is a computer program for Mac OS X used for notetaking. It allows users to create notes using solely a computer keyboard and search them using incremental find. Other features include database encryption, basic text formatting, tags and spellcheck. In addition, users can synchronize notes with Simplenote and export to a variety of formats, including plain text, HTML and rich text. It has been recommended along with Simplenote as a solution for taking and syncing notes by both Wired and Lifehacker.
Notational Velocity hasn't seen any development activity since September 2011.
See also
Comparison of notetaking software
References
MacOS-only free software
Note-taking software |
34352435 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords%20of%20Dharmaraja | Lords of Dharmaraja | Lords of Dharmaraja is the name of a hacker group, allegedly operating in India. This group came into the limelight for threatening to release the source code of Symantec's product Norton Antivirus, and for allegations on Government of India "arm-twisting" international mobile manufacturers to spy on United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission(USCC). Symantec has confirmed that the Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0 and Symantec Antivirus 10.2 version source code has been compromised and obtained by the group, while United States authorities are still investigating allegations suspecting India's hand in spying.
This group is alleged, to have hacked and posted a threat by uploading the secret documents, memos, and source code of Symantec's product on Pastebin - a website renowned for source code snippets upload by several users, for public viewing. The group, it seems, has uploaded some secret documents, revealing Indian government arm-twisting international mobile manufacturers like RIM, Apple, and Nokia to assist in spying USCC. In addition to these, the group seems to have claimed in discovering source code related to dozen software companies, which have signed agreements with the Indian TANCS programme and
CBI.
After the hacker's posted their threats, Christopher Soghojan, a security and privacy researcher in USA, tweeted: "Hackers leak Indian Military Intel memo suggesting Apple has provided intercept backdoor to govs". He also provided the links to the gallery of images and documents. The documents appear to be related to Tactical Network for Cellular Surveillance (TANCS), technical agreement with mobile manufacturers, and email communication stuff associated with members of USCC.
Their claims
As reported in The Times of India article, the group posted a statement on Pastebin website saying, "As of now, we start sharing with all our brothers and followers information from the Indian Intelligence servers, so far, we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme and CBI."
The group also said, "Now we release confidential documentation we encountered of Symantec corporation and it's Norton AntiVirus source code which we are going to publish later on, we are working out mirrors as of now since we experience extreme pressure and censorship from US and India government agencies."
When a correspondent of The Times of India tried to reach an alleged member of the Lords of Dharamraja with the name "YamaTough," he did not reply. YamaTough also has a Twitter account; wherein, he described himself as an "anonymous [avenger] of Indian independence frontier."
Allegations
Cyber spying
As reported in The Times of India article, based on uploaded secret memos dated October 6, 2011, international mobile manufacturers like RIM, Apple, and Nokia along with domestic Micromax have given "backdoor access" for digital surveillance to Indian military intelligence officials in exchange for doing business in Indian market. In the memo, a decision was also made to sign an agreement with mobile manufacturers in exchange for "business presence" in the Indian market because military intelligence has no access to United States Chamber of Commerce's LAN due to VPN and communication gateways like POP servers, etc. The memos further reveal that this "backdoor" was allegedly used by Indian intelligence to spy on USCC.
As reported in Rediff.com article based on leaked documents, Indian Army's intelligence arm Military intelligence along with Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) were performing bilateral cellular and Internet surveillance operations right from April 2011. Later, in July 2011, during a meeting of the sub-committee of Military Intelligence, a detailed Cyber Defence Plan for 2011 was prepared and subsequently Military intelligence-Central Bureau of Investigation "joint operations" are being conducted daily.
Another article on The Register based on uploaded documents says, "CYCADA" data intercept team are in operation on the networks using backdoors provided by mobile manufacturers. It also says that the leaked memos elicit conversations between members of USCC on currency issues and discussions on the western firms actions in assisting Chinese aircraft industry to improve its "avionics" and engine manufacturing too.
As reported by the news agency Reuters, USCC officials have asked the "concerned authorities to investigate the matter" and didn't dispute the authenticity of intercepted mails pointing the "backdoor channel" as evident in the leaked documents. Also reported on Hindustan Times, Jonathan Weston, a spokesman for USCC, said "We are aware of these reports and have contacted relevant authorities to investigate the matter." Apparently, US authorities are investigating the allegations pointing Indian government's spy-unit hacking into emails of US official panel - that monitors economic and security relations between United States and China.
Mobile manufacturer officials, more or less, refused to comment on the issue, when The Times of India contacted the relevant spokesmen or authorities. Alan Hely, a senior director of Corporate Communications at Apple Inc., refused to comment on the leaked documents, but he denied any backdoor access been provided. RIM too, refused to comment on the leaked memos as rumors or speculations, when The Register contacted them; besides, RIM countered them saying, "it does not do deals with specific countries and has no ability to provide its customer's encryption keys." A spokesman for Nokia was quoted as saying, "The company takes the privacy of customers and their data seriously and is committed to comply with all applicable data protection and privacy laws."
Speaking to Rediff.com on phone, Indian Army denied the reports of spying on USCC through mobile companies; however, military spokesman said that the uploaded documents were in fact forged with malicious intent.
Symantec's Anti-virus source code
The hacker's group threatened to publish the entire source code of Norton Antivirus, a Symantec's product, allegedly stolen after the group has discovered it, while hacking the servers associated with India's Military Intelligence. To add weight to its threats, the group posted some of the hacked source code to Pastebin.
Imperva, a data security company, commented on the hacker group's claims and threats as that would potentially be an embarrassment on Symantec's part. Rob Rachwald from Imperva speculated that the hacker group might have retrieved the files as because the files probably resided on a "test server" or were posted to FTP; consequently, exposing them mistakenly and became public unintentionally through negligence. He further said that, "governments do require source code of vendor products to prove that product is not spyware".
Symantec initially, tried to douse the fears saying that the documentation and preview code is nothing special; accordingly, Chris Paden from Symantec said that the published data and documents are no more than Symantec's API documentation which every software vendor, including Symantec will share with any client, including governments. Eventually, Symantec has confirmed that the source code of Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0 and Symantec Antivirus 10.2 has been compromised to the hacker group.
See also
List of fictional hackers
List of notable hackers
References
External links
CNN-IBN or IBNLive - Fake memo but real code? India-US hacking mystery deepens
BBC News - Symantec advises disabling pcAnywhere software - Blueprints
msnbc.com - Symantec Says Anti-Virus Source Code Was Stolen Years Ago
BusinessWorld - India-US Hacking Mystery Deepens
zdnetasia.com - India allegedly hacks US-China trade watchdog
wordpress.com - Lords of Dharmaraja hacking group claim to have access to part of Symantec's Norton source code
Jordandirections.com - Symantec: parts of antivirus source code
Forbes.com - Lords Of Kings Hack Norton Antivirus, Are You Safe?
Symantec.com Security Community Blog
SiliconIndia News - Indian Hackers: Threat to Symantec, Wreak Havoc
CNET.com - Hackers release source code for Symantec's PCAnywhere
Rediff.com - Hacking group's target is Sunil Mittal, wants 'pro-US' govt
Fox News - Indian Intelligence Have U.S. Government Passwords, Hackers Claim
eWeek Security Watch - Hackers' Threat to Publish Symantec Source Code Not a Reason to Worry
The Times of India - Hackers expose Symantec source code
Hacking News - Indian hacker group 'Lords of Dharmaraja' offers help to man suing Symantec
The New York Times - Hackers Threaten to Post Source Code for Symantec Product
Hindustan Times - Indian hackers offer help to man suing Symantec
Cyberwarfare
Hacking (computer security)
Hacker groups |
34359308 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebox | Chromebox | A Chromebox is a small form-factor PC running Google's Chrome OS operating system. The first device debuted in May 2012.
History
Chromeboxes, like other Chrome OS devices including Chromebook laptops, primarily support web applications, thereby relying heavily on an Internet connection for both software functionality and data storage. That connection, via a local area network, can be wireless or through an Ethernet port.
The machines are classed as small form-factor PCs and typically feature a power switch and a set of connections to support a keyboard, pointing device and one or more monitors. Solid state drives are used for storage and only wireless printers are supported. The first Chromebox, released by Samsung on May 29, 2012, ran a dual-core Intel Celeron Processor 867 at 1.3 GHz, and featured six USB 2.0 ports and two DisplayPort++ slots compatible with HDMI, DVI, and VGA.
In February 2014, Google bundled an Intel Core i7 Chromebox with a business video conferencing package, 1080p high definition camera module, external microphone/speaker and remote control. This Chromebox for Meetings system retailed for $999 plus a $250 annual management fee, waived the first year—a cost thousands of dollars less than other unified videoconferencing systems, including those from Cisco and Polycom. The system employed a Google Hangouts-like interface for up to 15 participants, a dedicated URL for sharing screens, and management accounts for scheduling meetings. An updated system announced in November 2017 featured a 4K camera and a machine learning feature that automatically identifies and frames participants.
In March 2014, Asus established a new price at the low-end of the Chromebox market with a compact, 1.32 pound model that retailed at $179 and featured a Celeron CPU and four USB 3.0 ports. Yahoo Tech columnist David Pogue called the Asus device among the smallest, "least-expensive desktop computers ever sold", likening it to a Smart car. "You won’t be hauling lumber from Home Depot in it, but it’s a terrific deal—and most days, it’ll get you where you want to go." In May, Asus released a faster model with an Intel Core i3 processor. Hewlett-Packard entered the market in June with a Chromebox powered by an Intel Celeron processor, optionally bundling a keyboard and mouse. In August, Acer introduced two models that could stand vertically and provided some business-oriented features, including encryption and fast deletion of local data. In September, Dell entered the market with an entry-level machine, as well as Dell's implementation of the Google video conferencing system.
In August 2015, AOpen announced a family of Chromeboxes designed principally for driving the content of digital commercial signage. The models were ruggedized for on-site operation.
The capability to run Android apps with Chrome OS devices, introduced by Google in 2016 and realized by certain Chromebooks in 2017, seemed to bypass Chromeboxes until a cluster of new Chromebox offerings appeared in 2018, including Acer, Asus, and HP. Oregon-based CTL (Compute Teach Learn), maker of Chromebooks since 2014, launched its first Chromebox in March 2018.
In late 2020, four major Chromebox manufacturers, HP, Acer, Asus, and CTL, announced plans for new Chromebox models based on the 10th generation Intel Comet Lake architecture.
Models
Notes
References
Cloud clients
Google hardware
Products introduced in 2012
Google Chrome
Personal computers |
34387207 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasterschl%C3%BCssel%2044 | Rasterschlüssel 44 | Rasterschlüssel 44 (abbr. RS 44) was a manual cipher system, used by the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War. The cipher was designed by the astronomer and sometime cryptographer Walter Fricke while working as a conscript in Section IIb, of Group 2 of OKW/Chi and introduced in March 1944 and the Allied forces codebreakers had considerable difficulties in breaking it. Cryptanalysis, if successful, generally required a 40 letter crib (known plaintext) and some two weeks, making the tactical information outdated before it could be exploited. The combination of strength and ease of use made RS 44 an ideal hand cipher.
Design
The cipher is a transposition based grille cipher, consisting of a grid with 25 columns and 24 rows. Each row contains 10 randomly placed white cells (to be filled with text) and 15 black cells. The columns are labeled with shuffled digraphs and numbers and the rows with digraphs. The key sheet also contains two letter substitution alphabets to encode place names, prior to encryption, and a letter conversion alphabet to encode digraphs. The text is written in the grid, starting from a randomly chosen position, row by row, from left to right. The ciphertext is taken column by column, following the numbering of the columns. The first column to be taken is calculated from the minutes of the message time, the letter count of the message text and the randomly chosen column of the start cell. The message key contains the start position of the text in the grid, designated by the column and header digraphs. The digraphs for the message key are encoded with the letter conversion table and then included in the message header. The secret variable start cell and first column ensure a unique transposition for each message, making multiple anagramming very difficult.
References
External links
Rasterschlüssel 44 on Cipher Machines and Cryptology
Rasterschlüssel 44 archived from on Interesting Ciphers
Classical ciphers
History of cryptography
History of telecommunications in Germany
Research and development in Nazi Germany
Signals intelligence of World War II |
34391429 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE%201905 | IEEE 1905 | IEEE 1905.1 is an IEEE standard which defines a network enabler for home networking supporting both wireless and wireline technologies: IEEE 802.11 (marketed under the Wi-Fi trademark), IEEE 1901 (HomePlug, HD-PLC) powerline networking, IEEE 802.3 Ethernet and Multimedia over Coax (MoCA).
The IEEE P1905.1 working group had its first meeting in December 2010 to begin development of convergence digital home network specifications. Around 30 organizations participated in the group and achieved approval of the draft P1905.1 standard in January 2013 with final approval and publication by IEEE-SA in April 2013.
The IEEE 1905.1 Standard Working Group is sponsored by the IEEE power-line communication Standards Committee (PLCSC).
nVoy officially certifies products as 1905.1-compliant and is intended to become the dominant brand name and identity for all 1905.1 devices. (It is not to be confused with the Pogo device of the same name nor various networked devices named Envoy, e.g. from ASUS and others.) Major chip vendors (notably Qualcomm and Broadcom ) endorsed the certification regime. Consumer-level lists of features and benefits of IEEE 1905 are also the responsibility of nVoy certifiers..
Benefits
The benefits of 1905.1 technology include simple setup, configuration and operation of home networking devices using heterogeneous technologies. Leveraging the performance, coverage and mobility benefits of multiple interfaces (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Powerline and MoCA) enables better coverage and throughput in every room for both mobile and fixed devices.
Standardizing the use of multiple networking technologies to transmit data to a single device in a transparent manner enables powerful use cases in home networks:
Increase the capacity by load balancing different streams over different links.
Increase robustness of transmissions by switching streams from one link to another in case of link degradation.
Better integrate consumer appliances with limited network connectivity (powerline only) and high end network devices (typically Ethernet only) into a common network accessible via 802.11ac and .11n for appliance control and media streaming purposes
Unify device certification under one regime for all major networking protocols (nVoy - see below)
Generally reduce the number of different devices required and permit storage, processing and user interface functions to migrate to purpose-specific peripherals on a 2 to 5 gigabit networked "bus" or backbone.
For service providers and carriers
Service providers seek to address growth in network traffic resulting from more devices in more rooms and high-bandwidth latency-straining trends such as IPTV, Video on demand, multi-room DVR and device to device media shifting. 1905.1 upgrades the network to a backbone to improve existing deployments (for instance, ending streaming delays from in-home devices) and enabling new whole-home products and services. Some example features/benefits include:
Self-Install: Common setup procedures for adding devices to a network simplifies network setup for consumers; Reduces call volumes and truck rolls.
Advanced Diagnostics: Network monitors itself to maintain reliable operation; simplifies troubleshooting
Aggregated Throughput: Single devices aggregate throughput from multiple interfaces to ensure sufficient performance and coverage for video applications.
Fallback/Failover: Optimizes the hybrid network by opening alternative routes when a link is down or congested which; increases reliability on the customers’ network.
Load Balancing: Limits network congestion by enabling a hybrid network to intelligently distribute streams over different paths.
Multiple Simultaneous Streams: Network utilizes multiple media simultaneously enabling multiple streams to exceed the maximum throughput of a single medium. Where dual link aggregation is supported (typically between gigabit Ethernet wired connections), simultaneous streaming can be even faster, e.g. between router- or network-attached storage devices and high-bandwidth displays (such as Ultra high definition television, making these devices far less troublesome to support in-home.
For consumers and retailers
Integration of wired and wireless products enables consumers to easily self-install networking equipment capable of significantly improving capacity and coverage in their home network which improves end user satisfaction and reduces product returns. Some specific benefits of 1905.1 networking to the retailer and end user include:
Ability to upgrade some components of a home network with ensured interoperability with legacy equipment.
Simplifies network setup and security authentication with consistent password procedures and button push security configuration.
Increases performance and coverage of home networks which increases the networks capacity to increase overall number of devices in the home.
Technical overview
1905.1 devices run an abstraction layer (AL) hiding the diversity of media access control technologies. This sub-layer exchanges Control Message Data Unit (CMDU) with 1905.1 neighbors. The CMDUs are communicated directly over Layer 2 of the different supported technologies without the need to have an IP stack. The standard does not require any changes to the specifications of the underlying technologies.
This abstraction layer provides a unique EUI-48 address to identify a 1905.1 device. This unique address is useful to keep a persistent address when multiple interfaces are available and facilitate seamless switching of traffic between interfaces. The standard does not define loop prevention and forwarding protocol. A 1905.1 device is compatible with existing IEEE 802.1 bridging protocols.
The management of a 1905.1 device is simplified by the use of a unified Abstraction Layer Management Entity (ALME) and with the use of a data model accessible with CWMP (Broadband Forum TR-069)
Architecture
The architecture designed for the abstraction layer is based on two 1905.1 service access points accessible to upper layers: a 1905.1 MAC SAP and a 1905.1 ALME SAP.
The ALME is a unique management entity supporting different media dependent management entities and a flow-based forwarding table. A 1905.1 protocol is used between ALMEs to distribute different type of management information such as: topology and link metrics.
1905.1 Control Message Data Unit frame consists of an 8 octets header and a variable length list of type–length–values (TLVs) data elements which is easily extendable for future use.
The generic CMDU frame format has the following structure
Vendor specific CMDU are supported via Message Type 0x0004.
Each TLV has the following basic structure:
Vendor specific TLV are supported via TLV Type 11.
The EtherType value assigned to 1905.1 CMDU is 0x893a.
Features
The list of 1905.1 features is listed below.
Topology
1905.1 provides a tool to get a global view of the network topology regardless of the technologies running in the home/office network.
The Abstraction Layer generates different topology messages to build this protocol's topology:
Discovery (Message Type 0x0000) to detect direct 1905.1 neighbors
Notification (Message Type 0x0001) to inform network devices about a topology change
Query/Response (Message Type 0x0002 and 0x0003) to get the topology database of another 1905.1 device
The Group Address used for Discovery and Notification messages is 01:80:c2:00:00:13.
To detect a non-1905.1 bridge connected between two 1905.1 devices, the Abstraction Layer also generates a LLDP message with the nearest bridge address (01:80:c2:00:00:0e) that is not propagated by 802.1D bridges.
Topology information collected by a 1905.1 device are stored in a data model accessible remotely via TR-069 protocol.
Link metrics
The 1905.1 ALME provides a mechanism to obtain a list of metrics for links connecting two 1905.1 devices:
Packet errors
Transmitted packets
MAC Throughput capacity (expressed in Mbps)
Link availability (expressed in % of time the link is idle)
PHY rate
A 1905.1 device can also request Link Metrics from another 1905.1 device by generating a Link Metric Query message (Message type 0x0005). The requested device will respond with a Link Metric Response message (Message type 0x0006).
Forwarding rules
The 1905 ALME provides a list of primitives to manage forwarding rules per flow (Get, Set, Modify and Remove). This feature may be used to distribute dynamically the different flows over the different technologies.
To classify the flows, a set or subset of the following elements can be used:
MAC Destination address
MAC Source address
Ethertype
Vlan ID
Priority Code Point
When setting a forwarding rule for a unicast destination, only one outgoing interface may be specified.
Security setup
The goal of 1905.1 security setup is to allow a new 1905.1 device to join the network with a unified security procedure even if the device has multiple interfaces running different encryption methods.
Three unified security setup procedures are defined:
1905.1 Push Button
1905.1 User Configured Passphrase/Key (optional)
1905.1 Near Field Communication Network Key (optional)
The Push Button method requires the user to press one button on a new (i.e. not in-network) 1905.1 device and one button on any 1905.1 device already in the network. It is not necessary for the user to know which technology is used by the new device to join the network, and which device will process the pairing and admission of this new device into the network.
Two 1905.1 messages are used for the push button method:
Push Button Event Notification (message type 0x000B)
Push Button Join Notification (message type 0x000C)
These messages are sent to all 1905.1 devices in the network.
If the User Configured Passphrase/Key is used, the user needs to type/remember only one sequence of US-ASCII characters (between 8 and 63) and the ALME will derive different security passwords for the different technologies through SHA-256 function.
If the NFC network Key is used, the user needs to touch the new 1905.1 device with an NFC equipped smartphone already member of the 1905.1 network.
AP auto-configuration
This feature is used to exchange Wi-Fi Simple Configuration messages over an authenticated 1905.1 link. Using this protocol a 1905.1 AP Enrollee can retrieve configuration parameters (like SSID) from a 1905.1 AP Registrar. Thus AP Auto-Configuration is used to simplify the setup of a home network consisting of multiple APs – eliminating the need for the user to manually configure each AP (only a single configuration, of the AP Registrar, is required).
A specific 1905.1 CMDU frame (Message type 0x0009) is used to transport WPS messages.
If an AP Enrollee is dual-band (2.4 GHz and 5Ghz) capable, the auto-configuration procedure may be executed twice.
Implementation
Qualcomm Atheros products implementing 1905.1 are named Hy-Fi (for Hybrid Fidelity).
In January 2012, HomePlug Powerline Alliance announced support for IEEE 1905.1 certification.
The consumer certification program named nVoy was announced in June 2013 and first certified chips that " support the new nVoy HomePlug Certification for IEEE 1905.1 compliance" were announced at that time . Consumer-level products were expected by year-end 2013. but were delayed until 2014 consumer shows - as of December 2013 there were no nVoy-certified consumer products; small-network-focused review sites had no products to review.
Chipsets
Broadcom BCM60500 and BCM60333 SoC are claimed (by the vendor) to be nVoy/1905-compliant. Compatible line drivers were available, e.g. from Microsemi . Qualcomm Atheros offers a variety of Hy-Fi reference designs based on various combinations of Qualcomm VIVE™ 11ac and Qualcomm XSPAN™ 11n wireless LAN, Qualcomm AMP™ powerline and Ethernet technologies. MStar Semiconductor indicated its support of nVoy/1905 in its Homeplug AV powerline communication solutions.
References
IEEE standards |
34408890 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat | WeChat | WeChat () is a Chinese multi-purpose instant messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has been described as China's "app for everything" and a "super app" because of its wide range of functions. WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing.
User activity on WeChat is analyzed, tracked and shared with Chinese authorities upon request as part of the mass surveillance network in China. WeChat censors politically sensitive topics in China. Data transmitted by accounts registered outside China is surveilled, analyzed and used to build up censorship algorithms in China.
In response to a border dispute between India and China, WeChat was banned in India in June 2020 along with several Chinese apps. U.S. President Donald Trump sought to ban U.S. "transactions" with WeChat through an executive order but was blocked by a preliminary injunction issued in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in September 2020.
History
By 2010, Tencent had already attained a massive user base with their desktop messenger app QQ. Recognizing smart phones were likely to disrupt this status quo, CEO Pony Ma sought to proactively invest in alternatives to their own QQ messenger app.
WeChat began as a project at Tencent Guangzhou Research and Project center in October 2010. The original version of the app was created by Allen Zhang and named "Weixin" () by Pony Ma and launched in 2011. User adoption of WeChat was initially very slow, with users wondering why key features were missing; however, after the release of the Walkie-talkie-like voice messaging feature in May of that year, growth surged. By 2012, when the number of users reached 100 million, Weixin was re-branded "WeChat" for the international market.
During a period of government support of e-commerce development—for example in the 12th five-year plan (2011–2015)—WeChat also saw new features enabling payments and commerce in 2013, which saw massive adoption after their virtual Red envelope promotion for Chinese New Year 2014.
WeChat had over 889 million monthly active users by 2016, and as of 2019 WeChat's monthly active users had risen to an estimate of one billion. As of January 2022, it was reported that WeChat has more than 1.2 billion users. After the launch of WeChat payment in 2013, its users reached 400 million the next year, 90 percent of whom were in China. By comparison, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp had about one billion monthly active users in 2016 but did not offer most of the other services available on WeChat. For example, in Q2 2017, WeChat's revenues from social media advertising were about US$0.9 billion (RMB6 billion) compared with Facebook's total revenues of US$9.3 billion, 98% of which were from social media advertising. WeChat's revenues from its value-added services were US$5.5 billion.
Features
Messaging
WeChat provides many features similar to Snapchat such as text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video calls and conferencing, video games, photograph and video sharing, as well as location sharing. WeChat also allows users to exchange contacts with people nearby via Bluetooth, as well as providing various features for contacting people at random if desired (if people are open to it). It can also integrate with other social networking services such as Facebook and Tencent QQ. Photographs may also be embellished with filters and captions, and automatic translation service is available.
WeChat supports different instant messaging methods, including text messages, voice messages, walkie talkie, and stickers. Users can send previously saved or live pictures and videos, profiles of other users, coupons, lucky money packages, or current GPS locations with friends either individually or in a group chat. WeChat's character stickers, such as Tuzki, resemble and compete with those of LINE, a Japanese-South Korean messaging application.
WeChat also provides a message recall feature to allow users to recall and withdraw information (e.g. Images, documents) that are sent within 2 minutes in a conversation. To use this feature, users can select the message or file to be recalled by long pressing. In the menu that appears select 'recall' and 'ok' to complete the withdrawal process. Eventually, the selected messages or files will be removed from the WeChat chatting box on both the sender’s and recipient’s phones.
Public accounts
WeChat users can register as a public account (), which enables them to push feeds to subscribers, interact with subscribers and provide them with services. Users can also create an official account, which fall under service, subscription, or enterprise accounts. Once users as individuals or organizations set up a type of account, they cannot change it to another type. By the end of 2014, the number of WeChat official accounts had reached 8 million. Official accounts of organizations can apply to be verified (cost 300 RMB or about US$45). Official accounts can be used as a platform for services such as hospital pre-registrations, visa renewal or credit card service. To create an official account, the applicant must register with Chinese authorities, which discourages "foreign companies".
Moments
"Moments" () is WeChat's brand name for its social feed of friends' updates. "Moments" is an interactive platform that allows users to post images, text, and short videos taken by users. It also allows users to share articles and music (associated with QQ Music or other web-based music services). Friends in the contact list can give thumbs up to the content and leave comments. Moments can be linked to Facebook and Twitter accounts, and can automatically post Moments content directly on these two platforms.
In 2017 WeChat had a policy of a maximum of two advertisements per day per Moments user.
Privacy in WeChat works by groups of friends: only the friends from the user's contact are able to view their Moments' contents and comments. The friends of the user will only be able to see the likes and comments from other users only if they are in a mutual friend group. For example, friends from high school are not able to see the comments and likes from friends from a university. When users post their moments, they can separate their friends into a few groups, and they can decide whether this Moment can be seen by particular groups of people. Contents posted can be set to "Private", and then only the user can view it.
WeChat Pay digital payment services
Users who have provided bank account information may use the app to pay bills, order goods and services, transfer money to other users, and pay in stores if the stores have a WeChat payment option. Vetted third parties, known as "official accounts", offer these services by developing lightweight "apps within the app". Users can link their Chinese bank accounts, as well as Visa, MasterCard and JCB.
WeChat Pay () is a digital wallet service incorporated into WeChat, which allows users to perform mobile payments and send money between contacts.
Although users receive immediate notification of the transaction, the WeChat Pay system is not an instant payment instrument, because the funds transfer between counterparts is not immediate. The settlement time depends on the payment method chosen by the customer.
All WeChat users have their own WeChat Payment accounts. Users can acquire a balance by linking their WeChat account to their debit cards, or by receiving money from other users. For non-Chinese users of WeChat Pay, an additional identity verification process of providing a photo of a valid ID is required before certain functions of WeChat Pay become available. Users who link their credit card can only make payments to vendors, and cannot use this to top up WeChat balances. WeChat Pay can be used for digital payments, as well as payments from participating vendors. As of March 2016, WeChat Pay had over 300 million users.
WeChat Pay's main competitor in China and the market leader in online payments is Alibaba Group's Alipay. Alibaba company founder Jack Ma considered the red envelope feature to be a "Pearl Harbor moment", as it began to erode Alipay's historic dominance in the online payments industry in China, especially in peer-to-peer money transfer. The success prompted Alibaba to launch its own version of virtual red envelopes in its competing Laiwang service. Other competitors, Baidu Wallet and Sina Weibo, also launched similar features.
In 2019 it was reported that WeChat had overtaken Alibaba with 800 million active WeChat mobile payment users versus 520 million for Alibaba's Alipay. However Alibaba had a 54 per cent share of the Chinese mobile online payments market in 2017 compared to WeChat's 37 per cent share. In the same year, Tencent introduced "WeChat Pay HK", a payment service for users in Hong Kong. Transactions are carried out with the Hong Kong dollar. In 2019 it was reported that Chinese users can use WeChat Pay in 25 countries outside China, including, Italy, South Africa and the UK.
Enterprise WeChat
For work purposes, companies and business communication, a special version of WeChat called Enterprise WeChat (or Qiye Weixin) was launched in 2016. The app was meant to help employees separate work from private life. In addition to the usual chat features, the program let companies and their employees keep track of annual leave days and expenses that need to be reimbursed, employees could ask for time off or clock in to show they were at work.
WeChat Mini Program
In 2017, WeChat launched a feature called "Mini Programs" (). A mini program is an app within an app. Business owners can create mini apps in the WeChat system, implemented using JavaScript plus a proprietary API. Users may install these inside the WeChat app. In January 2018, WeChat announced a record of 580,000 mini programs. With one Mini Program, consumers could scan the Quick Response code using their mobile phone at a supermarket counter and pay the bill through the user's WeChat mobile wallet. WeChat Games have received huge popularity, with its "Jump Jump" game attracting 400 million players in less than 3 days and attaining 100 million daily active users in just two weeks after its launch, as of January 2018.
WeChat Channels
In 2020, WeChat Channels was launched, which is a short video platform within WeChat that allows users to create and share short video clips and photos to their own WeChat Channel. Users of Channels can also discover content posted to other Channels by others via the in-built feed. Each post can include hashtags, a location tag, a short description, and a link to an WeChat official account article. In September 2021, it was reported that WeChat Channels began allowing users to upload hour-long videos, twice of the duration limit previously imposed on all WeChat Channels videos. Comparisons are often drawn between WeChat Channels and Tiktok (or Douyin) for their similarity in features.
In January 2022, there were reports that WeChat is set to diversify further and place more emphasis on new products and services like WeChat Channels, amid new regulatory restrictions imposed in China.
By June 2021, WeChat Channels had accumulated over 200 million users. More than 27 million people had used the platform to watch Irish boy band Westlife's online concert in 2021, and 15 million users also viewed the Shenzhou 12 spaceflight launch using the app service.
Others
In 2015, WeChat offered a heat map feature that showed crowd density. Quartz columnist Josh Horwitz alleged the feature is being used by the Chinese government to track irregular assemblies of people to determine unlawful assembly.
In January 2016, Tencent launched WeChat Out, a VOIP service allowing users to call mobile phones and landlines around the world. The feature allowed purchasing credit within the app using a credit card. WeChat Out was originally only available in the United States, India, and Hong Kong, but later coverage was expanded to Thailand, Macau, Laos, and Italy.
In March 2017, Tencent released WeChat Index. By inserting a search term in the WeChat Index page, users could check the popularity of this term in the past 7, 30, or 90 days. The data was mined from data in official WeChat accounts and metrics such as social sharing, likes and reads were used in the evaluation.
In May 2017, Tencent started news feed and search functions for its WeChat app. The Financial Times reported this was a "direct challenge to Chinese search engine Baidu".
WeChat allowed people to add friends by a variety of methods, including searching by username or phone number, adding from phone or email contacts, playing a "message in a bottle" game, or viewing nearby people who are also using the same service. In 2015 WeChat added a "friend radar" function.
In 2017, WeChat was reported to be developing an augmented reality (AR) platform as part of its service offering. Its artificial intelligence team was working on a 3D rendering engine to create a realistic appearance of detailed objects in smartphone-based AR apps. They were also developing a simultaneous localization and mapping technology, which would help calculate the position of virtual objects relative to their environment, enabling AR interactions without the need for markers, such as Quick Response codes or special images.
In late 2019, WeChat released dark theme for Android users. It was released later in early 2020 for iOS amidst rumors that WeChat would be removed from the Apple store if they do not release dark theme.
In spring 2020, WeChat users are now able to change their WeChat ID more than once, being allowed to change their username only once per year. Prior to this, a WeChat ID could not be changed more than once.
On 17 June 2020, WeChat released a new add-on called "WeChat Nudge". The feature was first introduced in MSN Messenger 7.0, in 2005. The feature was called Buzz in Yahoo! Messenger and the feature had interoperability with MSN Messenger's Nudge. Similar to Messenger and Yahoo, users can access WeChat Nudge by double-clicking on other users' profiles in the chat. This virtually shakes user's profile photo and sends a vibration notification. Both users must have the latest wechat update(7.0.13). If a user does not have the latest update they can't nudge another user but can still receive nudges. A user can only nudge another user if they have previous conversations. Newly added friends without previous messages cannot nudge each other.
On January 21, 2021, WeChat released its iOS Version 8.0. WeChat has added the function of animated emoji, such as the emojis of Bomb, Fireworks, and Celebration. When sending or receiving them from the chat box, an explosion animation will pop up .
WeChat Business
WeChat Business () is one of the latest mobile social network business model after e-commerce, which utilizes business relationships and friendships to maintain a customer relationship. Comparing with the traditional E-business like JD.com and Alibaba, WeChat Business has a large range of influence and profits with less input and lower threshold, which attracts lots of people to join in WeChat business.
Marketing modes
B2C Mode
This is the main profit mode of WeChat Business. The first one is to launch advertisements and provide services through the WeChat Official Account, which is a B2C mode. This mode has been used by many hospitals, banks, fashion brands, internet companies and personal blogs because the Official Account can access online payment, location sharing, voice messages, and mini-games. It is like a 'mini app', so the company has to hire specific staff to manage the account. By 2015, there were more than 100 million WeChat Official Accounts on this platform.
B2B Mode
WeChat salesperson in this mode is for promoting products by individuals, which belongs to C2C mode. In this mode, individual sellers post relevant photos and messages of their agent products on the WeChat Moments or WeChat groups and sell products to their WeChat friends. Besides, they develop friendships with their customers by sending messages in festivals or write comments under their updates on WeChat moments to increase their trust. Also, continuing to communicate with the regular customers raises the 'WOF' (word-of-mouth) communications, which influences decision-making. Some WeChat businessmen already have an online shop in Taobao, but use WeChat to maintain existing customers.
Existing problems
As more and more people have joined WeChat Business, it has brought many problems. For example, some sellers have begun to sell fake luxury goods such as bags, clothes and watches. Some of them have special channels to obtain high-quality fake luxury products and sell them at a low price. Moreover, some sellers have even disguised themselves as international flight attendants or overseas students to post fake stylish photos on WeChat Moments. They then claim that they can provide overseas purchasing services but sell fake luxury goods at the same price as the true ones. Other popular products selling on WeChat are facial masks. The marketing mode is like that of Amway but most goods are unbranded products which come from illegal factories making excess hormones which could have serious effects on customers' health. However, it is difficult for customers to defend their rights because a large number of sellers' identities are uncertified. Additionally, the lack of any supervision mechanism in WeChat business also provides opportunities for criminals to continue this illegal behavior.
Marketing
Campaigns
In a 2016 campaign, users could upload a paid photo on "Moments" and other users could pay to see the photo and comment on it. The photos were taken down each night.
Collaborations
In 2014, Burberry partnered with WeChat to create its own WeChat apps around its fall 2014 runway show, giving users live streams from the shows. Another brand, Michael Kors used WeChat to give live updates from their runway show, and later to run a photo contest "Chic Together WeChat campaign".
In 2016, L'Oréal China cooperated with Papi Jiang to promote their products. Over one million people watched her first video promoting L'Oreal's beauty brand MG.
In 2016, WeChat partnered with 60 Italian companies (WeChat had an office in Milan) who were able to sell their products and services on the Chinese market without having to get a license to operate a business in China. In 2017, Andrea Ghizzoni, European director of Tencent, said that 95 percent of global luxury brands used WeChat.
Platforms
WeChat's mobile phone app is available only to Android and iOS. BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and Symbian phones were supported before. However, as of 22 September 2017, WeChat was no longer working on Windows Phones. The company ceased the development of the app for Windows Phones before the end of 2017. Although Web-based OS X and Windows clients exist, this requires the user to have the app installed on a supported mobile phone for authentication, and neither message roaming nor 'Moments' are provided. Thus, without the app on a supported phone, it is not possible to use the web-based WeChat clients on the computer.
The company also provides WeChat for Web, a web-based client with messaging and file transfer capabilities. Other functions cannot be used on it, such as the detection of nearby people, or interacting with Moments or Official Accounts. To use the Web-based client, it is necessary to first scan a QR code using the phone app. This means it is not possible to access the WeChat network if a user does not possess a suitable smartphone with the app installed.
WeChat could be accessed on Windows using BlueStacks until December 2014. After that, WeChat blocked Android emulators and accounts that have signed in from emulators may be frozen.
There have been some reported issues with the Web client. Specifically when using English, some users have experienced autocorrect, autocomplete, auto-capitalization, and auto-delete behavior as they type messages and even after the message was sent. For example, "gonna" was autocorrected to "go", the E's were auto-deleted in "need", "wechat" was auto-capitalized to "Wechat" but not "WeChat", and after the message was sent, "don't" got auto-corrected to "do not". However, the auto-corrected word(s) after the message was sent appeared on the phone app as the user had originally typed it ("don't" was seen on the phone app whereas "do not" was seen on the Web client). Users could translate a foreign language during a conversation and the words were posted on Moments.
WeChat opens up video calls for multiple people not only for a one-person call.
Controversies
State surveillance and intelligence gathering
WeChat operates from China under Chinese law, which includes strong censorship provisions and interception protocols. Its parent company is obliged to share data with the Chinese government under the China Internet Security Law and National Intelligence Law. WeChat can access and expose the text messages, contact books, and location histories of its users. Due to WeChat's popularity, the Chinese government uses WeChat as a data source to conduct mass surveillance in China.
Some states and regions such as India, Australia the United States, and Taiwan fear that the app poses a threat to national or regional security for various reasons. In June 2013, the Indian Intelligence Bureau flagged WeChat for security concerns. India has debated whether or not they should ban WeChat for the possibility that too much personal information and data could be collected from its users. In Taiwan, legislators were concerned that the potential exposure of private communications was a threat to regional security.
In 2016, Tencent was awarded a score of zero out of 100 in an Amnesty International report ranking technology companies on the way they implement encryption to protect the human rights of their users. The report placed Tencent last out of a total of 11 companies, including Facebook, Apple, and Google, for the lack of privacy protections built into WeChat and QQ. The report found that Tencent did not make use of end-to-end encryption, which is a system that allows only the communicating users to read the messages. It also found that Tencent did not recognize online threats to human rights, did not disclose government requests for data, and did not publish specific data about its use of encryption.
A September 2017 update to the platform's privacy policy detailed that log data collected by WeChat included search terms, profiles visited, and content that had been viewed within the app. Additionally, metadata related to the communications between WeChat users—including call times, duration, and location information—was also collected. This information, which was used by Tencent for targeted advertising and marketing purposes, might be disclosed to representatives of the Chinese government:
To comply with an applicable law or regulations.
To comply with a court order, subpoena, or other legal process.
In response to a request by a government authority, law enforcement agency, or similar body.
In May 2020, Citizen Lab published a study which claimed that WeChat monitors foreign chats to hone its censorship algorithms.
On August 14, 2020, Radio Free Asia reported that in 2019, Gao Zhigang, a citizen of Taiyuan city, Shanxi Province, China, used WeChat to forward a video to his friend Geng Guanjun in USA. Gao was later convicted on the charge of the crime “picking quarrels and provoking troubles”, and sentenced to ten-months imprisonment. The Court documents show that China's network management and propaganda departments directly monitor WeChat users, and the Chinese police used big data facial technology to identify Geng Guanjun as an overseas democracy activist.
In September 2020, Chevron Corporation mandated that its employees delete WeChat from company-issued phones.
Privacy issues
Users inside and outside of China also have expressed concern for the privacy issues of the app. Human rights activist Hu Jia was jailed for three years for sedition. He speculated that the officials of the Internal Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security listened to his voicemail messages that were directed to his friends, repeating the words displayed within the voice mail messages to Hu Jia. Chinese authorities have further accused the WeChat app of threatening individual safety. China Central Television (CCTV), a state-run broadcaster, featured a piece in which WeChat was described as an app that helped criminals due to its location-reporting features. CCTV gave an example of such accusations through reporting the murder of a single woman who, after he attempted to rob her, was murdered by a man she met on WeChat. The location-reporting feature, according to reports, was the reason for the man knowing the victim's whereabouts. Authorities within China have linked WeChat to numerous crimes. The city of Hangzhou, for example, reported over twenty crimes related to WeChat in the span of three months.
XcodeGhost malware
In 2015, Apple published a list of the top 25 most popular apps infected with the XcodeGhost malware, confirming earlier reports that version 6.2.5 of WeChat for iOS was infected with it. The malware originated in a counterfeit version of Xcode (dubbed "XcodeGhost"), Apple's software development tools, and made its way into the compiled app through a modified framework. Despite Apple's review process, WeChat and other infected apps were approved and distributed through the App Store. Even though some sources claimed that the malware was capable of prompting the user for their account credentials, opening URLs and reading the device's clipboard, Apple responded that the malware was not capable of doing "anything malicious" or transmitting any personally identifiable information beyond "apps and general system information" and that it had no information that suggested that this had happened. Some commentators considered this to be the largest security breach in the App Store's history.
Current ban in India
In June 2020, the Government of India banned WeChat along with 58 other Chinese apps citing data and privacy issues, in response to a border clash between India and China earlier in the year. The banned Chinese apps were "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India," and was "hostile to national security and defense of India", claimed India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Previous ban in Russia
On 6 May 2017, Russia blocked access to WeChat for failing to give its contact details to the Russian communications watchdog. The ban was swiftly lifted on 11 May 2017 after Tencent provided "relevant information" for registration to the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).
Ban and injunction against ban in the United States
On August 6, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order, invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, seeking to ban WeChat in the U.S. in 45 days, due to its connections with the Chinese-owned Tencent. This was signed alongside a similar executive order targeting TikTok and its Chinese-owned ByteDance.
The Department of Commerce issued orders on September 18, 2020 to enact the ban on WeChat and TikTok by the end of September 20, 2020, citing national security and data privacy concerns. The measures ban the transferring of funds or processing through WeChat in the U.S. and bar any company from offering hosting, content delivery networks or internet transit to WeChat.
Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Department of Commerce order on both TikTok and WeChat on September 20, 2020 based on respective lawsuits filed by TikTok and US WeChat Users Alliance, citing the merits of the plaintiffs' First Amendment claims. The Justice Department had previously asked Beeler to not block the order to ban the apps saying it would undermine the presidents ability to deal with threats to national security. In her ruling, Beeler said that while the government had established that Chinese government activities raised significant national security concerns, it showed little evidence that the WeChat ban would address those concerns.
On June 9, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order revoking the ban on WeChat and TikTok. Instead, he directed the commerce secretary to investigate foreign influence enacted through the apps.
Notorious Markets list
In 2022, the Office of the United States Trade Representative added WeChat's ecommerce ecosystem to its list of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy.
Censorship
Global censorship
Starting in 2013, reports arose that Chinese-language searches even outside China were being keyword filtered and then blocked. This occurred on incoming traffic to China from foreign countries but also exclusively between foreign parties (the service had already censored its communications within China). In the international example of blocking, a message was displayed on users' screens: "The message "" your message contains restricted words. Please check it again." These are the Chinese characters for a Guangzhou-based paper called Southern Weekly (or, alternatively, Southern Weekend). The next day Tencent released a statement addressing the issue saying "A small number of WeChat international users were not able to send certain messages due to a technical glitch this Thursday. Immediate actions have been taken to rectify it. We apologize for any inconvenience it has caused to our users. We will continue to improve the product features and technological support to provide a better user experience." WeChat planned to build two different platforms to avoid this problem in the future; one for the Chinese mainland and one for the rest of the world. The problem existed because WeChat's servers were all located in China and thus subjected to its censorship rules.
Following the overwhelming victory of pro-democracy candidates in the 2019 Hong Kong local elections WeChat censored messages related to the election and disabled the accounts of posters in other countries such as U.S. and Canada. Many of those targeted were of Chinese ancestry.
In 2020, WeChat started censoring messages concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.
In December 2020 WeChat blocked a post by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a diplomatic spat between Australia and China. In his WeChat post Morrison had criticized a doctored image posted by a Chinese diplomat and praised the Chinese-Australian community. According to Reuters the company claimed to have blocked the post for "violated regulations, including distorting historical events and confusing the public."
Two censorship systems
In 2016, the Citizen Lab published a report saying that WeChat was using different censorship policies in mainland China and other areas. They found that:
Keyword filtering was only enabled for users who registered via phone numbers from mainland China;
Users did not get notices anymore when messages are blocked;
Filtering was more strict on group chat;
Keywords were not static. Some newfound censored keywords were in response to current news events;
The Internal browser in WeChat blocked Chinese accounts from accessing some websites such as gambling, Falun Gong and critical reports on China. International users were not blocked except for accessing some gambling and pornography websites.
Restricting sharing websites in "Moments"
In 2014, WeChat announced that according to "related regulations", domains of the web pages that want to get shared in WeChat Moments need to get an Internet Content Provider (ICP) license by 31 December 2014 to avoid being restricted by WeChat.
Censorship in Iran
In September 2013, WeChat was blocked in Iran. The Iranian authorities cited WeChat Nearby (Friend Radar) and the spread of pornographic content as the reason of censorship.
The Committee for Determining Instances of Criminal Content (a working group under the supervision of the attorney general) website FAQ says:
Because WeChat collects phone data and monitors member activity and because app developers are outside of the country and not cooperating, this software has been blocked, so you can use domestic applications for cheap voice calls, video calls and messaging.
On 4 January 2018, WeChat was unblocked in Iran.
Crackdown on LGBTQ accounts in China
On July 6, 2021, several WeChat accounts associated with China's university campuses LGBTQ movement were blocked and then deleted without warning. Some of the accounts, which consisted of a mix of registered student clubs and unofficial grassroots groups had operated for years as safe spaces for China's LGBTQ youth, with tens of thousands of followers. Many of the closed WeChat accounts display messages saying that they had "violated" Internet regulations, without giving further details, with account names being deleted and replaced with "unnamed", with a notice claiming that all content was blocked and accounts were suspended after receiving relevant complaints. The U.S. State Department expressed concern that the accounts were deleted when they were merely expressing their views, exercising their right to freedom of expression and freedom of speech. Several groups that had their accounts deleted spoke out against the ban with one stating "[W]e hope to use this opportunity to start again with a continued focus on gender and society, and to embrace courage and love".
See also
Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients
Comparison of instant messaging protocols
Comparison of LAN messengers
Comparison of VoIP software
List of SIP software
List of video telecommunication services and product brands
References
External links
Software companies established in 2011
2011 software
Android (operating system) software
BlackBerry software
Chinese brands
Communication software
Instant messaging clients
IOS software
Mobile applications
Mobile telecommunication services
Organizations that oppose LGBT rights
Proprietary cross-platform software
Symbian software
Super-apps
Tencent software
Universal Windows Platform apps
WatchOS software
Delisted applications
Internet properties established in 2011
Tencent
Notorious markets |
34458225 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basho%20Technologies | Basho Technologies | Basho Technologies was a distributed systems company that developed a key-value NoSQL database technology, Riak, and an object storage system built upon the Riak platform, called Riak CS.
Technology and products
Basho was the developer of Riak, an open source distributed database that offers high availability, fault tolerance, operation simplicity and scalability. Riak Enterprise was a commercial version of the database offered by Basho, the project's sponsor, with advanced multi-data center replication and enterprise support.
Riak is a key value store system that can collect unstructured data and store it as objects in buckets that can then be queried. It's also highly scalable, able to distribute itself over a server cluster and add new servers as needed, while maintaining its own high availability. Riak is written in Erlang, a language that gives a system built-in support for distribution across a server cluster, fault tolerance, and an ability to absorb new hardware being added to the cluster without disrupting operations.
Following the demise of Basho, the company assets were purchased by Bet365 and previously closed source components such as riak_repl (multi-data-centre replication) were released as open-source on github.com.
Basho also offered Riak Cloud Storage (CS), an open source multi-tenant cloud storage database, built on the Riak platform, which integrated with private clouds and public clouds such as Amazon Web Services (AWS). It can be used by enterprises to power internal private clouds and by startups with an Amazon-compatible API for their own download service. Riak CS includes large object support, S3-compatible API and authentication, multi-tenancy and per-user reporting, an operational model for adding capacity, and a visual interface for monitoring and metrics.
Releases and updates
Riak 1.0 was released in September 2011 and featured secondary indexes, Riak Pipe, Riak Search integration, Lager, and LevelDB support. Riak 1.1 was released in early 2012 and included numerous changes to Riak Core, a new ownership claim algorithm, Riak KV improvements and MapReduce improvements. In August 2012, Riak 1.2 was released. Riak Enterprise 1.2 added SSL encryption, better balancing and more granular control of replication across multiple data centers.
In March 2013, Basho released portions of Riak CS code to open source. Basho also announced the commercial version of Riak CS Enterprise, adding multi-datacenter replication, monitoring tools, and 24x7 support. Riak 1.4 featured PN-Counters, which was the database's first distributed data type, PN-Counters are eventually consistent and can be incremented and decremented on any node across the cluster. It has a compact binary data format that reduces storage overheads connected with small objects or large bucket names. Riak CS 1.4 provides compatibility with OpenStack, OpenStack Object Storage (Swift) and Ceph object stores with increased scalability. Riak 2.0 was released in September 2014 and includes support for new data types, tunable consistency and search integration with Apache Solr. Riak 2.1 was released in April 2015 and focused on further performance and simplification for both developers and system administrators
History
Basho Technologies was founded in January 2008 by Earl Galleher, former executive vice president at Akamai Technologies and Antony Falco, former VP of product management and technical services at Akamai.
In 2011, Donald J. Rippert, long time CTO of Accenture joined Basho as president and CEO, and Bobby Patrick, former CMO of GXS and Digex, joined as CMO. In late 2012, Rippert left Basho and Gregory Collins took over as CEO of Basho. In 2012, Basho announced RICON, a two-day distributed systems conference for developers.
In March 2014, Collins stepped down and Adam Wray, former CEO of Tier 3, became the new CEO of Basho. At this time Basho's then CTO, Justin Sheehy, and Chief Architect and original Riak author, Andy Gross, left the company and Dave McCrory, former SVP of engineering at Warner Music Group took over as CTO. McCrory is well known for creating the concept of data gravity, a theory that describes the difficulty of relocating large volumes of data due to the physical restrictions of bandwidth.
Basho was recognized in the DBTA 100, in the companies that matter most in data, and the CRN Big Data 100 for data management.
In 2017, Basho was put into receivership.
References
External links
GigaOM: Basho arms would-be Amazon killers with AWS-compatible storage
TechCrunch: Basho's Amazon S3 Compatibility Gets Potent Boost with Replication Capabilities for Riak Cloud Storage
The Register: Basho Changes
451 Research: Basho takes Riak cloud storage platform down open source path
451 Research: Basho previews distributed database update following major deal with UK's NHS
Official website
NoSQL
Cloud computing providers
Software companies based in Washington (state)
Cloud infrastructure
Defunct software companies of the United States
2008 establishments in the United States
2008 establishments in Washington (state)
Software companies established in 2008
Software companies disestablished in 2017
2017 disestablishments in Washington (state) |
34483244 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United%20States%20v.%20Fricosu | United States v. Fricosu | United States v. Fricosu, 841 F.Supp.2d 1232 (D. Col 2012), is a federal criminal case in Colorado that addressed whether a person can be compelled to reveal his or her encryption passphrase or password, despite the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. On January 23, 2012, judge Robert E. Blackburn held that under the All Writs Act, Fricosu is required to produce an unencrypted hard drive.
Fricosu's attorney claimed it was possible she did not remember the password. A month later, Fricosu's ex-husband handed the police a list of potential passwords. One of the passwords worked, rendering the self-incrimination issue moot.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus brief in support of Fricosu.
Fricosu subsequently entered a plea agreement in 2013, meaning that the question of a defendant's right to resist mandatory decryption will not be addressed by a higher court until such time as a future case addressing the same issue arises.
See also
Key disclosure law
In re Boucher
United States v. Kirschner
References
Further reading
2012 in United States case law
Cryptography law
Disk encryption
United States Fifth Amendment self-incrimination case law
Digital forensics
2012 in Colorado |
34485700 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RescueAssist | RescueAssist | RescueAssist (formerly GoToAssist) is a cloud-based remote support platform designed and targeted at IT support teams and customer support organizations. In 2018, LogMeIn's GoToAssist was rebranded to RescueAssist creating the Rescue brand of support products.
Technology and business development
GoToAssist was originally developed by Expertcity, which was founded in Santa Barbara, California in 1997. GoToAssist Remote Support enables users to access and control remote computers and other Internet-connected devices in order to provide technical support. The solution allows a desktop view of a host computer to be manipulated from a it computer. The two machines are connected through a TCP/IP network. One of Expertcity's innovations was to employ the Internet for connectivity, protecting transmissions with high-security encryption and multiple passwords. By combining a web-based software service with software installed on the host computer, transmissions could be passed through highly restrictive firewalls.
In December 2003, Citrix Systems of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, acquired the GoToAssist service and its developer, Expertcity, for $225 million, half cash and half stock. In 2017, LogMeIn, a SaaS company in Boston, completed the acquisition (through merger) with Citrix's GetGo family of products including GoToAssist. GoToAssist joined former competitor LogMeIn Rescue to create the Rescue family of support products.
Editions
GoToAssist has gone through a series of editions. Most recently, in 2018, the technician console, a desktop application, was reconfigured to a completely browser-based experience and GoToAssist was rebranded RescueAssist by LogMeIn. RescueAssist offers a modern approach to remote support. Through a plugin, users can start a support live session from a browser window on virtually any device, complete with chat, remote view, and file transfer features. There's in-channel support for popular messaging apps like Slack and includes zero-download camera share to live stream video through the end user's Android or iOS smartphone, making it easier for an IT employee to troubleshoot equipment remotely. RescueAssist supports Mac, PC, Chromebooks, iOS and Android devices.
See also
Technical support
Remote desktop software
Service desk
Virtual help desk
Software as a service
References and notes
Remote desktop
Remote administration software |
34488113 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcasa | Bitcasa | Bitcasa, Inc. was an American cloud storage company founded in 2011 in St. Louis, Missouri. The company was later based in Mountain View, California until it shut down in 2017.
Bitcasa provided client software for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Android and web browsers. An iOS client was pending Apple approval. Its former product, Infinite Drive, once provided centralized storage that included unlimited capacity, client-side encryption, media streaming, file versioning and backups, and multi-platform mobile access. In 2013 Bitcasa moved to a tiered storage model, offering from 1TB for $99/year up to Infinite for $999/year. In October 2014, Bitcasa announced the discontinuation of Infinite Drive; for $999/year, users would get 10TB of storage. Infinite Drive users would be required to migrate to one of the new pricing plans or delete their account. In May 2016, Bitcasa discontinued offering cloud storage for consumers, alleging that they will be focusing on their business products.
History
The company started after an idea was a finalist at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in September 2011. In 2012 Tony Lee was recruited as vice president of engineering and Frank Meehan joined the company's board of directors. In June 2012 Bitcasa closed $9 million of investment. Investors included: CrunchFund, Pelion Venture Partners, Horizons Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Samsung Ventures and First Round Capital.
CEO Brian Taptich announced Jan 2017 that Bitcasa had been acquired by Intel. An Intel spokesperson later clarified that Intel had not acquired Bitcasa.
Products and services
Bitcasa provided client software for web browsers, OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux and a mobile app for Android. Windows versions include XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Bitcasa products provide centralized streaming storage so that all devices have simultaneous and real-time access to the same files. Files uploaded from one device are instantly available on all devices. Bitcasa does not require file syncing between devices. Centralized storage eliminates the need to duplicate files across devices or wait for files to become synchronized.
The company has a patent pending for an "infinite storage" algorithm designed to reduce the actual storage space by identifying duplicate content and providing encryption of the stored data. According to Popular Mechanics magazine, Bitcasa uses a convergent encryption method whereby a client's data is assigned an anonymous identifier before it is uploaded. If that data already exists on the Bitcasa servers (such as a popular song), it is not uploaded but is instead earmarked as available for download by that client. This protocol is said to reduce upload time. Bitcasa's encryption method reportedly cloaks the data while it is still on the client's computer and then blocks of data are sent by an enterprise-grade AES-256 encryption method to the data cloud for storage. According to ExtremeTech, this service gives users access and ownership rights to their own data.
In a review by Gizmodo of Australia, Bitcasa's cloud service was described as a "winner" that is "pricier than its competitors" but supported by Mac, PC and Android platforms.
Mobile
Users could access their Infinite Drive through mobile apps for Android, Windows RT, and browsers and support offline viewing of files. The app collects and displays individual media types such as photos, video, music, and documents, independently of the folder hierarchy that they are stored in. Video files are streamed and auto-transcoded based on the device bandwidth. Items may be uploaded or downloaded or shared directly with social media sites. Files of any size can be shared with a web link that can distributed via email, text or IM. After the initial server migration, only apps for Android, iOS and browsers were updated, effectively rendering other devices unusable with the service.
Security
A September 2011 article published in Extreme Tech said that Bitcasa's convergent encryption based system is "mostly" safe but has some risks associated with it.
New pricing and changes
November 2013
On November 19, 2013, the company announced that its Infinite Storage offering would increase in price. The move sparked an intense reaction from users at the company's forum, even though existing users were grandfathered into the original pricing plan. Reactions from bloggers were particularly critical. The announcement of the pricing plans change on the Bitcasa blog was commented on heavily by users. This post, and the ensuing comments were removed from the internet by Bitcasa.
Bitcasa introduced an interface for developers.
October 2014
On October 23, 2014, Bitcasa announced it would be removing all of its grandfathered 'infinite' plans. Although the company had assured customers that these plans would be continued as long as they had not cancelled their service(the company removed their official blog post about this, though it is still available on the WayBack Machine. Bitcasa backtracked due to 'lack of demand' and 'abuse'.
The company instead offered previous clients the same packages that regular users pay at $10/month for 1TB ($99 annually) or $99/month for 10TB ($999 annually).
The company gave users 23 days to migrate or download their data, or it would be deleted. This move was criticized by many users as not being physically possible at the download rates provided by Bitcasa.
As a result of a system migration, some users had data loss, some of which was not replaceable. Angry customers gave the company bad feedback, and the community forum became less active.
The company has offered yearly subscribers the right to cancel and get a prorated refund. However, it disabled the ability to cancel accounts and refused to delete accounts through its support system.
On November 13, 2014, Northern Californian district judge William Alsup granted a temporary restraining order, enjoining Bitcasa from deleting and disabling access to Infinite Plan subscribers' data. Bitcasa filed a response on 18 November, challenging the legality of the TRO. As an apparent result of the restraining order, Bitcasa announced a 5-day extension of the deadline in an email to users on November 16; the email did not mention the restraining order. A hearing was set for 10.00 on 19 November; Bitcasa 'won' the lawsuit.
In February 2015, the Community Forum was shut down.
April 2016
On April 7, 2016, the company switched their free 5GB plan to a free trial tier. Users with this account prior April 7 would automatically start the trial and after the 60-day trial, if the user has not changed to a paid plan, their account and data will be deleted from the server.
On April 21, 2016, Bitcasa announced they would discontinue their cloud storage service, and focus on business products. Users had until May 20, 2016 to download their data, when user data could be deleted. Bitcasa shut down their consumer cloud storage at the end of May 20, 2016, only offering products for developers.
September 2016
After four months, they did not refund customers and the website of Bitcasa was inaccessible.
See also
Comparison of file hosting services
Comparison of online backup services
References
Cloud applications
Cloud storage
Data synchronization
Online backup services
Companies established in 2011
Companies based in Palo Alto, California
2011 establishments in California
Internet technology companies of the United States
File hosting for macOS
File hosting for Windows |
34503273 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXtremeDB | EXtremeDB | eXtremeDB is a high performance, low-latency, ACID-compliant embedded database management system using an in-memory database system (IMDS) architecture and designed to be linked into C/C++ based programs. It works on Windows, Linux, and other real-time and embedded operating systems.
History
McObject LLC introduced eXtremeDB in 2001, targeting embedded systems running in resource-constrained environments (i.e. with limited random-access memory and relatively low-powered central processing units). eXtremeDB characteristics appealing to this market include a small code size (approximately 150 KB), native C language application programming interface, available source code, and a high degree of portability (to support the varied processors and operating systems used in embedded systems). Early deployments by customers included integration in digital TV set-top boxes, manufacturing and industrial control systems, and telecom/networking devices. eXtremeDB emerged to manage what industry analysts, and McObject, portray as significant growth in the amount of data managed on such devices.
Later editions targeted the high performance non-embedded software market, including capital markets applications (algorithmic trading, order matching engines) and real-time caching for Web-based applications, including social networks and e-commerce.
Product features
Core eXtremeDB engine
eXtremeDB supports the following features across its product family.
Application programming interfaces
A type-safe, native, navigational C/C++ API
SQL ODBC/JDBC API (included in eXtremeSQL edition)
Native C# (.NET) API
Java Native Interface (JNI)
Python
Database indexes
B-tree
R-tree
Radix tree or Patricia trie
k-d tree
Hash table
Trigram index
Custom indexes
Concurrency mechanisms
eXtremeDB supports multiple concurrent users, offering ACID-compliant transactions (as defined by Jim Gray) using either of two transaction managers: a multiple-reader, single writer (MURSIW) locking mechanism, or multiversion concurrency control (MVCC) transaction manager (optimistic non-locking model).
Supported data types
eXtremeDB can work with virtually all C language data types including complex types including structures, arrays, vectors and BLOBs. Unicode is supported.
Security
Page-level cyclic redundancy checking (CRC)
AES encryption
Secure Sockets Layer
Optional features
Distributed database management abilities
The eXtremeDB high availability edition supports both synchronous (2-safe) and asynchronous (1-safe) database replication, with automatic failover. eXtremeDB Cluster edition provides for shared-nothing database clustering. eXtremeDB also supports distributed query processing, in which the database is partitioned horizontally and the DBMS distributes query processing across multiple servers, CPUs and/or CPU cores. eXtremeDB supports heterogeneous client platforms (e.g. a mix of Windows, Linux and RTOSs) with its clustering and high availability features. A single partitioned database can include shards running on a mix of hardware and OS platforms
Hybrid storage
eXtremeDB Fusion edition provides the option of persistent storage (disk or flash) for specific tables, via a database schema notation.
Transaction logging
eXtremeDB Transaction Logging edition keeps a record of changes made to the database and uses this log to provide recovery in the event of device or system failure. This edition includes eXtremeDB Data Relay technology that replicates selected changes to external systems such as enterprise applications and database systems.
SQL ODBC/JDBC
The eXtremeSQL edition provides SQL ODBC support in eXtremeDB and a version 4, level 4 JDBC driver.
Kernel mode deployment
The eXtremeDB Kernel Mode edition deploys the database system within an operating system kernel, to provide database functions to kernel-based applications logic.
Features for managing market data
eXtremeDB Financial Edition provides features for managing market data (tick data) in applications such as algorithmic trading and order matching. A “sequences” data type supports columnar data layout and enables eXtremeDB to offer the benefits of a column-oriented database in handling time series data. The Financial Edition also provides a library of vector-based statistical functions to analyze data in sequences, and a performance monitor.
Benchmarks
McObject published reports on benchmark tests employing eXtremeDB. Main-Memory vs. RAM-Disk Databases: a Linux-Based Benchmark examined IMDS performance versus that of a traditional on-disk DBMS deployed on a RAM disk, on identical application tasks. The benchmark’s stated goal was to test the thesis that an IMDS streamlined architecture delivers a performance benefit beyond that provided by memory-based storage. Another benchmark, the Terabyte-Plus In-Memory Database System (IMDS) Benchmark, documented IMDS scalability and performance in the size range of large enterprise application (versus embedded systems) databases. For the test, engineers created a 1.17 terabyte, 15.54 billion row database with eXtremeDB on a 160-core SGI Altix 4700 system running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.
In November, 2012 a marketing report was published for Dell servers with Mellanox InfiniBand.
In late 2014, two additional audited benchmark reports focused on eXtremeDB Financial Edition. An October 29 report assessed McObject’s DBMS on IBM POWER8 hardware. A November 18 report documented the use of cloud computing.
In 2016. another report measured the eXtremeDB Financial Edition.
See also
Embedded databases
In-memory databases
NoSQL - another marketing term
References
External links
, McObject
Proprietary database management systems
Embedded databases |
34505865 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network%20cloaking | Network cloaking | Network cloaking is an attempt to provide wireless security by hiding the network name (service set identifier) from being broadcast publicly. Many routers come with this option as a standard feature in the setup menu accessed via a web browser.
Network cloaking may stop some inexperienced users from gaining access to a network but should otherwise be considered a minimal security measure. Network cloaking is less effective than using static WEP (which itself is vulnerable, see Wired Equivalent Privacy).
More secure forms of wireless security include WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and preferably WPA2. It is possible for WEP, WPA, WPA2, and other encryption technologies to be used in conjunction with hiding the SSID.
Advantages
Minimal security benefit
Hiding the network name may prevent less technically inclined people from connecting to the network, but will not deter a determined adversary. Use of WPA or WPA2 is recommended instead. Hiding the SSID removes it from beacon frames, but this is only one of several ways an SSID can be discovered. When one chooses to hide the network name from the router's setup page, that only sets the SSID in the beacon frame to null, but there remain four other ways that the SSID is transmitted. In fact, hiding broadcast of the SSID on the router may cause the Network interface controller (NIC) to constantly disclose the SSID, even when out of range.
Usability improvement
Hiding the network name improves the experience of users connecting to wireless networks in dense areas. When the network is not intended for public use and does not broadcast its SSID, it will not appear in a list of available networks on clients. This simplifies the choice for users.
Organizations may choose to cloak the WiFi SSID intended to be used by employees and pre-configured on corporate devices while keep networks intended for visitors (i.e., "Guest networks") broadcasting SSID. This way, authorized users will connect to the corporate network as pre-configured while visitors will only see the "Guest network" and will be less confused about what SSID to use.
Disadvantages
False sense of security
Although network cloaking may add a small sense of security, it is common for people not to realize just how easy it is to discover hidden networks. Because of the various ways an SSID is broadcast, network cloaking is not considered a security measure. Using encryption, preferably WPA or WPA2, is more secure. Even WEP, while weak and vulnerable, provides more security than hiding the SSID. There are many programs that are able to scan for wireless networks, including hidden ones, and display their information such as IP addresses, SSIDs, and encryption types. These programs are capable of "sniffing" out any wireless networks in range by essentially eavesdropping and analyzing network traffic and packets to gather information about those specific networks. The reason these programs can sniff out the hidden networks is because when the SSID is transmitted in the various frames, it is displayed in cleartext (unencrypted format), and therefore able to be read by anyone who has found it. An eavesdropper can passively sniff the wireless traffic on that network undetected (with software like Kismet), and wait for someone to connect, revealing the SSID. Alternatively, there are faster (albeit detectable) methods where a cracker spoofs a "disassociate frame" as if it came from the wireless bridge, and sends it to one of the clients connected; the client immediately re-connects, revealing the SSID. Some examples of these sniffing programs include the following:
Passive:
KisMAC
Kismet
Prads
ESSID-Jack
Active:
NetStumbler
inSSIDer
The downside of passive scanning is that in order to gather any information, a client already connected to that specific network needs to be generating and therefore providing network traffic to be analyzed. These programs are then able to discover the cloaked networks and their SSIDs through picking through frames of information such as:
Probe request frames. Probe request frames are sent unencrypted by the client computer when trying to connect to a network. This unprotected frame of information, which can easily be intercepted and read by someone willing, will contain the SSID.
Probe response frames. In response to the probe request, the requested station will send back a frame of information also containing the SSID as well as other details about the network.
Association request frames. An association request frame is what begins the process of initializing a relationship between the computer and the access point. Once associated properly, the AP will be able to assign some of its resources to the network interface controller (NIC). Once again, through this process, the SSID is transmitted.
Re-association request frames. Re-association request frames are transmitted when a NIC notices a stronger signal from another access point and switches over from the previous one. This new access point will then "take over" and handle the data that may still be caught up in the previous session. The request of a new connection to a new beacon signal will of course require the transmission of a new SSID.
Because of these multiple ways the network name is still being broadcast while the network is "cloaked," it is not completely hidden from persistent hackers.
Worse still, because a station must probe for a hidden SSID, a fake access point can offer a connection.
Programs that act as fake access points are freely available; e.g. airbase-ng and Karma.
References
Computer network security |
34650781 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConnectBot | ConnectBot | ConnectBot is an open-source Secure Shell client for the Android operating system. It lets users securely log in remotely to servers that run a secure shell daemon. This allows the user to enter commands from their Android device and have the commands run on the remote server instead of the local android device. It uses the standard encryption used by SSH2 to keep any commands and data that are transmitted from being eavesdropped by any potential listeners across the network.
Features
It supports login with a username and password to any arbitrary server on the local network or internet
Supports connections based on a public/private keypair instead of username/password for increased security
Allows frequently accessed hosts to be saved in a menu, so that they can quickly be re-connected to
Once the connection has been made with the remote server, the program presents the user with a terminal where input and output can be sent/received just as if the user were sitting in front of a terminal on the actual server.
Reception
ConnectBot is the most popular Secure Shell client available for the Android operating system, with over 1,000,000 downloads and more than 43,000 ratings on Google Play with an average rating of 4.5/5.
Products based on ConnectBot
Georgia SoftWorks (GSW) ConnectBot on Google Play. Adds commercial mass deployment features including network licensing, configuration from a MS Windows server, version updates from LAN, strong security algorithms not using SHA-1.
VX ConnectBot on Google Play. Adds SCP file transfers, screenshots, export of private keys, tap and hold menus, X11 forwarding.
See also
Comparison of SSH clients
Secure Shell
External links
Official website
ConnectBot at Google Play
Source code repository at GitHub
Legacy development site at Google Code
Software reviews and tutorials
AppBrain
Video Tutorial
Arbi Tutorial
Android Police Tutorial
Inwtx Tutorial
References
Free and open-source Android software
Secure Shell
Software using the Apache license
Free software programmed in Java (programming language) |
34747223 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWebGlobe | OpenWebGlobe | OpenWebGlobe was a project and technology for processing and interactively visualizing vast volumes of geospatial data in a 3D virtual globe, even the forks on GitHub are rather dead .
The OpenWebGlobe virtual globe can have several data categories like image data, elevation data, points of interest, vector data, and 3D objects. Before streaming such massive and complex data over the internet, this data must be pre-processed. Such pre-processing usually comprises a transformation from a local to a global reference system, creation of pyramid layers or levels of detail (LOD), tiling of the data, and optionally compression and encryption. Recently, these algorithms were ported to high performance compute cluster using OpenMP and MPI and are also released as open-source. Because data sets are usually large, containing several terabytes, advanced out-of-core rendering mechanisms with a level of detail approach are used for visualization.
OpenWebGlobe is an open-source project. It is written in WebGL. The lead developer is the Institute of Geomatics Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland ().
Developing Globe Applications
The OpenWebGlobe SDK is also a 3D engine on top of WebGL. With the OpenWebGlobe SDK it is possible to create custom virtual globe applications. This JavaScript "Hello World" example creates a virtual globe and adds an image and elevation layer:
function main()
{
// (1) create an OpenWebGlobe context using canvas
// first parameter is canvas-id and second is "fullscreen"
var ctx = ogCreateContextFromCanvas("canvas", true);
// (2) Create a virtual globe
var globe = ogCreateGlobe(ctx);
// (3) Add an image and an elevation layer
var imgBlueMarble500 =
{
url : ["http://www.openwebglobe.org/data/img"],
layer : "World500",
service : "i3d"
};
var elvSRTM_CH =
{
url : ["http://www.openwebglobe.org/data/elv"],
layer : "SRTM",
service : "i3d"
};
ogAddImageLayer(globe, imgBlueMarble500);
ogAddElevationLayer(globe, elvSRTM_CH);
// (4) Set the background color
ogSetBackgroundColor(ctx, 0.2,0.2,0.7,1);
}
Demos
Switzerland 3D
The demo version of a potential 3D Viewer for geo.admin.ch - the geo-portal of the Swiss Confederation - was online on the OpenWebGlobe's website until July 31, 2012. The scene covered the entire Switzerland and was based on high resolution data from swisstopo (SWISSIMAGE).
Source code
References
External links
Demo: Switzerland 3D
Virtual globes
Cross-platform free software
WebGL
JavaScript |
34750509 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TamoGraph%20Site%20Survey | TamoGraph Site Survey | TamoGraph Site Survey is an application for performing Wi-Fi site surveys and RF planning. It supports 802.11ax, 802.11ac, 802.11n, 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g wireless networks. TamoGraph is developed by TamoSoft, a privately held New Zealand company founded in 1998 that specializes in network analysis software.
Functionality
TamoGraph is used for measuring and visualizing such WLAN characteristics as signal strength, signal-to-noise ratio, signal-to-interference ratio, TCP and UDP throughput rates, access point vendor, encryption type, etc. Visualizations are overlaid on floor plans or, in case of outdoor surveys, on site maps that can be imported from one of the online map services. Data is collected by a portable computer using a compatible Wi-Fi adapter.
When performing planning of Wi-Fi networks, the tool can be used for creating a virtual model of a future network, where walls and other obstructions are drawn using different material types (drywall, glass, brick, etc.). The tool will then calculate the approximate locations of where the access points should be located. At the post-deployment stage, TamoGraph is used to validate the deployed wireless network, as well as to measure interference from both Wi-Fi and non-Wi-Fi sources with the help of Wi-Spy, a USB-based spectrum analyzer.
Features
Passive, active and simultaneous passive/active survey modes.
RF modeling.
Automatic access point location
Automatic virtual access point placement and capacity planning in predictive models.
Detailed information about access points: channel, supported rates, encryption, etc.
Support for outdoor surveys using GPS
Spectrum analysis
Customizable reporting in PDF, Microsoft Word, and HTML formats
References
External links
Official website
Site survey |
34790109 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox%20version%20history | Firefox version history | Firefox was created by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross as an experimental branch of the Mozilla browser, first released as Firefox 1.0 on November 9, 2004. Starting with version 5.0, a rapid release cycle was put into effect, resulting in a new major version release every six weeks. This was gradually accelerated further in late 2019, so that new major releases occur on four-week cycles starting in 2020.
Current and future releases
Current supported official releases
Firefox 97.0.1
Firefox 97.0 (Android)
Firefox 91.6 ESR
Current supported test releases
Firefox 98.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 98.0 Beta
Firefox 99.0 Nightly
Future official releases
Rapid
Firefox 98.0
Firefox 99.0
Firefox 100.0
Firefox 101.0
Firefox 102.0
Firefox 103.0
Firefox 104.0
Firefox 105.0
Firefox 106.0
Firefox 107.0
ESR
Firefox 91.7 ESR
Firefox 91.8 ESR
Firefox 91.9 ESR
Firefox 91.10 ESR
Firefox 91.11 ESR
Firefox 91.12 ESR
Firefox 91.13 ESR
Firefox 102.0 ESR
Firefox 102.1 ESR
Firefox 102.2 ESR
Firefox 102.3 ESR
Firefox 102.4 ESR
Firefox 102.5 ESR
Future test releases
Firefox 99.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 99.0 Beta
Firefox 100.0 Nightly
Firefox 100.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 100.0 Beta
Firefox 101.0 Nightly
Firefox 101.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 101.0 Beta
Firefox 102.0 Nightly
Firefox 102.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 102.0 Beta
Firefox 103.0 Nightly
Firefox 103.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 103.0 Beta
Firefox 104.0 Nightly
Firefox 104.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 104.0 Beta
Firefox 105.0 Nightly
Firefox 105.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 105.0 Beta
Firefox 106.0 Nightly
Firefox 106.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 106.0 Beta
Firefox 107.0 Nightly
Firefox 107.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 107.0 Beta
Firefox 108.0 Nightly
Firefox 108.0 Developer Edition
Firefox 108.0 Beta
Firefox 109.0 Nightly
Early versions
Rapid releases
In April 2011, the development process was split into several "channels", each working on a build in a different stage of development. The most recent available build is called "Nightly Builds" and offers the latest, untested features and updates. The "Aurora" build is up to six weeks behind "Nightly" and offers functionality that has undergone basic testing. As of version 35, the "Aurora" channel has been renamed to the "Developer Edition" channel. The "Beta" channel is up to six weeks behind the "Aurora" build, for up to about twelve weeks compared to the most recent "Nightly" build. The "Beta" channel provides improved stability over the "Nightly" builds and is the first development milestone that has the "Firefox" logo. "Release" is the current official version of Firefox. Gecko version numbering is the same as the Firefox build version number, starting with 5.0 on Firefox 5.
The stated aim of this faster-paced process is to get new features to users faster. This accelerated release cycle was met with criticism by users, as it often broke add-on compatibility, as well as those who believe Firefox was simply trying to increase its version number to compare with other browsers such as Google Chrome.
Firefox 5 through 9
Firefox 5 was released on June 21, 2011, three months after the major release of Firefox 4. Firefox 5 is the first release in Mozilla's new rapid release plan, matching Google Chrome's rapid release schedule and rapid version number increments. Firefox 5 has significantly improved the speed of web-related tasks, such as loading pages with combo boxes or MathML. Mozilla also integrated the HTML5 video WebM standard into the browser, allowing playback of WebM videos.
Firefox 6 was released on August 16, 2011, introducing a permissions manager, new address bar highlighting (the domain name is black while the rest of the URL is gray), streamlining the look of the site identity block, a quicker startup time, a ScratchPad JavaScript compiler, and many other new features. This update also brought the infamous feature that caused JavaScript entered in the address bar to not run.
Firefox 7 was released on September 27, 2011, and uses as much as 50% less RAM than Firefox 4 as a result of the MemShrink project to reduce Firefox memory usage.
Firefox 7.0.1 was released a few days later, fixing a rare, but serious, issue with add-ons not being detected by the browser. Some URLs are trimmed in the address bar, so the "http://" scheme no longer appears, but "https://" is still displayed. Trailing slashes on domains are also hidden, for example: https://www.example.org/ becomes https://www.example.org.
Firefox 8 was released on November 8, 2011 and prompts users about any previously installed add-ons. Upon installation, a dialog box prompted users to enable or disable the add-ons. Add-ons installed by third-party programs were disabled by default, but user-installed add-ons were enabled by default. Mozilla judged that third-party-installed add-ons were problematic, taking away user control, lagging behind on compatibility and security updates, slowing down Firefox startup and page loading time, and cluttering the interface with unused toolbars.
Firefox 9 was released on December 20, 2011, includes various new features such as Type Inference, which boosts JavaScript performance up to 30%, improved theme integration for Mac OS X Lion, added two-finger swipe navigation for Mac OS X Lion, added support for querying Do Not Track status via JavaScript, added support for font-stretch, improved support for text-overflow, improved standards support for HTML5, MathML, and CSS, and fixed several security problems. It also features a large list of bug fixes.
Firefox 10 through 16
Firefox 10 and Firefox ESR 10 were released on January 31, 2012. Firefox 10 added a full screen API and improved WebGL performance, support for CSS 3D Transforms and for anti-aliasing in the WebGL standard for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. These WebGL updates mean that more complex site and Web app animations can render smoothly in Firefox, and that developers can animate 2D objects into 3D without plug-ins. It also introduced a new CSS Style Inspector, which allow users to check out a site's structure and edit the CSS without leaving the browser. Firefox 10 assumed all add-ons made for at least Firefox 4 were compatible. The add-on developer is able to alert Mozilla that the add-on is incompatible, overriding compatibility with version 10 or later. This new rule also does not apply to themes.
Firefox 10 ESR is the first Extended Support Release (ESR) as previously on January 10, 2012, where the Mozilla Foundation announced the availability of an ESR version of Firefox. Firefox ESR is intended for groups who deploy and maintain the desktop environment in large organizations such as universities and other schools, county or city governments and businesses. During the extended cycle, no new features will be added to a Firefox ESR; only high-risk/high-impact security vulnerabilities or major stability issues will be corrected.
Firefox 11 was released on March 13, 2012. Firefox 11 introduced many new features, including migration of bookmarks and history from Google Chrome, SPDY integrated services, , Add-on Sync, redesigned HTML5 video controls, and the Style Editor (CSS). The update also fixed many bugs, and improved developer tools.
Firefox 12 was released on April 24, 2012. Firefox 12 introduced few new features, but it made many changes and laid the ground work for future releases. Firefox 12 for Windows added the Mozilla Maintenance Service which can update Firefox to a newer version without a UAC prompt. It also added line numbers in the "Page Source" and centered find in page results. There were 89 improvements to Web Console, Scratchpad, Style Editor, Page Inspector, Style Inspector, HTML view and Page Inspector 3D view (Tilt). Many bugs were fixed, as well as many other minor under-the-hood changes. Firefox 12 is the final release to support Windows 2000 and Windows XP RTM & SP1.
Firefox 13 was released on June 5, 2012. Starting with this version, Windows support was exclusively for Windows XP SP2/SP3, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Firefox 13 adds and updates several features, such as an updated new tab and home tab page. The updated new tab page is a feature similar to the Speed Dial already present in Opera, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Internet Explorer. The new tab page will display nine of the user's most visited websites, along with a cached image. In addition to the updated new tab and home tab page, Mozilla has added a user profile cleaner/reset, reduced hang times, and implemented tabs on demand. The user profile cleaner/reset provides a way for users to fix Firefox errors and glitches that may occur. Mozilla's tabs on demand restores tabs that were open in the previous session, but will keep the tabs unloaded until the user requests to view the page.
Firefox 14 was released on June 26, 2012, for mobile devices only, just outside the regular release schedule of the web browser. In order to sync the version numbers of the desktop and mobile versions of Firefox, Mozilla decided to release version 14.0.1 for both mobile and desktop on July 17, 2012, instead of Firefox 14 version 14.0 for the desktop and version 14.0.1 for mobile devices.
Firefox 14 introduces a new hang detector (similar to how Mozilla currently collects other data) that allows Mozilla to collect, analyze, and identify the cause of the browser freezing/hanging. Mozilla uses this information to improve the responsiveness of Firefox for future releases. In addition to tackling freezing and not-responding errors that occur because of Firefox, Mozilla implemented opt-in activation for plugins such as Flash and Java. Mozilla wants to reduce potential problems that could arise through the unwanted use of third-party applications (malware, freezing, etc.).
Firefox 15 was released on August 28, 2012, with a "Responsive Design View" developer tool, adds support for the Opus audio format, and adds preliminary native PDF support (disabled by default).
Firefox 15 introduced silent updates, an automatic update that will update Firefox to the latest version without notifying the user, a feature that the web browsers Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 and above have already implemented, although the user was able to disable that function. The startup time in Firefox 15 was improved for Windows users.
Firefox 16 was released on October 9, 2012, fixing outstanding bugs of the new features in Mac OS X Lion. There were improvements made to startup speed when a user wants to restore a previous session. Support for viewing PDF files inline was added in placement of a plugin. Support for web apps was added. Opus audio format is now enabled by default.
The roll-out of Firefox 16 revision 16.0.0 was stopped on October 10, 2012, after Mozilla detected a security flaw and recommended downgrading to 15.0.1 until the issue could be fixed. The security flaw was fixed in version 16.0.1, which was released the following day, October 11, 2012.
Firefox 17 through 23
Firefox 17 and Firefox ESR 17 were released on November 20, 2012. It was not planned to bring as many user-facing features as previous releases, it brings improved display of location bar results, improvements to the silent update mechanism for users with incompatible add-ons, and refinements to the Click-To-Play system introduced in Firefox 14. A new feature for developers, an HTML tree editor is also included. Firefox 17 is the first version of the browser that uses SpiderMonkey 17.
Starting with Firefox 17, Mac OS X support is exclusively for Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion.
Firefox 18 was released on January 8, 2013. A new feature for Firefox 18 is IonMonkey, Mozilla's next generation JavaScript engine, it also uses some functions of WebRTC.
Firefox 19 was released on February 19, 2013, featuring a built-in PDF viewer.
Firefox 20 was released on April 2, 2013, introduced a panel-based download manager, along with H.264 decoding on the <video> tag (on Windows only), and per-window private browsing (per-tab private browsing on Android). It also includes a new developer toolbox, that combines all developer tools into one panel.
Firefox 21 was released on May 14, 2013. The Social API now supports multiple providers, and an enhanced three-state UI for Do Not Track (DNT).
Firefox 22 was released on June 25, 2013. WebRTC is now enabled by default.
Partial CSS Flexbox support was added (flex-wrap support was scheduled for Firefox 28). A new feature for Firefox 22 was OdinMonkey, Mozilla's next generation JavaScript engine.
Firefox 23 was released on August 6, 2013. It includes an updated Firefox logo, mixed content blocking enabled by default to defend against man-in-the-middle attacks, implementation of the <input type="range"> form control attribute in HTML5, dropping support for the <blink> HTML element as well as the text-decoration:blink CSS element, the restriction to have to "switch to a different search provider across the entire browser", and a global browser console, a new network monitor among other things. JavaScript is automatically enabled by the update, without regard to the previous setting, and the ability to turn it off has been removed from the interface; the "contentious" change was made because many websites depend on JavaScript and it was felt that users unaware that they had disabled JavaScript were attributing the resulting unpredictable layout to software bugs in Firefox.
Firefox 24 through 30
Firefox 24 and Firefox 24 ESR were released on September 17, 2013. The release includes support for the new scrollbar style in Mac OS X 10.7 (and newer), closing tabs to the right, an improved browser console for debugging, and improved SVG rendering, among other things. It is the first version of the browser that uses SpiderMonkey 24.
Firefox 25 was released on October 29, 2013. Firefox 25 Nightly was at one point slated to include the Australis theme, but Australis did not actually land on Nightly until Firefox 28, did not make it to Firefox 28 Aurora channel, and was finally available with Firefox 29. This release added support for <iframe srcdoc> attribute, background-attachment:local in CSS, along with Web audio API support, a separate find bar for each tab and many other bug fixes.
Firefox 26 was released on December 10, 2013. Firefox 26 changed the behavior of Java plugins to "click-to-play" mode instead of automatically running them. It also added support for H.264 on Linux, password manager support for script-generated fields, and the ability for Windows users without advanced write permissions to update Firefox, as well as many bug fixes and developer-related changes.
Firefox 27 was released on February 4, 2014. It adds improved Social API and SPDY 3.1 support, as well as enabling of TLS 1.1 and 1.2 by default after having been tested through a toggle in about:config since version 24, released on September 17, 2013. Also, it brings many bug fixes, security improvements, and developer-related changes.
Firefox 28 was released on March 18, 2014. It added support for VP9 video decoding and support for Opus in WebM. For Android, features such as predictive lookup from the address bar, quick share buttons and support for OpenSearch were added.
Firefox 29 was released on April 29, 2014, and includes the Australis interface, it also removes the add-on bar and moves its content to the navigation bar. Additionally, it introduced automatic correction of protocol typos to the address bar, meaning that, for example, ttps:// is automatically corrected to https://.
Firefox 30 was released on June 10, 2014. It adds support for GStreamer 1.0 and a new sidebar button, and most plugins are not activated by default.
Firefox 31 through 37
Firefox 31 and Firefox 31 ESR were released on July 22, 2014. Both versions added search field on the new tab page and were improved to block malware from downloaded files, along with other new features. Firefox 31 ESR is the first ESR to include the Australis interface, unifying the user experience across different Firefox versions. Firefox 24.x.x ESR versions would be automatically updated to ESR version 31 after October 14, 2014.
Firefox 32 was released on September 2, 2014. It shows off HTTP caching improvements, adds HiDPI/Retina support in the Developer Tools UI and widens HTML5 support, among other things.
Firefox 33 was released on October 14, 2014. It now has off-main-thread compositing (OMTC) enabled by default on Windows (which brings responsiveness improvements), OpenH264 support, search suggestions on about:home and about:newtab, address bar search improvements, session restore reliability improvements, and other changes.
Firefox 33.1 was released on November 10, 2014, celebrating Firefox's 10-year anniversary. Firefox 33.1.1 was released for desktop only on November 14, 2014, fixing a startup crash.
Firefox 34 was released on December 1, 2014. It brings Firefox Hello (a WebRTC client for voice and video chat), an improved search bar, and the implementation of HTTP/2 (draft14) and ALPN, together with other features. It also disables SSLv3, and enables the ability to recover from a locked Firefox process and to switch themes and personas directly in the customization mode.
Firefox 35 was released on January 13, 2015. It brings support for a room-based conversations model to the Firefox Hello chat service, and other functions, it also includes security fixes.
Firefox 36 was released for desktop on February 24, 2015, bringing full HTTP/2 support and other smaller improvements and fixes. It was also released for Android three days later on February 27, 2015, adding support for the tablet user interface.
Firefox 37 was released on March 31, 2015, bringing a heartbeat user rating system, which provides user feedback about the Firefox, and improved protection against website impersonation via OneCRL centralized certificate revocation. Also, Bing search is changed to use HTTPS for secure searching, and added is support for opportunistic encryption of the HTTP traffic where the server supports HTTP/2's AltSvc feature.
Firefox 38 through 44
Both Firefox 38 and Firefox 38 ESR were released on May 12, 2015, with new tab-based preferences, Ruby annotation support and availability of WebSockets in web workers, along with the implementation of the BroadcastChannel API and other features and security fixes.
Firefox 39 was released on July 2, 2015, for desktop and Android, disabling insecure SSLv3 and RC4, improving performance for IPv6 fallback to IPv4 and including various security fixes. Firefox 39.0.3 was released on August 6, 2015, to fix a zero-day exploit.
Firefox 40 was released on August 11, 2015, for desktop and Android. On Windows 10, the Australis theme was updated to reflect the overall appearance of Windows 10, and the interface is adapted for usability on touchscreens when used in the operating system's "Tablet mode". Firefox 40 includes additional security features, including the filtering of pages that offer potentially unwanted programs, and warnings during the installation of unsigned extensions; in future versions, signing of extensions will become mandatory, and the browser will refuse to install extensions that have not been signed. Firefox 40 also includes performance improvements, such as off-main-thread compositing on Linux.
Firefox 41 was released on September 22, 2015, for desktop and Android. Among many additions are the ability to set a profile picture for a Firefox account, enhanced IME support using Text Services Framework, and instant messaging on Firefox Hello.
Firefox 42 was released on November 3, 2015, for desktop and Android. Among many additions are private browsing with tracking protection, IPv6 support in WebRTC, and the ability to view HTML source in a tab.
Firefox 43 was released on December 15, 2015, for desktop and Android. Among many additions are the availability of the 64-bit version for Windows 7 and above, a new strict blocklist, and audio indicators on Android.
Firefox 44 was released on January 26, 2016, for desktop and Android. Among many additions are the improvement of warning pages for certificate errors and untrusted connections, enabling of H.264 and WebM/VP9 video support on systems that don't support MP4/H.264, support for the brotli compression format via HTTPS content-encoding, and the use of Android print service to enable cloud printing. "Ask me every time" cookies option was removed without any notifications.
Firefox 45 through 51
Firefox 45 and Firefox 45 ESR were released on March 8, 2016, for desktop (both) and Android (no ESR). Among many additions were Instant Browser sharing through Hello, the addition of Guarani locale, the ability to filter snapshot output in memory tool, and the removal of the Tab Groups (panorama) feature.
Firefox 46 was released on April 26, 2016, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions were improved security of the JavaScript Just In Time (JIT) Compiler, the GTK3 integration (Linux only), HKDF support for Web Crypto API, and removal of support for Android 3.0 (Android only).
Firefox 47 was released on June 7, 2016, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions were support for Google's Widevine CDM on Windows and Mac OS X so streaming services like Amazon Video can switch from Silverlight to encrypted HTML5 video; enabling VP9 video codec for users with fast machines; the ability of embedded YouTube videos to play with HTML5 video if Flash is not installed; and the addition of the Latgalian language. It is also the last Firefox version to support Android 2.3.x.
Firefox 48 was released on August 2, 2016, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions were enhanced download protection and the removal of the Windows Remote Access Service modem Autodial. It was also the first official release with "Electrolysis" (multi-process Firefox, meaning that the interface and web pages are running in separate processes in the computer) was enabled.
Firefox 48 is the last Firefox version to support Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Mac OS X Lion, and OS X Mountain Lion. Additionally, support for old processors without SSE2 extensions such as the AMD Athlon XP and Pentium III was dropped.
Firefox 49 was released on September 20, 2016, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions were an updated Firefox Login Manager, improved video performance for users on systems that support SSE3 without hardware acceleration, added context menu controls to HTML5 audio and video that let users loop files or play files at 1.25x speed, improvements in about:memory reports for tracking font memory usage, and the removal of Firefox Hello. The macOS version now requires at least OS X Mavericks, and the Microsoft Windows version requires a CPU which supports SSE2.
Firefox 50 was released on November 15, 2016, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions were playback video on more sites without plugins with WebM EME Support for Widevine on Windows and Mac, improved performance for SDK extensions or extensions using the SDK module loader; download protection for a large number of executable file types on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, increased availability of WebGL to more than 98 percent of users on Windows 7 and newer (desktop), and support for HLS videos via player overlay (Android).
Firefox 51 was released on January 24, 2017, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions were added support for FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) playback, better Tab Switching, support for WebGL 2, and a warning that is displayed when a login page does not have a secure connection.
Firefox 52 through 59
Firefox 52 and Firefox 52 ESR were released on March 7, 2017, for desktop (both) and Android (no ESR). An important aspect of Firefox ESR 52.0 is that it is the first ESR version based on Firefox Electrolysis (Firefox 48) code base. Firefox 52 added support for WebAssembly (while disabled in Firefox ESR 52), an emerging standard that brings near-native performance to Web-based games, apps, and software libraries without the use of plugins; automatic captive portal detection, for easier access to Wi-Fi hotspots; user warnings for insecure HTTP pages with logins (desktop); and display of media controls to pause or resume playback on the Android notification bar. Firefox 52 dropped support for NPAPI plugins like Microsoft Silverlight and Java with the exception of Adobe Flash Player (except the ESR version which still supports NPAPI).
Firefox 53 was released on April 19, 2017, for both desktop and Android. Starting with Firefox 53, Microsoft Windows support is exclusively for Windows 7 and above. Among the many additions are: improved graphics stability for Windows users with the addition of compositor process separation, light and dark "compact" themes available, based on the Firefox Developer Edition theme, removal of support for 32-bit macOS and Linux support for processors older than Pentium 4 and AMD Opteron; new visual design for audio and video controls, support for WebM video with alpha compositing, which allows playing videos with transparent backgrounds (desktop), Reader Mode displaying estimated reading time for the page (desktop and Android), and enabling two columns tabs setting in portrait mode (Android).
Firefox 54 was released on June 13, 2017, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions are: simplifying the download button and download status panel, added support for multiple content processes, the ability to create and save custom devices in responsive web design mode (desktop), improved audio and video playback in the browser, and improved bookmarks sync performance (Android).
Firefox 55 was released on August 8, 2017, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions are: the launch of Windows support for WebVR, bringing immersive experiences to the web, options that let users optimize recent performance improvements, simplification of the installation process with a streamlined Windows stub installer, improvements to address bar functionality, simplification of printing from Reader Mode (desktop), and the option for accessibility settings to respect the system's set font size when displaying web pages (Android). This is also the last version to support Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
Firefox 56 was released on September 28, 2017, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions are: a new layout for the "Preferences" page, the launch of Firefox Screenshots, support for address form autofill, hardware acceleration for AES-GCM, update of the Safe Browsing protocol to version 4, improved security or verifying update downloads (desktop), improvement of support for WebExtensions, and the end of support for Adobe Flash (Android). Starting with this version, Android support is exclusively for Android Jelly Bean and above.
Another change was the introduction of the mozlz4 format, a proprietary variant of the lz4 compression format (.mozlz4 and .jsonlz4 file extensions instead of .json.lz4 as per unix/linux standard). Session data is stored in the lz4 format instead of plain text. Firefox 56 cannot recognize the legacy plain text session files, only the lz4-encoded ones.
Firefox 57 was released on November 14, 2017, for desktop and Android with the name Firefox Quantum. ZDNet dubbed it a "comeback" following years of falling market share against Google Chrome. The release included a new interface design, codenamed "Photon", and a new rendering engine almost twice as fast as the previous one used. One of the largest visual changes in Photon was the removal of the search box from the address bar. Firefox 57 no longer supports legacy add-ons using XUL technologies. That same day, Mozilla announced that Google would be the default search engine in the US and Canada, a departure from Yahoo, which had been the default search engine in the US and Canada since 2014.
Firefox 58 was released on January 23, 2018, for desktop and Android. Among the additions were: support for credit card autofill, the drop of support for user profiles in previous versions of Firefox, a warning to alert users and site owners of planned security changes to sites affected by the gradual distrust plan for the Symantec certificate authority (desktop), full screen bookmark management with folder support, support for FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) playback, the ability to change the status bar color in themes, and removal of the Firefox Search widget from the home screen (Android).
Firefox 59 was released on March 13, 2018, for desktop and Android. Among the additions were: faster load times and improved graphics, improved Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities, additional features for Firefox Screenshots, support for W3C specs for pointer events, Private Browsing Mode's removal of path information from referrers to prevent cross-site tracking (desktop), and the addition of Firefox as an Assist app, support for HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) playback for improved compatibility with video sites, and removal of the "about:" page.
Firefox 60 through 67
Firefox 60 and Firefox 60 ESR were released on May 9, 2018, for desktop (both) and Android (no ESR). It includes a policy engine that allows customized Firefox deployments in enterprise environments, using Windows Group Policy or a cross-platform JSON file, enhancements to New Tab / Firefox Home, a redesigned Cookies and Site Storage section in Preferences for greater clarity and control of first- and third-party cookies, the application of Quantum CSS to render browser UI, support for Web Authentication API, which allows USB tokens for website authentication, an option for Linux users to show or hide page titles in a bar at the top of the browser, improved WebRTC audio performance and playback for Linux users (desktop), exclusive support for extensions built using the WebExtension API (ESR), the implementation of Quantum CSS (also known as Stylo) in Android for faster page rendering; and the addition of the View Page Source option to the Page Action menu (Android).
Firefox 61 was released on June 26, 2018, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions were: Improvements for dark theme support across the entire Firefox user interface, added support to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs, improved bookmark syncing, convenient access to more search engines (desktop), improved security and enhanced performances (both), and the fix for a recurring crash on Samsung Galaxy S8 devices running Android Oreo (Android).
Firefox 62 was released on September 5, 2018, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions were: FreeBSD support for WebAuthn, a preference that allows users to distrust certificates issued by Symantec in advance of removing all trust for Symantec-issued certificates in Firefox 63, improved graphics rendering for Windows users without accelerated hardware using Parallel-Off-Main-Thread Painting, CSS Variable Fonts (OpenType Font Variations) support, support for CSS Shapes, allowing for richer web page layouts (desktop), improved scrolling performance, faster page load times over Wi-Fi connections by loading from the network cache if disk cache is slow, and "Product and feature tips" toggle in Notifications settings (Android). The bookmarks' Description field was deprecated and will be removed completely in future releases.
Firefox 63 was released on October 23, 2018, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions and changes were: Performance and visual improvements for Windows and macOS users, content blocking, WebExtensions running in their own process in Linux, recognition of the operating system accessibility setting for reducing animation, the addition of Amazon and Google as Top Sites tiles on the Firefox Home (New Tab) page, the removal of the "Never Check for Updates" option from "about:preferences" and "Open in Sidebars" feature from the Library (desktop), support for Picture-In-Picture video, and use of notification channels (Android).
Firefox 64 version 64.0 was released on December 11, 2018, for desktop only. Firefox 64 for desktop provides better recommendations, enhanced tab management, easier performance management, improved performance for Mac and Linux users by enabling link time optimization (Clang LTO), more seamless sharing on Windows, the option to remove add-ons using the context menu on their toolbar buttons, TLS certificates issued by Symantec that are no longer trusted by Firefox, and the availability of WebVR on macOS. Three days later, version 64.0.1 was released for Android only. Firefox 64 for Android provides faster and more responsive scrolling and fixes for performance lags for users with installed password manager apps and an issue that resulted in the loading indicator using too much of the CPU and power.
Firefox 65 was released on January 29, 2019, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions and changes were: improved performance and web compatibility, with support for the WebP image format; enhanced security for macOS, Linux, and Android users via stronger stack smashing protection which is now enabled by default for all platforms (both desktop and Android); enhanced tracking protection; updated language settings in Preferences; support for Handoff on macOS; a better video streaming experience for Windows users; easier performance management; an improved pop-up blocker; the availability of Firefox for Windows with 32- and 64-bit MSI installers for easier enterprise deployments; additional support for Flexbox (desktop); and the restoration of Chromecast controls to the location bar (Android).
Firefox 66 was released on March 19, 2019, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions and changes were: Prevention of websites from automatically playing sound, smoother scrolling (both), an improved search experience and performance and better user experience for extensions, the addition of basic support for macOS Touch Bar and of support for Windows Hello on Windows 10, the enabling of AV1 support on 32-bit Windows and MacOS (desktop), and the addition of support to open files from external storage, such as an SD card (Android).
Firefox 67 was released on May 21, 2019, for both desktop and Android. Among the many additions and changes were: Lowering priority of setTimeout during page load; suspending (unloading) unused tabs to clear memory; the ability to block known cryptominers and fingerprinters in the Custom settings of the Content Blocking preferences; improvement of keyboard accessibility; usability and security improvements in Private Browsing; protection against running older versions of the browser which can lead to data corruption and stability issues (desktop); a new Firefox search widget with voice input; and removal of the Guest Session feature ostensibly to "streamline" user experience (Android).
Firefox 68 through 77
Firefox 68 and Firefox 68 ESR were released on July 9, 2019, for desktop (both) and Android (no ESR). Among the many additions were: Expansion of Dark Mode in Reader view, a new reporting feature in about:addons, cryptomining and fingerprinting protections, WebRender for Windows 10, Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) update download support (desktop), user and enterprise added certificates read from the OS by default (68 ESR), improved web page painting performance by avoiding redundant calculations during paint, and introduction of WebAuthn (the Web Authentication API; Android).
Firefox 68.1 was released on September 3, 2019, for Android only, with the addition of on-by-default Enhanced Tracking Protection, which enabled users to benefit from protections against ad, social, and analytics trackers.
Firefox 69 was released on September 3, 2019, for desktop only. Among the additions were: Enhanced Tracking Protection; the Block Autoplay feature; support for the Web Authentication HmacSecret extension via Windows Hello for versions of Windows 10 May 2019 or newer; support for receiving multiple video codecs; JIT support for ARM64; and improvements for download UI, performance (Windows 10), and battery life (macOS).
Firefox 68.2 was released on October 22, 2019, for Android only, gaining the ability to sign in to a Firefox account from the onboarding experience as well as from the new tab page, and resolving a crash in the "Welcome" screen.
Firefox 70 was released on October 22, 2019, for desktop only. Among the additions were: more privacy protection from Enhanced Tracking Protection; more security protection from Firefox Lockwise; improvements to core engine components for better browsing on more sites; a stand-alone Firefox account menu for easy access to Firefox services like Monitor and Send; the dark mode preference for built-in Firefox pages; and inactive CSS.
Firefox 68.3 was released on December 3, 2019, for Android only, gaining the updates to improve performance and stability.
Firefox 71 was released on December 3, 2019, for desktop only. Among the additions were: improvements to the integrated password manager Lockwise; more information about Enhanced Tracking Protection in action; picture-in-picture for Windows; and native MP3 decoding on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Firefox 68.4 was released on January 7, 2020, for Android only, gaining various security fixes.
Firefox 72 was released on January 7, 2020, for desktop only. Among the additions were: the replacement of notification request pop-ups; the ETP blocking fingerprinting scripts by default; the availability of picture-in-picture video for macOS and Linux; and the removal of support for blocking images from individual domains because of low usage and poor user experience.
Firefox 68.5 was released on February 11, 2020, for Android only, updating messaging card on the homescreen to inform users about upcoming releases and gaining various security and stability fixes.
Firefox 73 was released on February 11, 2020, for desktop only. Among the additions were: a new global default zoom level setting, a "readability backplate" solution which places a block of background color between the text and background image, improved audio quality when playing back audio at a faster or slower speed, a prompt to save logins if a field in a login form was modified, and rolling out WebRender to laptops with Nvidia graphics cards with drivers newer than 432.00, and screen sizes smaller than 1920x1200.
Firefox 68.6 was released on March 10, 2020, for Android only, gaining various security and stability fixes.
Firefox 74 was released on March 10, 2020, for desktop only. Additions included: improvement of login management with the ability to reverse alpha sort (Name Z-A) in Lockwise; simple importing of bookmarks and history from Microsoft Edge on Windows and Mac; use of Add-ons Manager to remove add-ons installed by external applications; Facebook Container, which prevents Facebook from tracking across the web; and support for mDNS ICE. Initially, this release was also the first with TLS 1.0 and 1.1 disabled. However, out of concern for access to information during the concurrent pandemic, this change was rolled back.
Firefox 68.7 was released on April 7, 2020, for Android only, gaining various security and stability fixes.
Firefox 75 was released on April 7, 2020, for desktop only. Additions included: a number of improvements with Firefox's revamped address bar; the local cache of all trusted Web PKI Certificate Authority certificates known to Mozilla; the availability of Firefox in Flatpak on Linux; and the integration of Direct Composition on Windows.
Firefox 68.8 was released on May 5, 2020, for Android only, gaining various security and stability fixes.
Firefox 76 was released on May 5, 2020, for desktop only. Additions included: strengthened protections for online account logins and passwords, with innovative approaches to managing accounts during this critical time; allowing multitasking in Picture-in-Picture; support for Audio Worklets that will allow more complex audio processing like VR and gaming on the web; and two updates to the address bar improving its usability and visibility.
Firefox 68.9 was released on June 2, 2020, for Android only, gaining various security and stability fixes.
Firefox 77 was released on June 2, 2020, for desktop only. Additions included: pocket recommendations on Firefox' new tab for UK users; a new about:certificate page; and the removal of the browser.urlbar.oneOffSearches preference.
Firefox 68.10 was released on June 30, 2020, for Android only, gaining various security and stability fixes.
Firefox 68.11 was released on July 27, 2020, for Android only, gaining various security and stability fixes. With the first stable release of Firefox Daylight (Fenix), Firefox 68.11 is the last release for Firefox for Android codenamed Fennec.
Firefox 78 through 90
Firefox 78 and Firefox 78 ESR were released on June 30, 2020, for desktop. Among the many additions were: the Protections Dashboard, the addition of the Refresh button to the Uninstaller, a new WebRender rolled out to Windows users with Intel GPUs, the addition of Pocket Recommendations to users in the UK, the requirement of GNU libc 2.17, libstdc++ 4.8.1 and GTK+ 3.14 or newer versions on Linux, the disabling of TLS 1.0 and 1.1 and other improvements; and the addition of Kiosk Mode, client certificates, Service Worker and Push APIs, the Block Autoplay feature, picture-in-picture support, and the management of web certificates in about:certificate in 78 ESR.
Firefox 79 was released on July 28, 2020, for desktop, and on August 27 for Android. Among the many additions were: a new WebRender rolled out to Windows users with Intel and AMD GPUs, the addition of Pocket Recommendations to users in Germany, the fixes for several crashes while using a screen reader, and updates to the password policy (desktop); the enabling of Enhanced Tracking Protection by default, the ability to switch to Dark Mode, and video multitasking with Picture-in-Picture mode (Android).
Firefox 80 was released on August 25, 2020, for desktop, and on August 31 for Android. Among the many additions were: the setting as the default system PDF viewer; the new add-ons blocklist enabled to improve performance and scalability; support for RTX and Transport-cc for improved call quality in poor network conditions and better bandwidth estimation and better compatibility with many websites using WebRTC (desktop); and the return of the Back button (Android).
Firefox 81 was released on September 22, 2020, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions were: the ability to pause or play audio or video right from the keyboard or headset; the introduction of the Alpenglow theme; the ability to save, manage, and auto-fill credit card information for U.S. and Canada users; the support of Acroform, which allows users to fill in, print, and save supported PDF forms; the automatic revelation of the Bookmarks toolbar; the expansion of .xml, .svg, and .webp; and fixes for browser native HTML5 audio/video controls (desktop); and the introduction of Firefox Daylight (Android).
Firefox 82 was released on October 20, 2020, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions were: a number of improvements that make watching videos more delightful; improved performance on both page loads and start up time; saving a webpage to Pocket from the Firefox toolbar (desktop); the ability to automatically purge cookies from sites not visited in 30 days; and better support for opening links in Firefox from third-party apps (Android).
Firefox 83 was released on November 17, 2020, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions were: significant updates to SpiderMonkey and JavaScript engine and replacement of the part of the JavaScript engine that helps to compile and display websites for the user; the introduction of the HTTPS-Only Mode; the support of pinch zooming for users with Windows touchscreen devices and touchpads on Mac devices; support of keyboard shortcuts for fast forwarding and rewinding videos in Picture-in-Picture; improved user interface; improved functionality and design for a number of Firefox search features; support of Acroform (desktop); and newly supported add-ons: FoxyProxy, Bitwarden, AdGuard AdBlocker, Tomato Clock, LeechBlock NG, Web Archives, and Ghostery (Android).
Firefox 84 was released on December 15, 2020, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions were: native support for macOS devices built with Apple silicon CPUs; the rollout of WebRender to MacOS Big Sur, Windows devices with Intel Gen 6 GPUs, and Intel laptops running Windows 7 and 8, and an accelerated rendering pipeline for Linux/GNOME/X11 users for the first time; the use of more modern techniques for allocating shared memory on Linux, improving performance and increasing compatibility with Docker (desktop); the option to view open tabs side by side in a grid view; the ability to delete downloaded files within the app; the rollout of WebRender to more users on the Mali-G GPU series; and improvement of scrolling accuracy and control and fix of cases of unexpected scroll acceleration (Android).
Firefox 85 was released on January 26, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions were: protection from supercookies, a type of tracker that can stay hidden in the browser and track users online, even after they have cleared cookies; the ability to save and access bookmarks more easily; the ability of the password manager to have users remove all their saved logins with one click, as opposed to having to delete each login individually; the removal of Adobe Flash support; and added support for the :focus-visible pseudo class (desktop).
Firefox 86 was released on February 23, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions were: added support for simultaneously watching multiple videos in Picture-in-Picture; improved Print functionality with a cleaner design and better integration with the computer's printer settings; credit card management and auto-fill for users in Canada; notable performance and stability improvements achieved by moving canvas drawing and WebGL drawing to the GPU process; the removal of DTLS 1.0 support or establishing WebRTC's PeerConnections (desktop), and the introduction of Total Cookie Protection to Strict Mode (both).
Firefox 87 was released on March 23, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: the addition of SmartBlock, which provides stand-in scripts so that websites load properly; the new default HTTP Referrer policy (both); the improved "Highlight All" feature on Find in Page; full support for macOS built-in screen reader, VoiceOver; the disabling of the Backspace key as a navigation shortcut for the back navigation button; and the removal of Synced tabs, Recent highlights, and Pocket list from the Library menu (desktop); and the rollout of WebRender to more devices, with the following mobile GPUs now supported: Adreno 505, Adreno 506, Mali-T (Android).
Firefox 88 was released on April 19, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: PDF forms supporting JavaScript embedded in PDF files; localized margin units; smooth pinch-zooming using a touchpad on Linux; isolation of window.name data to the website that created it; the removal of the "Take a Screenshot" feature from the Page Actions menu in the url bar; the disabling of FTP support; a new toggle button in the Network panel for switching between JSON formatted HTTP response and raw data (desktop); and a search engine suggestion feature (Android).
Firefox 89 was released on June 1, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: core experience redesigned and remodernized to be cleaner, more inviting, and easier to use; simplified browser chrome and toolbar; clear, streamlined menus; updated prompts; inspired tab design; reduced number of alerts and messages; lighter iconography, a refined color palette, and more consistent styling throughout; enhancement of privacy of Private Browsing Mode with Total Cookie Protection; the introduction of the elastic overscroll effect known from many other applications for macOS users; added support for smart zoom; native context menus on macOS (desktop); Synced Tabs in the Tabs tray; compact menu (Android); support of Event Timing API; and support of the CSS forced-colors media query (both).
Firefox 90 was released on July 13, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: the application of updates in the background when Firefox is not running on Windows; a new page called about:third-party to help identify compatibility issues caused by third-party applications in Windows; the management of exceptions to HTTPS-Only mode in about:preferences#privacy; working hyperlinks in "Print to PDF"; Version 2 of Firefox's SmartBlock feature; the addition of software WebRender for most users without its hardware accelerated version; improved software WebRender performance; removal of FTP support; support for Private Fields in DevTools; support for Fetch Metadata Request Headers; the ability to use client authentication certificates stored in hardware tokens or in Operating System storage (desktop); the ability to save, manage, and auto-fill credit card information for users shopping on Firefox; and Back/Forward Cache (aka BFCache) for webpages that use unload event listeners (Android).
Firefox 91 through 101
Firefox 91 and Firefox 91 ESR were released on August 10, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: a build on Total Cookie Protection; support for logging into Microsoft, work, and school accounts using Windows single sign-on; the return of the Simplify page when printing feature; the addition of a new Scots locale; the address bar providing Switch to Tab results in Private Browsing windows; the automatic enable of High Contrast Mode when "Increase Contrast" is checked on MacOS; catch-up paints for almost all user interactions (desktop); the support of Javascript embedded in PDF files; the addition of SmartBlock; protection from supercookies; support of AcroForm; the removal of support for Adobe Flash (ESR); a “Set Firefox as your default browser” message on notification pane for new installs; the addition of eBay Search to help users with their shopping needs; and default autoplay setting updated to Blocking Audio Only (Android).
Firefox 92 was released on September 7, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: an automatic upgrade to HTTPS using HTTPS RR as Alt-Svc headers; support of full-range color levels for video playback on many systems; support for images containing ICC v4 profiles on macOS; access of macOS share options from the Firefox File menu; the redesign of certificate error pages for better user experience (desktop); and added support for Web Authentication API, which allows USB tokens (such as the use of USB or Bluetooth Security Key) for website authentication (Android).
Firefox 93 was released on October 5, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: support for the new AVIF image format, which is based on the modern and royalty free AV1 video codec; support for filling more forms for PDF viewer; automatic unload of tabs based on their last access time, memory usage, and other attributes for Windows when available system memory is critically low; blocking downloads that rely on insecure connections, protecting against potentially malicious or unsafe downloads; improved web compatibility for privacy protections with SmartBlock 3.0; a new referrer tracking protection in Strict Tracking Protection and Private Browsing; disabling of TLS ciphersuites that use 3DES (desktop); the addition of forward, back, and reload buttons in the toolbar on tablets; the auto-fill of logins and passwords by default; and the merging of site security and privacy info into one icon (Android).
Firefox 94 was released on November 2, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: a selection of six fun seasonal Colorways (available for a limited time only); the usage of Apple's low power mode for fullscreen video on sites such as YouTube and Twitch; the addition of about:unloads; fewer interruptions on Windows because of a background agent that will download and install updates even if Firefox is closed; improved WebGL performance and reduced power consumption for Linux users; the introduction of Site Isolation to better protect all users against side-channel attacks; support for the new Snap Layouts menus when running on Windows 11; reduced CPU usage during socket polling for HTTPS connections; faster storage initialization; improved cold startup by reducing main thread I/O (desktop); and the new Inactive Tabs feature (Android).
Firefox 95 was released on December 7, 2021, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: RLBox, a new technology that hardens Firefox against potential security vulnerabilities in third-party libraries; the addition of Firefox download from the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 and 11; reduced CPU usage on macOS in Firefox and WindowServer during event processing; reduced power usage of software decoded video on macOS, especially in fullscreen; the ability to move the Picture-in-Picture toggle button to the opposite side of the video; the enabling of Site Isolation; a User Agent override for Slack.com, which allows Firefox users to use more Call features and have access to Huddles (desktop); the new “Homepage” section in the Settings Menu; Hero Images in the "Jump Back In" section; confirmation of snack bar “Auto-close enabled” when a user enables auto-close from the tab tray; and support of Pocket (Thought Provoking Stories section) in Canada.
Firefox 96 was released on January 11, 2022, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: significant improvements in noise-suppression and auto-gain-control as well as slight improvements in echo-cancellation; reduced main-thread load; the default of all cookies to having a SameSite=lax attribute which helps defend against Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks; the selection of printing odd/even pages (desktop); history highlights to recently visited sites; the display of better images for recent bookmarks on the home page; and improved "fill link from clipboard for Android 12 (Android).
Firefox 97 was released on February 8, 2022, for desktop and Android. Among the many additions and removals were: support and display for the new style of scrollbars on Windows 11; improvements to system font loading which makes opening and switching to new tabs faster in certain situations for macOS; removal of the 18 colorway themes of Firefox 94; removal of support for directly generating PostScript for printing on Linux, with the exception of printing to Postscript printers (desktop); and the addition of a new prompt when users attempt to leave private browsing with active downloads (Android).
Firefox 102 through 109
CPU architectures
x86 family
Native 64-bit builds are officially supported on Linux, macOS, and Windows (since version 42).
Mozilla made Firefox for 64-bit Linux a priority with the release of Firefox 4, labeling it as tier 1 priority. Since being labeled tier 1, Mozilla has been providing official 64-bit releases for its browser for Linux. Vendor-backed 64-bit support has existed for Linux distributions such as Novell/SUSE Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Ubuntu prior to Mozilla's 64-bit support, even though vendors were faced with the challenge of having to turn off the 64-bit JIT compiler due to its instability prior to Firefox 4.
The official releases of Firefox for macOS are universal builds that include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the browser in one package, and have been this way since Firefox 4. A typical browsing session uses a combination of the 64-bit browser process and a 32-bit plugin process, because some popular plugins still are 32-bit. As of April 19, 2017, Firefox 53 has dropped support for 32-bit macOS.
The 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows can be used to run 32-bit Firefox. In late 2012, Mozilla announced 64-bit Windows builds would be stopped but later reversed the decision. , 64-bit Windows builds are available as 38.0 Beta and newer. 64-bit builds for Windows are officially supported as of November 2015 with the release of Firefox 42.
Other CPU architectures
Besides x86, Firefox also supported other CPU architectures including ARMv7, SPARC, PowerPC, and 68k on different tiers. Mozilla terminated support for PowerPC-based Macintosh computers with Firefox 3.6, but a third-party project known as TenFourFox ported several newer versions of Firefox, the latest being based on Firefox 45 ESR.
Mozilla Firefox timeline
Release compatibility
See also
GNU IceCat
History of free and open-source software
History of Mozilla Application Suite
Mozilla Corporation software rebranded by the Debian project
Explanatory notes
References
Further reading
Eich, Brendan (2005). "Branch Plan". Mozilla Wiki. Retrieved December 21, 2005.
External links
Mozilla Firefox release notes for each version
Mozilla Firefox developer release notes for each version
Releases from MozillaWiki
History of the Mozilla logo by Jamie Zawinski
Firefox browser for web 2.0 age, BBC News
Firefox
Firefox
Firefox
Firefox |
34808785 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos%20Fiat | Amos Fiat | Amos Fiat (born December 1, 1956) is an Israeli computer scientist, a professor of computer science at Tel Aviv University. He is known for his work in cryptography, online algorithms, and algorithmic game theory.
Biography
Fiat earned his Ph.D. in 1987 from the Weizmann Institute of Science under the supervision of Adi Shamir. After postdoctoral studies with Richard Karp and Manuel Blum at the University of California, Berkeley, he returned to Israel, taking a faculty position at Tel Aviv University.
Research
Many of Fiat's most highly cited publications concern cryptography, including his work with Adi Shamir on digital signatures (leading to the Fiat–Shamir heuristic for turning interactive identification protocols into signature schemes) and his work with David Chaum and Moni Naor on electronic money, used as the basis for the ecash system. With Shamir and Uriel Feige in 1988, Fiat invented the Feige–Fiat–Shamir identification scheme, a method for using public-key cryptography to provide challenge–response authentication.
In 1994, he was one of the first, with Moni Naor, to formally study the problem of practical broadcast encryption. Along with Benny Chor, Moni Naor and Benny Pinkas, he made a contribution to the development of Traitor tracing, a copyright infringement detection system which works by tracing the source of leaked files rather than by direct copy protection.
With Gerhard Woeginger, Fiat organized a series of Dagstuhl workshops on competitive analysis of online algorithms, and together with Woeginger he edited the book Online Algorithms: The State of the Art (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1442, Springer-Verlag, 1998). His research papers include methods for applying competitive analysis to paging, call control, data management, and the assignment of files to servers in distributed file systems.
Fiat's interest in game theory stretches back to his thesis research, which included analysis of the children's game Battleship. He has taken inspiration from the game Tetris in developing new job shop scheduling algorithms, as well as applying competitive analysis to the design of game-theoretic auctions.
Bibliography
Amos Fiat and Moni Naor, Rigorous Time/Space Tradeoffs for Inverting Functions, SIAM J. Computing 29(3), 1999, pp. 790–803.
Benny Chor, Amos Fiat, Moni Naor and Benny Pinkas, Tracing Traitors, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 46(3), pp. 893–910, 2000.
David Chaum, Amos Fiat and Moni Naor, Untraceable Electronic Cash, 1990.
Amos Fiat and Moni Naor, Broadcast Encryption, 1994.
Amos Fiat and Moni Naor, Implicit O(1) Probe Search, SIAM J. Computing 22: 1–10 (1993).
Honours and awards
2016 (with Moni Naor) Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award of the Association for Computing Machinery
References
1956 births
Living people
Israeli computer scientists
Israeli cryptographers
Tel Aviv University faculty
Theoretical computer scientists
Public-key cryptographers |
34814351 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNSCrypt | DNSCrypt | DNSCrypt is a network protocol that authenticates and encrypts Domain Name System (DNS) traffic between the user's computer and recursive name servers. It was originally designed by Frank Denis and Yecheng Fu.
Although multiple client and server implementations exist, the protocol was never proposed to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) by the way of a Request for Comments (RFC).
DNSCrypt wraps unmodified DNS traffic between a client and a DNS resolver in a cryptographic construction in order to detect forgery. Though it doesn't provide end-to-end security, it protects the local network against man-in-the-middle attacks.
It also mitigates UDP-based amplification attacks by requiring a question to be at least as large as the corresponding response. Thus, DNSCrypt helps to prevent DNS amplification attacks.
Deployment
In addition to private deployments, the DNSCrypt protocol has been adopted by several public DNS resolvers, the vast majority being members of the OpenNIC network, as well as virtual private network (VPN) services.
OpenDNS (now a part of Cisco) announced the first public DNS service supporting DNSCrypt on 6 December 2011, shortly followed by CloudNS Australia.
On 29 March 2016, Yandex announced support for the DNSCrypt protocol on their public DNS servers, as well as in Yandex Browser.
On 14 October 2016, AdGuard added DNSCrypt to their DNS filtering module so that users could move from their ISPs to custom or AdGuard's own DNS servers for online privacy and ad blocking.
On 10 September 2018, the Quad9 nonprofit public recursive resolver service announced support for DNSCrypt.
Other servers that support secure protocol are mentioned in the DNSCrypt creators’ list.
Protocol
DNSCrypt can be used either over UDP or over TCP. In both cases, its default port is 443. Even though the protocol radically differs from HTTPS, both service types utilize the same port. However, even though DNS over HTTPS and DNSCrypt are possible on the same port, they must still run separately on different servers. Two server applications cannot run simultaneously on the same server if both utilize the same port for communication; though a multiplexing approach is theoretically possible.
Instead of relying on trusted certificate authorities commonly found in web browsers, the client has to explicitly trust the public signing key of the chosen provider. This public key is used to verify a set of certificates, retrieved using conventional DNS queries. These certificates contain short-term public keys used for key exchange, as well as an identifier of the cipher suite to use. Clients are encouraged to generate a new key for every query, while servers are encouraged to rotate short-term key pairs every 24 hours.
The DNSCrypt protocol can also be used for access control or accounting, by accepting only a predefined set of public keys. This can be used by commercial DNS services to identify customers without having to rely on IP addresses.
Queries and responses are encrypted using the same algorithm and padded to a multiple of 64 bytes in order to avoid leaking packet sizes. Over UDP, when a response would be larger than the question leading to it, a server can respond with a short packet whose TC (truncated) bit has been set. The client should then retry using TCP and increase the padding of subsequent queries.
Versions 1 and 2 of the protocol use the X25519 algorithm for key exchange, EdDSA for signatures, as well as XSalsa20-Poly1305 or XChaCha20-Poly1305 for authenticated encryption.
As of 2020, there are no known vulnerabilities in the DNSCrypt protocol nor practical attacks against its underlying cryptographic constructions.
Anonymized DNSCrypt
Anonymized DNSCrypt is a protocol extension proposed in 2019 to further improve DNS privacy.
Instead of directly responding to clients, a resolver can act as a transparent proxy to another resolver, hiding the real client IP to the latter. Anonymized DNSCrypt is a lightweight alternative to Tor and SOCKS proxies, specifically designed for DNS traffic.
Deployment of Anonymized DNSCrypt started in October 2019, and the protocol adoption was fast, with 40 DNS relays being set up only two weeks after the public availability of client and server implementations.
See also
DNS over HTTPS
DNS over TLS
Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC)
Elliptic curve cryptography
Curve25519
DNSCurve
References
External links
DNSCrypt protocol specification
Domain Name System
Internet protocols |
34943644 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20features%20removed%20in%20Windows%20Phone | List of features removed in Windows Phone | While Windows Phone contains many new features, a number of capabilities and certain programs that were a part of previous versions up to Windows Mobile 6.5 were removed or changed. Until Windows Mobile 6.5, the previous version did always cover the complete feature range of the predecessor version.
The following is a list of features which were present in Windows Mobile 6.5 but were removed in Windows Phone 7.0.
Calling
The list of past phone calls is now a single list, and cannot be separated into inbound, outbound or missed calls
Sync
Windows Phone does not support USB sync with Microsoft Outlook's Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and Notes as opposed to older versions of Windows Mobile with Desktop ActiveSync. Syncing Contacts and Appointments is done via cloud-based services (Windows Live, Google, or Exchange Server), and no method to sync this information directly with a PC is provided. Third party software, such as Akruto Sync, provides some of this functionality. A petition to Microsoft was filed to reinstate USB sync for Outlook.
Other
Adobe Flash
Ability to open .exe files (desktop Windows executeables), such as 7-Zip 32-bit for desktop.
Features subsequently implemented in Windows Phone 7.5
Internet sockets
Cut, copy, and paste
Partial multitasking for 3rd party apps
Connecting to Wi-Fi (wireless) access points with hidden SSID, but without WPA
Tethering to a computer
Custom ringtones
Universal email inbox
USSD messages
VoIP calling through a separate app
Features subsequently implemented in Windows Phone 8.0
Removable SD cards
USB mass-storage
Bluetooth file transfers
Connecting to Wi-Fi (wireless) access points with both a hidden SSID and WPA protection
Sideloading for corporate apps
VoIP and IP Videocalling integrated in the Phone app
Support for Office documents with security permissions
On-device encryption
Strong passwords
Full Exchange support
Native applications
Full background multitasking
Features subsequently implemented in Windows Phone 8.1
IPsec security (VPN)
System-wide file manager
The 'Weekly' view in the Calendar app
Universal search
UMTS/LTE Videocalling
See also
List of features removed in Windows XP
List of features removed in Windows Vista
List of features removed in Windows 7
List of features removed in Windows 8
List of features removed in Windows 10
Notes
References
Windows Phone
Smartphones
Windows Phone features removed
Computing-related lists
Software features |
34945036 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishbowl%20%28secure%20phone%29 | Fishbowl (secure phone) | Fishbowl is a mobile phone architecture developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to provide a secure Voice over IP (VoIP) capability using commercial grade products that can be approved to communicate classified information. It is the first phase of NSA's Enterprise Mobility Architecture. According to a presentation at the 2012 RSA Conference by Margaret Salter, a Technical Director in the Information Assurance Directorate, "The plan was to buy commercial components, layer them together and get a secure solution. It uses solely commercial infrastructure to protect classified data." Government employees were reportedly testing 100 of the phones as of the announcement.
The initial version was implemented using Google's Android operating system, modified to ensure central control of the phone's configuration at all times. To minimize the chance of compromise, the phones use two layers of encryption protocols, IPsec and Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP), and employ NSA's Suite B encryption and authentication algorithms. USMobile has implemented commercial enterprise version of Fishbowl technology via the Scrambl3 mobile apps that run on both Android and iOS platforms.
The phones are locked down in many ways. While they use commercial wireless channels, all communications must be sent through an enterprise-managed server. No direct voice calls are allowed, except for 9-1-1 emergency calls. Only NSA approved applications from the NSA enterprise app store can be installed. NSA has published a 100-page overview specification for the Mobility Capability Package. In tandem with the Capability Package there are a series of Protection Profiles. These Protection Profiles list out the requirements a commercial product must meet to be used in the mobile phone architecture.
References
Secure communication
National Security Agency encryption devices
Android (operating system) software
Android (operating system) devices |
34953057 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows%208%20editions | Windows 8 editions | Windows 8, a major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system, was available in four different editions: Windows 8 (Core), Pro, Enterprise, and RT. Only Windows 8 (Core) and Pro were widely available at retailers. The other editions focus on other markets, such as embedded systems or enterprise. All editions except RT support 32-bit IA-32 CPUs and x64 CPUs.
Editions
Windows 8 (also sometimes referred to as Windows 8 (Core) to distinguish from the OS itself) is the basic edition of Windows for the IA-32 and x64 architectures. This edition contains features aimed at the home market segment and provides all of the basic new Windows 8 features.
Windows 8 Pro is comparable to Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate and is targeted towards enthusiasts and business users; it includes all the features of Windows 8. Additional features include the ability to receive Remote Desktop connections, the ability to participate in a Windows Server domain, Encrypting File System, Hyper-V, and Virtual Hard Disk Booting, Group Policy as well as BitLocker and BitLocker To Go. Windows Media Center functionality is available only for Windows 8 Pro as a separate software package.
Windows 8 Enterprise provides all the features in Windows 8 Pro (except the ability to install the Windows Media Center add-on), with additional features to assist with IT organization (see table below). This edition is available to Software Assurance customers, as well as MSDN and Technet Professional subscribers, and was released on 16 August 2012.
Windows RT is only available pre-installed on ARM-based devices such as tablet PCs. It includes touch-optimized desktop versions of the basic set of Office 2013 applications to users—Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, and supports device encryption capabilities. Several business-focused features such as Group Policy and domain support are not included.
Software for Windows RT can be either downloaded from Windows Store or sideloaded, although sideloading on Windows RT must first be enabled by purchasing additional licenses through Microsoft volume licensing outlet. Desktop software that run on previous versions of Windows cannot be run on Windows RT as Windows Store apps are based on Windows Runtime API which differs from the traditional apps. According to CNET, these essential differences may raise the question of whether Windows RT is an edition of Windows: in a conversation with Mozilla, Microsoft deputy general counsel David Heiner was reported to have said Windows RT "isn't Windows anymore." Mozilla general counsel, however, dismissed the assertion on the basis that Windows RT has the same user interface, application programming interface and update mechanism.
Unlike Windows Vista and Windows 7, there are no Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, or Ultimate editions.
Regional restrictions and variations
All mentioned editions have the ability to use language packs, enabling multiple user interface languages. (This functionality was previously available in Ultimate or Enterprise edition of Windows 7 and Windows Vista.) However, in China and other emerging markets, a variation of Windows 8 without this capability, called Windows 8 Single Language, is sold. This edition can be upgraded to Windows 8 Pro. Furthermore, like in Windows Phone 7, OEMs can choose not to support certain display languages either out of the box or available for download. These exact choices depend on the device manufacturer, country of purchase, and the wireless carrier. For example, a cellular-connected Samsung ATIV Smart PC running Windows 8 on AT&T only supports English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Korean (the last three are available as optional downloads).
Additional Windows 8 editions specially destined for European markets have the letter "N" (e.g. Windows 8.1 Enterprise N) suffixed to their names and do not include a bundled copy of Windows Media Player. Microsoft was required to create the "N" editions of Windows after the European Commission ruled in 2004 that it needed to provide a copy of Windows without Windows Media Player tied in.
Windows 8.1 with Bing is a reduced-cost SKU of Windows 8.1 for OEMs that was introduced in May 2014. It was introduced as part of an effort to encourage the production of low-cost devices, whilst "driving end-user usage of Microsoft Services such as Bing and OneDrive". It is subsidized by Microsoft's Bing search engine, which is set as the default within Internet Explorer, and cannot be changed to a third-party alternative by the OEM. This restriction does not apply to end-users, who can still change the default search engine freely after installation. It is otherwise identical to the base edition.
Editions for embedded systems
Windows Embedded 8 Standard is a componentized edition of Windows 8 with for use in and on specialized devices. Windows Embedded 8 Standard was released on 20 March 2013.
Windows Embedded 8 Industry is suited to power industry devices such as; ATMs, control panels, kiosks, and POS terminals. Windows Embedded 8 Industry was released on 2 April 2013. Available, Pro, Pro Retail, and Enterprise editions
Upgrade compatibility
The following in-place upgrade paths are supported from Windows 7. Note that it is only possible to upgrade from an IA-32 variant of Windows 7 to an IA-32 variant of Windows 8; an x64 variant of Windows 7 can only be upgraded to an x64 variant of Windows 8. The retail package entitled Windows 8 Pro Upgrade was restricted to upgrading a computer with licensed Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Finally, there is no upgrade path for Windows RT.
In-upgrade is not available for Windows Vista and Windows XP. However, on Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista RTM, it is possible to perform a clean install while preserving personal files. On Windows Vista SP1, it is possible to perform a clean install but save system settings as well. While Microsoft still refers to the scenarios as "upgrade", the user still need to reinstall all apps, carry out necessary license activation steps and reinstate app settings.
Comparison chart
Notes
References
8
de:Microsoft Windows 8#Editionen |
34971940 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimble%20Storage | Nimble Storage | Nimble Storage, founded in 2008, produced hardware and software products for data storage, specifically data storage arrays that use the iSCSI and Fibre Channel protocols and includes data backup and data protection features. Nimble is now a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
History
Nimble Storage was founded in January 2008 by Varun Mehta and Umesh Maheshwari. Nimble announced its first product, the CS200 series hybrid arrays, in July 2010 at Tech Field Day.
In September 2012, Nimble Storage secured $40.7 million from original backers as well as new investors Artis Capital Management and GGV Capital.
Varun Mehta was chief executive until March 2011, when he became vice president of engineering and Suresh Vasudevan became CEO. Umesh Maheshwari became chief technology officer.
In October 2013 the company filed for its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Nimble Storage went public on the NYSE on December 13, 2013, under the ticker symbol NMBL.
In June 2014, Nimble Storage announced the CS700 Series Arrays and an All-Flash Shelf, as well as its Adaptive Flash technology.
In August 2014, Nimble Storage completed an overhaul of their CS-Series, and added the CS300 and CS500 to their line-up.
In November 2014, Nimble Storage released arrays supporting the Fibre Channel protocol.
In July 2015, Nimble Storage announced updates to the Adaptive Flash platform, including Nimble SmartSecure (software-based encryption), all-flash service levels, the addition of REST APIs, InfoSight-VMVision per-VM monitoring, and integrated data protection.
In August 2015, Nimble Storage announces the completion of Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 Certification from the National Institute of Standards and Technology for the Adaptive Flash platform.
In November, 2015, Nimble Storage was sixth on Deloitte's ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, and energy tech companies in North America.
In December 2015, Nimble Storage announced an expanded SmartStack technology for Cisco Systems products.
On February 23, 2016, Nimble Storage unveiled the Predictive All Flash Array series, combining fast flash performance with InfoSight Predictive Analytics.
On August 10, 2016, Nimble Storage announced the AF-1000 Series All Flash array as well as an updated CS-Series Adaptive Flash array portfolio.
On October 17, 2016, Lenovo announced a strategic partnership with Nimble Storage. The first line of offerings from this partnership is the ThinkAgile CX Series solution.
On March 7, 2017, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced they are to buy Nimble Storage for approx $1.09 billion cash. The acquisition became final on April 5, 2017.
Products
All Flash Arrays
Nimble Storage's AF-Series arrays utilize flash performance as well as InfoSight Predictive Analytics. The AF-Series has product lines for data centers with different configurations based on the desired workload. The product lines are AF1000, AF3000, AF5000, AF7000, and AF9000.
Adaptive Flash Arrays
The Nimble CS-Series iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage array has 4 product lines for data centers available in each CS-Series. The product lines are CS200, CS300, CS500, and CS700 and combine both HDDs with SSDs in a hybrid fashion. In August, 2016, Nimble Storage updated their CS-Series arrays to the following: CS1000/H, CS3000, CS5000, and CS7000. Nimble Storage also provides an All-Flash Shelf to add to CS-Series arrays.
Secondary Flash Arrays
The Secondary Flash Array was the first new Nimble product to be launched post merger with HPE. It is a hybrid system based around the standard Nimble architecture but with enhanced dedupe. The product is intended as a target for backups
SmartStack reference architectures
Nimble Storage provides SmartStack integrated infrastructure technology for Cisco Systems. Jointly developed by Cisco and Nimble Storage, these SmartStack integrates compute, network, and storage resources. SmartStack provides Cisco Validated Designs and reference architectures that address the following workloads: desktop virtualization (or VDI), server virtualization and cloud computing, business-critical applications, Oracle database and applications, and SAP HANA.
Technology
NimbleOS
NimbleOS is Nimble's operating system heavily dependent on a patented file-system architecture, cache accelerated sequential layout (CASL). NimbleOS includes: flexible flash scaling, adaptive flash service levels, dynamic flash-based read caching, write-optimized data layout, inline compression, scale-to-fit flexibility, scale out, snapshots and integrated data protection, efficient replication, deduplication, and zero-copy clones.
InfoSight Predictive Analytics
InfoSight is Nimble Storage's storage management and predictive analytics portal. It is designed to help with storage resource management as well as customer support.
InfoSight consists of:
The InfoSight Engine: a data collection and analysis engine composed of data analytics, system modeling capabilities, and predictive algorithms.
The InfoSight Portal: a secure online portal which serves as a window into the InfoSight Engine.
Proactive Wellness: proactive alerts for system health, performance, and protection gaps.
Unified Flash Fabric
Nimble Storage's Unified Flash Fabric unifies Nimble's All Flash and Adaptive Flash arrays into a single consolidation architecture with common data services. This architecture is built upon existing CASL architecture and InfoSight.
References
External links
HPE Nimble Storage web page
Computer companies established in 2008
American companies established in 2008
Computer companies of the United States
Manufacturing companies based in San Jose, California
Computer storage companies
Storage Area Network companies
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise acquisitions
2017 mergers and acquisitions |
34973773 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser%20security | Browser security | Browser security is the application of Internet security to web browsers in order to protect networked data and computer systems from breaches of privacy or malware. Security exploits of browsers often use JavaScript, sometimes with cross-site scripting (XSS) with a secondary payload using Adobe Flash. Security exploits can also take advantage of vulnerabilities (security holes) that are commonly exploited in all browsers (including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Safari).
Security
Web browsers can be breached in one or more of the following ways:
Operating system is breached and malware is reading/modifying the browser memory space in privilege mode
Operating system has a malware running as a background process, which is reading/modifying the browser memory space in privileged mode
Main browser executable can be hacked
Browser components may be hacked
Browser plugins can be hacked
Browser network communications could be intercepted outside the machine
The browser may not be aware of any of the breaches above and may show user a safe connection is made.
Whenever a browser communicates with a website, the website, as part of that communication, collects some information about the browser (in order to process the formatting of the page to be delivered, if nothing else). If malicious code has been inserted into the website's content, or in a worst-case scenario, if that website has been specifically designed to host malicious code, then vulnerabilities specific to a particular browser can allow this malicious code to run processes within the browser application in unintended ways (and remember, one of the bits of information that a website collects from a browser communication is the browser's identity- allowing specific vulnerabilities to be exploited). Once an attacker is able to run processes on the visitor's machine, then exploiting known security vulnerabilities can allow the attacker to gain privileged access (if the browser isn't already running with privileged access) to the "infected" system in order to perform an even greater variety of malicious processes and activities on the machine or even the victim's whole network.
Breaches of web browser security are usually for the purpose of bypassing protections to display pop-up advertising collecting personally identifiable information (PII) for either Internet marketing or identity theft, website tracking or web analytics about a user against their will using tools such as web bugs, Clickjacking, Likejacking (where Facebook's like button is targeted), HTTP cookies, zombie cookies or Flash cookies (Local Shared Objects or LSOs); installing adware, viruses, spyware such as Trojan horses (to gain access to users' personal computers via cracking) or other malware including online banking theft using man-in-the-browser attacks.
In depth study of vulnerabilities in Chromium web-browser indicates that, Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) and Improper Access Control (CWE-284) are the most occurring root causes for security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, among vulnerabilities examined at the time of this study, 106 vulnerabilities occurred in Chromium because of reusing or importing vulnerable versions of third party libraries.
Vulnerabilities in the web browser software itself can be minimized by keeping browser software updated, but will not be sufficient if the underlying operating system is compromised, for example, by a rootkit. Some subcomponents of browsers such as scripting, add-ons, and cookies are particularly vulnerable ("the confused deputy problem") and also need to be addressed.
Following the principle of defence in depth, a fully patched and correctly configured browser may not be sufficient to ensure that browser-related security issues cannot occur. For example, a rootkit can capture keystrokes while someone logs into a banking website, or carry out a man-in-the-middle attack by modifying network traffic to and from a web browser. DNS hijacking or DNS spoofing may be used to return false positives for mistyped website names, or to subvert search results for popular search engines. Malware such as RSPlug simply modifies a system's configuration to point at rogue DNS servers.
Browsers can use more secure methods of network communication to help prevent some of these attacks:
DNS: DNSSec and DNSCrypt, for example with non-default DNS servers such as Google Public DNS or OpenDNS.
HTTP: HTTP Secure and SPDY with digitally signed public key certificates or Extended Validation Certificates.
Perimeter defenses, typically through firewalls and the use of filtering proxy servers that block malicious websites and perform antivirus scans of any file downloads, are commonly implemented as a best practice in large organizations to block malicious network traffic before it reaches a browser.
The topic of browser security has grown to the point of spawning the creation of entire organizations, such as The Browser Exploitation Framework Project, creating platforms to collect tools to breach browser security, ostensibly in order to test browsers and network systems for vulnerabilities.
Plugins and extensions
Although not part of the browser per se, browser plugins and extensions extend the attack surface, exposing vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player, Adobe (Acrobat) Reader, Java plugin, and ActiveX that are commonly exploited. Researchers have extensively studied the security architecture of various web-browsers in particular those relying on plug-and-play designs. This study has identified 16 common vulnerability types, and 19 potential mitigations. Malware may also be implemented as a browser extension, such as a browser helper object in the case of Internet Explorer. Browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox can block—or warn users of—insecure plugins.
Adobe Flash
An August 2009 study by the Social Science Research Network found that 50% of websites using Flash were also employing Flash cookies, yet privacy policies rarely disclosed them, and user controls for privacy preferences were lacking. Most browsers' cache and history delete functions do not affect Flash Player's writing Local Shared Objects to its own cache, and the user community is much less aware of the existence and function of Flash cookies than HTTP cookies. Thus, users having deleted HTTP cookies and purged browser history files and caches may believe that they have purged all tracking data from their computers while in fact Flash browsing history remains. As well as manual removal, the BetterPrivacy add-on for Firefox can remove Flash cookies. Adblock Plus can be used to filter out specific threats and Flashblock can be used to give an option before allowing content on otherwise trusted sites.
Charlie Miller recommended "not to install Flash" at the computer security conference CanSecWest. Several other security experts also recommend to either not install Adobe Flash Player or to block it.
Password security model
The contents of a web page are arbitrary and controlled by the entity owning the domain named displayed in the address bar. If HTTPS is used, then encryption is used to secure against attackers with access to the network from changing the page contents en route. When presented with a password field on a web page, a user is supposed to look at the address bar to determine whether the domain name in the address bar is the correct place to send the password. For example, for Google's single sign-on system (used on e.g. youtube.com), the user should always check that the address bar says "https://accounts.google.com" before inputting their password.
An un-compromised browser guarantees that the address bar is correct. This guarantee is one reason why browsers will generally display a warning when entering fullscreen mode, on top of where the address bar would normally be, so that a fullscreen website cannot make a fake browser user interface with a fake address bar.
Hardware browser
There have been attempts to market hardware-based browsers running from non-writable, read-only file systems. Data cannot be stored on the device and the media cannot be overwritten, presenting a clean executable each time it loads. The first such device was the ZeusGard Secure Hardware Browser, released in late 2013. The ZeusGard website has not been functional since mid-2016. Another device, the iCloak® Stik from the iCloak website provides a complete Live OS which completely replaces the computer's entire operating system and offers two web browsers from the read-only system. With iCloak they provide the Tor browser for Anonymous browsing as well as a regular Firefox browser for non-anonymous browsing. Any non-secured web traffic (not using https, for example), could still be subject to man-in-the-middle alteration or other network traffic-based manipulations.
LiveCD
LiveCDs, which run an operating system from a non-writable source, typically come with Web browsers as part of their default image. If the original LiveCD image is free of malware, all of the software used, including the Web browser, will load free of malware every time the LiveCD image is booted.
Browser hardening
Browsing the Internet as a least-privilege user account (i.e. without administrator privileges) limits the ability of a security exploit in a web browser from compromising the whole operating system.
Internet Explorer 4 and later allows the blacklisting and whitelisting of ActiveX controls, add-ons and browser extensions in various ways.
Internet Explorer 7 added "protected mode", a technology that hardens the browser through the application of a security sandboxing feature of Windows Vista called Mandatory Integrity Control.
Google Chrome provides a sandbox to limit web page access to the operating system.
Suspected malware sites reported to Google, and confirmed by Google, are flagged as hosting malware in certain browsers.
There are third-party extensions and plugins available to harden even the latest browsers, and some for older browsers and operating systems. Whitelist-based software such as NoScript can block JavaScript and Adobe Flash which is used for most attacks on privacy, allowing users to choose only sites they know are safe - AdBlock Plus also uses whitelist ad filtering rules subscriptions, though both the software itself and the filtering list maintainers have come under controversy for by-default allowing some sites to pass the pre-set filters. The US-CERT recommends to block Flash using NoScript.
Fuzzing
Modern web browsers undergo extensive fuzzing to uncover vulnerabilities. The Chromium code of Google Chrome is continuously fuzzed by the Chrome Security Team with 15,000 cores. For Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer, Microsoft performed fuzzed testing with 670 machine-years during product development, generating more than 400 billion DOM manipulations from 1 billion HTML files.
Best practice
Load clean software: Boot from a known clean OS that has a known clean Web browser
Adopt adequate countermeasures against the Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) vulnerability (example patches are provided for WebKit-based browsers)
Prevent attacks via third-party software: Use a hardened Web browser or add-on-free-browsing mode
Prevent DNS manipulation: Use trusted and secure DNS
Avoid website-based exploits: Employ link-checking browser plug-ins commonly found in internet security software
Avoid malicious content: Employ perimeter defenses and anti-malware software
See also
Filter bubble
Frame injection
Identity driven networking
Internet safety
Network security policy
Web application security
References
Further reading
Web browsers
Web security exploits
Internet security |
34996727 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netskope | Netskope | Netskope is an American software company providing a computer security platform. The platform offers cloud-native solutions to businesses for data protection and defense against threats in cloud applications, cloud infrastructure, and the web. Netskope is considered a "leader in its field" status for its Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) product from Gartner.
Netskope is based in Santa Clara, California, with a software development facility in Bangalore, India, and further offices in San Francisco, Redmond, New York, St. Louis, London, Melbourne, Leganés and Singapore.
History
Netskope was founded in 2012 by Sanjay Beri (current CEO), Lebin Cheng, Ravi Ithal, and Krishna Narayanaswamy with an initial venture capital of approximately $21m. In October 2013, one year after being founded, Netskope launched its first openly available security software. In that same month, it announced the formation of an advisory team and appointed Enrique Salem, former Symantec chairman and CEO to its board of directors. In 2014, Netskope raised $35m in funding. By mid-2015, the company announced plans to expand to the Australia and New Zealand market and in September, Netskope raised a further $75m in a round led by ICONIQ Capital.
In 2016, the first two patents were issued to Netskope - Patents 9,270,765 and 9,398,102 for security for network delivered services. In June 2017, Netskope closed the most successful funding round yet, securing $100m in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The following month, Netskope acquired Sift Security, also a software company with a focus on next-generation cloud infrastructure security. The acquisition brought Sift’s IaaS ‘Cloud Hunter’ into Netskope’s Security Cloud. A year later, in June 2018, Patent 9,928,377 for context-aware data loss prevention was issued to Netskope. 2018 also saw another round of funding for Netskope, as the company raised a further $168.7m in November.
In 2019, former Citrix and Fortinet executive Drew Del Matto was appointed CFO of Netskope. In February 2020, just before the release of the Netskope Private Access solution to the general public, the company raised $340m in additional investment in a round led by Sequoia Capital Global Equities. This brings the funding to-date to a total of $740m.
As of February 2020, the company is valued at almost $3 billion – having tripled its valuation over the period of 15 months. Overall, Netskope has experienced an average of 80% year-over-year growth in number of customers, which include 25% of the Fortune 100 companies.
Netskope has been named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers and made the Forbes Cloud 100 list.
In September 2020, Cybersecurity and Exclusive Networks have signed a distribution deal with Netskope. The arrangement would dramatically help the growing company demand for the Netskope Security Platform.
Technology and products
The Netskope cloud security platform is aimed at providing enterprises with threat protection, data loss protection, visibility, and real-time insights across cloud services, including Microsoft’s Azure platform, Google Cloud, and Amazon AWS. API-supported applications include Cisco WebEx, Dropbox, GitHub, Google Drive, Gmail, Microsoft OneDrive, Office 365, Salesforce and SharePoint, Slack, among others.
Netskope software uses a SaaS (software as a service) model, delivered via a distributed cloud in SOC-2 and SOC-3 data centers. It steers cloud and Web traffic to a cloud-native service for inspection and policy enforcement. Clients of Netskope log into the software via a web browser interface where they can access reports and analytics on cloud, cloud usage, compliance, and set policies to control and secure specific usage behavior or alert an administrator.
Netskope has different deployment options for traffic steering for analysis and policy control. These include log ingestion, API connectors, an agent-less forward proxy, reverse proxy, as well as a thin client (“agent”) and profile for remote users on PCs or mobile devices, and GRE and IPsec tunneling. Netskope can enforce policies including data loss prevention (DLP), anti-malware, encryption, access control, and incident management services on the cloud and web traffic it inspects.
The platform includes a cloud-native component named a Next Generation Secure Web Gateway – combining Netskope’s original CASB inline technology with inline web gateway, threat protection and data loss prevention services. In July 2019, Netskope added NewEdge into its platform – network infrastructure with a goal of improving user experience via high-capacity and low-latency. NewEdge provides real-time security that is delivered using an SDN overlay. At the time of release, NewEdge had 50 points of presence, totaling over 100Tb/s total capacity.
Secure access to private enterprise applications was added with the Private Access product, first introduced in June 2019 and made generally available in February 2020.
References
Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Companies based in Santa Clara County, California
Cloud computing providers
Cloud computing
Cloud platforms
Software companies of the United States |
34998420 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content%20protection%20network | Content protection network | A content protection network (also called content protection system or web content protection) is a term for anti-web scraping services provided through a cloud infrastructure. A content protection network is claimed to be a technology that protects websites from unwanted web scraping, web harvesting, blog scraping, data harvesting, and other forms of access to data published through the world wide web. A good content protection network will use various algorithms, checks, and validations to distinguish between desirable search engine web crawlers and human beings on the one hand, and Internet bots and automated agents that perform unwanted access on the other hand.
A few web application firewalls have begun to implement limited bot detection capabilities.
History
The protection of copyrighted content has a long tradition, but technical tricks and mechanisms are more recent developments. For example, maps have sometimes been drawn with deliberate mistakes to protect the authors' copyright if someone else copies the map without permission. In 1998, a system called SiteShield eased the fears of theft and illicit re-use expressed by content providers who publish copyright-protected images on their websites. A research report published in November 2000 by IBM was one of the first to document a working system for web content protection, called WebGuard.
Around 2002, several companies in the music recording industry had been issuing non-standard compact discs with deliberate errors burned into them, as copy protection measures. Google also notably installed an automated system to help detect and block YouTube video uploads with content that entail copyright infringement.
However, as individuals and enterprises engaged in computer crime have become more skilled and sophisticated, they erode the effectiveness of established perimeter-based security controls. The response is more pervasive use of data encryption technologies. Forrester Research asserted in 2011 that there is an industry-wide "drive toward consolidated content security platforms", and they predict in 2012 that "proliferating malware threats will require better threat intelligence". Forrester also asserts that content protection networks (especially in the form of software as a service, or SaaS) enable companies to protect against both e-mail and web-borne theft of content. In some web applications, security is defined by URL patterns that identify protected content. For example, using the web.xml security-constraint element, content could be assigned values of NONE, INTEGRAL, and CONFIDENTIAL to describe the necessary transport guarantees.
See also
Digital rights management
Internet security
Web harvesting
Web scraping
References
Internet terminology
World Wide Web |
34999299 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr.%20Dobb%27s%20Excellence%20in%20Programming%20Award | Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award | The Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award was an annual prize given to individuals who, in the opinion of the editors of Dr. Dobb's Journal, "made significant contributions to the advancement of software development." The Excellence in Programming Award includes a $1,000 prize that was donated in the award winner's name to a charity of the winner's choice.
The award was launched in 1995 in the print edition of Dr. Dobb's Journal and was given each year until 2009. In his March 1995 article introducing the awards, then editor-in-chief Jonathan Erickson wrote that the award was intended to recognize "achievement and excellence in the field of computer programming." Erickson explained that the winners were "selected by a special editorial committee" of the magazine.
Because Dr. Dobb's serves an audience of software developers, the Excellence in Programming Award is specifically intended to recognize resources for programmers: languages, code libraries, tutorial books, and so on. Developers of shrinkwrap software intended for retail sale, custom software for corporate use, embedded software, or general-purpose applications were not considered for the award.
The Excellence in Programming Award was intended to recognize individual contributions. Dr. Dobb's sponsors a different award, the Jolt Awards, for companies that produce tools for programmers.
Recipients
2013
No award listed as of Feb 3, 2014.
2012
Ward Cunningham
2010 - 11
No award.
2009
Scott Meyers, author of Effective C++, () More Effective C++ () and Effective STL (). Dr. Dobb's editor Jonathan Erickson identified Meyers as "one of the world's foremost experts on C++ software development," noting that in addition to his best-selling books, the writer provided training and consulting services to clients, developed a tutorial CD for C++ programmers, served as consulting editor for Addison Wesley's Effective Software Development Series, and wrote for numerous magazines. "A programmer since 1972," Erickson wrote, Meyers "holds an M.S. in computer science from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from Brown University."
2008
Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of the C++ programming language. Dr. Dobb's editor-at-large Michael Swaine wrote that C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup was "someone whose values, efforts, and achievements are an inspiration to all programmers." Swaine continued: "Through his proclivity for putting theory into practice, his vision in matching the tool to the need, his respect for the intelligence and opinions of the working programmer, and his tireless work in advancing the art and science of software development, Bjarne Stroustrup most assuredly serves as a model for excellence in programming."
2007
Grady Booch, for contributions to object-oriented programming, software architecture, and modeling. Grady Booch, wrote Dr. Dobb's editor-at-large Michael Swaine, "is someone whose work is familiar to every serious programmer." Swaine noted that Booch had achieved international recognition for his contributions to the software development process and for significant achievements in object-oriented programming, software architecture, and modeling.
2006
Bruce Schneier, contributions to cryptography and computer security. Dr. Dobb's editor Jonathan Erickson cited Bruce Schneier's "many important contributions" to computer security, including the Blowfish and Twofish encryption algorithms. Erickson also noted that Schneier was the author of eight books, including Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C (), which he termed "a seminal work for software developers."
2005
Guy L. Steele, Jr., for a lifetime of contributions to programming languages, tools, and operating systems. Guy Steele did not receive the Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming award for his work on a specific language, tool, or operating system, wrote editor Jonathan Erickson, "but for the breadth of his contributions over the years." These contribution include writing books on Lisp, C, Fortran, and Java; collaborating on the initial specification for Java and Scheme; designing the original Emacs command set; and serving on accredited standards committees for C, Fortran, Common Lisp, and Scheme.
2004
P.J. Plauger, author, substantive contributor to C and C++ standards. P.J. Plauger, wrote Dr. Dobb's editor Jonathan Erickson, "is an individual familiar to all serious programmers." Erickson praised Plauger for more than 20 years of playing "an integral role in the definition, design, and implementation" of C and C++. In addition, Plauger authored or coauthored invaluable books for programmers, including Elements of Programming Style (), Software Tools in Pascal (), The Standard C Library () Programming on Purpose (), The Draft Standard C++ Library (), Standard C: A Reference () and The C++ Standard Template Library ().
2003
Don Chamberlin, database pioneer, creator of SQL. In announcing Chamberlin's award, Dr. Dobb's editor Jonathan Erickson praised the programmer not only for creating the database query language SQL, but for the document editor and formatter Quill, and for devising the XML query language Quilt, which is the basis of XQuery. Erickson wrote that Chamberlin "reminds us that a mix of technology, innovation, vision, and cooperative spirit continue to be fundamental to advancement in software development."
2002
Adele Goldberg, contributor to the Smalltalk language, author, founding CEO of ParcPlace Systems, and Dan Ingalls, principal architect of Smalltalk virtual machines and kernel systems. "Although we take objects for granted today," Dr. Dobb's noted, "these two researchers helped to bring object-oriented programming into the real world for the first time...from the highest level of users and their information modeling needs to the lowest levels of syntax, compilation, and efficient message passing." Working together at Xerox PARC, these two pioneers "each recognized in their own way the promise of objects, and they were in a unique position to put those theories into practice in an architecture based on objects at every level."
2001
Anders Hejlsberg, compiler writer, author of Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C#, and (years after receiving the award) TypeScript. Dr. Dobb's editor Jonathan Erickson outlined Anders Hejlsberg's contributions to the programming world by summarizing his work history: "Currently a distinguished engineer in Microsoft's developer division," Erickson wrote, "Hejlsberg is best known as author of Borland's Turbo Pascal, the ground-breaking development environment of the early 1980s, and chief architect of its successor, Delphi. After his move to Microsoft in 1996, Hejlsberg became the architect of Visual J++ and the Windows Foundation Classes. Hejlsberg currently works as the chief designer of the C# programming language and is a key participant in the development of the .NET framework."
2000
Jon Bentley, researcher and author of Programming Pearls () and More Programming Pearls (). In his article announcing the Excellence in Programming Award winner for 2000, Dr. Dobb's editor Jonathan Erickson called Jon Bentley "one of the most respected and prolific researchers in the field of computer science." Erickson continued: "What's unique about Bentley's contribution to the art and craft of computer programming is how he has struck a balance between academic research on one hand, and real-world programming on the other...Bentley is a recipient of this year's award not just for the quality of his research and code, but for his ongoing commitment to sharing the fruits of his efforts with fellow programmers."
1999
Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language, and Donald Becker, chief investigator of the Beowulf Project, which achieved supercomputer performance using networks of inexpensive Linux-based PCs. "As creator of the Python programming language," Dr. Dobb's noted, "Guido van Rossum has given software developers a tool that addresses many of the shortcomings of more well-known and mainstream languages...Python makes it extremely easy to build complex data structures out of objects, lists, dictionaries, and the like. It is particularly useful for system administration, building GUIs, scripting, database programming, and rapid prototyping." Erickson detailed Donald Becker's contributions to the programming world by describing the problem Becker set out to solve: "One of the challenges in the realm of scientific computing is to efficiently and affordably handle large data sets," Erickson wrote. "To tackle the problem, Donald Becker and Thomas Sterling launched the Beowulf Project, a cluster computer consisting of high-performance PCs built from off-the-shelf components, connected via Ethernet, and running under Linux. Ultimately, the goal of the Beowulf approach was to achieve supercomputer (gigaflop) performance at PC prices."
1998
The “Gang of Four” – Richard Helm, Erich Gamma, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides – authors of Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. "Although they did not invent design patterns or even write the first book on the subject," wrote Jonathan Erickson, "the Gang of Four's Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software can be credited with bringing patterns into the mainstream of software development." Erickson continued: "Coinciding with the rush to the object paradigm, Design Patterns quickly became a classic, selling more than 100,000 copies since publication. Although numerous books on software-design patterns have been published since, none have matched the stature or acceptance of the Gang of Four's Design Patterns.
1997
Ron Rivest, cryptographer, co-creator of the RSA standard, and Gary Kildall, pioneering author of the CP/M operating system. "Along with Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, Ronald L. Rivest is perhaps best known as an inventor of the RSA public-key cryptosystem," wrote Dr. Dobb's editor Jonathan Erickson. "The RSA cryptosystem has formed the basis of a variety of security-related tools from RSA Data Security, a company Ron helped launch. Ron currently serves as a director of the company. RSA software is generally acknowledged as one of the leading commercially available crypto and security toolsets, and has been adopted by third-party software companies worldwide." Computer-industry pioneer Gary Kildall, Erickson wrote, had the kind of career "of which legends are made." Dr. Dobb's credited Kildall with the introduction of operating systems with preemptive multitasking, windowing capabilities, and menu-driven user interfaces; creating the first floppy-disk track buffering scheme, read-ahead algorithms, file directory caches, and RAM disk emulators; defining the first programming language and writing the first compiler specifically for microprocessors; creating the first microprocessor disk operating system; creating the first computer interface for video disks to allow automatic nonlinear playback, presaging today's interactive multimedia; developing the file system and data structures for the first consumer CD-ROM; creating the first successful open system architecture by segregating system-specific hardware interfaces in a set of BIOS routines, ushering in the third-party software industry; and creating the CP/M operating system.
1996
Larry Wall, author of the Perl programming language, and James Gosling, chief architect of Java. Larry Wall's Perl, wrote Dr. Dobb's editor Jonathan Erickson, "the general-purpose scripting language Larry [Wall] created nearly a decade ago, has been described as the 'Swiss-Army chain-saw' of UNIX tools. Over time, it has become the language of choice among system administrators for quickly cobbling utility programs together." Gosling's Java, Erickson wrote, "has been endorsed by virtually every major software vendor. What Java delivers, and what has developers excited, is the capability to compile programs into a binary format that can be executed on many platforms without recompilation — embedded executable content, in other words."
1995
Alexander Stepanov, creator of the C++ Standard Template Library, and Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating system. "In developing the C++ Standard Template Library," wrote Dr. Dobb's editor Jonathan Erickson, Alexander Stepanov "has created a body of work that in all likelihood will touch most mainstream programmers for years to come...STL implements a programming model which provides an orthogonal view of data structures and algorithms, as opposed to object-oriented encapsulation. Although the ideas behind STL are not new, it took someone with Alexander's vision, perseverance, and experience — along with the new generation of C++ tools — to turn the promise of generic programming into reality." Of Linux creator Torvalds, Erickson wrote: "[T]he real significance of Linus's work is that almost single-handedly, he was able to implement true innovation in kernel design (particularly when it comes to features such as on-demand loading of system services) while achieving 100 percent UNIX System V compatibility when no other "
."
See also
List of computer-related awards
References
External links
Dr. Dobbs: Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award
Microsoft News Center: Microsoft's Anders Hejlsberg Receives Prestigious Excellence in Programming Award
kimmicblog: Zen and the Art of Software: The Innovation Interview with Grady Booch
LWN.net: Stroustrup presented with Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming award
Bjarne Stroustrup's home page
Amazon.com author page for Scott Meyers
Smalltalk.org: Adele Goldberg and Dan Ingalls win 2002 Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Awards
Digital Research: An Homage to Gary Kildall
Aristeia.com: Home page of Scott Meyers
IBM Rational expert Grady Booch
Bruce Schneier on Security
Oracle Labs: Dr. Guy Steele
P.J. Plauger's home page
IBM Almaden Research Center: Don Chamberlin
International Computer Science Institute: Adele Goldberg
Blog: What's Up with Dan Ingalls
Anders Hejlsberg at Microsoft Developer Network's Channel 9
Avaya Labs: Jon Bentley, Research Scientist
Python.org: Guido van Rossum's home page
Ronald Rivest at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
BusinessWeek: Gary Kildall, the Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates
Larry Wall's home page
James Gosling's blog
Linus Torvald's home page
Computer-related awards |
35164689 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojette%20Transform | Mojette Transform | The Mojette Transform is an application of discrete geometry. More specifically, it is a discrete and exact version of the Radon transform, thus a projection operator.
The IRCCyN laboratory - UMR CNRS 6597 in Nantes, France has been developing it since 1994.
The first characteristic of the Mojette Transform is using only additions and subtractions. The second characteristic is that the Mojette Transform is redundant, spreading the initial geometrical information into several projections.
This transform uses discrete geometry in order to dispatch information onto a discrete geometrical support. This support is then projected by the Mojette operator along discrete directions. When enough projections are available, the initial information can be reconstructed.
The Mojette transform has been already used in numerous applications domains:
Medical tomography
Network packet transfer
Distributed storage on disks or networks
Image fingerprinting and image cryptography schemes
History
After one year of research, the first communication introducing the Mojette Transform was held in May 1995 in the first edition of CORESA National Congress CCITT Rennes. Many others will follow it for 18 years of existence. In 2011, the book The Mojette Transform: Theory and Applications at ISTE-Wiley was well received by the scientific community. All this support has encouraged the IRCCyN research team to continue the research on this topic.
Jeanpierre Guédon, professor and inventor of the transform called it: "Mojette Transform". The word "Mojette" comes from the name of white beans in Vendee, originally written "Moghette" or "Mojhette". In many countries, bean is a basic educational tool representing an exact unit that teaches visually additions and subtractions. Therefore, the choice of the name "Mojette" serves to emphasize the fact that the transform uses only exact unit in additions and subtractions.
There is an old French saying in Vendee: "counting his mojettes", meaning to know how to count his money. It is quite amazing that in the English-speaking world, the words "bean counter" refers to a non-zealous official making additions. An old English expression says "he knows how many beans make five", which means: "He knows his stuff".
The original purpose of the Mojette Transform was to create a discrete tool to divide the Fourier plane into angular and radial sectors. The first attempt of application was the psychovisual encoding of image, reproducing the human vision channel. However, it was never realized.
Mathematics
The "raw" transform Mojette definition is this:
The following figure 1 helps to explain the “raw” transform Mojette.
We start with the function f represented by 16 pixels from p1 to p16. The possible values of the function at the point (k, l) are different according to the applications. This can be a binary value of 0 or 1 that it often used to differentiate the object and the background. This can be a ternary value as in the Mojette game. This can be also a finite set of integers value from 0 to (n-1), or more often we take a set of cardinality equal to a power of 2 or a prime number. But it can be integers and real numbers with an infinite number of possibilities, even though this idea has never been used.
With the index "k" as "kolumn" and “l” as a “line”, we define a Cartesian coordinate system. But here we will only need the integer coordinates. On Figure 2, we have arbitrarily chosen the left bottom point as the origin (0,0) and the direction of the two axes. The coordinates of each pixel are denoted in red on Figure 2.
For the projections, the coordinate system is derived from the one of the grid. Indeed, it meets two requirements:
1) The pixel (0,0) is always projected on the point 0 of the projection (this is a consequence of linearity of the Mojette operator)
2) The direction of the projection is fixed "counterclockwise" as in trigonometry when going from 0 ° to 180 °.
Altogether, it necessarily gives the positions of the bins like the ones in blue color on the Figure 2.
Let’s head back to the formula (1): the red dots correspond to the index (k, l) and the blue dots to the index b. The only elements remaining to clarify are the (p, q) values.
These two values (p, q) are precisely those characterizing the Mojette Transform. They define the projection angle. Figure 3 shows colored arrows corresponding with the color code to the projection indexed by (p, q). For the 90° angle, the projection is shown below the grid for convenience but the direction is upward. Table 1 shows the correspondence between the angles in degrees and the values of p and q.
Table 1 : The correspondence of the angles projections with direction equation b + qk - pl = 0
The only valid Mojette angles are given by the following rules:
An angle is given by the direction of projection in line and column
A direction is composed of two integers (p, q) with gcd (p, q) = 1
An angle is always between 0 and 180 °, which means that q is never negative
These rules ensure the uniqueness in the correspondence of an angle and (p, q) values. For example, the 45 ° angle, the Rule 2 forbid to define the angle pairs (2,2) or (3,3) and Rule 3 prohibits to use (-2, -2) and (-1, -1). Only the angle (p = 1, q = 1) satisfies the three rules.
Applications & Achievements
The distributed storage disk or network
The most important area of application using the "Mojette Transform" is distributed storage. Particularly, this method is used in RozoFS, an open-source distributed file system. In this application, the "Mojette Transform" is used as an erasure code in order to provide reliability, while significantly reducing the total amount of stored data when compared to classical techniques like replication (typically by a factor of 2). Thus, it significantly reduces the cost of the storage cluster in terms of hardware, maintenance or energy consumption for example.
In 2010, Pierre Evenou, research engineer of the IVC team IRCCyN laboratory, decided to create the start-up Fizians (currently known as Rozo Systems) using this application. The start-up offers storage solutions in cloud computing, virtualization, storage servers, file servers, backup and archiving.
Networks packets transfer
Thanks to the redundancy of the transform, sent packets can be fragmented without loss. Additionally, the fact of using only additions and subtractions increases the speed of information transmission. Finally, the information cannot be reconstructed without having the initial angle of the projections, so it also provides data security.
This application has been selected by Thales Cholet for its ad hoc network (using wireless network and terminals to transmit messages between them) in order to secure the information and has multiple paths between the source and destination. In 2002, the start-up PIBI has used this technology to provide secure Internet payment services.
The Medical tomography
In the field of medical imaging, the properties of the “Transform Mojette” create a direct mapping and solve the missing wedge problem. However, the image acquisition using the Mojette transform has not been yet developed. The problem of obtaining exact “Mojette” values while using approximated data acquisition has been studied but has to be continued. Besides, the post-processing of medical images is doing well since data acquisition is already done.
These results are used by the company Keosys in 2001 with Jerome Fortineau and the company Qualiformed created in 2006 by Stephen Beaumont. Prof. Guédon and the IRCCyN laboratory were heavily involved in the creation of these two companies. The companies have already financed several PhD students and participated in research projects in order to continue the development of the application in medical tomography. The results have led to apply patents and implementation on their equipment of image processing.
The watermarking and image encryption
Cryptography and watermarking were also part of the research conducted in the IRCCyN laboratory. It provides solutions for security and authentication.
In cryptography, the instability of the transformed Mojette secures data. The fact that the transform is exact encrypts information and allows no deviation even minimal. For watermarking, the transform is very effective in fingerprinting. By inserting "Mojette Transform" marks in images, one can authenticate documents using the same properties as in cryptography.
Bibliography
Jeanpierre Guédon, N. Normand, B. Parrein, and C. Pouliquen, “Distributed image transmission and storage on Internet system,” in ACIDCA, 2000, pp. 164–169.
B. Parrein, N. Normand, and J. Guédon, “Multiple description coding using exact discrete Radon transform,” in IEEE Data Compression Conference, 2001, p. 508.
J. Guédon, N. Normand, P. Verbert, B. Parrein, F. Autrusseau, “Load-balancing and scalable multimedia distribution using the Mojette transform,” in Internet Multimedia Management Systems II, ITCOM, 2001, pp. 226–234.
J. Guédon, B. Parrein, N. Normand, “Internet Distributed Image Information System,” Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 205–214, Sep. 2008.
B. Parrein, “Description multiple de l’information par transformation Mojette,” Université de Nantes, 2008.
F. Autrusseau and J. Guédon, “Image watermarking for copyright protection and data hiding via the Mojette transform,” in Security and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents IV, 2002, pp. 378–386.
F. Autrusseau and J. Guédon, “Image Watermarking in the Fourier Domain Using the Mojette Transform,” in Digital Signal Processing, 2002, pp. 725–728.
F. Autrusseau, “Modélisation Psychovisuelle pour le tatouage des images,” Université de Nantes, 2011.
F. Autrusseau and J. Guédon, “A joint multiple description-encryption image algorithm,” in International Conference on Image Processing, 2003, pp. 269–272.
J. Guédon, N. Normand, and B. Parrein, “Multimedia packet transport: multiple layers or descriptions?,” in IEEE Packet Video workshop, 2003, p. 7 p.
B. Parrein, N. Normand, and J. Guédon, “Multimedia forward error correcting codes for wireless LAN,” Annales des Télécommunications, vol. 58, no. 3–4, pp. 448–463, Jul. 2008.
F. Autrusseau and J. Guédon, “Chiffrement Mojette d’images médicales,” Ingénierie des Systèmes d’Information (ISI), vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 113–134, Feb. 2008.
O. Déforges, M. Babel, N. Normand, B. Parrein, J. Ronsin, J. Guédon, and L. Bédat, “Le LAR aux Mojettes,” in CORESA 04 - COmpression et REprésentation des Signaux Audiovisuels, 2004, pp. 165–168.
P. Verbert, V. Ricordel, J. Guédon, and P. Verbert, “Analysis of mojette transform projections for an efficient coding,” in Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services (WIAMIS, 2004, p. -.
M. Babel, B. Parrein, O. Déforges, N. Normand, J. Guédon, and J. Ronsin, “Secured and progressive transmission of compressed images on the Internet: application to telemedicine,” in SPIE 17th Annual Symposium / Electronic Imaging - Internet Imaging, 2005, pp. 126–136.
J. Guédon and N. Normand, “The Mojette Transform: The First Ten Years,” in Discrete Geometry for Computer Imagery, 2005, vol. 3429, pp. 79–91.
M. Servières, N. Normand, J. Guédon, and Y. Bizais, “The Mojette Transform: Discrete Angles for Tomography,” in Discrete Tomography and its Applications, 2005, vol. 20, pp. 587–606.
M. Servieres, “Reconstruction Tomographique Mojette,” Université de Nantes; Ecole centrale de nantes - ECN, 2009.
F. Autrusseau, P. Evenou, and T. Hamon, “Secure Distributed Storage based on the Mojette transform,” in Nouvelles technologies de la répartition, 2006, pp. 161–170.
F. Autrusseau, B. Parrein, and M. Servieres, “Lossless Compression Based on a Discrete and Exact Radon Transform: A Preliminary Study,” in International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2006, pp. 425–428.
M. Kalantari, F. Jung, G. Moreau, and J. Guédon, “Détection entièrement automatique de points de fuite dans des scènes architecturales urbaines,” in CORESA 2006 COmpression et REprésentation des Signaux Audiovisuels, 2006, pp. 41–46.
E. Denis, J. Guédon, S. Beaumont, and N. Normand, “Discrete and continuous description of a three dimensional scene for quality control of radiotherapy treatment planning systems,” in Medical Imaging, 2006, vol. 6142, p. 187.
M. Servières, N. Normand, and J. Guédon, “Interpolation method for the Mojette Transform,” in Medical Imaging 2006: Physics of Medical Imaging, 2006, vol. 6142, p. 61424I.
N. Normand, A. Kingston, and P. Évenou, “A Geometry Driven Reconstruction Algorithm for the Mojette Transform,” in Discrete Geometry for Computer Imagery, 2006, vol. 4245, pp. 122–133.
S. Hamma, E. Cizeron, H. Issaka, and J. Guédon, “Performance evaluation of reactive and proactive routing protocol in IEEE 802.11 ad hoc network,” in ITCom 06 - next generation and sensor networks, 2008, p. 638709.
M. Kalantari and M. Kasser, “Implementation of a low-cost photogrammetric methodology for 3d modelling of ceramic fragments,” in XXI International CIPA Symposium, 01-6 October, Athens, Greece, 2007, p. FP079.
A. Kingston, S. Colosimo, P. Campisi, and F. Autrusseau, “Lossless Image Compression and Selective Encryption Using a Discrete Radon Transform,” in International Conference on Image Processing, 2007, pp. 465–468.
E. Denis, S. Beaumont, J. Guédon, N. Normand, and T. Torfeh, “Automatic quality control of digitally reconstructed radiograph computation and comparison with standard methods,” in Medical Imaging 2007: Physics of Medical Imaging, 2007, vol. 6510, p. 65104J.
A. Daurat and N. Normand, “Transformation et reconstruction par projections,” in Géométrie discrète et images numériques, A. M. David Coeurjolly, Ed. Hermès, 2008, pp. 239–251.
N. Normand and J. Guédon, “Applications de la transformation Mojette,” in Géométrie discrète et images numériques, A. M. David Coeurjolly, Ed. Hermès, 2008, pp. 337–347.
B. Parrein, F. Boulos, P. Le Callet, and J. Guédon, “Priority image and video encoding transmission based on a discrete Radon transform,” in IEEE Packet Video 2007, 2007, p. 6 pages.
S. Chandra, I. Svalbe, and J. Guédon, “An exact, non-iterative Mojette inversion technique utilising ghosts,” in 14th IAPR international conference on Discrete geometry for computer imagery, 2008, p. .
H. Fayad, J. Guédon, I. Svalbe, N. Normand, and Y. Bizais, “Mojette and FRT tomographs,” in Medical Imaging 2008, 2008, vol. 6913, p. -.
M. Kalantari, F. Jung, J. Guédon, and N. Paparoditis, “Détection automatique des points de fuite et calcul de leur incertitude à l’aide de la géométrie projective,” in RFIA 2008, 2008, pp. 703–712.
M. Kalantari, F. Jung, N. Paparoditis, and J. Guédon, “Robust and automatic vanishing points detection with their uncertainties from a single uncalibrated image, by planes extraction on the unit SPHERE,” in ISPRS2008, 2008, pp. 203–208.
H. Fayad, J. Guédon, I. Svalbe, Y. Bizais, and N. Normand, “Applying Mojette discrete Radon transforms to classical tomographic data,” in Medical Imaging, 2008, vol. 6913, p. 69132S.
A. Kingston and F. Autrusseau, “Lossless Image Compression via Predictive Coding of Discrete Radon Projections,” Signal Processing Image Communication, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 313–324, Jun. 2008.
E. Denis, S. Beaumont, J. Guédon, T. Torfeh, N. Normand, and A. Norbert, “New automatic quality control methods for geometrical treatment planning system tools in external conformal radiotherapy,” in Medical Imaging 2008: Physics of Medical Imaging, 2008, vol. 6913, p. 69133F.
M. Babel, B. Parrein, O. Déforges, N. Normand, J. Guédon, and V. Coat, “Joint source-channel coding: secured and progressive transmission of compressed medical images on the Internet,” Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 258–269, Apr. 2008.
E. Denis, S. Beaumont, J. Guédon, T. Torfeh, N. Normand, and N. Ailleres, “Nouvelle méthode automatique de contrôle de qualité des systèmes de planification géométrique des traitements en radiothérapie externe conformationnelle,” in Journées scientifiques de la Société Française de Physique Médicale, 2008, p. denis.
A. Kingston, B. Parrein, and F. Autrusseau, “Redundant Image Representation via Multi-Scale Digital Radon Projection,” in International Conf. of Image Processing, 2008, p. 2069.
P. Jia, J. Dong, L. Qi, and F. Autrusseau, “Directionality Measurement and Illumination Estimation of 3D Surface Textures by Using Mojette Transform,” in 19th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, 2010, p. 1144.
Y. Ben Hdech, J. Guédon, and S. Beaumont, “Simulations Monte Carlo d’un faisceau de RX issus d’un accélérateur VARIAN : influence du paramétrage des électrons initiaux,” in Journées Scientifiques de la Société Française de Physique Médicale (SFPM) 2009 : Innovations et bénéfices thérapeutiques : quelles limites?, 2009, p. 1.
Y. Ben Hdech, J. Guédon, and S. Beaumont, “Des Objets-Tests Numériques (OTN) anatomiques pour le Contrôle Qualité (CQ) de Systèmes de Planification de Traitement (TPS) en radiothérapie,” in Journées Scientifiques de la Société Française de Physique Médicale (SFPM) 2009 : Innovations et bénéfices thérapeutiques : quelles limites?, 2009, p. 1.
M. Kalantari, F. Jung, J. Guédon, and N. Paparoditis, “The Five Points Pose Problem : A New and Accurate Solution Adapted to any Geometric Configuration,” in The Pacific-Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology (PSIVT), 2009, vol. 5414, p. .
D. Coeurjolly and N. Normand, “Discrete geometry and projections (chap 1),” in The Mojette Transform: Theory and Applications, jeanpierre Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 15 pages.
J. Guédon and N. Normand, “Reconstructability with the inverse Mojette transform (chap 4),” in The Mojette Transform: Theory and Applications, jeanpierre Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 15 pages.
J. Guédon and N. Normand, “Direct Mojette transform (chap 3),” in The Mojette Transform: Theory and Applications, jeanpierre Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 23 pages.
A. Kingston and F. Autrusseau, “Lossless compression (chap 9),” in The Mojette transform: Theory and Applications, jeanpierre Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 19 pages.
A. Kingston, F. Autrusseau, E. Grall, T. Hamon, and B. Parrein, “Mojette based security (chap 10),” in The Mojette transform: Theory and Applications, J. Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 25 pages.
A. Kingston, F. Autrusseau, and B. Parrein, “Multiresolution Mojette transform (chap 6),” in The Mojette transform: Theory and Applications, jeanpierre Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 29 pages.
N. Normand, I. Svalbe, P. Evenou, and A. Kingston, “Inverse Mojette transform algorithms (chap 5),” in The Mojette Transform: Theory and Applications, J. Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 25 pages.
B. Parrein, F. Boulos, N. Normand, and P. Evenou, “Communication, networks and storage (chap 7),” in The Mojette Transform: Theory and Applications, J. Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 29 pages.
M. Servières, J. Guédon, N. Normand, and Y. Bizais, “Mojette discrete tomography (chap 8),” in The Mojette Transform: Theory and Applications, jeanpierre Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 29 pages.
I. Svalbe and J. Guédon, “Discrete versions of the Radon Transform (chap 2),” in The Mojette Transform: Theory and Applications, jeanpierre Guédon, Ed. iste & wiley, 2009, p. 17 pages.
J. Guédon, The Mojette transform. Theory and applications. ISTE-WILEY, 2009.
S. Beaumont, J. Guédon, and Y. Ben Hdech, “Contrôle qualité dosimétrique des systèmes de planification de traitement : nouvelle méthode basée sur l’utilisation de PENELOPE et des Objets Tests Numériques anatomiques,” in Journées Scientifiques de la Société Française de Physique Médicale (SFPM), 2010, p. 1.
Y. Ben Hdech, S. Beaumont, and J. Guédon, “Développement d’une méthode de Contrôle qualité des Systèmes de Planification des Traitements, utilisés en radiothérapie, au moyen du code Monte-Carlo PENELOPE et des Objets Tests Numériques,” in Journée des doctorants de l’École Doctorale STIM JDOC, 2010, p. 1.
Y. Ben Hdech, S. Beaumont, J. Guédon, and T. Torfeh, “New method to perform dosimetric quality control of treatment planning system using PENELOPE Monte-Carlo and anatomical digital test objects,” in SPIE Medical Imaging 2010, 2010, vol. 7622, p. .
Y. Amouriq, P. Evenou, A. Arlicot, N. Normand, and P. Layrolle, “Evaluation of trabecular bone patterns on dental radiographic images: influence of cortical bone,” in SPIE Medical Imaging, 2010, vol. 7626, p. 76261M.
Y. Amouriq, P. Evenou, A. Arlicot, N. Normand, P. Layrolle, P. Weiss, and J. Guédon, “Evaluation of trabecular bone patterns on dental radiographic images: influence of cortical bone,” in SPIE Medical Imaging, 2010, p. 10 pages.
A. Arlicot, Y. Amouriq, P. Evenou, N. Normand, and J. Guédon, “A single scan skeletonization algorithm: application to medical imaging of trabecular bone,” in SPIE Medical Imaging, 2010, vol. 7623, p. 762317.
C. Zhang, J. Dong, J. Li, and F. Autrusseau, “A New Information Hiding Method for Image Watermarking Based on Mojette Transform,” in Second International Symposium on Networking and Network Security, 2010, pp. 124–128.
N. Normand, I. Svalbe, B. Parrein, and A. Kingston, “Erasure Coding with the Finite Radon Transform,” in Wireless Communications & Networking Conference, 2010, pp. 1–6.
S. S. Chandra, N. Normand, A. Kingston, J. Guédon, and I. Svalbe, “Fast Mojette Transform for Discrete Tomography,” 13-Jul-2012.
J. Guédon, C. Liu, and J. Guédon, “The 2 and 3 materials scene reconstructed from some line Mojette projections,” in IEEE IPTA Conference, 2010, p. 6.
Y. Amouriq, J. Guédon, N. Normand, A. Arlicot, Y. Ben Hdech, and P. Weiss, “Bone texture analysis on dental radiographic images: results with several angulated radiographs on the same region of interest,” in SPIE Medical Imaging 2011: Biomedical Applications in Molecular, Structural, and Functional Imaging, 2012, vol. 7965, p. 796525.
S. Beaumont, T. Torfeh, R. Latreille, Y. Ben Hdech, and J. Guédon, “New method to test the gantry, collimator and table rotation angles of a linear accelerator used in radiation therapy,” in SPIE Medical Imaging 2011, 2011, vol. 7961, p. 796153.
Y. Ben Hdech, S. Beaumont, J. Guédon, and C. Sylvain, “Dosimetric quality control of Eclipse treatment planning system using pelvic digital test object,” in Medical Imaging 2011: Physics of Medical Imaging, 2011, vol. 7961, p. 79613F.
A. Arlicot, P. Evenou, and N. Normand, “Single-scan skeletonization driven by a neighborhood-sequence distance,” in International workshop on Combinatorial Image Analysis, IWCIA, 2011, pp. 61–72.
A. Arlicot, N. Normand, Y. Amouriq, and J. Guédon, “Extraction of bone structure with a single-scan skeletonization driven by distance,” in First Sino-French Workshop on Education and Research collaborations in Information and Communication Technologies, SIFWICT, 2011, p. 2 pages.
Y. Ben Hdech, D. Autret, S. Beaumont, and J. Guédon, “TPS dosimetric evaluation using 1540-IAEA Package and Monte-Carlo simulations,” in ESTRO International Oncology Forum, 2011, p. 1.
C. Liu, J. Guédon, I. Svalbe, and Y. Amouriq, “Line Mojette ternary reconstructions and ghosts,” in IWCIA, 2011, p. 11.
C. Liu and J. Guédon, “The limited material scenes reconstructed by line Mojette algorithms,” in Franco-Chinese conference, 2011, p. 2.
J. Dong, L. Su, Y. Zhang, F. Autrusseau, and Y. Zhanbin, “Estimating Illumination Direction of 3D Surface Texture Based on Active Basis and Mojette Transform,” Journal of Electronic Imaging, vol. 21, no. 013023, p. 28 pages, Apr. 2012.
D. Pertin, G. D’Ippolito, N. Normand, and B. Parrein, “Spatial Implementation for Erasure Coding by Finite Radon Transform,” in International Symposium on signal, Image, Video and Communication 2012, 2012, pp. 1–4.
P. Bléry, Y. Amouriq, J. Guédon, P. Pilet, N. Normand, N. Durand, F. Espitalier, A. Arlicot, O. Malard, and P. Weiss, “Microarchitecture of irradiated bone: comparison with healthy bone,” in SPIE Medical Imaging, 2012, vol. 8317, p. 831719.
S. Chandra, I. Svalbe, J. Guedon, A. Kingston, and N. Normand, “Recovering Missing Slices of the Discrete Fourier Transform using Ghosts,” IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 21, no. 10, pp. 4431–4441, Jul. 2012.
H. Der Sarkissian, Jp. Guédon, P. Tervé, N. Normand and I. Svalbe. (2012)." Evaluation of Discrete Angles Rotation Degradation for Myocardial Perfusion Imaging", EANM Annual Congress 2012.
C. Liu and J. Guédon, “Finding all solutions of the 3 materials problem,” in proceedings of SIFWICT, 2013, p. 6.
B. Recur, H. Der Sarkissian, Jp. Guédon and I.Svalbe, "Tomosynthèse à l’aide de transformées discrètes", in Proceeding TAIMA 2013
H. Der Sarkissian, B. Recur, N. Normand and Jp. Guédon, "Mojette space Transformations", in proceedings of SWIFCT 2013.
B. Recur, H. Der Sarkissian, M. Servières, N.Normand, Jp. Guédon, "Validation of Mojette Reconstruction from Radon Acquisitions" in Proceedings of 2013 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing.
H. Der Sarkissian, B. Recur, N. Normand, Jp. Guédon. (2013), "Rotations in the Mojette Space" in 2013 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing.
External links
Website of the IVC team of the IRCCyN lab
Game on line based on the Mojette transform
Official website of ROZOFS company
Official website of KEOSYS company
Official website of QUALIFORMED company
Signal processing |
35259996 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP%20Speed%2BMobility | HTTP Speed+Mobility | HTTP Speed+Mobility was an experimental open-specification communication protocol developed primarily at Microsoft for transporting web content. HTTP Speed+Mobility was similar to HTTP, with particular goals to reduce web page load latency and improve web security. As a revision of Google's SPDY protocol, Microsoft's HTTP Speed+Mobility protocol achieved reduced latency through SPDY's use of compression, multiplexing, and prioritization.
Relation to HTTP
HTTP Speed+Mobility, does not replace HTTP. Rather, it modifies the way HTTP requests and responses are sent over the wire; this means that all the existing server-side applications can be used without modification if a SPDY-compatible translation layer is put in place. When sent over SPDY, the HTTP requests are processed, tokenized, simplified and compressed. For example, each SPDY end-point keeps track of which headers have been sent in the past requests and can avoid resending the headers that have not changed; those that must be sent are sent compressed.
In developing HTTP Speed+Mobility, Microsoft built upon both Google's proven SPDY protocol and on WebSocket, which is a web technology providing for bi-directional, full-duplex communications channels over a single TCP connection.
Besides support of the framing of WebSockets, changes from SPDY include the following: taking mobile phones and other low-power devices into account and the removal of SPDY’s obligatory use of CPU-intensive features encryption, compression, and server-side push.
The IETF working group for HTTPbis has begun working on HTTP/2 and chose SPDY as the starting point.
See also
SPDY
HTTP pipelining
HTTP persistent connection
WebSocket
Waka (protocol)
References
External links
Speed and Mobility: An Approach for HTTP 2.0 to Make Mobile Apps and the Web Faster
Network protocols
SM |
35305141 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International%20communication | International communication | International communication (also referred to as the study of global communication or transnational communication) is the communication practice that occurs across international borders. The need for international communication was due to the increasing effects and influences of globalization. As a field of study, international communication is a branch of communication studies, concerned with the scope of "government-to-government", "business-to-business", and "people-to-people" interactions at a global level. Currently, international communication is being taught at colleges worldwide. Due to the increasingly globalized market, employees who possess the ability to effectively communicate across cultures are in high demand. International communication "encompasses political, economic, social, cultural and military concerns".
Historical context
Communication and empire
Efficient communication networks played crucial roles in establishing ancient imperial authority and international trade. The extent of empire could be used as an 'indication of the efficiency of communication'. Ancient empires such as Rome, Persia and China, all utilized writing in collecting information and dispersing, creating enormous postal and dispatch systems. As early as in fifteenth century, news had been disseminated trans-nationally in Europe. 'The wheat traders of Venice, the silver traders of Antwerp, the merchants of Nuremberg and their trading partners shared economic newsletters and created common values and beliefs in the rights of capital.'
The advent of telegraph and time–space compression
In 1837, Samuel Morse invented telegraph. The telegraph worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. It was the first mode of communication to eliminate the effect of distance, allowing for a near instantaneous connection. Given its speed and reliability in delivering information, telegraph offered opportunities for capital and military expansion. It also increased market integration. It did so by lowering the cost of trade by increasing the capacity utilization of shipping. As showed in Table 1.1, the establishment of cable hardware signifies global power order in late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Table 1.1 Cabling the world
The era of news agencies
The newspaper industry and international telegraph networks mutually facilitated each other. Telegraph communications drastically altered the way in which news was produced. The individual items of modern newspapers became no longer selected on the basis of spatial proximity, but following newly emerging journalistic criteria of news relevance. As the supply and demand of the newspaper industry rapidly increased in the nineteenth century, news agencies were established successively.
The French Havas Agency was founded in 1835, the German agency Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau in 1849, and the British Reuters in 1851. These three European agencies began as financial-data services for bankers, but eventually started to operate internationally and extended their coverage to world news. They were all subsidized by their respective governments. By 1866, national news agencies were beginning to rise in many European countries. While they covered and sold news locally, they relied on the major services for coverage and sales abroad.
The global media and news agencies have played a fundamental role in contemporary globalization, making possible the feeling of instant communication and the experience of global connection. They have played a pioneering role in the use of new technologies, such as the telegraph, which have altered the nature of news. Technological innovation continues to be a major area of competition between global news agencies.
Radio broadcasting
Western countries seized the chances to implement radio communication after the first radio transmissions of human voice in 1902. But the two mechanisms of radio broadcasting were distinctively different. In the USA, the Radio Act of 1927 confirmed its status as an advertising-funded commercial enterprise, while in Britain, the public broadcasting pioneer British Broadcasting Corporation set up in the same year. During the First World War and the Second World War, radio broadcasting played a significant role in both domestic public opinion management and international diplomacy propaganda abroad.
Even in the Cold War times, this radio-dominated international communication still featured in propaganda respective ideologies. The prominent example is the Voice of America, which ran a global network to indoctrinate "American dream" to its international audience. Radio also played an important role in the ideological confrontation between the east and the west. Broadcasts could penetrate the "Iron Curtain" and directly address the "enemy", which was extremely important in the early days of the Cold War. Western broadcasting offered an alternative channel for the flow of new information and ideas. Around a one third of Soviet urban adults and about half of East European adults were regular listeners of Western broadcasts at the time.
Shortwave transmission sites, known as "number stations" were used by both the United States and Soviet governments to send propaganda to foreign countries. They were also a secure means of sending coded messages to intelligence officers operating in other countries. As long as an agent had the station, the air time, and encryption code, he could receive a one-time message that only he could understand.
Not only Western countries have been impacted by communication through the use of radio broadcasting. An example of this is the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. In April of 1994, a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and neighboring Burundi crashed under mysterious circumstances. This sparked a massing killing spree that took place over the next three months and left over a million Rwandans dead. The Rwandan media have been accused of inciting hatred that led to violence by using an ethical framework to report a political struggle, as well as spreading fear, rumors, and panic. They also incited ordinary citizens to take part in the massacres. Through its broadcasts, popular radio station RTLM attracted unemployed youth and Interhahamwe militia, a far-right organization.
Demanding a new communication order
Since the cold war officially ended in 1990, the intense relations of super powers halted with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of the Third World countries, the unequally developed communication order can no longer exist. The Third World called for ceasing their marginalized communication status. Especially when international communications stepped into the information age, 'the convergence of telecommunication and computing and the ability to move all type of data – pictures, words, sounds – via the Internet have revolutionized international information exchange.'
Considerations for international communication
When communicating internationally it is important to take culture into consideration. Though English has become the language of business, many businesses fail to recognize that the language used does not determine how business is conducted. Therefore, it is important to understand that intercultural and international communication are interchangeable. Effective communication between international business partners is critical for global success, and underlying national and organizational cultural differences in international business-related relationships can create hurdles to effective communication, which can hinder performance.
As a tourist it may be acceptable to maintain the cultural norms from a country of origin when visiting, though attempting to adapt would be appreciated. However, when conducting business it is important to recognize cultural differences, especially when communicating. At the turn of the century there was a large amount of research based on the needs of those that travel abroad in order to commercialize products or services. The list of researchers includes Hofstede, 1991; Storti, 1994; Ansari & Jackson, 1995; Cushner & Brislin, 1996; Adler, 1997; Mead, 1998; and Marx, 1999. From those studies Gibson's volume becomes an important source of information for business professionals interested in succeeding internationally. As explained by Douglas Storey, there was a change in style and strategy of American diplomacy since 1979 after the first addition of Glen Fisher's book appeared.
Despite the reason for international communication it is important to understand that international communication is not limited to the language spoken during communication.
There are two broadly conceived approaches to the creation of international communications regulations. The first would be internationalizing a minimum standard by agreement among the parties. The second is to allow the parties to denote exceptions for specific points about which they may be unable to reach agreement. Though the second approach falls short of uniformity it permits higher standards by allowing some parties to opt out.
Scope and approaches of international communication research
International communication is widely spread and multilayered in contemporary society, however it is not considered as a separate academic discipline because of its overlapping with other subjects. International communication is 'a topic field rather than a discipline field' and international communication studies is a mode of 'organizing inquiry'.
John D. H. Downing proposed ten categories within which international communication should be conducted
theories of international communication
core international communication processes
global media firms
global media policies
Global news flows
world cinema
development communication
the Internet
intellectual property law
non-hegemonic communication flows
Mehdi Semati listed the wide range of research subjects in international communication, which includes, but not limited to the following.
Communication and development(development communication)
Technology transfer
Development journalism
Modernization theory
Dependency theories
Nation, nationalism, and national cultural
State, nation-state, and sovereignty
International relations and communication
Global communicative access
Cultural imperialism
Media imperialism
Transnational corporations, transnational media corporations
International organizations and communication
International television and radio broadcasting
Broadcasting and propaganda
Theories of the press
Free flow of information
International traffic in media content
Global news flow
International news agencies
Trans-border data flow
International (tele) communication technology
International (tele) communication policy and regulation
Cross-cultural media receptions studies
Globalization
Hamid Mowlana stated four key interrelated approaches to international communication
idealistic-humanistic
proselytization
economic
the political
One of the most obvious manifestations of international communication are world news, when the media of one country cover news from abroad. But, apart from journalism, international communication also occurs in other areas (culture, technology, sciences) and the nature of the "information" that is circulated can be classified in a wide variety of categories, such as cultural (music, films, sports, TV shows from one country to another), scientific (research papers published abroad, scientific exchange or cooperation), and intelligence (diplomacy reports, international espionage, etc.).
Typically the study of international communication includes a deep attention to the circulation of news among different countries (and the resulting imbalances, from which came the concept of news flow), the power of media organizations (such as conglomerates and news agencies), issues such as cultural imperialism and media imperialism, and the political role that international cooperation can have in enhancing the media industry (and society as a whole) in a given region, such as proposed by development communication or communication for development.
Some renowned scholars in international communication include Wilbur Schramm, Ithiel de Sola Pool, Johan Galtung, Anthony Smith, Robert Stevenson, Jeremy Tunstall, Armand Mattelart, Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Ali Mohammadi, Annabelle Sreberny, Cees J. Hamelink, Daya Kishan Thussu and Chris Paterson. The International Communication Gazette and the Journal of International Communication are reference journals in this field.
Development
The Second World War was a catalyst for international communication. Analytical tools for communications research are used to mobilize domestic public support for war, to understand enemy propaganda, and to develop psychological warfare techniques to influence the morale and opinions of allies and enemies. The Rockefeller Foundation convened and funded a communications seminar every month from 1939 to 1940 years at the New York headquarters. The initial purpose was to bring together leading scholars interested in communication to provide theoretical guidance for future communication studies, including Lasswell and Lazarsfeld. When the United States entered the war at the end of 1941, with the outbreak of the European economic crisis, communication research became an important factor in discussing government policies.
Communication Technology development
Media development can be said to be independent media created by private interventions during the transition period through international intervention. Even before the emergence of technology, communication has been at the forefront of relationship building and business development. Today, newer advancements like texting and messaging apps have allowed for even more efficient international communication.
New Media: Internet and Wireless Communication.
International communication development
In the 1980s and 1990s, with the establishment and development of fiberoptic cables, satellites and the Internet, and the gradual proliferation are eroding space and time barriers and increasing speed, and reducing the cost of transmitting various information. This trend has pushed international communication to globalization.
See also
Intercultural communication
International student
Mediated cross-border communication
World news
New world information and communication order
MacBride report
Global network
Global digital divide
References
External links
French country code and all area country codes.
International Communication Forum
Journal of International Communication
International Communication Theory in Transition: Parameters of the New Global Public Sphere (article by Ingrid Volkmer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Communication by type
World
Cultural exchange |
35314000 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervasive%20PSQL | Pervasive PSQL | Actian Zen (named Pervasive PSQL before version 13) is an ACID-compliant database management system (DBMS) developed by Pervasive Software. It is optimized for embedding in applications and used in several different types of packaged software applications offered by independent software vendors (ISVs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). It is available for software as a service (SaaS) deployment due to a file-based architecture enabling partitioning of data for multitenancy needs.
Applications can store the data and the relationships in tables in a relational model (RDBMS) or store the data in a schema-less way with no fixed data model (key-value store).
Pervasive PSQL runs on system platforms that include Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Pervasive PSQL are available. Editions are also specifically designed for different computer networking deployment needs, such as workgroup, client-server, and highly virtualized environments, including Cloud computing.
The original name for Pervasive PSQL was Btrieve. Pervasive Software was acquired by Actian Corporation in 2013.
Uses and customers
Because Pervasive PSQL is used for embedded databases, and sold indirectly, it is not well known.
Pervasive PSQL is embedded by OEMs like Sage, maestro* Technologies, ABACUS Research AG (Switzerland), and Unikum (Sweden) in packaged software applications that address the accounting, finance, retail, point-of-sale, entertainment, reservation system, and medical and pharmaceutical industry segments. “Users include Novell, Microsoft, PeachTree Software, Fair Isaac, Disney World, Radio Shack, Cardiff and others.” The accounting industry formed a large part of its market in 2007.
Historically, Pervasive PSQL served as a DBMS for small and medium enterprises.
DBMS architecture
Pervasive PSQL supports stand-alone, client-server, peer-to-peer and software-as-a-service (SaaS) architecture.
The central architecture of Pervasive PSQL consists of two database engines: (1) the storage engine, known as MicroKernel Database Engine (MKDE) and described by Pervasive Software as a transactional database engine and (2) the relational database engine, known as SQL Relational Database Engine (SRDE). Both engines can access the same data, but the methods of data access differ.
MicroKernel Database Engine
Pervasive's transactional database engine, the MicroKernel Database Engine, interacts directly with the data and does not require fixed data schema to access the data. It uses key-value store to store and access the data. Calls to the MKDE are made programmatically with Btrieve API rather than through the use of a query language; therefore, Pervasive PSQL does not have to parse the request. This places the MicroKernel Database Engine in the category of NotOnlySQL databases. Low-level API calls and memory caching of data reduce the time required to manipulate data.
The MKDE operates in complete database transactions and guarantees full ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability). If a transaction does not fully run its course due to an external event such as a power interruption, the data remains in the state in which it existed before the transaction began to run.
In the MKDE, records are stored in files which are roughly equivalent to the tables of a relational database engine. It supports multiple keys on a record and therefore multiple indexes in the file. The MKDE caches data in memory to facilitate performance. When a call is made to the MKDE, cached data is searched first; physical storage is searched if there is no cache of the data. Configuration settings for caches can be pre-configured by ISVs to optimize Pervasive PSQL performance for their applications.
Relational Database Engine
The second database engine, the SQL Relational Database Engine or SRDE, operates in a manner similar to other relational database engines, that is, through the support of Structured Query Language queries. SRDE parses SQL queries and sends them to the MKDE to run.
The SRDE implements SQL-92. Significant other features include relational integrity, database security, and temporary tables. SRDE extends its functionality by supporting stored procedures, user-defined functions, and triggers.
In addition to its support for SQL-92, the SRDE supports several significant features of COBOL: COBOL data types and COBOL OCCURS and VARIANT records.
Additional features
Pervasive PSQL provides the following additional features:
Multi-core processor aware
IPv4 and IPv6 support
Row-level locking
Record and page compression
Over-the-wire encryption and data encryption
Cluster environments compatibility
I18N support, code page (including UTF-8) translation between data files and SQL clients, Unicode support in Btrieve API, Japanese localization
Data backup agents or enablers with Pervasive Backup Agent and Pervasive PSQL VSS Writer
Data auditing with Pervasive AuditMaster
Data replication with Pervasive DataExchange
Interfaces
Pervasive PSQL interfaces fall into two categories: management interfaces and data manipulation interfaces.
Management interfaces
Pervasive Software provides the management interfaces Distributed Tuning Interface (DTI) and Distributed Tuning Objects (DTO), a Component Object Model (COM) adapter pattern (wrapper) for the DTI. These provide application programming interfaces for configuration, monitoring, and diagnostics of Pervasive components. COBOL can also provide component management through a COBOL connector that can talk to DTI.
Application interfaces
All other interfaces exist for data manipulation purposes.
Btrieve, Java Class Library (JCL), COBOL, and ActiveX provides direct access to the MicroKernel Database Engine (MKDE).
ADO.NET; ODBC v3.51 and JDBC 2 for Core, Level 1, and Level 2; and OLE DB provide access to the SQL Relational Database Engine (SRDE).
Pervasive Direct Access Components (PDAC) are a set of Visual Component Library (VCL) components that enable direct access to both MKDE and SRDE for Embarcadero Delphi and C++ Builder environments.
Tools
Pervasive provides utility software designed to facilitate administration and use of Pervasive PSQL. There are graphical and command line utilities in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X environments.
Pervasive Control Center (PCC) is the main utility that enables the user to create and manipulate databases and tables, to access servers and clients, to set configuration, properties, and to edit data. Through PCC, the user can access a series of other utilities:
License Administrator utility handles license management activities.
Notification Viewer utility displays licensing-related messages logged by the PSQL engine.
Monitor utility checks and displays activities and attributes of both engines, including resource usage, session information, and communication statistics.
Pervasive System Analyzer utility tests the connections between the engines and within the network and displays information about system components.
Maintenance utility enables users to create and edit schema-less files.
Rebuild utility enables users to convert file formats and rebuild files in its MKDE file format.
DDF (data definition file) Builder utility enables SQL users to create and modify table schemas for data stored in the MKDE, thus providing relational access to the data.
Query Plan Viewer enables SQL users to analyze query plans for optimization.
Function Executor assists developers with development, testing, and debugging by simulating direct API operations into MKDE and providing a view into the schema-less data.
Versions
See Btrieve, beginning with Pervasive.SQL 7.
Editions and licensing
Editions
There are four editions of PSQL: Pervasive PSQL Client, Pervasive PSQL Workgroup, Pervasive PSQL Server, and Pervasive PSQL Vx Server.
Pervasive PSQL Client is designed for use with Pervasive PSQL Server and Pervasive PSQL Vx Server in a client-server network.
Pervasive PSQL Workgroup edition is intended for single- and multi-engine configurations with up to five users.
Pervasive PSQL Server edition is intended for configurations that have at minimum ten concurrent connections and it is scalable up to thousands of concurrent network users in client-server network and web-based applications on the enterprise level.
PSQL Vx Server runs under hypervisors in a VM environment. It is designed for customers “who need support for highly virtualized environments enabling live migration, fault tolerance, high availability and cloud computing.”
Licensing
Pervasive Software uses two different licensing models, user-count licensing and capacity-based licensing.
In user-count licensing, each product key specifies a licensed user. At any given moment, that many users can be connected to the engine.
Capacity-based licensing is based on the amount of processing performed by the database engine. It measures data in use and sessions in use. This license model is designed to facilitate Cloud computing and highly virtualized environments.
Both PSQL Server and PSQL Workgroup use a user-count licensing model, while PSQL Vx Server uses capacity-based licensing.
Limitations
Pervasive PSQL lacks:
some of the data warehousing, data mining, and reporting services built into database engines such as MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server.
Unicode support in the RDBMS layer.
the ability to perform distributed transactions.
support for database caching unless the application has specifically been designed to take advantage of the Client Caching Engine(very few applications take advantage of this feature), the inbuilt feature of the engine and only supported caching option. Because the engine does not natively support database contention negotiation but relies on the front-end to manage contention issues, it is infrequently implemented. This makes the majority of applications developed with Pervasive PSQL unsuitable on any system where network or host server performance could cause a performance bottleneck.
See also
Connolly, P.J., “Pervasive Living Up to Its Name at 25”, SD Times, 3/15/2007, http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=30319
DatabaseJournal.com Staff, “Pervasive Expands Linux Database Offering to Support Linux Desktop and Embedded Data Needs” Database Journal, 6/17/2003, http://www.databasejournal.com/news/article.php/2223111
DatabaseJournal.com Staff, “ Pervasive.SQL Database Updated to Enhance Security of Mission-critical Data” Database Journal, 7/22/2003, http://www.databasejournal.com/news/article.php/2238931
Domingo, Michael, “Pervasive PSQL Certified for Windows 2008, Adds Linux Support”, Application Development Trends, 3/14/2008, http://adtmag.com/articles/2008/03/14/pervasive-psql-certified-for-windows-2008-adds-linux-support.aspx
Information Management Editorial Staff, “40 Vendors We’re Watching in 2011”, Information Management, 3/1/2011, http://www.information-management.com/issues/21_2/40-vendors-were-watching-in-2011-10019878-1.html?pg=2
Kilburn, Will, “Pervasive joins Magic; unveils Linux DBMS”, Application Development Trends, 6/11/2003, http://adtmag.com/articles/2003/06/11/pervasive-joins-magic-unveils-linux-dbms.aspx
Kilburn, Will, “Pervasive upgrades database security”, Application Development Trends, 7/23/2003, http://adtmag.com/articles/2003/07/23/pervasive-upgrades-database-security.aspx
Kyle, Jim, Btrieve Complete: A Guide for Developers and System Administrators, Addison-Wesley, 1995
Marsan, Carolyn Duffy, "Database Firm Reports Rising Demand for IPv6", NETWORKWORLD, May 17, 2010, https://web.archive.org/web/20100523052202/http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/051710-ipv6-pervasive-software.html
Monash Research, “Pervasive Summit PSQL v10”, DBMS2, 9/24/2007, http://adtmag.com/articles/2003/07/09/pervasive-gains-advanced-database-search-engine.aspx
Seeley, Rich, “Pervasive gains advanced database search engine”, Application Development Trends, 7/9/2003, http://adtmag.com/articles/2003/07/09/pervasive-gains-advanced-database-search-engine.aspx
Seiden, Jeff, “Quotes from Partners Supporting Novell Linux Small Business Suite 9”, Novell, March 20, 2005, http://www.novell.com/news/press/2005/3/pr05024_quotes.html
Trocino, Richard B., The Illustrated Guide to NetWare Btrieve 6.x, Golden West Products International, 1994
White, Elizabeth, Armstrong, Bruce, and Remde, Kevin, “Pervasive Software Announces Pervasive PSQL Vx Server 11 for Virtualized Environments”, .NET Developer's Journal, 2/13/2012, http://dotnet.sys-con.com/node/2163895
Whiting, Rick, "25 Infrastructure Software Vendors You Need to Know", CRN, July 26, 2011, http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/applications-os/231002581/25-infrastructure-software-vendors-you-need-to-know.htm;jsessionid=RjEiTtd9S-SaZB9p8vH9qA**.ecappj01?pgno=18
References
External links
- product page
- company site
Proprietary database management systems |
35345007 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email%20hacking | Email hacking | Email hacking is the unauthorized access to, or manipulation of, an account or email correspondence.
Overview
Email is now a very widely used communication method. If an email account is hacked it can allow the attacker access to the personal, sensitive, or confidential information in the mail storage; as well as allowing them to read new incoming and outgoing email - and to send and receive as the legitimate owner. On some email platforms it may also allow them to setup automated email processing rules. All of these could be very harmful for the legitimate user.
Attacks
There are a number of ways in which a hacker can illegally gain access to an email account.
Virus
A virus or other malware can be sent via email, and if executed may be able to capture the user's password and send it to an attacker.
Phishing
Phishing involves emails that appear to be from legitimate sender but are scams which ask for verification of personal information, such as an account number, a password, or a date of birth. If unsuspecting victims respond, the result may be stolen accounts, financial loss, or identity theft.
Prevention measures
Email on the internet is sent by the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). While mail can be encrypted between mail servers, this is not typically enforced, but instead Opportunistic TLS is used - where mailservers negotiate for each email connection whether it will be encrypted, and to what standard. Where a mail flow between servers is not encrypted, it could be intercepted by an ISP or government agency and the contents can be read by passive monitoring.
For higher security, email administrators can configure servers to require encryption to specified servers or domains.
Email spoofing and similar issues which facilitate phishing are addressed by the 'stack' of Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC). Setting all these in place is technically challenging, and not visible to the end user, so implementation progress has been slow. A further layer, Authenticated Received Chain (ARC), allows mail flow through intermediate mail servers such as mailing lists or forwarding services to be better handled - a common objection to implementation.
Businesses typically have advanced firewalls, anti-virus software and intrusion detection systems (IDS) to prevent or detect improper network access. They may also have security specialists perform an audit on the company and hire a Certified Ethical Hacker to perform a simulated attack or "pen test" in order to find any gaps in security.
Although companies may secure its internal networks, vulnerabilities can also occur through home networking. Email may be protected by methods, such as, creating a strong password, encrypting its contents, or using a digital signature.
If passwords are leaked or otherwise become known to an attacker, having two-factor authentication enabled may prevent improper access.
There are also specialist encrypted email services such as Protonmail or Mailfence.
Cases of email hacking
Notable cases of email hacks include:
Email archives from the Climatic Research Unit were leaked to create the scandal popularly known as Climategate.
News of the World journalists hacked email accounts for their stories.
UK politician Rowenna Davis had her mail account taken over and held ransom.
US politician Sarah Palin has been hacked in order to find embarrassing or incriminating correspondence.
As part of the Sony Pictures hack, over 170,000 pieces of email between top executives ended up on Wikileaks.
Former United States president, George H.W. Bush had his email hacked.
The personal email of political consultant John Podesta was hacked, and contents later published by WikiLeaks.
References |
35349994 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nivis | Nivis | Nivis, LLC is a company that designs and manufactures wireless sensor networks for smart grid and industrial process automation. Target applications include process monitoring, environmental monitoring, power management, security, and the internet of things. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional offices in Romania, where much of its technology is developed. The company's product portfolio consists of standards-based wireless communications systems, including radio nodes, routers, management software and a software stack for native communications. Nivis hardware is operated by open source software.
Company history
Nivis was founded in 1998 and purchased in 1999 by the Lupton Group / Lyndhurst Foundation, a Chattanooga, Tennessee based foundation formed by Cartter Lupton who was the son of John Thomas Lupton.
Nivis deployed its first product, a 900MHz proprietary mesh network for environmental monitoring, in 2002. This system consisted of gateways connected in a mesh network communicating over satellite/GPRS with a Network Operations Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Between 2003 and 2006, Nivis deployed 900 MHz Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) proprietary mesh technology with partner in Automatic Meter Reading (AMR).
In 2008, Nivis moved to standards-based technology. The company deployed Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), 802.15.4 2.4 GHz mesh technology, with partner for an intelligent street light controller. That year, Nivis launched an evaluation kit based on the ISA100.11a standard. Shortly after, Cisco and Nivis demonstrated a 6LoWPAN sensor network and in October the company signed a joint development agreement with Freescale.
In 2009, Nivis launched an ISA100.11a development kit consisting of gateway and end devices, and an ISA 100.11a Wireless Demonstration Project In Operation. In 2010 the Nivis ISA100.11a stack was successfully tested for compliance by the Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI).
In 2011, Nivis launched the WirelessHART development kit. later that year the company was awarded Nivis awarded the FIPS-197 Security Certification for Industrial Wireless Solutions utilizing Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128 for encryption. Subsequently, Nivis launched a smart objects networking platform, using 6LoWPAN, 802.15.4g and 802.15.4e, at IPSO Alliance press conference in Santa Clara, CA.
In 2012, Nivis was the only company that supports both the ISA100.11a and WirelessHART standards with a single device; by 2015 the company had several competitors in this field.
Technology
Nivis has specialized in wireless mesh network research and technology, in which no device or connection can be a single point of failure. The technology has several advantages: it uses an architecture which supports a variety of network topologies, allowing the user to choose one appropriate for a specific environments. At start up, devices automatically organize themselves into a multi-hop, layered network, and the nodes organize themselves in layers and form redundant routing paths. If a node fails, the remaining nodes automatically re-route traffic around that node. Each node makes routing decisions locally, so that the network can dynamically adapt to changes in the network by adopting new routes.
The decentralized, wireless networks scale easily and at low cost, and the radio nodes typically communicate on unlicensed frequency bands (for example 2.4 GHz), in a time-slotted network that is able to coexist with other wireless networks that may or may not be based on the same standard.
Nivis supports the Advanced Encryption Standard adopted by the U.S. government and worldwide, as well as FIPS-197 certification, 802.15.4 security level, ISA100.11a MAC and Transport layer security, WirelessHART MAC and Transport layer security, and follow the IPsec standard for securing end-to-end IP communications.
References
External links
Ian. F. Akyildiz and Xudong Wang, "A Survey on Wireless Mesh Networks," IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 43, no. 9, s23-s30, Sept. 2005
Wireless sensor network
Companies based in Atlanta
Companies established in 1998 |
35368674 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United%20States%20v.%20Manning | United States v. Manning | United States v. Manning was the court-martial of former United States Army Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, known now as Chelsea Manning.
After serving in Iraq since October 2009, Manning was arrested in May 2010 after Adrian Lamo, a computer hacker in the United States, indirectly informed the Army's Criminal Investigation Command that Manning had acknowledged passing classified material to the whistleblower website, WikiLeaks. Manning was ultimately charged with 22 specified offenses, including communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source, and the most serious of the charges, aiding the enemy. Other charges included violations of the Espionage Act of 1917, stealing U.S. government property, charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and charges related to the failure to obey lawful general orders under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Manning entered guilty pleas to 10 of 22 specified offenses in February 2013.
The trial on the 12 remaining charges began on June 3, 2013. It went to the judge on July 26, 2013, and findings were rendered on July 30. Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge, that of aiding the enemy, for giving secrets to WikiLeaks. In addition to five or six espionage counts, Manning was also found guilty of five theft specifications, two computer fraud specifications and multiple military infractions.
On August 21, 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment, reduction in pay grade to E-1, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. On January 17, 2017, President Barack Obama commuted Manning's sentence to a total of seven years' confinement. Manning was released on May 17, 2017. On May 31, 2018, the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Manning's conviction of violating the Espionage Act of 1917.
Background
The material in question includes 251,287 United States diplomatic cables, over 400,000 classified army reports from the Iraq War (the Iraq War logs), and approximately 90,000 army reports from the war in Afghanistan (the Afghan War logs). WikiLeaks also received two videos. One was of the July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike (dubbed the "Collateral Murder" video); the second, which was never published, was of the May 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan.
Manning was charged on July 5, 2010, with violations of Articles 92 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which were alleged to have taken place between November 19, 2009, and May 27, 2010. These were replaced on March 1, 2011, with 22 specifications, including aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet knowing that it was accessible to the enemy, theft of public property or records, and transmitting defense information. Manning was found not guilty of aiding the enemy, the most serious charge, for which Manning could have faced the death penalty or life imprisonment.
Pre-trial hearings
Article 32 hearing
A panel of experts ruled in April 2011 that Manning was fit to stand trial. An Article 32 hearing, presided over by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza, was convened on December 16, 2011, at Fort Meade, Maryland, to determine whether to proceed to a court martial. The army was represented by Captains Ashden Fein, Joe Morrow, and Angel Overgaard. Manning was represented by military attorneys Major Matthew Kemkes and Captain Paul Bouchard, and by civilian attorney David Coombs.
The hearing resulted in Almanza recommending that Manning be referred to a general court-martial, and on February 3, 2012, the convening authority, Major General Michael Linnington, commander of the Military District of Washington, ordered Manning to stand trial on all 22 specified charges, including aiding the enemy. Manning was arraigned on February 23, and declined to enter a plea.
Prosecution evidence
The lead prosecutor, Captain Fein, argued that Manning had given enemies "unfettered access" to the material and had displayed an "absolute indifference" to classified information. He showed the court a video of Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaeda spokesman, referencing the leaked material.
The prosecution presented 300,000 pages of documents in evidence, including chat logs and classified material. Nicks writes that Manning appeared to have taken few security precautions. After Manning's arrest, detectives searched a basement room in Potomac, Maryland, and found an SD card they say contained the Afghan and Iraq War logs, along with a message to WikiLeaks. Investigators said Manning had also left computer trails of Google and Intelink searches, and of using Wget to download documents.
Lieutenant Colonel Almanza heard from two army investigators, Special Agent David Shaver, head of the digital forensics and research branch of the army's Computer Crime Investigative Unit (CCIU), and Mark Johnson, a digital forensics contractor from ManTech International, who works for the CCIU. They testified that they had found 100,000 State Department cables on a computer Manning had used between November 2009 and May 2010; 400,000 U.S. military reports from Iraq and 91,000 from Afghanistan on the SD card; and 10,000 cables on a personal MacBook Pro and storage devices that they said had not been passed to WikiLeaks because a file was corrupted. They also said they had recovered an exchange from May 2010 between Manning and Eric Schmiedl, a Boston mathematician, in which Manning had admitted to being the source of the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral Murder") video.
Johnson said he found a text file called wl-press.txt on an external hard drive in Manning's room in Iraq. The file was created on November 30, 2009, and gave the contact detail in Iceland for WikiLeaks. He said he also recovered 14–15 pages of encrypted chats, in unallocated space on Manning's MacBook's hard drive, between Manning and someone believed to be Julian Assange, using the Adium instant messaging client. The MacBook's log-in password was found to be the encryption key. Two of the chat handles, which used the Berlin Chaos Computer Club's domain (ccc.de), had names associated with them, Julian Assange and Nathaniel Frank. Johnson also said he found SSH logs on the MacBook that showed an SFTP connection, from an IP address that resolved to Manning's aunt's home, to a Swedish IP address with links to WikiLeaks. There was also a text file named "Readme" attached to the logs, apparently written by Manning:
Johnson said there had been two attempts to delete material from the MacBook. The operating system was re-installed in January 2010, and on or around January 31 an attempt was made to erase the hard drive by doing a "zero-fill," which involves overwriting material with zeroes. This process was started, cancelled, then started again with a single pass. The material was recovered after the overwrite attempts from unallocated space.
Defense arguments
The defense named 48 people it wanted to appear on Manning's behalf. The list was believed to include President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton had said that the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks "did not represent significant consequences to foreign policy." Obama was named because of an April 2011 statement that Manning "broke the law":
Obama's statement was later echoed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who said "We're a nation of laws. He did violate the law."
Manning's lawyers argued that the government had overstated the harm the release of the documents had caused, and had overcharged Manning in order to obtain evidence against Assange. They suggested that other people had had access to Manning's workplace computer, and under cross-examination Shaver acknowledged that some of the 10,000 cables on Manning's personal computer did not match cables published by WikiLeaks. Coombs asked for the dismissal of any charge related to the use of unauthorized software, arguing that Manning's unit had been "lawless ... when it comes to information assurance."
The defense also raised the issue of whether Manning's gender identity disorder had affected Manning's judgment. Manning had e-mailed master sergeant, Paul Adkins, in April 2010 to say she was suffering from gender confusion and, despite then living as a man, attaching a photograph of herself dressed as a woman. After Manning's arrest, the army found information about hormone replacement therapy in her room, and Manning's commander, Captain Steven Lim, learned that she had been calling herself Breanna. Defense lawyers argued that the superiors had failed to provide adequate counseling, and had not taken disciplinary action or revoke Manning's security clearance. They also suggested that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy—which was repealed in September 2011—had made it difficult for Manning to serve in the army as a gay man.
Defense request to depose six witnesses
After the hearing, in January 2012, Coombs filed a request to depose six witnesses, whose names were redacted in the application, and who are believed to have been involved in classifying the leaked videos. Coombs argues that the videos were not classified at the time they were obtained by WikiLeaks.
Article 39 hearing
An Article 39 hearing was convened on April 24, 2012, during which the judge, Colonel Denise Lind, denied a defense motion to dismiss the charge of aiding the enemy, and ruled that the government must be able to show that Manning knew the enemy would be able to access information on the WikiLeaks site. She ordered the CIA, FBI, DIA, State Department, and Department of Justice to release documents showing their assessment of whether the leaked material had damaged the national interest of the United States. Lind said she would decide after reading the documents whether to make them available to Manning's lawyers. She also ordered forensic imaging of five computers removed from Manning's work station that had not yet been wiped clean.
At the start of the hearing, Manning replaced the assigned two military defense lawyers, Major Matthew Kemkes and Captain Paul Bouchard, with Captain Joshua Tooman. The next Article 39 hearing was set for June 6–8 and trial was set for September 2012.
Petition to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals
The Center for Constitutional Rights filed a petition in May 2012 asking the Army Court of Criminal Appeals to order press and public access to motion papers, orders, and transcripts. Petitioners included Julian Assange, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Chase Madar, author of The Passion of Bradley Manning (2011), and Glenn Greenwald of Salon.
Motion to dismiss
On September 19, 2012, Manning's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss all charges with prejudice, arguing that Manning had been unable to obtain a speedy trial. The motion said that the 845 days spent in pretrial confinement was longer than the periods that the law says is unreasonable (United States military law normally requires a trial within 120 days). Judge Lind ruled against the defense motion and allowed for the delay because the prosecution needed more time to prepare its case.
Initial plea
On February 28, 2013, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 specified charges. Military judge Colonel Denise Lind accepted the guilty pleas, for which Manning could face up to 20 years in prison. Manning did not plead guilty to the most significant charge of aiding the enemy.
Manning acknowledged having provided archives of military and diplomatic files to WikiLeaks. She pleaded guilty to 10 criminal counts in connection with the material leaked, which included videos of airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan in which civilians were killed, logs of military incident reports, assessment files of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and a quarter-million cables from American diplomats stationed around the world. Manning read a statement recounting how she joined the military, became an intelligence analyst in Iraq, decided that certain files should become known to the American public to prompt a wider debate about foreign policy, downloaded them from a secure computer network and then ultimately uploaded them to WikiLeaks.
When the judge asked Manning to explain how she could admit that her actions were wrong, Manning replied, "Your Honor, regardless of my opinion or my assessment of documents such as these, it's beyond my pay grade—it's not my authority to make these decisions about releasing confidential files." An audio recording of Manning's statement was released by journalist Glenn Greenwald on March 12, 2013.
Manning put the files on a camera digital storage card and took it home on a leave in early 2010. Manning then decided to give the files to a newspaper, first calling The Washington Post. Next, The New York Times was contacted and an unanswered voice mail message was left. In January 2010, Manning called the public editor's line at Bloomberg News, but got no response. Manning then copied the files and uploaded them to WikiLeaks, through its website, using a directory the group designated as a "cloud drop box" server. Manning was frustrated that WikiLeaks did not publish files about 15 people who printed "anti-Iraqi" pamphlets. After uploading the files, Manning was engaged in more online conversations with someone from WikiLeaks, who Manning thought was a senior figure, like Julian Assange. In retrospect, Manning described the relationship as "artificial."
Trial
The trial began on June 3, 2013, at Fort Meade, Maryland, before Colonel Denise Lind, chief judge, U.S. Army Trial Judiciary, 1st Judicial Circuit.
Opening for the prosecution, Captain Joe Morrow accused Manning of having "harvested" hundreds of thousands of documents from secure networks, then making them available within hours to the US's enemies by dumping them on the Internet: "This is a case about what happens when arrogance meets access to classified information," he said. For the defense, Coombs described Manning as "young, naïve and good intentioned." Coombs recounted an incident in which a convoy was hit by an IED, which U.S. troops were relieved did not result in any American fatalities. Manning was reportedly disturbed by her comrades' lack of sympathy upon later learning that an Iraqi civilian had been killed in the incident. Coombs said that by releasing material she felt the public should see, Manning had hoped to make a difference. Manning additionally believed that much of the information she released was "already basically in the public domain," and that it was of historical importance.
On July 2, at the trial's 14th day of sessions, prosecutors rested their case, having presented testimony from 80 witnesses and evidence showing that Manning's training repeatedly instructed her to not give classified information to unauthorized people. The government also presented evidence that Osama bin Laden asked for and received from an associate the Afghanistan battlefield reports WikiLeaks published, and that al-Qaeda leaders reveled in WikiLeaks' publication of reams of classified U.S. documents, urging members to study them before devising ways to attack the United States.
On July 10, the defense rested its case after presenting evidence from 10 witnesses. Manning did not take the stand. Attempting to undercut the most serious charge against Manning—aiding the enemy—defense lawyers called Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler, who testified that until WikiLeaks started publishing the material Manning leaked, even the Pentagon apparently viewed the anti-secrecy website as a legitimate journalistic enterprise. Thereafter, said Benkler, the public, the military and traditional news media perceived WikiLeaks as a group that supported terrorism.
On July 18, Judge Lind rejected a defense motion to dismiss the charge of aiding the enemy, citing Manning's extensive training as an intelligence analyst and the sheer volume of records that were leaked as reasons to allow the charge to proceed. In its rebuttal case, the prosecution entered three tweets from WikiLeaks that Manning may have viewed to show that the organization was not a legitimate journalistic enterprise. In surrebuttal, the defense entered articles into evidence depicting WikiLeaks as an important journalism outlet, a platform "just as important as" the Freedom of Information Act (United States).
On July 25, chief prosecutor Maj. Ashden Fein delivered the government's closing argument, portraying Manning as an "anarchist" who sought to "make a splash" by providing vast archives of secret documents to WikiLeaks. Arguing that Manning must be found guilty of aiding the enemy, Fein said, "He was not a whistleblower. He was a traitor, a traitor who understood the value of compromised information in the hands of the enemy and took deliberate steps to ensure that they, along with the world, received it." Fein contended that Manning's "wholesale and indiscriminate compromise of hundreds of thousands of classified documents" for release by the WikiLeaks staff, whom he called "essentially information anarchists," was not an ordinary journalistic disclosure but a bid for "notoriety, although in a clandestine form." Fein addressed the court for nearly six hours.
The next day, defense attorney Coombs countered with his own closing argument, portraying Manning as "a young, naïve, but good-intentioned soldier who had human life and his humanist beliefs center to his decisions, whose sole focus was, 'Maybe I just can make a difference, maybe make a change. Coombs said his client released only files she believed would cause no harm yet spark debate and prompt change, and that if Manning had not been selective, she would have leaked much more. Playing excerpts from the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral Murder") video that Manning admitted supplying to WikiLeaks, Coombs told Judge Lind: "When the court looks at this, the defense requests that you not disengage, that you not look at this from the eyes of 'this happened on a battlefield.' Did they all deserve to die? That is what Private Manning is thinking as he is watching this video he is seeing, and he's questioning."
With closing arguments concluded, Col. Lind began her deliberations. Manning chose to have her court-martial heard by the judge only instead of a jury.
Findings
On July 30, 2013, Judge Lind issued her findings regarding the charges. Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy by knowingly giving out intelligence through indirect means, and was convicted of 19 of the 21 or 22 specified charges, including theft and six counts of espionage. The hearing on sentencing began on July 31, 2013. The maximum sentence that Manning could have faced was 136 years' imprisonment. This was subsequently reduced to 90 years after the military court granted the defense's motion to merge some of the 20 counts that Manning was being charged with on the grounds that they overlapped.
Sentencing
The judge ruled in January 2013 that Manning's sentence would be reduced by 112 days because of treatment during confinement at Quantico. The sentencing phase of the trial began on July 31. A military psychologist who had treated Manning, Capt. Michael Worsley, testified that Manning had been left isolated in the army, trying to deal with gender-identity issues in a "hyper-masculine environment." On August 14 during the sentencing hearing, Manning apologized for past actions, telling the court: "I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States. I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people. ... At the time of my decisions I was dealing with a lot of issues." On August 21, 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Manning was given credit of 1,293 days (3 years and 6 months) served in pre-trial confinement, and may be eligible for parole after serving one-third of the sentence. Manning was also reduced to the lowest enlisted pay grade (E-1), forfeited all pay and allowances, and given a dishonorable discharge.
Petition for commutation of sentence
On September 3, 2013, Manning's attorney announced that he had filed on his client's behalf a Petition for Commutation of Sentence, submitted with a letter to the Secretary of the Army and, through the Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney, to President Obama, seeking a presidential pardon.
On January 17, 2017, President Obama commuted Manning's sentence to a total of seven years' confinement, starting with the initial date of arrest. As a result of the commutation Manning was released on May 17, 2017.
Appeal
On May 31, 2018, the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Manning's 2013 court-martial conviction of violating the Espionage Act. The court rejected Manning's contention that the statute is too vague to provide fair notice of the criminal nature of disclosing classified documents. "The facts of this case," the three-judge panel ruled, "leave no question as to what constituted national defense information. Appellant's training and experience indicate, without any doubt, she was on notice and understood the nature of the information she was disclosing and how its disclosure could negatively affect national defense." The court also rejected Manning's assertion that her actions in disclosing classified information related to national security are protected by the First Amendment. Manning, the court found, "had no First Amendment right to make the disclosures—doing so not only violated the nondisclosure agreements she signed, but also jeopardized national security."
See also
Material alleged to have been leaked
Afghan War documents leak
Iraq War documents leak
Guantanamo Bay files leak
United States diplomatic cables leak
Collateral Murder video
Granai airstrike video
Miscellaneous
List of material published by WikiLeaks
Military Whistleblower Protection Act
United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
Notes
Further reading
Articles
Carbone, Christopher. "Have gay rights groups abandoned Bradley Manning?" The Guardian. Tuesday July 30, 2013.
Gabbatt, Adam. "Bradley Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy – live updates." The Guardian. Tuesday July 30, 2013.
Greenwald, Glenn. "The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks", Salon, June 18, 2010.
Hansen, Evan. "Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed", Wired magazine, July 13, 2011; archived, Wired magazine, July 13, 2011; archived from the original on March 28, 2012.
Nakashima, Ellen. "Messages from alleged leaker Bradley Manning portray him as despondent soldier", The Washington Post, June 10, 2010.
Nicks, Denver. "Private Manning and the Making of Wikileaks", This Land, September 23, 2010.
Pilkington, Ed. "Bradley Manning defence rests after calling just 10 witnesses." The Guardian. Wednesday July 10, 2013.
Books
Madar, Chase. The Passion of Bradley Manning. . OR Books, 2012.
Mitchell, Greg; Gosztola, Kevin. Truth and Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning. . Sinclair Books, 2012.
Video
Smith, Martin. "The Private Life of Bradley Manning", PBS Frontline, March 2011.
Websites
The Law Offices of David E. Coombs, Bradley Manning's lawyer, accessed April 7, 2012.
Unofficial trial transcripts from the Freedom of the Press Foundation
What Happened At Bradley Manning's Hearing This Week? The 300,000 documents, Arun Rath, PBS Frontline, December 22, 2011.
"Witness: Manning said leak would lift 'fog of war Army investigators, including the reference to Eric Schmiedl, see David Dishneau and Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press, December 19, 2011
"Investigators link WikiLeaks suspect to Assange", Agence France-Presse, December 20, 2011.
2013 in United States case law
Court-martial cases
Iraq War legal issues
United States diplomatic cables leak
WikiLeaks
Articles containing video clips |
35412737 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael%20Wood%20%28cryptographer%29 | Michael Wood (cryptographer) | Michael Wood is an American cryptographer who designed the REDOC encryption system. He is also the author of The Jesus Secret and other books.
References
American cryptographers
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people) |
35487960 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanSchool | LanSchool | LanSchool is a classroom management software owned by Lenovo and focused on school environments. The company is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and was founded as LanFan Technologies in February 1986. Two versions of the software are available: LanSchool Classic, the locally hosted version, and LanSchool Air, the cloud-based version. Both versions enable teachers to monitor students’ screens while in class, limit the websites students may visit, “push” a website to open on all classroom devices, and message the class.
Technology
LanSchool's locally hosted software uses a proprietary remote desktop protocol that communicates over a local area network via TCP and UDP. A console application is installed on the teacher's computer, which communicates peer-to-peer with a software agent running on the pupils' computers. LanSchool can function on the Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, iOS, and Android operating systems.
LanSchool Air is delivered as a cloud-based software, accessible through the teacher and students’ browsers and managed by Lenovo Software. It is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Chrome OS operating systems.
History
Originally named LanFan Technologies, the company was founded in February 1986 when Dana Doggett began exploring the concept of a software application that would allow an instructor to control multiple computers.
Doggett developed a software tool called PC Chalkboard that was then implemented by Novell. PC Chalkboard allowed Novell lab instructors to broadcast their screens to each PC in the lab. LanSchool was licensed by both Intel and IBM and actively marketed through each company's education sales channel. In April 2001, Doggett left Intel and formed a new company, LanSchool Technologies, LLC, where he could work on LanSchool full-time.
Acquisitions
LanSchool was acquired by Stoneware in 2011. In September 2012, Lenovo announced the acquisition of Stoneware which was completed on December 26, 2012.
Security
There have been cases of students being able to exploit the LanSchool software to bypass restrictions, and in some cases take control of other student computers. A 2006 post on CompSci.ca details the packet structure of older versions of the software, and claims there was no encryption or similar precautions. This issue was confirmed to have been caught and fixed in the same post the following year.
Product Features
Some of the product features included in LanSchool are:
Cross platform support for Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, iOS, and Android operating systems,
Thumbnail view allows teachers to view each pupil's screen,
Detail view allows teachers to see detailed information on each pupil's session/history,
Keystroke monitoring (if enabled by the school) can report on weeks of pupil use with actual keystroke history,
Screen snapshot capability allows teachers to document screen, user, time, date, and other information,
Internet history shows a list of websites visited by a user,
Running programs view shows all programs running on a pupil's machine, even if minimized,
Polling and quizzing capabilities enable teachers to ask interactive questions or administer quizzes,
Screen broadcasting enables students or teachers to share their screen with the entire class, and
Whitelisting and blacklisting of websites/programs helps teachers and IT teams control bandwidth usage and implement security policies.
See also
Employee monitoring software
Computer surveillance
Computer Lab
References
Educational software
Remote administration software
Surveillance |
35523640 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows%20RT | Windows RT | Windows RT is a {{#ifexpr:<2023|deprecated|discontinued}} mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. It is a version of Windows 8 built for the 32-bit ARM architecture (ARMv7). First unveiled in January 2011 at Consumer Electronics Show, the Windows RT 8 operating system was officially launched alongside Windows 8 on October 26, 2012, with the release of three Windows RT-based devices, including Microsoft's original Surface tablet. Unlike Windows 8, Windows RT is only available as preloaded software on devices specifically designed for the operating system by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Microsoft intended for devices with Windows RT to take advantage of the architecture's power efficiency to allow for longer battery life, to use system-on-chip (SoC) designs to allow for thinner devices and to provide a "reliable" experience over time. In comparison to other mobile operating systems, Windows RT also supports a relatively large number of existing USB peripherals and accessories and includes a version of Microsoft Office 2013 optimized for ARM devices as pre-loaded software. However, while Windows RT inherits the appearance and functionality of Windows 8, it has a number of limitations; it can only execute software that is digitally signed by Microsoft (which includes pre-loaded software and Windows Store apps), and it lacks certain developer-oriented features. It also lacks support for running applications designed for x86 processors, which were the main platform for Windows at the time. This would later be corrected with the release of Windows 10 version 1709 for ARM64 devices.
Windows RT was released to mixed reviews from various outlets and critics. Some felt that Windows RT devices had advantages over other mobile platforms (such as iOS or Android) because of its bundled software and the ability to use a wider variety of USB peripherals and accessories, but the platform was criticized for its poor software ecosystem, citing the early stage of Windows Store and its incompatibility with existing Windows software, and other limitations over Windows 8.
Critics and analysts deemed Windows RT to be commercially unsuccessful, citing these limitations, its unclear, uncompetitive position of sitting as an underpowered system between Windows Phone and Windows 8, and the introduction of Windows 8 devices with battery life and functionality that met or exceeded that of Windows RT devices. Improvements to Intel's mobile processors, along with a decision by Microsoft to remove OEM license fees for Windows on devices with screens smaller than 9 inches, spurred a market for low-end Wintel tablets running the full Windows 8 platform. These devices largely cannibalized Windows RT; vendors began phasing out their Windows RT devices due to poor sales, and less than a year after its release, Microsoft suffered a US$900 million loss that was largely blamed on poor sales of the ARM-based Surface tablet and unsold stock.
Only two more Windows RT devices, Microsoft's Surface 2 and the Nokia Lumia 2520 in late 2013, were released beyond the five original launch devices, and no Windows RT counterpart to the Surface Pro 3 was released due to a re-positioning of the Surface line into the high-end market, and a switch to Intel architecture for the Surface 3. These developments left Microsoft's future support of the platform in doubt. With the end of production for both Surface 2 and Lumia 2520, Microsoft and its subsidiaries no longer manufacture any Windows RT devices.
History
At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, it was officially announced that the next version of Windows would provide support for system-on-chip (SoC) implementations based on the ARM architecture. Steven Sinofsky, then Windows division president, demonstrated an early version of a Windows port for the architecture, codenamed Windows on ARM (WoA), running on prototypes with Qualcomm Snapdragon, Texas Instruments OMAP, and Nvidia Tegra 2 chips. The prototypes featured working versions of Internet Explorer 9 (with DirectX support via the Tegra 2's GPU), PowerPoint and Word, along with the use of class drivers to allow printing to an Epson printer. Sinofsky felt that the shift towards SoC designs were "a natural evolution of hardware that's applicable to a wide range of form factors, not just to slates", while Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer emphasized the importance of supporting SoCs on Windows by proclaiming that the operating system would "be everywhere on every kind of device without compromise."
Initial development on WoA took place by porting code from Windows 7; Windows Mobile smartphones were used to test early builds of WoA because of lack of readily available ARM-based tablets. Later testing was performed using a custom-designed array of rack-mounted ARM-based systems. Changes to the Windows codebase were made to optimize the OS for the internal hardware of ARM devices, but a number of technical standards traditionally used by x86 systems are also used. WoA devices would use UEFI firmware and have a software-based Trusted Platform Module to support device encryption and UEFI Secure Boot. ACPI is also used to detect and control plug and play devices and provide power management outside the SoC. To enable wider hardware support, peripherals such as human interface devices, storage and other components that use USB and I²C connections use class drivers and standardized protocols. Windows Update serves as the mechanism for updating all system drivers, software, and firmware.
Microsoft showcased other aspects of the new operating system, to be known as Windows 8, during subsequent presentations. Among these changes (which also included an overhauled interface optimized for use on touch-based devices built around Metro design language) was the introduction of Windows Runtime (WinRT). Software developed using this new architecture could be processor-independent (allowing compatibility with both x86- and ARM-based systems), would emphasize the use of touch input, would run within a sandboxed environment to provide additional security, and be distributed through Windows Store—a store similar to services such as the App Store and Google Play. WinRT was also optimized to provide a more "reliable" experience on ARM-based devices; as such, backward compatibility for Win32 software otherwise compatible with older versions of Windows was intentionally excluded from Windows on ARM. Windows developers indicated that existing Windows applications were not specifically optimized for reliability and energy efficiency on the ARM architecture and that WinRT was sufficient for providing "full expressive power" for applications, "while avoiding the traps and pitfalls that can potentially reduce the overall experience for consumers." Consequentially, this lack of backward compatibility would also prevent existing malware from running on the operating system.
On April 16, 2012, Microsoft announced that Windows on ARM would be officially branded as Windows RT. Microsoft did not explicitly indicate what the "RT" in the operating system's name referred to, but it was believed to refer to the WinRT architecture. Steven Sinofsky stated that Microsoft would ensure the differences between Windows RT and 8 were adequately addressed in advertising. However, reports found that promotional web pages for the Microsoft Surface tablet had contained confusing wording alluding to the compatibility differences and that Microsoft Store representatives were providing inconsistent and sometimes incorrect information about Windows RT. In response, Microsoft stated that Microsoft Store staff members would be given an average of 15 hours of training prior to the launch of Windows 8 and Windows RT to ensure that consumers were able to make the correct choice for their needs. The first Windows RT devices were officially released alongside Windows 8 on October 26, 2012.
Windows 8.1, an upgrade for Windows 8 and RT, was released in Windows Store on October 17, 2013, containing a number of improvements to the operating system's interface and functionality. For Windows RT devices, the update also adds Outlook to the included Office RT suite. The update was temporarily recalled by Microsoft shortly after its release, following reports that some Surface users had encountered a rare bug which corrupted their device's Boot Configuration Data during installation, resulting in an error on startup. On October 21, 2013, Microsoft released recovery media and instructions which could be used to repair the device and restored access to Windows 8.1 the next day.
Differences from Windows 8
While Windows RT functions similarly to Windows 8, there are still some notable differences, primarily involving software and hardware compatibility. Julie Larson-Green, then executive vice president of the Devices and Studios group at Microsoft, explained that Windows RT was ultimately designed to provide a "closed, turnkey" user experience, "where it doesn't have all the flexibility of Windows, but it has the power of Office and then all the new style applications. So you could give it to your kid and he's not going to load it up with a bunch of toolbars accidentally out of Internet Explorer and then come to you later and say, 'why am I getting all these pop-ups?' It just isn't capable of doing that by design."
Included software
Windows RT does not include Windows Media Player, in favor of other multimedia apps found on Windows Store; devices are pre-loaded with the in-house Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps.
All Windows RT devices include Office 2013 Home & Student RT—a version of Microsoft Office that is optimized for ARM systems. As the version of Office RT included on Windows RT devices is based on the Home & Student version, it cannot be used for "commercial, nonprofit, or revenue-generating activities" unless the organization has a volume license for Office 2013, or the user has an Office 365 subscription with commercial use rights. For compatibility and security reasons, certain advanced features, such as Visual Basic macros, are not available in Office RT.
Windows RT also includes a BitLocker-based device encryption system, which passively encrypts a user's data once they sign in with a Microsoft account.
Software compatibility
Due to the different architecture of ARM-based devices compared to x86 devices, Windows RT has software compatibility limitations. Although the operating system still provides the traditional Windows desktop environment alongside Windows 8's touch-oriented user interface, the only desktop applications officially supported by Windows RT are those that come with the operating system itself; such as File Explorer, Internet Explorer, and Office RT. Only Windows Store apps can be installed by users on Windows RT devices; they must be obtained from Windows Store or sideloaded in enterprise environments. Developers cannot port desktop applications to run on Windows RT since Microsoft developers felt that they would not be properly optimized for the platform. As a consequence, Windows RT also does not support "new-experience enabled" web browsers: a special class of app used on Windows 8 that allows web browsers to bundle variants that can run in the Windows RT "modern-style user interface" and integrate with other apps but still use Win32 code like desktop programs.
Hardware compatibility
In a presentation at Windows 8's launch event in New York City, Steven Sinofsky claimed that Windows RT would support 420 million existing hardware devices and peripherals. However, in comparison to Windows 8, full functionality will not be available for all devices, and some devices will not be supported at all. Microsoft provides a "Compatibility Center" portal where users can search for compatibility information on devices with Windows RT; on launch, the site listed just over 30,000 devices that were compatible with the operating system.
Networking and device management
While Windows RT devices can join a HomeGroup and access files stored within shared folders and libraries on other devices within the group, files cannot be shared from the Windows RT device itself.
Windows RT does not support connecting to a domain for network logins, nor does it support using Group Policy for device management. However, Exchange ActiveSync, the Windows Intune service, or System Center Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 can be used to provide some control over Windows RT devices in enterprise environments, such as the ability to apply security policies and provide a portal which can be used to sideload apps from outside Windows Store.
User interface
After installation of the KB3033055 update for Windows RT 8.1, a desktop Start menu becomes available as an alternative to the Start screen. It is divided into two columns, with one devoted to recent and pinned applications, and one devoted to live tiles. It is similar to, but not identical to, Windows 10's version.
Support lifecycle
Windows RT follows the lifecycle policy of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. The original Surface tablet fell under Microsoft's support policies for consumer hardware and received mainstream support until April 11, 2017.
Mainstream support for Windows RT ended on January 12, 2016. Users must update to Windows RT 8.1 to continue to receive support.
Mainstream support for Windows RT 8.1 ended January 9, 2018, and extended support for Windows RT 8.1 will end on January 10, 2023.
Devices
Microsoft imposed tight control on the development and production of Windows RT devices: they were designed in cooperation with the company, and built to strict design and hardware specifications, including requirements to only use "approved" models of certain components. To ensure hardware quality and control the number of devices released upon launch, the three participating ARM chip makers were only allowed to partner with up to two PC manufacturers to develop the first "wave" of Windows RT devices in Microsoft's development program. Qualcomm partnered with Samsung and HP, Nvidia with Asus and Lenovo, and Texas Instruments with Toshiba. Additionally, Microsoft partnered with Nvidia to produce Surface (retroactively renamed "Surface RT") – the first Windows-based computing device to be manufactured and marketed directly by Microsoft. Windows RT was designed to support chips meeting the ARMv7 architecture, a 32-bit processor platform. Shortly after the original release of Windows RT, ARM Holdings disclosed that it was working with Microsoft and other software partners on supporting the new ARMv8-A architecture, which includes a new 64-bit variant, in preparation for future devices.
Multiple hardware partners pulled out of the program during the development of Windows RT, the first being Toshiba and Texas Instruments. TI later announced that it was pulling out of the consumer market for ARM system-on-chips to focus on embedded systems. HP also pulled out of the program, believing that Intel-based tablets were more appropriate for business use than ARM. HP was replaced by Dell as an alternate Qualcomm partner. Acer also intended to release a Windows RT device alongside its Windows 8-based products, but initially decided to delay it until the second quarter of 2013 in response to the mixed reaction to Surface. The unveiling of the Microsoft-developed tablet caught Acer by surprise, leading to concerns that Surface could leave "a huge negative impact for the [Windows] ecosystem and other brands."
First-generation devices
The first wave of Windows RT devices included:
Microsoft Surface (released October 26, 2012, concurrently with general availability of Windows 8)
Asus VivoTab RT (released October 26, 2012)
Dell XPS 10 (released December 2012; discontinued on September 25, 2013)
Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 (released December 2012)
Samsung Ativ Tab (Released in United Kingdom on December 14, 2012; American and German releases cancelled)
After having planned to produce a Windows RT device close to its launch, Acer's president Jim Wong later indicated that there was "no value" in the current version of the operating system, and would reconsider its plans for future Windows RT products when the Windows 8.1 update was released. On August 9, 2013, Asus announced that it would no longer produce any Windows RT products; chairman Johnny Shih expressed displeasure at the market performance of Windows RT, considering it to be "not very promising". During the introduction of its Android and Windows 8-based Venue tablets in October 2013, Dell's vice president Neil Hand stated that the company had no plans to produce an updated version of the XPS 10.
Second-generation devices
In September 2013, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang stated that the company was "working really hard" with Microsoft on developing a second revision of Surface. The Microsoft Surface 2 tablet, which is powered by Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 4 platform and features the same full HD display as the Surface Pro 2, was officially unveiled on September 23, 2013, and released on October 22, 2013, following Windows 8.1 general availability the previous week. On the same day as the Surface 2's release, Nokia (the acquisition of their mobile business by Microsoft had just been announced, but not yet been completed) unveiled the Lumia 2520, a Windows RT tablet with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 4G LTE, and a design similar to its line of Windows Phone products. An LTE-capable version of the Surface 2 was made available the following year.
In January 2015, after its stock sold out on Microsoft Store online, Microsoft confirmed that it had discontinued further production of the Surface 2 to focus on Surface Pro products. Microsoft ended production of the Lumia 2520 the following month, ending active production of Windows RT devices after just over two years of general availability. With the end of production for both Surface 2 and Lumia 2520, Microsoft and its subsidiaries no longer manufacture any Windows RT devices.
Cancelled devices
Microsoft originally developed a "mini" version of its Surface tablet later known as Surface Mini and had planned to unveil it alongside the Surface Pro 3 in May 2014; it was reportedly cancelled at the last minute. Images of the product were leaked in June 2017, revealing specifications such as a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, an 8-inch display, and support for the Surface Pen instead of a keyboard attachment.
In July 2016, an image depicting a number of cancelled Nokia-branded Lumia devices was released, depicting a prototype for a second Nokia tablet known as the Lumia 2020. Details revealed in September 2017 showed the product to have an 8.3-inch display and the same Snapdragon 800 chip as that of the Surface "mini" tablet.
Reception
Windows RT's launch devices received mixed reviews upon their release. In a review of the Asus VivoTab RT by PC Advisor, Windows RT was praised for being a mobile operating system that still offered some PC amenities such as a full-featured file manager, but noted its lack of compatibility with existing Windows software, and that it had no proper media player aside from a "shameless, in-your-face conduit to Xbox Music." AnandTech believed Windows RT was the first "legitimately useful" mobile operating system, owing in part to its multitasking system, bundled Office programs, smooth interface performance, and "decent" support for a wider variety of USB devices in comparison to other operating systems on the ARM architecture. However, the OS was panned for its slow application launch times in comparison to a recent iPad, and spotty driver support for printers. The small number of "quality" apps available on launch was also noted—but considered to be a non-issue, assuming that the app ecosystem would "expand significantly unless somehow everyone stops buying Windows-based systems on October 26th."
Reception of the preview release of RT 8.1 was mixed; both ExtremeTech and TechRadar praised the improvements to the operating system's tablet-oriented interface, along with the addition of Outlook; TechRadars Dan Grabham believed that the inclusion of Outlook was important because "nobody in their right mind would try and handle work email inside the standard Mail app—it's just not up to the task." However, both experienced performance issues running the beta on the Tegra 3-based Surface; ExtremeTech concluded that "as it stands, we’re still not sure why you would ever opt to buy a Windows RT tablet when there are similarly priced Atom-powered x86 devices that run the full version of Windows 8."
Market relevance and response
The need to market an ARM-compatible version of Windows was questioned by analysts because of recent developments in the PC industry; both Intel and AMD introduced x86-based system-on-chip designs for Windows 8, Atom "Clover Trail" and "Temash" respectively, in response to the growing competition from ARM licensees. In particular, Intel claimed that Clover Trail-based tablets could provide battery life rivaling that of ARM devices; in a test by PC World, Samsung's Clover Trail-based Ativ Smart PC was shown to have battery life exceeding that of the ARM-based Surface. Peter Bright of Ars Technica argued that Windows RT had no clear purpose, since the power advantage of ARM-based devices was "nowhere near as clear-cut as it was two years ago", and that users would be better off purchasing Office 2013 themselves because of the removed features and licensing restrictions of Office RT.
Windows RT was also met with lukewarm reaction from manufacturers; in June 2012, Hewlett-Packard canceled its plans to release a Windows RT tablet, stating that its customers felt Intel-based tablets were more appropriate for use in business environments. In January 2013, Samsung cancelled the American release of its Windows RT tablet, the Ativ Tab, citing the unclear positioning of the operating system, "modest" demand for Windows RT devices, plus the effort and investment required to educate consumers on the differences between Windows 8 and RT as reasons for the move. Mike Abary, senior vice president of Samsung's U.S. PC and tablet businesses, also stated that the company was unable to build the Ativ Tab to meet its target price point—considering that lower cost was intended to be a selling point for Windows RT devices. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang expressed disappointment over the market performance of Windows RT, but called on Microsoft to continue increasing its concentration on the ARM platform. Huang also commented on the exclusion of Outlook from the Office 2013 suite included on the device and suggested that Microsoft port the software for RT as well (in response to public demand, Microsoft announced the inclusion of Outlook with future versions of Windows RT in June 2013). In May 2013, reports surfaced that HTC had scrapped plans to produce a 12-inch Windows RT tablet as it would cost too much to produce, and that there would be greater demand for smaller devices.
The poor demand resulted in price cuts for various Windows RT products; in April 2013 the price of Dell's XPS 10 fell from US$450 US to $300, and Microsoft began offering free covers for its Surface tablet in some territories as a limited-time promotion—itself a US$130 value for the Type Cover alone. Microsoft also reportedly reduced the cost of Windows RT licenses for devices with smaller screens, hoping that this could spur interest in the platform. In July 2013, Microsoft cut the price of the first-generation Surface worldwide by 30%, with its U.S. price falling to $350. Concurrently, Microsoft reported a loss of US$900 million due to the lackluster sales of the device. In August 2013, Dell silently pulled the option to purchase the XPS 10 from its online store without a keyboard dock (raising its price back up to US$479), and pulled the device entirely in September 2013. Microsoft's discount on the Surface tablet did result in a slight increase of market share for the device; in late-August 2013, usage data from the advertising network AdDuplex (which provides advertising services within Windows Store apps) revealed that Surface usage had increased from 6.2 to 9.8%.
Restrictions and compatibility limitations
In contrast to Windows 8 (where the feature had to be enabled by default on OEM devices, but remain user-configurable), Microsoft requires all Windows RT devices to have UEFI Secure Boot permanently enabled, preventing the ability to run alternative operating systems on them. Tom Warren of The Verge stated that he would have preferred Microsoft to "keep a consistent approach across ARM and x86, though, not least because of the number of users who'd love to run Android alongside Windows 8 on their future tablets", but noted that the decision to impose such restrictions was in line with similar measures imposed by other mobile operating systems, including recent Android devices and Microsoft's own Windows Phone mobile platform.
The requirement to obtain most software on Windows RT through Windows Store was considered to be similar in nature to the application stores on other "closed" mobile platforms; where only software certified under guidelines issued by the vendor (i.e. Microsoft) can be distributed in the store. Microsoft was also criticized by the developers of the Firefox web browser for effectively preventing the development of third-party web browsers for Windows RT (and thus forcing use of its own Internet Explorer browser) by restricting the development of desktop applications and by not providing the same APIs and exceptions available on Windows 8 to code web browsers that can run as apps. However, the European Union, in response to a complaint about the restrictions in relation to an antitrust case involving Microsoft, ruled that "so far, there are no grounds to pursue further investigation on this particular issue." As mandated by the EU, the BrowserChoice.eu service is still included in Windows 8.
"Jailbreak" exploit
In January 2013, a privilege escalation exploit was discovered in the Windows kernel that can allow unsigned code to run under Windows RT; the exploit involved the use of a remote debugging tool (provided by Microsoft to debug WinRT apps on Windows RT devices) to execute code which changes the signing level stored in RAM to allow unsigned code to execute (by default, it is set to a level that only allows code signed by Microsoft to execute). Alongside his explanation of the exploit, the developer also included a personal appeal to Microsoft urging them to remove the restrictions on Windows RT devices, contending that their decision was not for technical reasons, and that the devices would be more valuable if this functionality were available. In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson applauded the effort, indicating that the exploit does not pose a security threat because it requires administrative access to the device, advanced techniques, and would still require programs to be re-compiled for ARM. However, Microsoft has still indicated that the exploit would be patched in a future update.
A batch file-based tool soon surfaced on XDA Developers to assist users in the process of performing the exploit, and a variety of ported desktop applications began to emerge, such as the emulator Bochs, PuTTY and TightVNC. Afterwards, an emulator known as "Win86emu" surfaced, allowing users to run x86 software on a jailbroken Windows RT device. However, it does not support all Windows APIs, and runs programs slower than they would on a native system.
Demise
In November 2013, speaking about Windows RT at the UBS Global Technology Conference, Julie Larson-Green made comments discussing the future of Microsoft's mobile strategy surrounding the Windows platform. Larson-Green stated that in the future (accounting for Windows, Windows RT, and Windows Phone), Microsoft was "[not] going to have three [mobile operating systems]." The fate of Windows RT was left unclear by her remarks; industry analysts interpreted them as signs that Microsoft was preparing to discontinue Windows RT due to its poor adoption, while others suggested that Microsoft was planning to unify Windows with Windows Phone. Microsoft ultimately announced its "Universal Windows Apps" platform at Build 2014, which would allow developers to create WinRT apps for Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox One that share common codebases. These initiatives were compounded by a goal for Windows 10 to unify the core Windows operating system across all devices.
Critics interpreted Microsoft's move to cancel the launch of a smaller Surface model in May 2014 as a further sign that Microsoft, under new CEO Satya Nadella, and new device head Stephen Elop (who joined Microsoft upon the purchase of Nokia's mobile phone business in September 2013, only to depart the company the following year), was planning to further downplay Windows RT, given that the company had shifted its attention towards a higher-end, productivity-oriented market with the Pro 3—one which would be inappropriate for Windows RT given its positioning and limitations. Analysts believed that Microsoft was planning to leverage its acquisition of Nokia's device business for future Windows RT devices, possibly under the Lumia brand; this ultimately turned out to be a failure, and Microsoft would eventually leave the consumer mobile phone market, selling its assets to Foxconn and HMD Global in May 2016.
Newer Intel processors for mobile devices were more competitive in comparison to ARM equivalents in regards to performance and battery life; this factor and other changes made by Microsoft, such as the removal of Windows OEM license fees on devices with screens less than 9 inches in size, spurred the creation of a market for lower-end tablets running the full Windows 8 operating system on Intel-compatible platforms, leaving further uncertainty over Microsoft's support of ARM outside of smartphones—where they remain ubiquitous. Such a device came in March 2015, when Microsoft unveiled a new low-end Surface model, the Intel Atom-based Surface 3; unlike previous low-end Surface models, Surface 3 did not use ARM and Windows RT. In June 2016, Microsoft announced that production of this device would end by December 2016, with sales ending the following month. No follow-up device was planned in this segment, signalling the company's departure from the low-end Windows consumer tablet market, where experts have been continually debating whether a future exists. In 2021, Microsoft said it will stop distributing and updating Windows RT after January 10, 2023 (EOL Date).
Successors
Windows 10 influence
On January 21, 2015, Microsoft unveiled Windows 10 Mobile, an edition of Windows 10 for smartphones and sub-8-inch tablets running on ARM architecture; unlike RT, which was based upon the user experience of the PC version, Windows 10 on these devices is a continuation of the Windows Phone user experience that emphasizes the ability for developers to create "universal" Windows apps that can run across PCs, tablets, and phones, and only supports the modern-style interface and Windows apps (although on compatible devices, a limited desktop experience will be available when connected to an external display). Following the event, a Microsoft spokesperson stated that the company was working on a Windows RT update that would provide "some of the functionality of Windows 10", but declined to offer any further details. As such, Microsoft does not officially consider Windows RT to be a supported upgrade path to Windows 10. Shortly afterwards, Microsoft ended production of both the Surface 2 and Lumia 2520.
The "Update for Windows RT 8.1 feature improvement" (KB3033055), also referred to by Microsoft as "Windows 8.1 RT Update 3", was released on September 16, 2015; it adds a version of the updated Start menu seen in early preview versions of Windows 10 (which combines an application list with a sidebar of tiles), but otherwise does not contain any other significant changes to the operating system or its functionality, nor any support for Windows 10's application ecosystem. The Verge characterized this update as being similar to Windows Phone 7.8—which similarly backported user interface changes from its successor, without making any other significant upgrades to the platform.
Return of ARM and app limitations
On December 7, 2016, Microsoft announced that as part of a partnership with Qualcomm, it planned to launch an ARM version of Windows 10 for Snapdragon-based devices, initially focusing on laptops. Unlike Windows RT, the ARM version of Windows 10 will allow use of an x86 processor emulator to run Win32 desktop software, rather than only allowing apps from Windows Store. The following year, Microsoft announced the Always Connected PC brand, covering Windows 10 devices with cellular connectivity; the launch featured two Snapdragon 835-powered 2-in-1 laptops from Asus and HP, and an integration of Qualcomm's Snapdragon X16 gigabit LTE modem with AMD's Ryzen Mobile platform.
On May 2, 2017, Microsoft unveiled Windows 10 S, an edition of Windows 10 designed primarily for low-end mobile devices targeting the education market (competing primarily with Google's Linux-based Chrome OS). Similarly to Windows RT, it restricted software installation to applications obtained via Windows Store. Windows 10 S was replaced by S Mode, a mode in which manufacturers can ship Windows 10 computers with the same restrictions, but they can be turned off by the user.
References
External links
Windows RT 8.1: FAQ
Windows 8 vs Windows RT 8: what's the difference?
2012 software
ARM operating systems
Mobile operating systems
Tablet operating systems
Windows 8
Discontinued versions of Microsoft Windows
no:Windows 8#RT |
35581834 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell%20Douglas%20F/A-18%20Hornet%20in%20Australian%20service | McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet in Australian service | The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operated McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet fighter aircraft between 1984 and 2021. The Australian Government purchased 75 A and B variants of the F/A-18 in 1981 to replace the RAAF's Dassault Mirage III fighters. The Hornets entered service with the RAAF between 1984 and 1990. Four Hornets were destroyed in flying accidents during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
RAAF Hornets were first sent on a combat deployment as part of the Australian contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. During the invasion, 14 Hornets flew patrols over Iraq, as well as close air support sorties to assist coalition ground forces. RAAF F/A-18s also provided security for the American air base at Diego Garcia between late 2001 and early 2002, and have protected a number of high-profile events in Australia. Between 2015 and 2017 a detachment of Hornets was deployed to the Middle East and struck ISIL targets as part of Operation Okra.
Commencing in 1999, the RAAF put its Hornets through a series of upgrades to improve their effectiveness. However, the aircraft became increasingly difficult to operate and were at risk of being outclassed by the fighters and air-defence systems operated by other countries. Under current Australian Government planning they will be replaced by 72 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighters. The Australian Government has offered the Hornets for sale once they are no longer needed by the RAAF, and finalised a deal to sell 25 to Canada in early 2019. Eight F/A-18s will be preserved for historical purposes in Australia and the remainder may be sold to an American air combat training company.
Selection
The RAAF began the initial stages of finding a replacement for its Dassault Mirage III fighters in 1968. The service issued an Air Staff Requirement for new fighter aircraft in December 1971, which received a larger than expected number of proposals from manufacturers. At that time the RAAF expected to start phasing out the Mirage IIIs in 1980. In 1973, a team of RAAF personnel inspected the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, Northrop YF-17, Saab 37 Viggen and Dassault Mirage F1 programs, but recommended that any decisions about a suitable replacement be delayed so that several new fighters that were expected to soon become available could also be considered. In August 1974 the Australian Government decided to defer the fighter replacement project and extend the Mirage IIIs' operational life into the 1980s. One of the four Mirage III-equipped squadrons was also disbanded at this time.
Work on the Mirage replacement program resumed in 1975, and the Tactical Fighter Project Office was established in 1976 to manage the process of selecting the RAAF's next fighter. A request for proposals was issued in November that year and attracted eleven responses. By March 1977 the office had chosen to focus on the F-15 Eagle, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, Dassault Mirage 2000 and Panavia Tornado, as well as the McDonnell Douglas F-18A and F-18L; the F-18A was a carrier-based fighter developed from the YF-17 for the United States Navy, and the F-18L was a land-based variant of this design. The Grumman F-14 Tomcat was also considered by the project office, but was regarded as unsuitable and never placed on the official shortlist. In November 1978, the F-15 and Tornado were removed from the list of aircraft being considered. The Tornado was excluded as it was principally a strike aircraft and had limited air-to-air capability. While the F-15 was an impressive aircraft that met or exceeded almost all of the RAAF's requirements, it was believed that the air force did not need a fighter with such advanced capabilities and that introducing it into service could destabilise Australia's region.
Further evaluation of the remaining aircraft took place during 1979. Wing Commander (and later Air Vice-Marshal) Bob Richardson test-flew a Mirage 2000 in April 1979, and reported that while the aircraft had excellent aerodynamic characteristics, its avionics, radar, fuel system, cockpit and weapons capability were inferior to those of US designs. Richardson also test-flew a YF-17 that was being used as a demonstrator for the F-18L in mid-1979, and was impressed by its capabilities. No F-18Ls had been ordered at this time, and the RAAF did not want to take on the risk of being the lead customer for the design. At about the same time, the RAAF rejected an offer of F-14 Tomcats that had been originally ordered by the Iranian Government but not delivered as a result of the revolution in that country. While the Tomcats were made available at a greatly reduced price, the air force judged that these aircraft were too large and complex for its requirements.
With the Mirage 2000 and F-18L rejected, the RAAF was faced with a choice between the F-16 and F-18A. Richardson and several other RAAF pilots tested United States Air Force (USAF) F-16Bs in 1979 and 1980, and reported that the aircraft had excellent performance but could be difficult to control at times. The evaluation team was also concerned about the reliability of the F-16's engine and regarded the aircraft as technologically immature. It was also noted that the aircraft's radar was inferior to that of the F-18A, and that F-16s could not fire the beyond-visual-range (BVR) air-to-air missiles and long-range anti-shipping missiles that the F-18A was capable of operating. In contrast, the evaluation team was impressed by the F-18A, and regarded it as being a more robust and survivable aircraft as it had been designed to operate from aircraft carriers; these features were important for operations from bare bases in northern Australia. Richardson and three other RAAF pilots test-flew F-18As, and reported that the aircraft handled well, but had some deficiencies with its flight control system and engines; these were not seen as major flaws by the evaluation team. The F-18A's twin engines were considered to be its main advantage over the single-engined F-16, as research conducted by the evaluation team found that the attrition rate for single-engined fighters was twice that for aircraft with two engines. Overall, the RAAF judged that both the F-16 and F-18A were too immature for a decision to be made in 1980 as had been originally planned, and recommended to the Government that this be deferred by a year.
The Government accepted the RAAF's recommendation, and delayed its decision on a Mirage III replacement until late 1981. This gave General Dynamics an opportunity to offer the improved F-16C to the RAAF. The capability of these aircraft was closer to that of the F-18 as they were equipped with BVR missiles. Richardson and another RAAF pilot test-flew F-16Cs in May 1981. The F-18 design was also improved during 1981, and was redesignated the F/A-18. When RAAF test pilots flew these aircraft during 1981, they found that the deficiencies they had detected in 1980 were now addressed. Overall, the RAAF concluded that while both aircraft met its requirements and the F-16 was less expensive, the F/A-18 was the superior design as it was more technologically mature, easier to maintain during operational deployments, and likely to have a much lower attrition rate. The Government accepted this advice, and announced on 20 October 1981 that 75 F/A-18s would be ordered. As part of this announcement, Minister for Defence Jim Killen acknowledged that the F-16 would have been seven percent cheaper to purchase, but stated that the F/A-18's lower running costs and expected attrition rate greatly reduced the difference between the lifetime cost of the two designs.
Instead of directly ordering the aircraft from McDonnell Douglas, the Australian Government purchased its F/A-18s through the US Government's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Ordering the aircraft via the US Government allowed the RAAF to take advantage of the superior purchasing power of the US military, and reduced the service's project management requirements. This led to a complicated arrangement whereby the aircraft were ordered by the US Government, delivered to the US Navy, and then transferred to the RAAF once initial flight testing had taken place. The process functioned smoothly and was cost effective.
Production
The RAAF's order of 75 Hornets comprised 57 single-seat A variant fighters and 18 two-seat B variant operational training aircraft. It was planned that each of the three fighter squadrons and the single operational conversion unit that were to operate the F/A-18 would be allocated 16 aircraft, of which 12 were expected to be operational at any time while the other four were undergoing maintenance. The remaining eleven Hornets were labelled the "half-life attrition buy" and would replace the aircraft that were expected to have been lost by 2000; as it happened, this greatly exceeded the RAAF's actual losses. Deliveries were planned to start in late 1984 and be completed in 1990. The total cost of the F/A-18 program, including the aircraft, spare parts, other equipment and modifications to the RAAF's fighter bases, was calculated as billion in August 1981, but was rapidly revised upwards due to the depreciation of the Australian dollar at this time.
The Australian Hornets were very similar to the standard US Navy variants, but incorporated a number of minor modifications. These included the addition of an instrument landing system/VHF omnidirectional range (ILS/VOR) system, a high-frequency radio, a different ejection seat harness and the deletion of all equipment used only to launch the aircraft from catapults. In addition, two of the Australian aircraft were fitted with flight-test instrumentation so that they could be used as part of trials.
The Government sought to use the Mirage III replacement program as a means to increase the capabilities of Australia's manufacturing industry. Accordingly, it was decided to build the aircraft in Australia, though it was recognised that this would lead to higher costs than if the fighters were purchased directly from the United States. While the first two RAAF Hornets were built in the United States, the remainder were assembled at the Government Aircraft Factories (GAF) plant at Avalon Airport in Victoria, and their engines were produced by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation at Fishermans Bend in Melbourne. Another twelve Australian companies were involved in other stages of the project. These firms were sub-contracted to McDonnell Douglas and the other major US companies that produced components for the F/A-18, and had to comply with the requirements of the FMS program. The Australian Government hoped that Singapore and New Zealand would purchase Australian-built Hornets, but this did not eventuate. The Canadian Government expressed interest in purchasing 25 Australian-built F/A-18As in 1988 in order to increase its force of these aircraft after they had ceased to be manufactured in the United States, but this did not lead to any sales.
The Australian Hornets began to roll off the production lines in 1984. The first two aircraft (serial numbers A21-101 and A21-102) were entirely built at McDonnell Douglas's factory in St. Louis, and were handed over to the RAAF on 29 October 1984. These aircraft remained in the United States until May 1985 for training and trials purposes. The next two Australian Hornets (A21-103 and A21-104) were also built at St. Louis, but were then disassembled and flown to Avalon in June 1984 on board a USAF Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. The aircraft were then reassembled, and A21-103 was rolled out at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Bob Hawke and the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal David Evans, on 16 November. However, the aircraft's initial test flight was delayed until 26 February 1985 by a demarcation dispute over which category of pilot was permitted to fly the aircraft.
In order to meet production targets, GAF was required to complete 1.5 Hornets per month. Production fell behind schedule during the first half of 1987, however, as a result of inefficiencies at the company's factory and industrial relations problems. GAF was able to accelerate production later in the year, though some components that were planned to be manufactured in Australia were purchased from companies in the United States instead. The final cost of the Hornet project was billion; after adjusting for the depreciation of the Australian dollar this was $186 million less than the initial estimate.
The RAAF began to accept Hornets into service in 1985. A21-103 was formally delivered on 4 May of that year. Two weeks later, A21-101 and 102 were flown from Naval Air Station Lemoore in California to RAAF Base Williamtown in New South Wales between 16 and 17 May 1985. This ferry flight was conducted as a non-stop journey, and USAF McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender tankers refuelled each of the Hornets 15 times as they crossed the Pacific. As of 2005 this remained the longest single flight to have been undertaken by F/A-18s. Despite the delays to production in 1987, the final Australian Hornet (A21-57) was delivered on schedule at a ceremony held in Canberra on 16 May 1990. The F/A-18As were allocated serial numbers A21-1 through to A21-57 and the F/A-18Bs were allocated A21-101 to A21-118.
A major capital works program was also undertaken to prepare RAAF bases for the Hornets. Over $150 million was spent upgrading the runways, hangars and maintenance facilities at RAAF Base Williamtown, which has been the main F/A-18 base throughout the aircraft's service. The pre-existing airfield at RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory was also developed into a major air base between 1985 and 1988 at a cost of $215 million, so that it could accommodate No. 75 Squadron. Until this time the squadron had been stationed at RAAF Base Darwin which, due to its location on Australia's north coast, was vulnerable to damage from cyclones and difficult to defend during wartime.
Owing to concerns over the airworthiness of the RAAF's General Dynamics F-111 bombers and delays to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II program, the Australian Government ordered 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets in 2006. This design is significantly different from the original (or "classic") Hornet. The RAAF's first Super Hornets entered service in 2010 and deliveries were completed the next year. In 2013 the Australian Government ordered 12 Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic warfare variants of the Super Hornet, and all were delivered to the RAAF between 2015 and 2017.
Maintenance and upgrades
Maintenance of the RAAF's Hornets is carried out by both air force personnel and civilian contractors. Until the early 1990s, all routine servicing and a significant proportion of intensive "deeper maintenance" was undertaken by the air force. However, the share of intensive maintenance tasks outsourced to the private sector was increased during the 1990s under the RAAF-wide Commercial Support Program. Under current arrangements, the four Hornet-equipped units undertake all routine servicing and some of the more complex deeper maintenance tasks. The remainder of the deeper maintenance work, as well as all major refurbishments and upgrade projects, are carried out by commercial firms. BAE Systems has been the lead contractor for Hornet deeper maintenance since 2003, and Boeing Australia has also provided maintenance services for the aircraft since it won a contract to do so in 2010. In August 2017, Boeing's contract was extended until the planned retirement of the Hornets in 2021, with the company also gaining responsibility for integrating weapons onto the type. This change was made to free up RAAF personnel for activities associated with introducing the F-35 into service.
The RAAF's Hornet fleet received few modifications until the late 1990s. During this period, the AN/AAS-38 "Nite Hawk" targeting pod was the only new system fitted to the aircraft. Australia also managed to break the codes which prevented modifications to the Hornet's radar software after the US Government refused to share them. This enabled the software to be adjusted so that all of the aircraft operated by Australia's neighbours could be designated as hostile. In his final address to Parliament, former Minister for Defence Kim Beazley stated that he had raised access to the radar system repeatedly with the US Government during the 1980s, and "in the end, we spied on them and we extracted the codes ourselves".
Several Asian countries introduced Mikoyan MiG-29 fighters into service during the 1990s, raising concerns that the RAAF's aircraft would be outclassed. The air force considered replacing the Hornet with the Eurofighter Typhoon or Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, but concluded that both aircraft were technologically immature. As a result, it was decided to upgrade the Hornets.
The Hornet Upgrade Program (HUG) began in 1999, and had three main phases. In Phase 1, which ran from mid-2000 through 2002, the Hornets' computer systems, navigation system and radio were replaced. The aircraft were also fitted to operate the ASRAAM air-to-air missile; these weapons replaced the AIM-9 Sidewinder. HUG Phase 2 comprised four sub-elements and sought to improve the Hornets' combat performance. During Phase 2.1 the APG-65 radar was replaced with the improved AN/APG-73, and the aircraft were fitted with a secure voice encryption communications system and various updates to their computer systems. In HUG Phase 2.2, the most important element of the program, the Hornets were fitted with a Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, equipment needed to share data through the Link 16 network, a new countermeasures dispensing system and several upgrades to their cockpit displays. All of the Hornets were upgraded to this standard between January 2005 and December 2006. In Phase 2.3, an improved Electronic Counter Measures system was fitted to the Hornets; the AN/ALR-2002 was originally selected, but proved unsuccessful. It was replaced by the ALR-67 Radar Warning Receiver in late 2006. As of early 2012, 14 Hornets had been fitted with the system and the remainder were scheduled to receive it by the end of the year. During HUG Phase 2.4 the Hornets were modified to be able to use the AN/AAQ-28(v) "LITENING" targeting pod and 37 of these systems were purchased; this phase was completed in 2007.
The third stage of the Hornet Upgrade Program sought to rectify airframe damage. HUG Phase 3.1 involved minor structural work to all aircraft as they passed through other phases of the program. The centre fuselages of the ten Hornets assessed as suffering the greatest amount of structural damage were replaced in HUG Phase 3.2. It was originally intended that all the RAAF's Hornets would receive new centre fuselages, but the scope of this phase of the program was reduced after it was found that the number of man-hours needed to upgrade each aircraft was much greater than originally estimated. The ten aircraft were upgraded at an L-3 Communications facility in Canada, and all were returned to service by June 2010.
The long-running HUG process complicated the RAAF's management of its fleet of F/A-18s. At any one time, the capabilities of individual aircraft differed considerably depending on their upgrades. Accordingly, the long-standing arrangement where aircraft were almost permanently assigned to each squadron was replaced by a system where they were pooled. Attempts to allocate Hornets with similar levels of modifications from the common pool to each squadron were not successful.
Armament
The RAAF's Hornets have been fitted with several different types of air-to-air weapons. The aircraft are equipped with an internal M61A1 cannon for use against air and ground targets; 578 rounds can be carried for this weapon. During the initial years of the Hornets' service, the aircraft were equipped with AIM-9M Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missiles and AIM-7M Sparrow medium-range air-to-air missiles. The Sparrows were replaced by the AIM-120 AMRAAM in 2002, and in 2004 the Sidewinders were replaced by ASRAAMs. The older missiles are occasionally used in training exercises, however.
A variety of unguided and guided weapons can also be used against ground targets. The Hornets carry Mark 82, Mark 83 and Mark 84 bombs, as well as GBU-10, GBU-12 and GBU-16 Paveway II laser-guided bombs. In addition, the aircraft have operated bombs fitted with JDAM guidance kits since 2008. The long-ranged JDAM-ER variant of these bombs were ordered in 2011 and entered service in 2015. During exercises the Hornets carry BDU-33 and BDU-57 LGTR training bombs. Since November 2011, the RAAF's Hornets have also been equipped with AGM-158 JASSM cruise missiles. The F/A-18s' main weapon in the maritime strike role is the Harpoon anti-ship missile; the RAAF initially operated the Block IC variant of this missile, but purchased Block II variants in 2003. In addition to these weapons, the Hornets can also be fitted with drop tanks to extend their range.
Operational history
Introduction into service
Four RAAF units converted to the Hornet between 1985 and 1988. The first 14 Hornets were allocated to No. 2 Operational Conversion Unit (2OCU) at RAAF Base Williamtown, and were used to train the pilots and instructors needed to convert the RAAF's three fighter squadrons to the aircraft. 2OCU's first Hornet operational conversion course began on 19 August 1985. In addition to the unit's training activities, 2OCU aircraft travelled widely around Australia and South East Asia during 1985 and 1986 to showcase the new aircraft. No. 3 Squadron was the first fighter unit to convert from the Mirage III, and became operational with the Hornet in August 1986. It was followed by No. 77 Squadron in June 1987 and No. 75 Squadron in May 1988. No. 81 Wing, whose headquarters is located at Williamtown, has commanded these four units since they converted to the F/A-18. As of 2012, 2OCU, No. 3 and No. 77 Squadrons are stationed at Williamtown and No. 75 Squadron is located at Tindal. In addition, two Hornets are allocated to the Aircraft Research and Development Unit at RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia.
The RAAF's Mirage III pilots generally found the process of converting to the Hornet to be straightforward. While the F/A-18 was considered to be easier to fly, its more sophisticated avionics and weapons systems required improved cockpit workload management skills. The Hornets have also proven to be mechanically reliable and easy to maintain, though shortages of spare parts reduced availability rates during the early years of their service with the RAAF. The updates installed as part of the HUG process have further simplified maintenance procedures. In recent years, however, the aging aircraft have required much more servicing than was the case in the past.
To extend the Hornets' range, four of the RAAF's six Boeing 707 transport aircraft were converted to tankers in the early 1990s; the first Boeing 707 tanker entered service in 1990. The tankers were operated by No. 33 Squadron and supported the Hornet units until the 707s were retired in 2008. These aircraft were replaced with KC-30A tanker-transports in 2011.
The RAAF has at times suffered from shortfalls of Hornet-qualified pilots. The service began to experience shortages of F/A-18 and F-111 fast-jet pilots in the mid-1980s due to competition from commercial airlines and relatively low recruitment rates. By June 1999 the three operational Hornet-equipped squadrons had only 40 pilots, which was fewer than the number of aircraft allocated to these units. The RAAF claimed that the squadrons were able to meet their readiness targets, however. To overcome this shortfall, the RAAF gave its fast-jet units a higher priority for aircrew, implemented measures to reduce separation rates, and recruited pilots from other countries. These reforms coincided with reduced demand for civil pilots following the 11 September attacks, and by late 2003 the RAAF's fast-jet units were at near full strength. A 2010 article in the magazine Australian Aviation stated that No. 3 Squadron typically had "about 18 pilots on strength" at any point in time. At this time the total strength of the squadron, including air and ground crew, was around 300 personnel.
Training
As the Hornets are multi-role fighters, their pilots practise a wide range of tasks during peacetime training. Each year the three Hornet squadrons rotate between four-month training blocks focused on air-to-air combat, air-to-ground tactics and Australian Defence Force support tasks. The units undertake the air-to-air and air-to-ground blocks before assuming responsibility for Australian Defence Force support (which involves operating with the Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy). No. 81 Wing's headquarters oversees this training program and monitors adherence to common standards and procedures. Training sorties may include such tasks as defending air bases, infrastructure and shipping from enemy aircraft, attacking naval and ground targets, and practising in-flight refuelling. More unusual tasks such as dropping naval mines have also been practised at times. Major exercises often involve other RAAF units and aircraft, as well as units from the Army and Navy and contingents from other countries.
As part of their regular training activities, F/A-18 Hornets operate in different parts of Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Regular deployments are made to Singapore and RMAF Butterworth in Malaysia as part of Integrated Air Defence System exercises. In addition, RAAF F/A-18s have participated in exercises in the Philippines, Thailand and the United States. These deployments have seen Australian fighter squadrons range as far afield as Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, where they took part in Red Flag – Alaska exercises in 2008 and 2011.
Four of the RAAF's Hornets were destroyed in flying accidents during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A21-104 was the first aircraft to be lost when it crashed at Great Palm Island in Queensland on 18 November 1987; its pilot was killed. The next loss occurred on 2 August 1990 when two No. 75 Squadron Hornets (A21-29 and A21-42) collided. A21-42 crashed, killing the unit's commanding officer; the other aircraft was damaged but managed to return to base. On 5 June 1990 A21-41 crashed north-east of Weipa, Queensland, killing its pilot. A21-106 was the fourth aircraft to be lost when it crashed inland from Shoalwater Bay in Queensland on 19 May 1992 – its pilot and a passenger from the Defence Science and Technology Organisation died. As of September 2017, all of the remaining 71 F/A-18s were still in service. Aviation writer Nigel Pittaway has noted that the type has "enjoyed an exemplary safety record during its RAAF service", especially when compared to the loss of 41 of the RAAF's 116 Mirages due to accidents. Similarly, Andrew McLaughlin noted in 2019 that the loss of four Hornets to this time was "a remarkable endorsement of the aircraft's rugged design and systems redundancy" given that the RAAF had projected that eleven would have been destroyed by 2004 when the aircraft were first acquired.
Deployments
In late 1990, consideration was given to deploying a squadron of F/A-18s to the Middle East as part of an expanded Australian contribution to the Gulf War. The Department of Defence opposed dispatching the aircraft on the grounds that doing so would greatly strain the fighter force in Australia, and this option was not adopted by the government. As a result, the Hornets' only role in the war was to support the training of the Royal Australian Navy warships which were sent to the Gulf by conducting mock attacks on the vessels as they sailed from Sydney to Perth.
During late 1999, No. 75 Squadron was placed on alert to provide close air support and air defence for the international forces deployed to East Timor as part of INTERFET. While Indonesian forces posed a potential threat to this force, no fighting eventuated and the Hornets were not required.
The first operational deployment of RAAF Hornets took place in 2001. Following the 11 September terrorist attacks, the Australian Government agreed to deploy F/A-18s to protect the major USAF air base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which was being used to mount operations in Afghanistan. Four No. 77 Squadron Hornets and 70 personnel departed for the island on 9 November. No. 3 Squadron pilots and ground crew relieved the No. 77 Squadron personnel in early February 2002. RAAF Hornets were not assigned to the War in Afghanistan as at the time they were less capable than other available coalition aircraft. While the F/A-18s were occasionally scrambled in response to reports of aircraft near the base, no threat developed. The detachment returned to Australia on 21 May 2002.
No. 75 Squadron formed part of the Australian contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The squadron began initial planning for this deployment in December 2002, and intensive training was undertaken from January 2003. To improve the unit's readiness, air and ground crew as well as aircraft were also posted to No. 75 Squadron from other units. The Australian Government announced on 1 February that it would begin deploying RAAF aircraft, including a squadron of F/A-18s, to the Middle East. No. 75 Squadron departed from Tindal on 13 February, and arrived at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on the 16th of the month. The 14 F/A-18A Hornets selected for this deployment had received the HUG 2.1 package of upgrades and recently completed major servicing. These upgrades allowed the F/A-18s to operate alongside other coalition aircraft. In addition to No. 75 Squadron, several experienced Hornet pilots were also posted to the USAF Combined Air and Space Operations Center in the Middle East to provide advice on how to make the best use of the squadron.
The Australian Hornets saw combat in several roles during the Iraq War. Following the outbreak of war on 20 March, No. 75 Squadron was initially used to escort high-value Coalition aircraft, such as tankers and airborne early warning and control aircraft. As it rapidly became clear that the Iraqi Air Force posed no threat, from 21 March No. 75 Squadron also began to conduct air interdiction sorties against Iraqi forces. These sorties were initially flown in support of the United States Army's V Corps, but the squadron was rarely assigned any targets to attack. As a result, the Australian commanders in the Middle East had No. 75 Squadron reassigned to support the United States Marine Corps' I Marine Expeditionary Force. At this time the squadron also began flying close air support sorties. During the first two weeks of the war the squadron typically flew twelve sorties per day. To avoid pilot fatigue, additional aircrew were posted to the Middle East from Australia. The number of sorties dropped to between six and ten per day from 5 April onwards as the American forces closed on Baghdad and few targets remained in southern Iraq. On 12 April, No. 75 Squadron supported elements of the Special Air Service Regiment and 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, which occupied Al Asad Airbase. During the last weeks of the war the squadron continued to fly sorties across western, central and southern Iraq to support British and American forces. In several of the squadron's operations in the final week of the war, the Hornets made low altitude and high speed passes over Iraqi positions to encourage their defenders to surrender. No. 75 Squadron conducted its final combat sorties on 27 April. During the war the squadron flew 350 combat missions (including 670 individual sorties) and dropped 122 laser-guided bombs. No. 75 Squadron did not suffer any casualties, and all 14 Hornets returned to Tindal on 14 May 2003.
RAAF Hornets have also provided air defence for several high-profile events in Australia since the 11 September attacks. In 2002, Hornets patrolled over the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at Coolum Beach, Queensland; this was the first time RAAF aircraft had flown air defence sorties over Australia since World War II. On 22 and 23 October that year a detachment of Hornets patrolled over Canberra during US President George W. Bush's visit to the city. A detachment of aircraft from No. 77 Squadron was deployed to RAAF Base East Sale in March 2006 to protect the Commonwealth Games, which were being held in Melbourne. In September 2007, Hornets patrolled over Sydney during the APEC leaders meeting there. Eight Hornets were also deployed from Williamtown to RAAF Base Pearce in October 2011 to protect the CHOGM meeting in nearby Perth. On 16 and 17 November that year, Hornets operated over Canberra and Darwin while President Barack Obama was present.
In March 2015, six F/A-18As from No. 75 Squadron were deployed to the Middle East as part of Operation Okra, replacing a detachment of Super Hornets. No. 81 Wing's involvement in Operation Okra concluded in May 2017, with No. 1 Squadron resuming responsibility for this task. By this time all of the wing's three squadrons had completed at least one rotation to the Middle East: No. 3 Squadron was deployed once, and the other two squadrons conducted two deployments. The squadrons used a common 'pool' of aircraft during these deployments, with either six or seven Hornets being stationed in the Middle East at any time. The aircraft were typically deployed for eight months before rotating back to Australia when becoming due for major servicing. Members of the three Hornet-equipped squadrons served five or six-month rotations, and ground crew from 2OCU and No. 81 Wing's workshops were also deployed to fill specialist roles. The Hornets attacked ISIL personnel and facilities in both Iraq and Syria, including in support of Iraqi forces engaged in the Battle of Mosul. Overall, No. 81 Wing conducted 1,973 sorties over Iraq and Syria during which 1,961 munitions were released. Despite the age of the aircraft and the harsh environmental conditions in the Middle East, the detachment sustained a very high serviceability rate.
Retirement
While the Hornet Upgrade Program was successful, it was expected that the aircraft would become increasingly expensive to operate as they aged, and improvements to the fighter aircraft and air defences operated by other countries would reduce their combat effectiveness. The Australian Government decided to replace the RAAF's F/A-18 Hornets with Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighters, with this process commencing in 2018. The acquisition process is designated Project AIR 6000 Phase 2A/B, and will involve the purchase of 72 F-35A fighters to equip three squadrons and an operational training unit. All of the F/A-18A and Bs were scheduled to be retired by 2022. The RAAF's Hornet sustainability planning was designed to allow the type to be retained in service for longer if the F-35 program experienced further delays.
No. 3 Squadron was the first Hornet unit to be reequipped, and ceased operating the type in December 2017. It began to transition to the F-35 in early 2018. The squadron's Hornets and most of its personnel were transferred to No. 77 Squadron, which was expanded from two to three flights as part of this change. 2OCU completed its final Hornet conversion training course in 2019, and ceased flying the type in December that year. No. 77 Squadron ceased Hornet operations in December 2020. As of May 2020, No. 75 Squadron was to begin converting to the F-35 in January 2022.
The RAAF implemented several measures to keep the Hornets in service until the F-35As were ready. These included a structural refurbishment program, increased monitoring of fatigue-related issues as well as repainting the aircraft and frequently washing them to reduce the risks posed by corrosion. In 2015 the Defence Science and Technology Group revised the fatigue damage algorithm used for determining the Hornets' structural condition which found that the airframes were less fatigued than previously believed, and so able to remain in service for a longer period than planned if necessary. This finding was accepted by the Directorate General Technical Airworthiness – Australian Defence Force. As of September 2017, none of the RAAF Hornets were subject to flying restrictions due to airframe fatigue. However, the cost of maintaining the aging aircraft in service was increasing. A 2017 article by Canadian defence analyst Christopher Cowan and Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst Dr. Andrew Davies stated that the RAAF "has done an excellent job managing its Hornet fleet", with each aircraft having a unique plan to minimise airframe fatigue. At this time each of the Hornets had, on average, been flown for 4,200 hours, as compared to the nominal fatigue life of 6,000 hours for the type. In August 2019, the Hornet fleet passed the milestone of having flown 400,000 hours. At this time, several Hornets had been retired from service after becoming due for major servicing periods.
The Hornet was officially retired from RAAF service on 29 November 2021. A ceremony to mark the occasion took place that day at RAAF Base Williamtown. The fleet had been flown for almost 408,000 hours.
Disposal
The Australian Government is planning to sell the Hornets and associated spare parts after the type is retired from RAAF service. In August 2017, the Canadian Government initiated discussions to purchase a number of Australian F/A-18s to augment the Royal Canadian Air Force's fleet of similar McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornets in the event that a planned purchase of Super Hornets was cancelled as the result of a trade dispute. A Canadian delegation also visited Australia that month to inspect RAAF Hornets. The Canadian Government lodged a formal expression of interest to purchase Australian F/A-18s on 29 September 2017.
On 13 December 2017, Australian Minister for Defence Marise Payne confirmed the sale of 18 F/A-18 Hornets and associated spare parts to Canada. The Canadian Government announced at the same time that it had cancelled its plans to acquire Super Hornets. The Australian aircraft are being acquired to enable the RCAF to continue to meet its international commitments until a new fighter type is ordered and enters service. In June 2018, the Canadian Government requested a further seven Australian Hornets. These additional aircraft will be used as a source of spare parts. The sale of the 25 Hornets was finalised in early 2019, with the purchase price being million. Of these aircraft, 18 will be issued to operational units and the remainder used for trials purposes and as a source of spare parts. After they arrive in Canada, the aircraft will be fitted with different ejection seats and software so that they are identical to CF-18s.
Deliveries of ex-RAAF Hornets to Canada began in February 2019. Two of the aircraft were flown to CFB Cold Lake by Australian pilots in mid-February, and handed over after they had formed part of the RAAF contingent at a Red Flag exercise in the United States. At this time, deliveries of the other 23 Hornets were scheduled to be completed in 2021. However, this schedule is dependent on progress with introducing the F-35 into Australian service. At least one other Hornet was handed over to Canada during 2019. In August 2020 it was reported that 18 ex-Australian aircraft would be among 36 RCAF Hornets to be placed through a modernisation program. The upgrades will include the installation of a AN/APG-79 active electronically scanned array radar and equipping the aircraft with AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons.
In March 2020 the Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price announced that up to 46 ex-RAAF Hornets would be sold to the American company Air USA. This company provides air combat training to the US Government. Journalist Nigel Pittaway noted that if all of these aircraft are sold it would mean that none of the Hornets are preserved in Australian museums after the type leaves RAAF service. In May, the Department of Defence stated that the numbers which would be sold to Canada and Air USA had not yet been finalised. As of November 2021 it was not clear if the deal to sell Hornets to Air USA would proceed.
Preservation
In May 2020, the Department of Defence announced that six F/A-18As (A21-22, -23, -29, -32, -40 and -43) and two F/A-18Bs (A21-101 and -103) would be preserved in Australia.
Two aircraft were earmarked for static preservation at the Australian War Memorial:
A21-22 – This aircraft had been deployed to the Middle East on three occasions during 2003 and between 2016 and 2017. It was handed over to the Australian War Memorial in November 2020.
A21-40 – will be handed over in mid-2022.
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
External links
Aircraft in Royal Australian Air Force service
McDonnell Douglas aircraft |
35596153 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information%20Operations%20%28United%20States%29 | Information Operations (United States) | Information Operations is a category of direct and indirect support operations for the United States Military. By definition in Joint Publication 3-13, "IO are described as the integrated employment of electronic warfare (EW), computer network operations (CNO), psychological operations (PSYOP), military deception (MILDEC), and operations security (OPSEC), in concert with specified supporting and related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own." Information Operations (IO) are actions taken to affect adversary information and information systems while defending one's own information and information systems.
Information Operations (IO)
Electronic Warfare (EW)
Electronic warfare (EW) refers to any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults via the spectrum. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponent the advantage of, and ensure friendly unimpeded access to, the EM spectrum. EW can be applied from air, sea, land, and space by manned and unmanned systems, and can target communication, radar, or other services. EW includes three major subdivisions: Electronic Attack (EA), Electronic Protection (EP), and Electronic warfare Support (ES).
EW as an IO Core Capability. EW contributes to the success of IO by using offensive and defensive tactics and techniques in a variety of combinations to shape, disrupt, and exploit adversarial use of the EM spectrum while protecting friendly freedom of action in that spectrum. Expanding reliance on the EM spectrum for informational purposes increases both the potential and the challenges of EW in IO. The increasing prevalence of wireless telephone and computer usage extends both the utility and threat of EW, offering opportunities to exploit an adversary's electronic vulnerabilities and a requirement to identify and protect our own from similar exploitation. As the use of the EM spectrum has become universal in military operations, so has EW become involved in all aspects of IO. All of the core, supporting, and related IO capabilities either directly use EW or indirectly benefit from EW. In order to coordinate and deconflict EW, and more broadly all military usage of the EM spectrum, an electronic warfare coordination cell (EWCC) should be established by the JFC to reside with the component commander most appropriate to the operation. In addition, all joint operations require a joint restricted frequency list (JRFL). This list specifies protected, guarded, and taboo frequencies that should not normally be disrupted without prior coordination and planning, either because of friendly use or friendly exploitation. This is maintained and promulgated by the communications system directorate of a joint staff (J-6) in coordination with J-3 and the joint commander's electronic warfare staff (or EWCC, if delegated).
Domination of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. DOD now emphasizes maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including the capability to disrupt all current and future communication systems, sensors, and weapons systems. This may include: (1) navigation warfare, including methods for offensive space operations where global positioning satellites may be disrupted; or, (2) methods to control adversary radio systems; and, (3) methods to place false images onto radar systems, block directed energy weapons, and misdirect unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or robots operated by adversaries.
Computer Network Operations (CNO)
CNO as an IO Core Capability. The increasing reliance of unsophisticated militaries and terrorist groups on computers and computer networks to pass information to C2 forces reinforces the importance of CNO in IO plans and activities. As the capability of computers and the range of their employment broadens, new vulnerabilities and opportunities will continue to develop. This offers both opportunities to attack and exploit an adversary's computer system weaknesses and a requirement to identify and protect our own from similar attack or exploitation.
Computer network attack (CNA). Actions are taken through the use of computer networks to disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy information resident in computers and computer networks, or the computers and networks themselves. Also called CNA. Computer network defense (CND). Actions are taken through the use of computer networks to protect, monitor, analyze, detect and respond to unauthorized activity within the Department of Defense information systems and computer networks. Also called CND.
computer network exploitation. Enabling operations and intelligence collection capabilities conducted through the use of computer networks to gather data from target or adversary automated information systems or networks. Also called CNE.
Psychological Operations (PSYOP)
PSYOP as an IO Core Capability. PSYOP has a central role in the achievement of IO objectives in support of the JFC. In today's information environment even PSYOP conducted at the tactical level can have strategic effects. Therefore, PSYOP has an approval process that must be understood and the necessity for timely decisions is fundamental to effective PSYOP and IO. This is particularly important in the early stages of an operation given the time it takes to develop, design, produce, distribute, disseminate, and evaluate PSYOP products and actions. All PSYOP are conducted under the authority of interagency-coordinated and OSD approved PSYOP programs. The PSYOP program approval process at the national level requires time for sufficient coordination and resolution of issues; hence, JFCs should begin PSYOP planning as early as possible to ensure the execution of PSYOP in support of operations. A JFC must have an approved PSYOP program, execution authority, and delegation of product approval authority before PSYOP execution can begin. JFCs should request PSYOP planners immediately during the initial crisis stages to ensure the JFC has plenty of lead time to obtain the proper authority to execute PSYOP. PSYOP assets may be of particular value to the JFC in pre-/post-combat operations when other means of influence are restrained or not authorized. PSYOP must be coordinated with CI, MILDEC, and OPSEC to ensure deconfliction and control, CI operations are not compromised, and that all capabilities within IO are coordinated to achieve the objectives established in planning. There must be close cooperation and coordination between PSYOP and PA staffs in order to maintain credibility with their respective audiences, which is the purpose of the IO cell. PSYOP efforts are most effective when personnel with a thorough understanding of the language and culture of the TA are included in the review of PSYOP materials and messages. As the information environment evolves, the dissemination of PSYOP products is expanding from traditional print and broadcast to more sophisticated use of the Internet, facsimile messaging, text messaging, and other emerging media. The effectiveness of PSYOP is enhanced by the synchronization and coordination of the core, supporting, and related capabilities of IO; particularly public affairs (PA), MILDEC, CNO, civil-military operations (CMO), and EW.
Psychological operations are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
4th Psychological Operations Group
Military Deception (MILDEC)
MILDEC is described as being those actions executed to deliberately mislead adversary decision makers as to friendly military capabilities, intentions, and operations, thereby causing the adversary to take specific actions (or inactions) that will contribute to the accomplishment of the friendly forces’ mission. MILDEC and OPSEC are complementary activities — MILDEC seeks to encourage incorrect analysis, causing the adversary to arrive at specific false deductions, while OPSEC seeks to deny real information to an adversary, and prevent correct deduction of friendly plans. To be effective, a MILDEC operation must be susceptible to adversary collection systems and "seen" as credible to the enemy commander and staff. A plausible approach to MILDEC planning is to employ a friendly course of action (COA) that can be executed by friendly forces and that adversary intelligence can verify. However, MILDEC planners must not fall into the trap of ascribing to the adversary particular attitudes, values, and reactions that "mirror image" likely friendly actions in the same situation, i.e., assuming that the adversary will respond or act in a particular manner based on how we would respond. There are always competing priorities for the resources required for deception and the resources required for the real operation. For this reason, the deception plan should be developed concurrently with the real plan, starting with the commander's and staff's initial estimate, to ensure proper resourcing of both. To encourage incorrect analysis by the adversary, it is usually more efficient and effective to provide a false purpose for real activity than to create false activity. OPSEC of the deception plan is at least as important as OPSEC of the real plan, since compromise of the deception may expose the real plan. This requirement for close hold planning while ensuring detailed coordination is the greatest challenge to MILDEC planners. On joint staffs, MILDEC planning and oversight responsibility is normally organized as a staff deception element in the operations directorate of a joint staff (J-3).
MILDEC as an IO Core Capability. MILDEC is fundamental to successful IO. It exploits the adversary's information systems, processes, and capabilities. MILDEC relies upon understanding how the adversary commander and supporting staff think and plan and how both use information management to support their efforts. This requires a high degree of coordination with all elements of friendly forces’ activities in the information environment as well as with physical activities. Each of the core, supporting, and related capabilities has a part to play in the development of successful MILDEC and in maintaining its credibility over time. While PA should not be involved in the provision of false information, it must be aware of the intent and purpose of MILDEC in order not to inadvertently compromise it.
A message targeted to exploit a fissure between a key member of the adversary's leadership who has a contentious relationship with another key decision maker is an example. That message could cause internal strife resulting in the adversary foregoing an intended course of action and adopting a position more favorable to our interests.
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA470825&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
Operations Security (OPSEC)
OPSEC as an IO Core Capability. OPSEC denies the adversary the information needed to correctly assess friendly capabilities and intentions. In particular, OPSEC complements MILDEC by denying an adversary information required to both assess a real plan and to disprove a deception plan. For those IO capabilities that exploit new opportunities and vulnerabilities, such as EW and CNO, OPSEC is essential to ensure friendly capabilities are not compromised. The process of identifying essential elements of friendly information and taking measures to mask them from disclosure to adversaries is only one part of a defense-in-depth approach to securing friendly information. To be effective, other types of security must complement OPSEC. Examples of other types of security include physical security, IA programs, computer network defense (CND), and personnel programs that screen personnel and limit authorized access.
What occurs, often, is that data is either leaked, stolen, or hacked online and the enemy has access to and can decipher what that information may say. This is especially true for defensive operational security. US servicemen and servicewomen may have Facebook, multiple blogs, or upload photos, which can lead to the enemy knowing troop movements and locations. With this information, setting up ambush and wreaking havoc on US and support personnel becomes much easier. Geo-tagging features of cellular phones especially, may cause this type of breach in OPSEC.
Equipment methods and tactics
EW
EC-130
The EC-130E Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center (ABCCC) was based on a basic C-130E platform and provided tactical airborne command post capabilities to air commanders and ground commanders in low air threat environments. This EC-130E ABCCC has since been retired.
The EC-130E Commando Solo was an earlier version of a U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard psychological operations (PSYOPS) aircraft. This aircraft also employed a C-130E airframe, but was modified by using the mission electronic equipment from the retired EC-121S Coronet Solo aircraft. This airframe served during the first Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm), the second Gulf War (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and in Operation Enduring Freedom. The EC-130E was eventually replaced by the EC-130J Commando Solo and was retired in 2006.
The EC-130J Commando Solo is a modified C-130J Hercules used to conduct psychological operations (PSYOP) and civil affairs broadcast missions in the standard AM, FM, HF, TV, and military communications bands. Missions are flown at the maximum altitudes possible to ensure optimum propagation patterns. The EC-130J flies during either day or night scenarios with equal success, and is air-refuelable. A typical mission consists of a single-ship orbit which is offset from the desired target audience. The targets may be either military or civilian personnel. The Commando Solo is operated exclusively by the Air National Guard, specifically the 193d Special Operations Wing (193 SOW), a unit of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard operationally gained by the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). The 193 AOW is based at the Harrisburg Air National Guard Base (former Olmstead AFB) at Harrisburg International Airport in Middletown, Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Navy's EC-130Q Hercules TACAMO ("Take Charge and Move Out") aircraft was a land-based naval aviation platform that served as a SIOP strategic communications link aircraft for the U.S. Navy's Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) submarine force and as a backup communications link for the USAF manned strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile forces. To ensure survivability, TACAMO operated as a solo platform, well away from and not interacting with other major naval forces such as sea-based aircraft carrier strike groups and their carrier air wings or land-based maritime patrol aircraft Operated by Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron THREE (VQ-3) and Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron FOUR (VQ-4), the EC-130Q was eventually replaced by the U.S. Navy's current TACAMO platform, the Boeing 707-based E-6 Mercury.
Computer network operations
Stuxnet
Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010. It initially spreads via Microsoft Windows, and targets Siemens industrial software and equipment. While it is not the first time that hackers have targeted industrial systems, it is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts industrial systems, and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.
In May 2011, the PBS program Need To Know cited a statement by Gary Samore, White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, in which he said, "we're glad they [the Iranians] are having trouble with their centrifuge machine and that we – the US and its allies – are doing everything we can to make sure that we complicate matters for them", offering "winking acknowledgement" of US involvement in Stuxnet. According to the British Daily Telegraph, a showreel that was played at a retirement party for the head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Gabi Ashkenazi, included references to Stuxnet as one of his operational successes as the IDF chief of staff.
Suter
Suter is a military computer program developed by BAE Systems that attacks computer networks and communications systems belonging to an enemy. Development of the program has been managed by Big Safari, a secret unit of the United States Air Force. It is specialised to interfere with the computers of integrated air defence systems. Suter was integrated into US unmanned aircraft by L-3 Communications.
Three generations of Suter have been developed. Suter 1 allows its operators to monitor what enemy radar operators can see. Suter 2 lets them take control of the enemy's networks and direct their sensors. Suter 3, tested in Summer 2006, enables the invasion of links to time-critical targets such as battlefield ballistic missile launchers or mobile surface-to-air missile launchers.
The program has been tested with aircraft such as the EC-130, RC-135, and F-16CJ. It has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2006.
U.S. Air Force officials have speculated that a technology similar to Suter was used by the Israeli Air Force to thwart Syrian radars and sneak into their airspace undetected in Operation Orchard on 6 September 2007. The evasion of air defence radar was otherwise unlikely because the F-15s and F-16s used by the IAF were not equipped with stealth technology.
PSYOP
B (SOMS-B)
Special Operation Media Systems - B (SOMS-B)
--The SOMS-B is a ground-based HMMWV mounted radio and television
broadcast system. Like the EC-130C/J it can broadcast on AM, FM, SW and VHF television frequencies. The SOMS-B also has the capability to produce programming or radio and television broadcasts
Other/Integrated
Radio
Radio Free Afghanistan
Radio Free Afghanistan (RFA) is the Afghan branch of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) broadcast services. It broadcasts 12 hours daily as part of a 24-hour stream of programming in conjunction with Voice of America (VOA). RFA first aired in Afghanistan from 1985 to 1993 and was re-launched in January 2002. RFA produces a variety of cultural, political, and informational programs that are transmitted to listeners via shortwave, satellite and AM and FM signals provided by the International Broadcasting Bureau. RFA's mission is "to promote and sustain democratic values and institutions in Afghanistan by disseminating news, factual information and ideas".
Radio in a Box
Radio is the dominant information tool to reach wide audiences in isolated, mountainous regions. The US military has deployed RIABs throughout Afghanistan in order to communicate with the residents. Due to a 70 percent illiteracy rate and lack of education in Afghanistan, radio is a vital communications tool used to broadcast information where radio ownership exceeds 80 percent. The United States military operates approximately 100 RIABs and hire local Afghan DJs in Afghanistan to broadcast information and host call-in shows. The United States Army employed RIAB systems to broadcast anti-Taliban and anti-Al Qaeda messages and countered Taliban propaganda by pushing onto Taliban frequencies in Paktia Province. One advantage of employing RIAB systems is the ability to broadcast vital information immediately to a large audience in the event of a crisis. One Afghan DJ has 50,000 listeners. Nawa District Governor Abdul Manaf uses the local RIAB station to conduct weekly call-in shows and believes the RIAB system is one of his best communication tools to inform a large audience. In Afghanistan's Paktika province, which has a literacy rate of two percent, an estimated 92 percent of the residents listen to the radio every day. Radio programs transmitted using RIAB systems provide beneficial information to Afghan farmers in remote areas. In the isolated, mountainous Wazi Kwah district of Paktika Province, a RIAB system supplies the only source of outside news. Afghan National Army commanders use the RIAB to communicate to villagers and elders and provide thoughts to the community. Afghans can use information distributed by the United States military such as how to react to an approaching military convoy or purpose or use of U.S.-sponsored agriculture programs. For general news, Afghans can also use other information outlets such as the BBC or VOA because RIAB systems are controlled by the US military. Special Operations first employed RIAB systems in Afghanistan in 2005 which improved their ability to supply information to and communicate with the local population in their areas of operation.
Terrorists (IO from US Perspective)
"Terrorists are adept at integrating their physical acts of violence with IO. They make audio and video recordings of the incidents for distribution over the Internet and on television. Their violence becomes theater, staged for its psychological impact, and replayed over and over again in the media as IO."
"Terrorists employ all the IO capabilities of U.S. military doctrine, including the five core capabilities of PSYOP, military deception, EW, CNO, and OPSEC, and the supporting and related capabilities. They use IO to support both offensive operations (acts of terrorism) and defensive operations (e.g., protecting their hiding places). They use IO strategically in support of broad objectives. While terrorists do not speak and write of “IO,” they demonstrate an understanding of the value and methods of IO capabilities. Terrorists appear to be particularly adept at PSYOP, PA, counterpropaganda, and certain forms of OPSEC and deception, driven by their desire to simultaneously reach desired audiences and hide from their enemies. They recognize the value of various media, including the Internet, and exploit it to support their cause. Terrorists and their supporters have a CNO capability, with CNA manifesting itself as “electronic jihad” rather than as acts of terror."
Computer network operations
There are many examples of CNA and are generally done in support of other operations. Terrorists have integrated cyber attacks into their thinking, strategies, and operations as an extremely cost-effective way to harm the US and other adversaries.
The same can be said for CNE, which is about penetrating computer networks before actually attacking them. Gaining access to specific networks is seen to be as part of the CNA process for terrorists (they do not distinguish between the two).
As for CND, terrorists are aware of keeping data secure and websites running because they use the Internet. Hamas and Hizballaha have had to defend their websites from Israeli hackers who in the past have defaced them. The methods they use include access controls, encryption, authentication, firewalls, intrusion detection, anti-viral tools, audits, security management, and security awareness and training.
"The Taliban have in recent months waged an intensifying information war with NATO forces in the country, distributing anti-government messages on mobile phone networks and using Twitter to claim largely improbable successes as most foreign combat troops look to leave the country by 2014. A day rarely passes without a Taliban spokesman using Twitter to claim the destruction of numerous NATO armoured vehicles and the deaths of scores of Western or Afghan security forces, with NATO quickly countering in its own Twitter feeds. The Taliban also employ a sophisticated network of spokesmen to distribute messages and even have their own mobile radio broadcast service, which frequently moves location to avoid the threat of retaliatory airstrikes by NATO warplanes."
The Taliban HAVE to rely on CNO and integrate it into their IO campaign as it is the most cost-effective method of disrupting Western forces. This is a prime example of how CNO is used in conjunction with PSYOP to achieve their objectives.
Steganography
When one considers that messages could be encrypted steganographically in e-mail messages, particularly e-mail spam, the notion of junk e-mail takes on a whole new light. Coupled with the "chaffing and winnowing" technique, a sender could get messages out and cover their tracks all at once.
Rumors about terrorists using steganography started first in the daily newspaper USA Today on 5 February 2001 in two articles titled "Terrorist instructions hidden online" and "Terror groups hide behind Web encryption". In July the same year, an article was titled even more precisely: "Militants wire Web with links to jihad". A citation from the article: "Lately, al-Qaeda operatives have been sending hundreds of encrypted messages that have been hidden in files on digital photographs on the auction site eBay.com". Other media worldwide cited these rumors many times, especially after the terrorist attack of 9/11, without ever showing proof. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that an Al Qaeda cell which had been captured at the Via Quaranta mosque in Milan had pornographic images on their computers, and that these images had been used to hide secret messages (although no other Italian paper ever covered the story). The USA Today articles were written by veteran foreign correspondent Jack Kelley, who in 2004 was fired after allegations emerged that he had fabricated stories and sources.
In October 2001, The New York Times published an article claiming that al-Qaeda had used steganography to encode messages into images, and then transported these via e-mail and possibly via USENET to prepare and execute the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack. The Federal Plan for Cyber Security and Information Assurance Research and Development, published in April 2006 makes the following statements:
"...immediate concerns also include the use of cyberspace for covert communications, particularly by terrorists but also by foreign intelligence services; espionage against sensitive but poorly defended data in government and industry systems; subversion by insiders, including vendors and contractors; criminal activity, primarily involving fraud and theft of financial or identity information, by hackers and organized crime groups..." (p. 9–10)
"International interest in R&D for steganography technologies and their commercialization and application has exploded in recent years. These technologies pose a potential threat to national security. Because steganography secretly embeds additional, and nearly undetectable, information content in digital products, the potential for covert dissemination of malicious software, mobile code, or information is great." (p. 41–42)
"The threat posed by steganography has been documented in numerous intelligence reports." (p. 42)
Moreover, an online "terrorist training manual", the "Technical Mujahid, a Training Manual for Jihadis" contained a section entitled "Covert Communications and Hiding Secrets Inside Images."
By early 2002, a Cranfield University MSc thesis developed the first practical implementation of an online real-time Counter Terrorist Steganography Search Engine. This was designed to detect the most likely image steganography in transit and thereby provide UK Ministry of Defence Intelligence Staff a realistic approach to "narrowing the field", suggesting that interception capacity was never the difficulty but rather prioritising the target media.
Military deception
A police search of a British, al-Qaeda member's home, uncovered what is now called "The al-Qaeda Training Manual", a techniques instruction book on deception, forgery, "blending in", hiding places, and the use of covers to blend into the terrorist area of operation (usually cities with large civilian populations). The philosophy the MILDEC is for the concealment of activities rather than misleading adversaries.
PSYOP
Terrorist PSYOP differs from American PSYOP in one two major areas. First, US PSYOP targets foreign adversaries and information is coordinated with many other agencies and screened before it is published. Second, while PSYOP by US and coalition forces is "designed to bring an end to violence and save lives, terrorist PSYOP is frequently directed toward promoting violence and threatening civilian populations with death and destruction. Suicide bombers are portrayed as martyrs rather than killers of innocent people."
The Internet is the main resource to spread propaganda with al-Aqaeda and other terrorist groups. "According to Bruce Hoffman, before it was taken down, al-Qaeda's website Alneda.com emphasized three themes: 1)the West is implacably hostile to Islam, 2) the only way to address this threat and the only language the West understands is the logic of violence, and 3) jihad is the only option"
Terrorists also like to use the Internet to recruit and persuade children to their cause. As Dorothy Denning has found, "Children are being taught to hate Jews and Westerners, and to take up arms against them [through cartoons and comic-book style web pages, bedtime stories, and computer games]".
OPSEC
All terrorists practice a high level of OPSEC since their need to be secret is how they can be successful. Whether it is the al-Qaeda training manual, online magazines targeted for the world, or the training of youth in Jihad camps, OPSEC is one of the first priorities for terrorists.
Secure communications are big as well. The 11 September hijackers, for example, accessed anonymous Hotmail and Yahoo! accounts from computers at Kinko's and at a public library. Messages are also coded. Three weeks before the attacks, Mohamed Atta reportedly received a coded email message that read: "The semester begins in three more weeks. We've obtained 19 confirmations for studies in the faculty of law, the faculty of urban planning, the faculty of fine arts, and the faculty of engineering." The faculties referred to the four targets (twin towers, Pentagon, and Capitol).
The list of methods goes on and on and is very similar to the methods used in organized crime around the world.
Criticism
"In [stability, reconstruction, and COIN operations], the most important targets of influence are not enemy commanders, but individuals and groups, both local and international, whose cooperation is vital to the mission’s success. Granted, joint and Army IO doctrine publications do not ignore these targets – PSYOP and counterpropaganda can be designed to influence them. But it is notable that the activities most directly aimed at influencing local and international audiences – functions such as public affairs, civil affairs, CMOs, and defense support to public diplomacy – are treated only as ‘related activities’ in IO doctrine, if they are mentioned at all"
"There must be a fundamental change of culture in how ISAF approaches operations. StratCom should not be a separate Line of Operation, but rather an integral and fully embedded part of policy development, planning processes, and the execution of operations. Analyzing and maximizing StratCom effects must be central to the formulation of schemes of maneuver and during the execution of operations. In order to affect this paradigm shift, ISAF HQ must synchronize all stratCom stakeholders. Implicit in this change of culture is the clear recognition that modern strategic communication is about credible dialogue, not a monologue where we design our systems and resources to deliver messages to target audiences in the most effective manner. This is now a population centric campaign and no effort should be spared to ensure that the Afghan people are part of the conversation. Receiving, understanding, and amending behavior as a result of messages received from audiences can be an effective method of gaining genuine trust and credibility. This would improve the likelihood of the population accepting ISAF messages and changing their behavior as a result."
See also
Fifth Dimension Operations
Radicalization
Cyberware
Electronic warfare
Black propaganda
Cyberwarfare
Communications security
Command and control warfare
Disinformation
Historical revisionism
Gatekeeper (politics)
Industrial espionage
Irregular Warfare
iWar
Network-centric warfare
Political Warfare
Psychological warfare
Public affairs (military)
Information Operations Roadmap
Propaganda in the Mexican Drug War
The Institute of World Politics
Bolivarian propaganda
References
Bibliography
External links
Information Operations Roadmap (DOD 2003)
Information Operations (JP 3-13 2006)
Operations Security (JP 3-13.3)
Military Deception (JP 3-13.4)
Joint Doctrine for PSYOPS (JP 3-53 2003)
Joint Doctrine for Public Affairs (JP 3-61 2005)
Destabilizing Terrorist Networks: Disrupting and Manipulating Information Flows in the Global War on Terrorism, Yale Information Society Project Conference Paper (2005).
Seeking Symmetry in Fourth Generation Warfare: Information Operations in the War of Ideas, Presentation (PDF slides) to the Bantle - Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT) Symposium, Syracuse University (2006).
K. A. Taipale, Seeking Symmetry on the Information Front: Confronting Global Jihad on the Internet, 16 National Strategy F. Rev. 14 (Summer 2007).
White House FAQ about the WoT
CIA and the WoT
U.S. National Military Strategic Plan for the WoT
Information operations and warfare
Psychological warfare |
35636420 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce%20identification%20and%20identification%20types | E-commerce identification and identification types | A whole new range of techniques has been developed to identify people since the 1960s from the measurement and analysis of parts of their bodies to DNA profiles. Forms of identification are used to ensure that citizens are eligible for rights to benefits and to vote without fear of impersonation while private individuals have used seals and signatures for centuries to lay claim to real and personal estate. Generally, the amount of proof of identity that is required to gain access to something is proportionate to the value of what is being sought. It is estimated that only 4% of online transactions use methods other than simple passwords. Security of systems resources generally follows a three-step process of identification, authentication and authorization. Today, a high level of trust is as critical to eCommerce transactions as it is to traditional face-to-face transactions.
Identification, authentication and authorization
Identification
It is a scheme established and maintained, whereby users are properly, consistently, effectively and efficiently identified before systems are accessed. An identity verification service is often employed to ensure that users or customers provide information that is associated with the identity of a real person.
Authentication
Authentication is verification of the identity of the entity requesting access to a system. It is the process of determining whether someone or something is, in fact, who or what it is declared to be. In private and public computer networks (including the Internet), authentication is commonly done through the use of logon passwords. Knowledge of the password is assumed to guarantee that the user is authentic. Each user registers initially (or is registered by someone else), using an assigned or self-declared password. On each subsequent use, the user must know and use the previously declared password. The weakness in this system for transactions that are significant (such as the exchange of money) is that passwords can often be stolen, accidentally revealed, or forgotten.
For this reason, Internet business and many other transactions require a more stringent authentication process. The use of digital certificates issued and verified by a Certificate Authority (CA) as part of a public key infrastructure is considered likely to become the standard way to perform authentication on the Internet.
Logically, authentication precedes authorization (although they may often seem to be combined).
Authorization
Authorization is the process of giving someone permission to do or have something. In multi-user computer systems, a system administrator defines for the system which users are allowed access to the system and what privileges of use (such as access to which file directories, hours of access, amount of allocated storage space, and so forth). Assuming that someone has logged into a computer operating system or application, the system or application may want to identify what resources the user can be given during this session. Thus, authorization is sometimes seen as both the preliminary setting up of permissions by a system administrator and the actual checking of the permission values that have been set up when a user is getting access. Logically, authorization is preceded by authentication. ).
Types of ecommerce authentication
One-time password/Single sign on - It is process where a user's password and information is used for logon and then, becomes invalid after a set time.
Two-factor authentication - This requires two forms of authentication before access can be granted to a user.
Multi-factor authentication - Multi-factor authentication requires that the user uses a user id, password combined with any other form of authentication method as smartcard or biometric. Using this method decreases the likelihood that an unauthorized person can compromise your electronic security system, but it also increases the cost of maintaining that system.
Electronic access card/Smart card - Smart card are credit card-sized plastic cards that house an embedded integrated circuit. They can be used in electronic commerce for providing personal security, stored value and mobility. At the functional level, smart cards can be categorised as either memory cards or microprocessor cards. Memory cards, such as disposable pre-paid payphone cards or loyalty card, are the most cheapest form of smart card. They contain a small amount of memory in the form of ROM (read only memory) and EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read only memory). Microprocessor cards are more advanced than simple memory cards in that they contain a microprocessor CPU (central processing unit) and RAM (random access memory) in addition to ROM and EEPROM. The ROM contains the card's operating system and factory-loaded applications.
Security token - It is an authentication device that has been assigned to a specific user by an appropriate administrator”. It uses what the user has such as, Passport, driver's license etc. to identify them. “Most security tokens also incorporate two-factor authentication methods to work effectively”.
Keystroke dynamics - It is an automated form of authentication based on something the user does. It authenticates the user based keyboard typing pattern.
Biometric - Biometric based systems enable the automatic identification and/or authentication of individuals. Authentication answers the question: "Am I who I claim to be?". The system verifies the identity of the person by processing biometric data, which refers to the person who asks and takes a yes/no decision (1:1 comparison). On the other hand, identification answers to the question: "Who am I?". The system recognizes the individual who asks by distinguishing him from other persons whose biometric data is also stored in the database. In this case the system takes a l-of-n decision, and answers that the person who asks is X, if her/his biometric data is stored in the database or that there is no match at all. Although the identification function should be regarded as distinct from authentication from an application perspective, often systems using biometrics integrate both identification and authentication functions, since the former is a repetitive execution of the latter.
Types of biometric authentication
Fingerprint recognition - Fingerprint is the most widely used form of authentication where the pattern of a user's fingertip is used. It can be deployed in a broad range of environments and provides flexibility and increased system accuracy by allowing users to enrol multiple fingers in the template system.
Facial recognition - It uses data related to the unique facial features of a user. It involves analyzing facial characteristics. It is a unique biometric in that it does not require the cooperation of the scanned individual; it can utilize almost any high-resolution image acquisition device such as a still or motion camera.
Voice pattern - This a form of authentication uses the unique pattern of a user's voice. it relies on voice-to-print technologies, not voice recognition. In this process, a persons voice is transformed into text and compared to an original template. Although this is fairly easy technology to implement because many computers already have built-in microphones, the enrollment procedure is more complicated than other biometrics, and background noise can interfere with the scanning, which can be frustrating to the user.
Handwritten Signature - Signature verification analysis the way a person signs their name, such as speed and pressure, as well as the final static shape of the signature itself.
Retina recognition - It is a method of biometric authentication that uses data related to unique characteristics associated with the pattern of blood vessels located at the back of an individual's eyes. This technology is personally invasive and requires skilled operators. It results in retina codes of 96 bytes when used for authentication to some Kbytes in the case of identification. Facial recognition techniques exploit characteristics such as relative eyes, nose and mouth positioning, and the distances between them.
Iris recognition - A form of authentication that uses data linked to features associated with the colored part of the eye of a user. It involves analyzing the patterns of the colored part of the eye surrounding the pupil. It uses a fairly normal camera and does not require close contact between the eye and the scanner. Glasses can be worn during an iris scan, unlike a retinal scan.
Other forms of authentication
Mutual Authentication - is the process by which each party in an electronic communication verifies the identity of the other. For instance, a bank clearly has an interest in positively identifying an account holder prior to allowing a transfer of funds; however, the bank customer also have a financial interest in knowing he is communicating with the bank's server prior to providing any personal information.
Digital certificate - A digital certificate is an electronic "credit card" that establishes your credentials when doing business or other transactions on the Web. It is issued by a certification authority (CA). It contains your name, a serial number, expiration dates, a copy of the certificate holder's public key (used for encrypting messages and digital signatures), and the digital signature of the certificate-issuing authority so that a recipient can verify that the certificate is real. Some digital certificates conform to a standard, X.509. Digital certificates can be kept in registries so that authenticating users can look up other users' public keys. ). Digital certificates are used in a variety of transactions including e-mail, electronic commerce, and the electronic transfer of funds. When combined with encryption and digital signatures, digital certificates provide individuals and organizations with a means of privately sharing information so that each party is confident that the individual or organization with which they are communicating is in fact who it claims to be.
Hand Geometry Authentication - Hand geometry techniques exploit hand shape characteristics, such as finger length and width. This leads to quite a small amount of data (about 9 bytes), thus restricting their application to simple authentication purposes only. Also, their behaviour related to the fulfilment of the above properties is moderate. The iris, the circular coloured membrane surrounding the pupil of the eye, is a unique structure consisting of specific characteristics such as striations, furrows, rings, crypts, filaments, and corona. Iris patterns are characterised by very high distinctiveness, even twins have different ones. The probability that two individuals have the same iris pattern is about 10^sup -52^. The probability that two distinct iris patterns result to the same iris-code used (about 256 bytes) by a biometric system is negligible (about 10^sup -78^), thus allowing almost perfect matching accuracy.
Kerberos authentication - This is a form of authentication that provides a mechanism for authenticating a client and a server or server to a server.
CHAP authentication - This is form of peer-to-peer protocol (PPP) mechanism used by an authenticator to authenticate a peer.
Quantitative authentication - Quantitative authentication is an authentication approach where someone requesting access is required to attain a certain "authentication level" before being granted access. Detailed discussions on quantitative authentication have been undertaken.
See also
Access control
Authorization
Biometrics
Smart card
References
External links
Nist Publication website
Office of the privacy commissioner of Canada information guide
Authentication methods |
35646792 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s%20in%20science%20and%20technology | 2010s in science and technology | This article is a summary of the 2010s in science and technology.
Technology
Big data and "Big Tech" saw an expansion in size and power in the 2010s, particularly FAANG corporations. The growing influence of "Big Tech" over cyberspace drew scrutiny and increased oversight from national governments. The G20 countries began closing tax loopholes and the European Union began asserting legal guidelines over domains such as data privacy, copyright, and hate speech, the latter of which helped fuel a debate over tech censorship and free speech online, particularly deplatforming. Throughout the decade, the United States government increasingly scrutinized the tech industry, from attempted copyright regulations to threatening antitrust probes. Increased protectionism and attempts to regulate and localize the internet by national governments also raised fears of cyber-balkanization in the later half of the decade.
Communications and electronics
Smartphones maintained their strong popularity throughout the 2010s, along with the arrival of tablets. Apple Inc. launched the iPad in 2010, its first tablet computer, which offered multi-touch interaction. The iPad became an immediate bestseller and only months after its release became the best selling tech product in history. By the mid-2010s, almost all smartphones were touchscreen-only, and Android and iPhone smartphones dominated the market.
Mobile apps become commercially available in the early 2010s, along with popular app stores such as Google Play, iOS App Store, and Microsoft Store.
Throughout the early 2010s, sales for PCs declined in favor of tablet computers and laptop convertibles; in 2012, tablet and smartphone sales overtook netbooks and Samsung overtook Nokia for the first time as the largest mobile phone maker in the world; in 2013 in developed countries, smartphone sales surpassed feature phones.
In April 2019, South Korea became the first country to adopt 5G broadband. Verizon launched its 5G services in the United States just hours later, along with disputing South Korea's claim of becoming the world's first country with a 5G network. The United Kingdom's first 5G mobile network became operational on 30 May, initially covering parts of six cities.
In 2011, more than 2 billion people used the Internet, one billion mobile broadband users predicted and 4.6 billion people worldwide were subscribed to mobile phones, and Americans spent more time using mobile apps than using the World Wide Web.
Social media continuously gained prominence through the convenience of mobile apps, including the services of WhatsApp, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, Vine, and TikTok being released throughout the decade. Facebook and Twitter, both of which were released in the 2000s, were still among the most popular social media platforms in the world. Social media offered massive reach to mainstream audiences for both individuals and organizations unseen before, facilitating phenomena such as influencer marketing.
Streaming media and rental kiosk services such as Netflix and Redbox forced video rental chains such as Blockbusters to close.
At the turn of the decade, the supply of IPv4 internet addresses was exhausted; an early period of transition to IPv6 continued during 2011.
In 2012, Google Chrome became the world's most used web browser, replacing Internet Explorer, and the Wikimedia Foundation started developing Wikidata, its first new project in six years.
Cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, gained ground as a digitally alternative way to secure financial transactions, control the creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets. Cryptocurrencies also expanded the usage and boundaries of Blockchain.
Virtual reality took a radical shift in the 2010s, with headsets such as the Oculus Rift gaining popularity. While the device was only capable of rotational tracking, the initial design would later serve as a basis from which the later designs came. Other popular headsets include PlayStation VR, Google Cardboard, HTC Vive, and the Samsung Gear VR.
During the decade, 3D printing, 3D modeling, and 3D scanners became increasingly popular, in which the technologies enabled users to join or solidify certain materials to create a concrete three-dimensional object. The 3D printer industry gained over $7 billion in sales.
Wireless headphones saw technological advancements and a large growth in usage.
Wireless charging for smartphones became more popular, with companies such as Samsung and Apple releasing wireless charging phones and chargers.
Smart watches became more widespread in usage, with over 175 million of them sold in 2018.
Smart glasses, such as Google Glass, were also released during this decade.
Transparent display screens and curved touchscreen displays entered the market, and slowly gained popularity throughout the decade.
In the mid-late portion of the decade, 4K resolution was implemented through high-definition displays and gained traction into more U.S. homes in a much faster adoption rate than that of Full HD (1080p).
In 2016, scientists at MIT created the first five-atom quantum computer with the potential to crack the security of traditional encryption schemes.
Fixstars Solutions created the world's first 13 Terabyte SSD in 2016.
The number of IoT devices increased 31% year-over-year to 8.4 billion in the year 2017 and it was estimated that there will be 30 billion devices by 2020.
Software
Artificial intelligence progressed significantly as a result of discoveries made in deep learning in 2012; it bolstered speech recognition and computer vision development and allowed for the fruition of technologies such as Deepfakes.
Virtual assistant devices and apps become widely available in the decade, such as Apple's Siri, Amazon Alexa on the Amazon Echo device, Samsung's Bixby, Google Assistant on Google-enabled/Android mobile devices, and text (online chat), especially in an instant messaging app or other app.
Collaborative source code sharing website GitHub became the world's most popular open source hosting site.
Oracle sued Google over the use of Java-related technology in Google's popular Android operating system in 2011. Google won the lawsuit on 26 May 2016, citing fair use.
Following an unprecedented internet protest and blackout campaign, the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act bill was temporarily withdrawn in the United States Congress in 2012.
The controversial Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 in the Philippines was adopted.
Automobiles and transportation
Drones became increasingly popular, especially in the assistance of making deliveries, aerial photography, and drone racing.
Electric and hybrid vehicles became popular in many countries in the Western world during the decade. Notable electric vehicles include the Chevrolet Volt, which became the world's top selling plug-in hybrid of all time with over 100,000 units sold in 2015. Other hybrid vehicles have also been noted such as the Porsche Panamera and BMW i3.
Self-driving cars, while still in their infancy, were widely tested throughout the 2010s with significant progress. Google developed Waymo, the world's first self-driving car, to be licensed for use on public roads in 2011. In 2018, a woman in Tempe, Arizona became the first recorded casualty of an accident involving an autonomous vehicle.
Automaker Volkswagen is alleged to have been involved in worldwide rigging of diesel emissions tests in 2015, affecting an estimated 11 million vehicles globally.
The trend of shared mobility grew significantly during the decade. Carsharing, bike-sharing, and scooter-sharing services saw substantial growth as multiple economic, social and technological factors such as developments in "last mile" transportation helped changed the way people think about modern transportation, particularly in the Western world.
The world's first 100% low-floor tram with articulated bogies, Škoda 15 T, began operations in Riga, Latvia.
Space
Spaceflight became increasingly privatized, including crewed spaceflight. SpaceX captures a significant share of the commercial launch market with Falcon 9. Falcon 9 became the first rocket to land its booster propulsively for reuse, in 2019 most flights reused boosters. Several other companies started working on partially reusable rockets while SpaceX started development of a fully reusable rocket, Starship. Towards the end of the decade around 100 companies were developing rockets for the small satellite market, some have made test flights and Rocketlab's Electron made multiple commercial flights. The Space Shuttle was retired in 2011. SpaceX and Boeing developed commercial crewed spacecraft for orbital flights (SpaceX Dragon 2, Starliner), Dragon 2 made its first crewed flights in 2020. Blue Origin develops the crewed New Shepard for suborbital flights. Virgin Galactic develops a spacecraft for suborbital flights and performs first crewed flights. NASA Dawn probe was the first spacecraft to orbit two extraterrestrial bodies, the first spacecraft to visit either Vesta or Ceres, and the first to orbit a dwarf planet, arriving at Ceres in March 2015, a few months before New Horizons flew by Pluto in July 2015.
Other notable developments in astronomy and spaceflight over the decade included:
2011: NASA announced that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured photographic evidence of possible liquid water on Mars during warm seasons.
2011: The United States' Space Shuttle program officially ended following its last mission, STS-135, flown by Space Shuttle Atlantis.
2012: SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft became the first private commercial spacecraft to attach to the International Space Station, the first commercial spacecraft to rendezvous with another spacecraft.
2012: NASA landed the Curiosity rover in Gale crater on Mars.
2013: The Chinese Chang'e 3 landed on the Moon, the first Lunar landing in 37 years.
2014: The Philae probe from the Rosetta spacecraft landed on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
2014: The Orion spacecraft completed its first test flight, an unmanned orbital and reentry flight.
2015: NASA's Dawn probe entered orbit around Ceres, becoming the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet.
2015: NASA announced that liquid water had been found on Mars.
2015: NASA's New Horizons probe became the first spacecraft to reach Pluto, completing its main mission.
2015: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket successfully landed after a launch, making it the first rocket to successfully return and perform a vertical landing.
2016: The ESA and Roscosmos launched the joint ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on a mission to Mars.
2016: SpaceX lands the first reusable rocket, a CRS-8 rocket on a droning platform at sea.
2016: NASA's Juno spacecraft enters orbit around Jupiter and begins a 20-month survey of the planet.
2016: Solar Impulse 2 becomes the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the Earth.
2016: Proxima Centauri b is discovered as closest exoplanet to Earth that may be habitable.
2016: NASA launches OSIRIS-REx, its first asteroid sample return mission. The probe will visit Bennu and is expected to return with samples in 2023.
2016: The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, the largest radio telescope in the world, built in Guizhou, China, makes its first light.
2018: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket successfully performs its first flight. As of its launch it was the most powerful rocket in operation.
2018: NASA's Kepler mission ends after the spacecraft runs out of fuel.
2018: NASA's Dawn mission concludes after it runs out of hydrazine fuel.
2019: Chinese probe Chang'e 4 becomes the first human-made object to land on the far side of the Moon.
2019: NASA concludes the 15-year Opportunity rover mission after being unable to wake the rover from hibernation.
2019: The first image of the supermassive black hole inside galaxy Messier 87 was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope.
Computing and artificial intelligence
The number of internet users doubled from about 2 billion to about 4 billion, surpassing half the world population in 2018.
Smartphones became increasingly common due to a rapid increase in sales. Their applications and use time by the average user increased, too.
Google develops the world's first self-driving car to be licensed for use on public roads. It was the first driverless ride that was on a public road and was not accompanied by a test driver or police escort. The car had no steering wheel or floor pedals.
In 2012, Google Chrome became the world's most used web browser, displacing former long-time frontrunner Internet Explorer.
Microsoft announces Windows Mixed Reality (previously Windows Holographic).
Quantum computers made rapid progress. In 2019 Google announced to have achieved quantum supremacy, although this claim is disputed.
During this decade artificial intelligence based on deep learning neural networks experienced rapid advancement, resulting in multiple practical applications in diverse fields such as speech and image recognition, social network moderation, virtual assistants, surveillance, healthcare or even art generation. In 2016, Google artificial intelligence program AlphaGo beat human grandmaster in the game of Go for the first time.
Legal issues
In August 2010, Oracle sued Google for copyright and patent infringement over the use of Java-related technology in Google's popular Android operating system for smartphones and tablet computers. Oracle asserted Google was aware that they had developed Android without a Java license and copied its APIs, creating the copyright violation. Oracle cited patents related to the Java technology created by Sun and now owned by Oracle that Google should have been aware of.
Following an unprecedented internet protest and blackout campaign in 2012 in which many popular websites took part, the widely criticised Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill was temporarily withdrawn in the US Congress, pending resolution of the issues identified.
Software development
Collaborative source code sharing website GitHub becomes in 2011 the world's most popular open source hosting site, after in the previous decade attaining the title of the world's most popular Git hosting site.
Physics
2012: The Higgs boson is discovered, completing the discovery of particles of the Standard Model.
2016: Gravitational waves are detected for the first time.
Robotics and machine learning
In 2019, a robot is developed at MIT that can do multiple experiments in fluid dynamics at high speed.
Biology
Organisms
Researchers at Harvard report the creation of "cyborg organoids", which consist of 3D organoids grown from stem cells, with embedded sensors to measure activity in the developmental process.
Genetics
In 2019, Scientists announce a new form of DNA, named Hachimoji DNA, composed of four natural and four unnatural nucleobases. Benefits of such an eight-base DNA system may include an enhanced ability to store digital data, as well as insights into what may be possible in the search for extraterrestrial life.
In 2019, Scientists report that the purportedly first-ever germline genetically edited humans, the twin babies Lulu and Nana, by Chinese researcher He Jiankui, may have inadvertently (or perhaps, intentionally) had their brains enhanced.
In 2019, Researchers design an inhalable form of messenger RNA aerosol that could be administered directly to the lungs to help treat diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
Medicine
In 2019, medical scientists announce that iridium attached to albumin, creating a photosensitized molecule, can penetrate cancer cells and, after being irradiated with light (a process called photodynamic therapy), destroy the cancer cells.
Gallery
See also
Timeline of computing 2010–19
History of science and technology
List of science and technology articles by continent
List of years in science
References
21st century in science
Science and technology by decade
2010s-related lists |
35648102 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese%20identity%20card | Lebanese identity card | The Lebanese identity card ( (bițāqat al-hawiya); ) is a compulsory Identity document issued to citizens of the Republic of Lebanon by the police on behalf of the Lebanese Ministry of Interior or in Lebanese embassies/consulates (abroad) free of charge. It is proof of identity, citizenship and residence of the Lebanese citizens.
The Lebanese identity card may be used to verify identity and nationality having the same effect as a valid Lebanese passport, and may also be used as a travel document within Syria and Jordan in lieu of a Lebanese passport. In domestic non-electronic identification the driving licence has remained in a leading position. A driving licence is valid for almost every situation where non-electronic personal identification is needed even though they are not officially recognized as such.
Legal status
The Republic of Lebanon's Identity Card is the main form of identification on the territory of the Republic of Lebanon. All Lebanese are obliged by law to carry their identity cards with them at all times and are subject to fines should they not. According to the Lebanese obligation of identification, it is compulsory for all Lebanese citizens habitually resident in the Republic of Lebanon, aged 15 or older, to possess either an identity card or a passport noting that the earlier offers no benefits compared to the passport with the exception of being easier to carry in a wallet or a handbag. It enables bearers to log into certain services on the Internet, local computers or add a digital signatures into LibreOffice ODF documents or create DigiDoc formatted containers that also allows encryption during content transfer. While police officers and some other officials have a right to demand to see one of these documents, the law does not state that one is obliged to submit the document at that very moment.
Use within the Republic of Lebanon
In domestic non-electronic identification the driving licence has remained in a leading position, since most of the population have to have a licence anyway, and a driving licence is valid for almost every situation where non-electronic personal identification is needed.
The Lebanese Identity Card, which uniquely identifies the individual based on biometric features, can be used by the individual for the verification and authentication of identity in the following situations:
Health Delivery: The Personal Identification Number (PIN) and biometrics/personal information is cross-checked with the existing data in the National Identification System.
Passport Acquisition: Any time a Lebanese Identity Card holder applies for a passport, their Personal Identification Number (PIN) is captured on the passport and their personal information cross-checked with the existing data in the National Identification System. A Lebanese Identity Card holder may not be able to acquire a passport if they do not possess a Lebanese Identity Card. This is because only people who qualify to hold Lebanese Passports will be issued with one since the individual’s nationality can be properly checked from the National Identification System.
Acquisition of Driver’s License: The Personal Identification Number (PIN) is one of the required information the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) demands as soon as the Lebanese Identity Card is issued to applicants. The PIN is captured on a Lebanese Identity Card holder's driver’s license and vehicle registration documents. The personal information is also verified from the NIA to determine a persons true identity for license acquisition and establish the true identities of vehicle owners. A time will come when a person may not be able to make new registration or renewal at the DVLA without their Lebanese Identity Card.
Shipping and Clearing of Goods from the port: All goods a Lebanese Identity Card holder exports out of the Republic of Lebanon or imports into the Republic of Lebanon is directly linked to their Personal Identification Number (PIN) to eliminate fraud and theft in the shipping and clearing of goods at the ports and harbours of the Republic of Lebanon.
Receipt of Banking Services: A Lebanese Identity Card holder can use the Lebanese Identity Card as identity verification document when opening bank account, withdrawing money from the bank or receiving money transfers in the Republic of Lebanon. It is easier for a Lebanese Identity Card holder to also take loan from the bank whether you work in an identifiable institution or not. This is because their identity can be easily verified and the banks are confident that they can be traced in the event of loan default based on their PIN or biometric information stored on the Lebanese Identity Card.
Credit Information: The use of the Lebanese Identity Card can enable the banks in the Republic of Lebanon to easily establish persons credit-worthiness from the Credit Referencing Agencies any time they apply for a loan. This may lead drastically to the reduction in bank rates on loans since the banks can establish whether they are already servicing a loan from another bank which will result in a reduction in the incidents of bad debts.
Registration of Business: Business registration is linked to a Lebanese Identity Card holder's Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) to help identify them as the true owner of their business. The Registrar General’s Department make it a requirement for all business owners to provide their PIN on the Lebanese Identity Card during business registration. This eliminates business registration fraud through the exposure of false identities and prevents multiple registrations of businesses for fraudulent purposes.
Education: The PIN of a Lebanese Identity Card holder's child is captured during enrollment into primary school and the number is used for admission into every school level until the child completes tertiary education. This helps in tracking the progress of a Lebanese Identity Card holder's child in the educational sector for necessary policy interventions. Students who qualify for student’s loan are able to use the Lebanese Identity Card to establish their identities to eliminate fraud. Data from the NIA database enables the Ministry of Education to plan effectively for the provision of targeted educational infrastructure and other resources for their community.
Job Search: The Lebanese Identity Card is used to establish a persons identity during job search. This boosters their chances of getting the job as employers will be sure they are dealing with the rightful owner of the certificates a person provides in support of their qualifications.
Disaster Management: Identification of true victims of disasters is often problematic because there are infiltrators who take advantage of the absence of credible identification system to benefit at the expense of the affected ones. Data on a persons Lebanese Identity Card is used to establish whether they live in an area affected by a disaster to enable them to receive relief items.
Access to Social Services: The Lebanese Identity Card authenticates a persons entitlement to government services. Services such as LEAP payments and free national health insurance schemes registration for persons below 18 years or above 70 years is made dependent on the presentation of the Lebanese Identity Card.
Travelling: The Lebanese Identity Card is used to validate a persons identity at airports, borders, police check posts and while booking tickets. However, the Lebanese Identity Card can only be used in neighboring countries Syria and Jordan.
E-Commerce & Payment Industry:The Lebanese Identity Card is used in a multiplicity of situations – to register for offline services such as a loan or an insurance plan, while buying a car. There have been past issues raised about Know Your Customer norms for Cash Cards like Bank Audi e-Cards and ATM Cards. The Lebanese Identity Card is likely to be made mandatory for the validation of all payments.
Pension Claims: As identity theft occurs when someone uses a persons personal information, such as Social Security number without their permission to commit fraud by claiming their benefits or that of a relation. The Lebanese Identity Card identifies a Lebanese Identity Card holder as the rightful and only person authorized to receive their pension benefits. In the event of the Lebanese Identity Card holder's death, only their children or spouse will benefit from their pension claim.
Hire Purchase: The Lebanese Identity Card is used in establishing a persons identity when making hire purchase arrangements as it contains their digital picture and biometric information that conclusively establishes their identity in addition to their personal and residential information.
Insurance Claims: As a person needs to prove their identity in the event of any disaster for which they have to make insurance claims. The Lebanese Identity Card provides them with the necessary information they need to conclusively establish their identity.
Remittances from Abroad: As identity theft happens in many different ways: a thief obtains credit card receipts or bank statements from your wallet or trash; personal information is inadvertently provided over the phone or Internet; or other confidential information. Before a person even realizes their personal information has been compromised, their credit and goods is claimed by fraudulent persons. The use of the Lebanese Identity Card and PIN in claiming goods and monies sent from abroad has been designed to prevent unauthorized persons from claiming what is due to the Lebanese Identity Card holder.
Use as a travel document
Lebanese citizens who possess a Lebanese Identity Card have been able to use it as an international travel document, in lieu of a Lebanese passport, for travel to the following countries and territories:
Issuing procedure
In order to be issued an identity card, one needs to fill in a form, which should be taken to the Identity Documents and Passport Regime Units within the District Police Stations. The forms could be obtained at all District Police Stations. When applying the name, gender, date and place of birth, digital image, ten fingerprints, palmprints, and an electronic signature in a JPEG2000 format are taken. First-time appliers must also provide a valid birth certificate. It is possible for a person to apply for a renewal of the ID card via a representative with a notary signed permit, provided there are no significant changes in his or hers appearance. There are, however limitations. If you apply via a representative, you must receive the new ID yourself. Vice versa, if you applied yourself, then an authorized representative may receive your ID. This does not apply to applying for passports, as fingerprints must be taken.
The Lebanese Identity card is issued free of charge for all the Lebanese citizens however a monetary tax is paid for the issuing of the identity card; the price depends on the selected type of issuing which is basically the time needed for the card to be issued (the prices are listed in District Police Stations). The standard time for issuing a Lebanese identity card is 5 working days. The Ministry of Interior has provided an e-service and a smart app that allows you to check whether your ID card is ready.
Document Requirements
Identity Card Application Form. (Obtained from government offices or can be downloaded from their website.)
Old Identity Card. (If applicable, regardless of expiry date.)
Lebanese Passport. () () (Only applicable if applying through one of the Lebanese embassies/consulates abroad.)
Individual and Family status records. () () whose date of issuance does not exceed 3 months
An Original or a Certified copy of birth certificate.
Criminal Record Status () ()
2 Recent Photos. (Size: 4.3 x 3.5 cm) authenticated by a Mukhtar.
5 Official Stamps () () (Costing 1,000 Lebanese Pounds each)
Fingerprints and all biometric data is collected at the Application Center(s). (Fingerprint data is not collected from minors aged 12 and under.)
Professional Certificate or Degree. (For stating the profession in the Identity Card.)
Current version
The current version is in ID1 format and biometric. All 10 fingerprints and palm prints of the holder are taken, which is stored in paper files and which can only be accessed by a judge in closely defined circumstances. A central database duplicates the information on the card, but strict laws limit access to the information and prevent it being linked to other databases or records.
Older ID cards, written in Arabic characters only, are still valid and of equal value, provided that less than 15 years have passed since the issue date. Military staff, as well as personnel of the police, fire brigade, coast guard, and intelligent services, carry special IDs until retiring or exiting their services.
Physical appearance
The current ID card is an ID-1 (credit card size) plastic card with an embedded RFID chip to store bearer's name, gender, date and place of birth, and a digital image of their face, ten fingerprints, palmprints, an electronic signature in a JPEG2000 format, and a 2.86 megabyte optical stripe.
All the information that is stated in the Lebanese passport is included in the Lebanese identity card and is given in Arabic, French, and English.
Front side
The front side features the Lebanese Cedar and the words "" / " " / " across the top, and the following information below:
Photograph of the holder (digital image printed on page)
Card number (12 alphanumeric digits)
Birthname (only if differing from current surname)
Given name(s)
Sex
Surname
Father's first name
Mother's first name
Place of birth (Only the city/town of birth, no country)
Date of birth (dd.mm.yyyy)
Height (in metres)
Authority
Date of expiry (dd/mm/yy)
Signature of holder
Visible Images
Lebanese Flag
Lebanese's Cedar to the right left corner
Republic of Lebanon’s Coat of Arms to the right top corner
Ghost portrait of cardholder
Main portrait of image of cardholder
Map of the Republic of Lebanon
Rear side
It contains the following information:
Gender
Blood Type
Colour of eyes
Marital Status
Date of issue (dd/mm/yy)
Hometown and District
Machine-readable zone
Machine-readable zone
The format of the first row is:
The format of the second row is:
To check digit calculations: First, convert any non-numeric characters into numbers. Letters are assigned values alphabetically from 10 to 35 (A=10, Z=35), < is 0. Second, multiply each number by a weighting value. This is a repeating pattern of 7,3,1. For example, the first number is multiplied by 7, the second number by 3, the third by 1, the fourth by 7, the fifth by 3, etc. Now, sum the products to obtain a single number. Finally, divide the number by 10 and the remainder is your check digit (this is known as a modulo 10 calculation).
Chip
The Republic of Lebanon ID cards contain an ISO 18000-3 and ISO 14443 compatible 13.56 MHz RFID chip that uses the ISO 7816 protocols. The chip stores the bearer's name, gender, date and place of birth, a digital image of their face, ten fingerprints, palmprints, and electronic signature in a JPEG2000 format. In addition, the new ID card can be used for online authentication (e.g. for age verification or for e-government applications). An electronic signature, provided by a private company, can also be stored on the chip.
The document number, the photo and the fingerprints can supposedly be read only by Law enforcement in the Republic of Lebanon and law enforcement agencies and some other authorities
All ID card agencies have been supplied with reading devices that have been certified by the Lebanese National Office for Information Security. Agency staff can use these modules to display all of the personal data stored on the chip, including the digital passport photo and, where applicable, the stored fingerprints.
To use the online authentication function, the holder needs a six-digit decimal PIN. If the holder types in the wrong PIN, he has to type in the twelve-digit decimal access code given on the ID card to prove he/she really possesses the ID card. If the wrong PIN is used three times, a PUK must be used to unlock the chip.
The data on the chip are protected by Basic Access Control and Extended Access Control.
Fines
All Lebanese citizens habitually resident in the Republic of Lebanon and aged 15 or above are obliged by the Lebanese law to apply for a Lebanese Identity Card, whilst it is optional for those under 15 or those who are residing abroad.
Persons over the age of 15, and who do not have a valid ID, can pay a fine from 300,000 up to 500,000 Lebanese Pounds. Failure to show a valid ID to a police officer in a public place can result in a fine of 20,000 Lebanese Pounds.
Removal of Religion
Even though non-religion is not recognized by the Republic of Lebanon, on May 8, 2009, Minister of Interior, Ziad Baroud on behalf of the Lebanese Ministry of Interior announced that the mandatory inclusion of religion on identity cards was contrary to law for the protection of personal data. The State Council of the Republic of Lebanon decided that the mandatory indication of religious affiliation on identity cards is not legal, and also opposed to the optional reference to religion following the signature of the bearer at the bottom left corner of the Lebanese Identity Card.
See also
Constitution of Lebanon
Driving licence in Lebanon
Foreign relations of Lebanon
History of Lebanon
Lebanese diaspora
Lebanese nationality law
Lebanese passport
Politics of Lebanon
Vehicle registration plates of Lebanon
Visa policy of Lebanon
Visa requirements for Lebanese citizens
References
Lebanon
Government of Lebanon |
35651791 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2 | HTTP/2 | HTTP/2 (originally named HTTP/2.0) is a major revision of the HTTP network protocol used by the World Wide Web. It was derived from the earlier experimental SPDY protocol, originally developed by Google. HTTP/2 was developed by the HTTP Working Group (also called httpbis, where "" means "twice") of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). HTTP/2 is the first new version of HTTP since HTTP/1.1, which was standardized in in 1997. The Working Group presented HTTP/2 to the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) for consideration as a Proposed Standard in December 2014, and IESG approved it to publish as Proposed Standard on February 17, 2015 (and was updated in February 2020 in regard to TLS 1.3). The HTTP/2 specification was published as on May 14, 2015.
The standardization effort was supported by Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer 11, Safari, Amazon Silk, and Edge browsers. Most major browsers had added HTTP/2 support by the end of 2015. About 97% of web browsers used have the capability. , 47% (after topping out at just over 50%) of the top 10 million websites supported HTTP/2.
Its proposed successor is HTTP/3, a major revision that builds on the concepts established by HTTP/2.
Goals
The working group charter mentions several goals and issues of concern:
Create a negotiation mechanism that allows clients and servers to elect to use HTTP/1.1, 2.0, or potentially other non-HTTP protocols.
Maintain high-level compatibility with HTTP/1.1 (for example with methods, status codes, URIs, and most header fields).
Decrease latency to improve page load speed in web browsers by considering:
data compression of HTTP headers
HTTP/2 Server Push
pipelining of requests
fixing the head-of-line blocking problem in HTTP 1.x
multiplexing multiple requests over a single TCP connection
Support common existing use cases of HTTP, such as desktop web browsers, mobile web browsers, web APIs, web servers at various scales, proxy servers, reverse proxy servers, firewalls, and content delivery networks.
Differences from HTTP/1.1
The proposed changes do not require any changes to how existing web applications work, but new applications can take advantage of new features for increased speed. HTTP/2 leaves all of HTTP/1.1's high-level semantics, such as methods, status codes, header fields, and URIs, the same. What is new is how the data is framed and transported between the client and the server.
Websites that are efficient minimize the number of requests required to render an entire page by minifying (reducing the amount of code and packing smaller pieces of code into bundles, without reducing its ability to function) resources such as images and scripts. However, minification is not necessarily convenient nor efficient and may still require separate HTTP connections to get the page and the minified resources. HTTP/2 allows the server to "push" content, that is, to respond with data for more queries than the client requested. This allows the server to supply data it knows a web browser will need to render a web page, without waiting for the browser to examine the first response, and without the overhead of an additional request cycle.
Additional performance improvements in the first draft of HTTP/2 (which was a copy of SPDY) come from multiplexing of requests and responses to avoid some of the head-of-line blocking problem in HTTP 1 (even when HTTP pipelining is used), header compression, and prioritization of requests. However, as HTTP/2 runs on top of a single TCP connection there is still potential for head-of-line blocking to occur if TCP packets are lost or delayed in transmission.
HTTP/2 no longer supports HTTP/1.1's chunked transfer encoding mechanism, as it provides its own, more efficient, mechanisms for data streaming.
History
Genesis in and later differences from SPDY
SPDY (pronounced like "speedy") was a previous HTTP-replacement protocol developed by a research project spearheaded by Google. Primarily focused on reducing latency, SPDY uses the same TCP pipe but different protocols to accomplish this reduction. The basic changes made to HTTP/1.1 to create SPDY included: "true request pipelining without FIFO restrictions, message framing mechanism to simplify client and server development, mandatory compression (including headers), priority scheduling, and even bi-directional communication".
The HTTP Working Group considered Google's SPDY protocol, Microsoft's HTTP Speed+Mobility proposal (SPDY based), and Network-Friendly HTTP Upgrade. In July 2012, Facebook provided feedback on each of the proposals and recommended HTTP/2 be based on SPDY. The initial draft of HTTP/2 was published in November 2012 and was based on a straight copy of SPDY.
The biggest difference between HTTP/1.1 and SPDY was that each user action in SPDY is given a "stream ID", meaning there is a single TCP channel connecting the user to the server. SPDY split requests into either control or data, using a "simple to parse binary protocol with two types of frames". SPDY showed evident improvement over HTTP, with a new page load speedup ranging from 11% to 47%.
The development of HTTP/2 used SPDY as a jumping-off point. Among the many detailed differences between the protocols, the most notable is that HTTP/2 uses a fixed Huffman code-based header compression algorithm, instead of SPDY's dynamic stream-based compression. This helps to reduce the potential for compression oracle attacks on the protocol, such as the CRIME attack.
On February 9, 2015, Google announced plans to remove support for SPDY in Chrome in favor of support for HTTP/2. That took effect, starting with Chrome 51.
Development milestones
Encryption
HTTP/2 is defined both for HTTP URIs (i.e. without TLS encryption, a configuration which is abbreviated in ) and for HTTPS URIs (over TLS using ALPN extension where TLS 1.2 or newer is required, a configuration which is abbreviated in ).
Although the standard itself does not require usage of encryption, all major client implementations (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, IE, Edge) have stated that they will only support HTTP/2 over TLS, which makes encryption de facto mandatory.
Criticisms
Development process
The FreeBSD and Varnish developer Poul-Henning Kamp asserts that the standard was prepared on an unrealistically short schedule, ruling out any basis for the new HTTP/2 other than the SPDY protocol and resulting in other missed opportunities for improvement. Kamp criticizes the protocol itself for being inconsistent and having needless, overwhelming complexity. He also states that the protocol violates the protocol layering principle, for example by duplicating flow control that belongs in the transport layer (TCP). He also suggested that the new protocol should have removed HTTP Cookies, introducing a breaking change.
Encryption
Initially, some members of the Working Group tried to introduce an encryption requirement in the protocol. This faced criticism.
Critics stated that encryption has non-negligible computing costs and that many HTTP applications have actually no need for encryption and their providers have no desire to spend additional resources on it. Encryption proponents have stated that this encryption overhead is negligible in practice. Poul-Henning Kamp has criticized the IETF for hastily standardizing Google's SPDY prototype as HTTP/2 due to political considerations. The criticism of the agenda of mandatory encryption within the existing certificate framework is not new, nor is it unique to members of the open-source community a Cisco employee stated in 2013 that the present certificate model is not compatible with small devices like routers, because the present model requires not only annual enrollment and remission of non-trivial fees for each certificate, but must be continually repeated on an annual basis. Working Group finally did not reach consensus over the mandatory encryption, although most client implementations require it, which makes encryption a de facto requirement.
The HTTP/2 protocol also faced criticism for not supporting opportunistic encryption, a measure against passive monitoring similar to the STARTTLS mechanism that has long been available in other Internet protocols like SMTP. Critics have stated that the HTTP/2 proposal goes in violation of IETF's own "Pervasive Monitoring Is an Attack", which also has a status of Best Current Practice 188. RFC7258/BCP188 mandates that passive monitoring be considered as an attack, and protocols designed by IETF should take steps to protect against passive monitoring (for example, through the use of opportunistic encryption). A number of specifications for opportunistic encryption of HTTP/2 have been provided, of which draft-nottingham-http2-encryption was adopted as an official work item of the working group, leading to the publication of in May 2017.
TCP head-of-line blocking
Although the design of HTTP/2 effectively addresses the HTTP-transaction-level head-of-line blocking problem by allowing multiple concurrent HTTP transactions, all those transactions are multiplexed over a single TCP connection, meaning that any packet-level head-of-line blocking of the TCP stream simultaneously blocks all transactions being accessed via that connection. This head-of-line blocking in HTTP/2 is now widely regarded as a design flaw, and much of the effort behind QUIC and HTTP/3 has been devoted to reduce head-of-line blocking issues.
Server-side support
Server software
Apache 2.4.12 supports HTTP/2 via the module mod_h2, although appropriate patches must be applied to the source code of the server in order for it to support that module. As of Apache 2.4.17 all patches are included in the main Apache source tree, although the module itself was renamed mod_http2. Old versions of SPDY were supported via the module mod_spdy, however the development of the mod_spdy module has stopped.
Apache Tomcat supports HTTP/2 with version 8.5 and newer with a configuration change.
Apache Traffic Server supports HTTP/2.
Caddy supports HTTP/2.
Charles Proxy supports HTTP/2 since version Charles 4.
Citrix NetScaler 11.x supports HTTP/2.
Sucuri Supports HTTP/2.
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager 11.6 supports HTTP/2.
Barracuda Networks WAF (Web Application Firewall) supports HTTP/2.
h2o was built from the ground up for HTTP/2 support.
HAProxy 1.8 supports HTTP/2.
Jetty 9.3 supports HTTP/2.
lighttpd 1.4.56 supports HTTP/2.
LiteSpeed Web Server 5.0 supports HTTP/2.
Microsoft IIS supports HTTP/2 in Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, and Windows Server 2019.
Netty 4.1 supports HTTP/2.
nginx 1.9.5 supports HTTP/2, released on September 22, 2015, using module ngx_http_v2_module and HTTP/2 Server Push since version 1.13.9 on February 20, 2018.
Node.js Stable support since 8.13.0. (5.0 supports HTTP/2 with a module and Node 8.4 introduced experimental built-in support for HTTP/2.)
Kestrel web server for ASP.NET Core supports HTTP/2 since .NET Core 2.2.0-preview 1.
OpenLiteSpeed 1.3.11 and 1.4.8 supports HTTP/2.
Proxygen supports HTTP/2.
Pulse Secure Virtual Traffic Manager 10.2 supports HTTP/2.
Radware Alteon NG supports HTTP/2.
ShimmerCat supports HTTP/2.
Vert.x 3.3 supports HTTP/2.
Warp (Haskell web server, used by default in Yesod) supports HTTP/2.
Wildfly 9 supports HTTP/2.
Envoy proxy supports HTTP/2.
Content delivery networks
Akamai was the first major CDN to support HTTP/2 and HTTP/2 Server Push.
Microsoft Azure supports HTTP/2.
PageCDN supports HTTP/2 out of the box and provides user-interface to setup HTTP/2 Server Push in CDN dashboard.
CDN77 supports HTTP/2 using nginx (August 20, 2015).
Cloudflare supports HTTP/2 using nginx with SPDY as a fallback for browsers without support, whilst maintaining all security and performance services. Cloudflare was the first major CDN to support HTTP/2 Server Push.
AWS CloudFront supports HTTP/2 since September 7, 2016.
Fastly supports HTTP/2 including Server Push.
Imperva Incapsula CDN supports HTTP/2. The implementation includes support for WAF and DDoS mitigation features as well.
KeyCDN supports HTTP/2 using nginx (October 6, 2015). HTTP/2 Test is a test page to verify if your server supports HTTP/2.
Voxility supports HTTP/2 using nginx since July, 2016. The implementation comes in support for Cloud DDoS mitigation services.
StackPath supports HTTP/2.
Implementations
Other implementations are collected on the GitHub HTTP/2 wiki.
See also
gRPC
HTTP pipelining
HTTP request and response messages
HTTP/3
QUIC
SPDY
WebSocket
Web Server
Web Browser
References
External links
– Hypertext Transfer Protocol version 2 (HTTP/2)
– HPACK: Header Compression for HTTP/2
HTTP/2 explained (Daniel Stenberg)
SPDY Protocol (draft-mbelshe-httpbis-spdy-00)
HTTP Speed+Mobility (draft-Montenegro-httpbis-speed-mobility-01)
Proposal for a Network-Friendly HTTP Upgrade (draft-tarreau-httpbis-network-friendly-00)
Hypertext Transfer Protocol
Application layer protocols
World Wide Web
2015 introductions |
35682554 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tamper%20software | Anti-tamper software | Anti-tamper software is software which makes it harder for an attacker to modify it. The measures involved can be passive such as obfuscation to make reverse engineering difficult or active tamper-detection techniques which aim to make a program malfunction or not operate at all if modified. It is essentially tamper resistance implemented in the software domain. It shares certain aspects but also differs from related technologies like copy protection and trusted hardware, though it is often used in combination with them. Anti-tampering technology typically makes the software somewhat larger and also has a performance impact. There are no provably secure software anti-tampering methods; thus, the field is an arms race between attackers and software anti-tampering technologies.
Tampering can be malicious, to gain control over some aspect of the software with an unauthorized modification that alters the computer program code and behaviour. Examples include installing rootkits and backdoors, disabling security monitoring, subverting authentication, malicious code injection for the purposes of data theft or to achieve higher user privileges, altering control flow and communication, license code bypassing for the purpose of software piracy, code interference to extract data or algorithms and counterfeiting. Software applications are vulnerable to the effects of tampering and code changes throughout their lifecycle from development and deployment to operation and maintenance.
Anti-tamper protection can be applied as either internally or externally to the application being protected. External anti-tampering is normally accomplished by monitoring the software to detect tampering. This type of defense is commonly expressed as malware scanners and anti-virus applications. Internal anti-tampering is used to turn an application into its own security system and is generally done with specific code within the software that will detect tampering as it happens. This type of tamper proofing defense may take the form of runtime integrity checks such as cyclic redundancy checksums, anti-debugging measures, encryption or obfuscation. Execution inside a virtual machine has become a common anti-tamper method used in recent years for commercial software; it is used for example in StarForce and SecuROM. Some anti-tamper software uses white-box cryptography, so cryptographic keys are not revealed even when cryptographic computations are being observed in complete detail in a debugger. A more recent research trend is tamper-tolerant software, which aims to correct the effects of tampering and allow the program to continue as if unmodified. A simple (and easily defeated) scheme of this kind was used in the Diablo II video game, which stored its critical player data in two copies at different memory locations and if one was modified externally, the game used the lower value.
Anti-tamper software is used in many types of software products including: embedded systems, financial applications, software for mobile devices, network-appliance systems, anti-cheating in games, military, license management software, and digital rights management (DRM) systems. Some general-purpose packages have been developed which can wrap existing code with minimal programing effort; for example the SecuROM and similar kits used in the gaming industry, though they have the downside that semi-generic attacking tools also exist to counter them. Malicious software itself can and has been observed using anti-tampering techniques, for example the Mariposa botnet.
See also
Hardening (computing)
Fault tolerance
Denuvo
Digital rights management
References
Computer security software |
35758506 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ToolBook | ToolBook | ToolBook is a Microsoft Windows based e-learning content authoring application, initially released in 1990 by Asymetrix Corporation, now SumTotal Systems. ToolBook uses a book metaphor — a project file is thought of as a book containing pages of content. This is very similar to Microsoft PowerPoint’s use of the metaphor where presentations contain various slides. ToolBook was often compared to HyperCard and Visual Basic.
The first version of ToolBook was demonstrated in a 1990 episode of The Computer Chronicles, in an episode about Windows 3.0.
Released in December of 2012, ToolBook 11.5 is the final version of ToolBook.
SumTotal Systems decided to execute an End of Lifecycle (“EOL”) process for the ToolBook product on December 31, 2021. This will end all sales and support of ToolBook.
Runtime environments
ToolBook allows for the creation of applications and training materials for Windows and/or the web. To support these two distribution models, ToolBook contains two different programming environments:
OpenScript: ToolBook includes a very capable built-in programming language called OpenScript, which is similar to HyperTalk. OpenScript is object oriented and event-driven, where chunks of programming code are associated to the different elements within the lesson. The OpenScript language only functions within the Native engine of ToolBook. It does not function in DHTML-delivered content.
Actions Editor: The Actions Editor is another programming environment where the syntax is virtually identical to OpenScript. The biggest difference is that the Actions Editor is not as powerful a language as OpenScript. Whereas OpenScript has over a thousand commands and functions, the Actions Editor contains perhaps 80. However, Actions Editor programming code works equally well within ToolBook (Native) as well as in a web browser (DHTML).
Features
ToolBook’s key features are:
Catalog - The Catalog is a repository of objects that can be added to your project. For example: Text fields, Buttons, Question Objects, Rectangles, Navigation Controls. You can even add your own objects to the catalog so that they can be used later in different projects.
Book Explorer - The Book Explorer will display a tree-view breakdown of all objects on a given page.
PowerPoint Converter - The PowerPoint Add-on (called SumTotal Publish To ToolBook) will allow you to convert a PowerPoint presentation into a ToolBook file. Once installed, you'll find this Add-on within the main Ribbon within PowerPoint.
Simulation Recorder - The Simulation Recorder will watch and record you interacting with another application, and allow you to import that simulation into ToolBook as an interactive simulation (this is not a video recording).
Simulation Editor - You can create your own simulations manually or edit/modify a simulation you recorded using the Simulation Recorder. Simulations can be played back in 3 modes: Demonstration (sit back and watch), Practice (provides detailed next-step instruction to user, allowing them to complete the simulation), Assessment (let the user attempt the simulation by themselves).
Path Animation - Any object in ToolBook can be configured to move (animate) across the page using a simple or even complex path.
Media Players - ToolBook supports the ability to play Audio and Videos in a wide variety of formats, supported by these 4 media technologies: Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, QuickTime, Flash.
SCORM/AICC - ToolBook provides SCORM and AICC support within web-published lessons for use in SCORM/AICC compliant Learning Management Systems.
AutoPackager - In order to distribute a Native lesson or application to a Windows computer (in non-DHTML format), the AutoPackager is used. It has the ability to wrap your lesson into a Windows Installer so an end user can install it onto their computer.
Quiz - Many question objects (True/False, Multiple-Choice, Match Item, etc.) exist in ToolBook to allow you to create a training lesson. Various scoring behaviors also exist, such as Score This Page (or Range of Pages). Using the Actions Editor, you can design complex navigation within a lesson based on individual question scores.
Version history
Below is an historical list of English versions of ToolBook:
1990 ToolBook 1.0
1991 ToolBook 1.52, 1.53
---- There was never a 2.0 release
1994 ToolBook 3.0 and 3.0a
Computer Based Training (CBT) edition released
Allowed for the creation of training lessons
Multimedia edition released
Introduced full media support
1995 ToolBook 3.01
1996 ToolBook 4.0
1996 ToolBook 5.0, 5.01
1998 ToolBook 6.0, 6.1, 6.1a
Librarian integration
HTML Frame Support added
Neuron Impulse added
AutoPackager replaces the Setup Manager
InstallShield Express templates
Object Browser added
Page Browser added
Log Reader added
1998 ToolBook 6.5
Coach added
Templates feature added
HTML export now offers true object positioning
Neuron's Impulse improved by adding compression abilities
1999 ToolBook 7.0
1999 ToolBook 7.1
DHTML Export added
Actions Editor added
Universal Media Player added
Lesson Design Specialist added
Agent added to read Coach text
2000 ToolBook 7.2
2000 ToolBook 8.0
eLN Support added
HTTP Post added to Actions Editor
Array support added to Actions Editor
SCORM and AICC Support added
Catalog completely redesigned
2001 ToolBook 8.1
Questions now offer Media feedback
Print command added to Actions Editor
Backup feature added
2002 ToolBook 8.5
Simulation support added
DHTML: Export now support encryption & obfuscation
DHTML: Creation of ZIP package file added
2003 ToolBook 8.6
Sun JVM now supported
Cross Domain HTTP Post now supported
2004 ToolBook 2004 (aka 8.9)
Simulation Recorder added
Action Methods support added
Execute SCORM action added to Actions Editor
2004 ToolBook 2004 SP1
Various Simulation enhancements added
Ability to set or clear focus added to Actions Editor
2005 ToolBook 2004 SP2
DHTML export no longer relies on JVM
Firefox and Mozilla support added
SCORM 2004 support added
QuickTime support added to the Universal Media Player
2005 ToolBook 2004 SP3
Added support to store Actions Editor variables in LMS
TotalLMS catalog objects added
2007 ToolBook 9.0
Now a 32 bit product
Introduction of the Book Explorer
Introduction of Smart Styles
Universal Media Player updated to use WMP9 instead of WMP6.4
Textline, Item & Word added to Actions Editor
RGBStroke and Transparent added to Actions Editor
Retired dBase and Pardox database support
2007 ToolBook 9.01
Fixed printing issues
Fixed various AutoPackager issues
Fixed UMP (On Media Complete) issue
Fixed centering of text for long word-wrapped question answers
This was the last version of ToolBook Assistant, now retired
2008 ToolBook 9.5
License Key product activation technology added
PowerPoint conversion added
TBKX (ToolBook XML) file format introduced
Voice Recording added
PNG image support
Certificate catalog category added
iPhone/iPod touch support, and Safari browser too
Universal Media Player now offers feature to Hide at Reader
Mozilla no longer officially supported
Windows 2000 is no longer supported
Term "Instructor" dropped from product name
2009 ToolBook 9.5 Service Pack 1
Fixed sluggish performance caused by Book Explorer
Admin rights no longer needed to publish to DHTML
MSI Installer for IT Groups created
PNG Transparency now works in IE 6
2009 ToolBook 10.0
Catalog now matches look of the Book Explorer
Quiz Summary feature added
Match Item Question enhanced to draw smooth lines in DHTML
Image object type added
All Bitmap Resources now stored in native compressed format
Google Android Browser support added
Commonly Used Objects category added to catalog
Ability to designate Question Text for any given question object
Ability to Play/Stop/Pause a voice recording
Universal Media Player now offers a Show Speaker Icon feature
Borderless Scrolling Field added
PowerPoint Converter now converts speaker notes
PowerPoint Converter now converts audio
2010 ToolBook 10.0 Patch 1
Fixed: Opening previous version TBK not displaying warning dialog
Fixed: Unable to force a Fill In The Blank question object into focus
Fixed: Unable to create a new catalog
Fixed: Unable to export a catalog category
Fixed: Image Object appears out of position by 1 pixel in DHTML
Fixed: Images within Recordfields missing in DHTML
2010 ToolBook 10.5
Geolocation support
Resizable SmartStyles
iPad and Windows Mobile DHTML support
Drag/Drop support added to iPhone
Resized images now utilize a smooth resizing technology
Ctrl-Shift-V pastes unformatted text
Improved support for pasting in Word formatted text
2011 ToolBook 10.5 Update 1
Added BlackBerry Mobile Device support
2011 ToolBook 11
Startup Dialog replaced with entirely different interface
Question Wizard added
39 New SmartStyles added
Arrows Category added to Catalog
BlackBerry 6 and Chrome 5 support added
Neuron officially retired and pulled from the product
Two Tools Added: Move Pages and Reassign Pages
Two Tools Added: Delete Unused Extensions, Delete Unused Resources
Two Tools Added: Randomization - Configure and Validate
Customize Catalog option added to Edit menu
Draw Objects enhanced to use Antialiasing and true transparency
2012 ToolBook 11.5
Overhaul of Publish to Web interface, to simplify DHTML Export
Enhanced logging of errors/problems when Publishing to Web
Improved Resource Manager
Voice Recording enhancements
Various Bullets and Seals added to the Clipart Catalog category
Delete Page utility added
Character Map added
Display Book Information utility introduced
Various right-click menu enhancements
Resource Lookup tool added
Copy/Paste of text now include field images
Discontinued DHTML support for Firefox 2 and IE 6
Use of JS file: Path is now stored as a relative path
References
External links
ToolBook home page
ToolBook Knowledge Base
Integrated development environments
Products introduced in 1990 |
35768817 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual%20world%20framework | Virtual world framework | The virtual world framework (VWF) is a means to connect robust 3D, immersive, entities with other entities, virtual worlds, content and users via web browsers. It provides the ability for client-server programs to be delivered in a lightweight manner via web browsers, and provides synchronization for multiple users to interact with common objects and environments. For example, using VWF, a developer can take video lesson plans, component objects and avatars and successfully insert them into an existing virtual or created landscape (such as EDGE or Open Sim), interacting with the native objects and users via a VWF interface.
VWF further opens the door to interface different training content, simulations, objects, users and locations; which will extend and expand the scope of training and education. (Imagine running a tank simulation with aviation assets, provided by two different simulations suites, but executed together and passing imagery and sensor data between them, working over a common landscape and feeding a constructive mapping simulation run on a third platform, all seamlessly and transparent to remote users via their browsers). The VWF is meant as a useful tool to interact with differing types of entities (objects, avatars, simulations, spaces). As an open-source tool protected under the Apache II license, VWF is free and accessible to any number of developers who can create content and expand its scope and functionality. The VWF delivers its interactivity using the web, creating an opportunity to align mismatched objects or environments. VWF is under development to work with Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) such as EDGE, and ideally will be developed to interface with the latest object encodings (such as Unity and MP4), environments (such as OpenSim MOSES) and other simulations platforms in order to create a truly agnostic interfacing tool.
Myths
Even though it has a suggestive name, the VWF is not a virtual world. Nor is it a virtual world generation tool. Can the VWF produce a virtual space and content to fill it? Yes, it can, and it absolutely can be used to provide additional objects and interactions to augment/interact with entities to which it connects. VWF is not a simulator. The VWF is meant to extend the use of active client-server simulations in order that they can be accessed via a web browser. It is also meant to add extra dimensions to existing simulations or to create simulation content to add to an existing virtual space (such as MOSES) or a spontaneously generated space. The VWF has the capability to create fully functional simulations but is not meant to be a complete simulator on its own.
VWF is not an avatar, nor does it require an avatar to run. The VWF does not require a virtual space in order to work; it can be used to generate a virtual space within the web browser or locally on the host machine. The VWF does not need an avatar to function, and does not necessarily generate avatars for use with virtual worlds, but can be used to produce or interact with avatars.
Raison d'etre
The United States Department of Defense (DoD) cannot continue to do business as usual. In FY05, the DoD spent $9.1B in Modeling and Simulation related activities. Approximately 40% of that budget was used for simulators, war gaming, and modeling. The vision of the VWF is to reduce the funding used to support M&S activities in direct support of pressure to reduce spending and increase efficacy of existing / emerging technology.
The DoD needs a tool to tie together its myriad, stove-piped, specialty simulations solutions. It needs a tool to extend and expand its ability to train an increasing number of personnel across ever-widening distances. DoD stresses a need to reduce and reuse technology and to find more cost-efficient means to provide the most advanced technological and pedagogical systems of training. It is not just about training DoD personnel however.
We are surrounded by immersive, personalized social media and technology (such as Smart Phones, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora Radio, Project Glass and augmented reality sites such as Layar). Traditional education systems do not allow for the pace of information sharing and immersion that media, games and the internet provide to youth on a regular basis and modernization/customization of education is becoming absolutely essential to its effectiveness. The intersection of technologies and the speed/volume of data delivery create a perfect storm of possibility for this system to provide the most good at the best cost.
As with the Internet, which started out as ARPAnet, the VWF is intended to develop into an open, robust platform that revolutionizes how we perceive and interact with the world. With the VWF and the use of mobile / web enabled devices, users will be able to interact with their world on a grand scale; VWF capitalizes on the same technologies that enable 3D apps to view augmented reality, and will port their capabilities via the web on a large scale.
Intended audience
The VWF is for developers of simulations, education systems, training content, games, information sharing, private individuals, really anyone with an interest in sharing information with multiple users in a lightweight fashion using a web browser as a delivery mechanism. The VWF is for users to be able to access information, training, or content no matter where they are or what their hardware or bandwidth restrictions may be, as long as they have a secure link to the training server through the internet. The VWF is to provide rapidly available content to those who need it most, when they need it, in a fashion which is accessible and low-overhead.
Significance for business and government
VWF means a massive savings in preventing redundancy, in linking different systems and in building economies of scale and scope. It means access to unprecedented complexity of training content and a huge flexibility in its delivery. It means faster and more thoroughly trained personnel. It means platform-independent computing solutions for passing any type of data quickly and efficiently. It means highly adaptive, rapid prototypes independent of the platforms which created them. It means staying at the forefront of the computing trends in information sharing. It means a rapid means of generating customized training solutions. It means spontaneous meeting spaces and a method for delivering increased complexity and speed of intelligence to those who need it.
Ownership and licensing
Ownership
The DoD owns the rights to the source code of the VWF; however, as it is licensed using Apache II, it is freely usable by any and all as long as original attribution is given to the creators.
Licensing
The framework is licensed under the Apache II license, which essentially states that the user of the software is granted a royalty-free license to use, modify, and sell derivative works of, the software as long as the original license and attribution file(s) are included in the distribution of any and all subsequent works. The original work is licensed "as is" and contains no warranties of any kind.
Content rights
Content rights are managed via the provisions contained in the Apache 2 license. The current content version control is affected by the primary engineers through GitHub, with the latest stable builds published under unique serial numbers.
Designers
The designers are David A. Smith (computer scientist) (Lockheed Martin Chief Innovation Officer – project oversight, design, architecture), David Easter (LM Engineer - Development/Architecture), Richard Boyd (Lockheed Martin Virtual world Labs Chief Architect - governance and ecosystem design), Allison Corey (LM Engineer – development), Scott R. Haynes (LM Engineer - Development), Michael J. Vacirca (LM Engineer - Development), Steven D. Carr (LM Engineer - Development), Cynthia L. Moore (contractor, OSD(P&R) TRS – design, future specs, governance), Carlton Rosengrant OSD(P&R) TRS – overall Program Manager, Frank C. DiGiovanni (Director, OSD(P&R)TRS), Coles/RDECOM (Edge interfacing), Robert Chadwick (ADL – code efficiency and applications), and emerging partners as new functions and libraries are proposed.
Contributing
VWF is posted on GitHub, and is open to any and all developers who wish to contribute forks, projects, suggestions or build-outs for the framework. The original creators especially seek major platform developers who wish to add interfacing to their platform for use with VWF, such as MMOs, simulations designers, terrain mapping providers, 3D modeling, virtual landscapes, etc. The paper "A Virtual World Ecosystem Framework", presented at the IITSEc conference in 2012, explains the philosophy of contribution to the system.
Development path
Evolution
The VWF is managed via GitHub and developer inputs through a loose consortium of the original creators. In time, the community will stand up a non-profit governing organization, in order to conduct full-time partnerships and version control of the software. Through the use of the latest codecs, interfacing partnerships with major content, object and texture providers, and a persistent location, it is additionally the goal of the creators that VWF will evolve into the standard for interfacing content with users on the web.
Availability to web applications
The VWF is available for use in web applications, and there are a few minor applications/demonstrations already constructed as proofs of concept. As the community extends the robustness of the VWF, increases the libraries and finalizes the toolkits, these applications will gain in complexity as well. Developers are welcome to construct web applications with the existing code and examples. There is nothing special required to run completed applications outside of having access to a compatible browser with WebGL and potentially web sockets capability depending on the location of the source objects and interactions.
A framework among frameworks
There are many applications available which advertise themselves as Thin Clients or web interfaces. There are no open source development tools in widespread use that interface different entities in a persistent, secure manner using a thin client through web-browsers. While there are many tools available, many of them are highly specialized and require proprietary software installed on both the client and server side. There are still other tools which produce virtual environments, avatars, and content, but none of the ones known tie them together, spontaneously create interfaces among them or provide seamless communications to all of the entities regardless of their timing and without a heavy burden in bandwidth or processing power for the client. VWF does this and will do more as it continues its evolution. VWF utilizes web sockets and WebGL, directly providing a content link between entities and build 3D objects in the quickest, most efficient manner possible. Other virtual interfacing programs utilize Flash which also provides direct content, but does so in a less efficient manner.
Additional resources
VWF information is available on two sites: Virtual World Framework Homepage (mirrored on vwf mirror site) and github (search virtual-world-framework).
VWF applications
Training tsks & timeline
VWF can be applied to content to train on most tasks which do not require solely live training. Specifically: Curriculum facilitated through simulations, classroom training, augmented reality, mixed media training, and games are the ideal candidates for VWF. Augmented reality content delivered to classrooms, or augmented additions to mobile devices such as this one Also simulations which combine live training with simulated content are good candidates for VWF. The complexity of the training and the number of trainees largely dictates the date by which this VWF capability will be delivered. For delivery of classroom-type training the VWF is capable of being used to develop content. For simulations-type training, following the persistence and synchronization elements of the VWF being developed in the next 6 months (by fall 2012), this capability of the VWF should be possible. For augmented reality and truly immersive gaming, VWF will be under development with critical partners and hopes to have this capability in the coming 24 months, depending on current technologies and partnerships.
LVC exercises
Ideally, VWF will be used in live, virtual, and constructive simulation (LVC) exercises as a primary or secondary delivery mechanism. LVC is ideal for VWF delivery due to its large virtual/digital component and its need to be delivered to myriad audiences in a variety of locations/platforms.
Live training & VWF
Live objects such as aircraft, weapons and vehicles will pass data to the simulator through sensors (read off of the radar/weapons/sensors on the live equipment directly into the simulation and then the input/output data passed through VWF to the myriad participants), data streaming through interfacing servers (in the case of personnel/equipment trackers such as Blue Force Tracking) and through information injection through constructive simulations (such as placing live units on a map and manually tracking their status/positions).
Constructive simulation & VWF
Simulations do not take place "in" the Virtual World Framework. The VWF is a tool to help interface different entities. constructive simulations, in which simulated people operate simulated systems, are stimulated using human inputs. Ostensibly the VWF would provide the interface (via the web) for some or all of these humans who would be inputting data into the system, then would receive the simulation results from the program executing on the server machine/cloud/locally-determined-host, and would display the results in some fashion via web interface.
Required tools to use the VWF
Developers use the VWF to build simulations using Java script and functionality provided through the VWF. The VWF generates the appropriate display and manipulation files at the time of compilation. As the VWF develops a construction environment will be developed in order to allow users to drag and drop content and manipulate it, greatly reducing production time/complexity. This environment is under construction, and is anticipated to be completed at the end of 2012.
Security considerations
Web security issues
The web is agnostic to content. The VWF is not secure or unsecure. The use of secure socket layer encryption (SSL), virtual private networks (VPN), public key encryption (PKI), proprietary encryption, hardware secured network systems, etc. provides the security needed to secure any simulations produced and interfaced using the VWF. With the use of IPv6, bit-wise security protocols are available that were previously not available to data transport. A potential additional security method is to add a security bit header to the data transported via VWF in order to provide an additional layer of security. This measure has not yet been added to the current build.
Problems with web sockets and their solutions
The problem with opening a continuous connection between two computers via a web browser using Web sockets is that it potentially opens up the link to something called cache poisoning, in which someone can directly introduce viruses or other malware to the link, compromising the system. Here is a summary of other weaknesses: Security tool for Web Sockets). Originally, potential security issues led Mozilla and Opera to discontinue support for Web Sockets until the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) could produce a standardized Web Sockets protocol as part of HTML5. A work around based on Connect based handshakes (as opposed to upgrade- based handshakes) proved to be secure. The semantics of the handshake as coded into VWF will take this into account. Since late 2011 this has been largely addressed with latest builds and standards, and many web platforms do support Web Sockets.
WebGL
What is WebGL?
WebGL (web graphics library) is a JavaScript Application Programming Interface (API) for rendering interactive 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without using plug-ins. WebGL programs include control code (written in Java Script) and shader code which is executed on the graphics processing unit on the video card (GPU). WebGL is designed and maintained by the non-profit Khronos Group.
Browsers supporting WebGL
Mozilla Firefox 6.0 onward, Opera 11 onward, Google Chrome 9 onward (native support), Safari 5.1 onward. So far, Internet Explorer does not support WebGL and has not announced any plans to support WebGL. Chrome Frame and IEWebGL plug-ins support WebGL for IE 6.0 onward.
Standard setting bodies
The WebGL standard is affected by the Khronos Group, Mozilla, Apple and Google along with influence from United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team which raises security concerns to which the WebGL consortium (headed by the Khronos Group) react.
Devices supporting capable browsers
Most PCs, laptops, and tablets support WebGL capable browsers. Mobile support for WebGL is nascent. Expectations are that current mobile bindings for JavaScript and WebGL are not good enough but there is an Android version of Firefox with WebGL (only about 10% of potential users access content via mobile device requiring WebGL support). Opera also supports WebGL on Android platforms. iPhone does not support WebGL yet.
Microsoft support for WebGL
Microsoft does not have plans to support WebGL due to security concerns over handshake vulnerabilities. There are two plug-ins for Internet Explorer which support WebGL interfaces: Chrome Frame and IEWebGL. It is true that native support tends to run better than plug-in support, and not all security organizations will support the installation of additional plug-ins to web browsers.
JavaScript
What is JavaScript?
Java Script is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed, general purpose and supports object oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles. This means that JavaScript enables the programmer to build a series of prototypes and interact with them using a mostly literal syntax based on C. Due to its ease of use and widespread appeal, JavaScript quickly became one of the most popular programming languages for web applications.
Java Script vs. Java or C#
Java Script runs locally in the browsers, does not require additional plug ins or environments (like the Java runtime environment) to run, and does not require compilation or .exe files to be run on the client machine in order to work. It is faster, more efficient, and simpler to build and execute than both Java and C#.
Standards
Current standards supported by VWF
HTML 5.0, ECMAScript5, WebGL, Web Sockets, Collada (or other later file formats), and others as the tool matures.
Community and governance
Contributing code to VWF
Developers can download the latest build of VWF from GitHub and submit their recommendations, code and applications directly on the site. GitHub allows users to create their own forks, submit pull requests, and leave questions, comments and support related items in the issue tracker.
Coalition partners
VWF is available freely and openly on GitHub to any and all persons, regardless of origin. VWF content specifically designed for operations will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis depending on the content, training objectives, and coalition goals being exercised. There is no standing reason why VWF cannot be shared and there are no security restrictions on the original code.
Business models
Commercial products from VWF
Can commercial entities build services or games with the VWF? Absolutely. The VWF is meant to interface content via the web, but it also contains construction pieces enabling the creation of games or communications services wholly executable within the web browser. VWF is licensed using Apache II, but this allows for a commercial repackaging of the open-source portions as part of a larger work. These games and services would capitalize on the direct link between entities facilitated by the VWF, while the company would determine where the resources were located. For example: A game company might use VWF to create an online game using their proprietary graphics, and store both the graphics and the program files on their own servers while delivering that content through the web; a teleconference company might more efficiently create an e-classroom with the VWF to take their own streaming media codec and pass their video through the web to a digital classroom environment created wholly with the VWF, complete with avatars and interactive objects.
Advisors
Current advisors
There is a multitude of partners and advisors for the VWF project. There are the creators (mentioned earlier), as well as partnerships with Mark P. McCahill from Duke University, Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL), Doug Maxwell (for MOSES) and Cole Corporation (for the Edge military MMO). All of these personnel provide advisory support to the VWF. The creators encourage additional partnerships meant to expand the scope and scale of VWF.
References
Communication
Simulation software |
35774706 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EM%20Client | EM Client | eM Client is a Windows and macOS based email client for sending and receiving emails, managing calendars, tasks, contacts, and notes. Live chat is integrated as well. It was developed as a user-friendly alternative to existing email clients and calendar solutions.
eM Client was originally developed in 2006 and has provided updated versions (the latest version 8.2 of the software was released in March 2021).
Features
eM Client has a range of features for handling email, including advanced rules management, mass mail, delayed send, or a built-in translator for incoming and outgoing messages. It supports signatures, Quick Text, and tagging and categorization for easy searching. Watch for Replies and Snooze Email functions are available, as well as direct cloud attachments from cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, ownCloud or Nextcloud.
eM Client provides also a lookup service for GnuPG public keys (eM Keybook) in order to more easily send encrypted communication via email, and generally simplify PGP encryption in email communication.
Since eM Client 8.2, Online Meetings are supported (via Zoom, MS Teams, and Google Meet).
eM Client allows extensive appearance customization (including a visual theme editor).
Email support
eM Client supports all major email platforms including Exchange, Gmail, G Suite, Office365, iCloud and any POP3, SMTP, IMAP or CalDAV server.
Automatic setup works for Gmail, Exchange, Office 365, Outlook, iCloud, or other major email services. Recently, auto-import option was added to transfer data from IncrediMail as well.
Server compatibility
eM Client is compatible with:
G Suite (Gmail, Hangouts, and others)
iCloud
MS Office 365
MS Exchange
IceWarp
SmarterMail
Kerio
MDaemon
Fastmail
System requirements
For Windows:
Windows 7 or higher
350 MB of free space for installation (+additional space for data, which can be stored on a different drive if needed - since eM Client has no limit on the number of emails/data stored in its database, the only limitation is the capacity of user's hard drive)
Minimum of 2 GB of RAM and 1.6 GHz CPU
For macOS:
OS X 10.11 and the newer versions are supported
only the last three macOS versions are officially supported, but eM Client runs on El Capitan too
eM Client requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 installation.
References
Email clients
Personal information managers
Calendaring software |
35804076 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%20Communications%20and%20Electronics%20Museum | Military Communications and Electronics Museum | The Military Communications and Electronics Museum (Musée de l'électronique et des communications militaires) is a military signals museum on Ontario Highway 2 at CFB Kingston in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. A member organisation of the Organization of Military Museums of Canada, the communications museum was established at the base in 1961 and moved to its current purpose-built building in 1996.
Described by Lonely Planet as "a comprehensive and well-designed museum offering chronological displays on communications technology and sundry military gadgets", the museum traces the development of military communications from 1903 onward, through World War I and II, the Korean War and various NATO and United Nations peacekeeping missions to the modern era of communications satellites.
Exhibits
Canadian soldiers are represented by mannequins in military uniform of the appropriate eras manning fixed communications posts, heavily sandbagged underground dugouts and military vehicles while operating military communications equipment. The history of Canadian electronic military signals dates from 1903, when the militia-based Canadian Signal Corps was established as the first of its kind in the Commonwealth. Exhibits are arranged chronologically from the World War I era to the recent International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan.
Artefacts of the Great War include a cable wagon restored by local signallers, a switchboard from the first deployments of telephone communications in directing artillery, Morse code equipment and gas masks which signallers would have had to keep at the ready in the event of chemical attack.
The use of encryption, signals intelligence and counterintelligence is also documented, particularly in the World War II era where a break in the Enigma machine cipher by Allied forces would prove to be of decisive strategic value.
Two of the radar antennas from CFS Ramore were donated to the Military Communications and Electronics Museum in Kingston upon Ramore’s closure.
Canadian Forces Affiliate Radio System
The museum also displays a complete, working radioamateur station as a gateway in the Canadian Forces Affiliate Radio System (CFARS); the station's callsigns are CIW64 (CFARS), CIW964 (CFARS gateway) and VE3RCS (radioamateur service). The Canadian Forces Affiliate Radio System was established in 1978. The programme enlists amateur radio volunteer operators and equipment but uses neither standard radioamateur frequencies nor callsigns as CFARS is allocated its own specific official frequencies and identifiers
Canada mourning her fallen sons
A war memorial "Canada mourning her fallen sons" is part of the museum and incorporates three plaster models created by sculptor Walter Allward during the design of the Vimy Memorial in France.
Semaphore to Satellite
A book "Semaphore to Satellite" covering the history of the Canadian Forces Communications and Electronics Branch and its founding elements (Canadian Signalling Corps, Canada Naval Supplementary Radio System and Royal Canadian Air Force Telecommunication Branch) was published in 2013.
See also
CFB Kingston
Fort Henry
Fritz-Julius Lemp
German submarine U-110 (1940)
HMS Bulldog (H91)
Joe Baker-Cresswell
Kurzsignale
List of museums in Ontario
Monteith POW camp Camp 23
References
Military and war museums in Canada
Museums in Kingston, Ontario
Telecommunications museums |
35859118 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropsuite | Dropsuite | Dropsuite Limited (formerly branded as Dropmysite) is a software platform founded in 2011 that provides cloud backup, archiving and recovery services based in Singapore. They are a public company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:DSE).
Originally, Dropsuite only provided website backup services, but expanded services to include Cloud Backup for Office 365, Cloud Backup for G Suite Gmail, and email archiving. Additional solutions include GDPR Responder, eDiscovery, Insights BI and Ransomware Protection.
Corporation
Company History
Dropsuite began development under the name Dropmysite in September 2011 when John Fearon’s business website needed a backup solution and he couldn’t find a service that met his needs. Fearon raised $300,000 in a first round of funding on a Singaporean television show called Angel’s Gate. In 2012, he created an email backup service called Dropmyemail. On October 31, 2013, Charif Elansari took over as CEO. In 2014, a smartphone backup service called Dropmymobile was launched.
Dropmysite has local offices in the US, Singapore, Japan and India. It has entered into partnership with Xpress Hosting, a web-hosting company in Mexico for getting access to 100,000 customers and 500,000 domains.
Dropmysite has also announced partnerships with GMO Cloud and paperboy in Japan. On October 3, 2015, GoDaddy launched a cloud backup service for websites powered by Dropmysite.
In 2016, the company rebranded under the name Dropsuite. On Dec 29, 2016, the company went public on the Australia Securities Exchange via a backdoor listing. In 2017, Dropsuite entered into a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro. On October 22, 2018, Dropsuite entered into a cloud distribution partnership with Pax8. In 2019, DSD Europe announced a partnership with Dropsuite and is adding Dropsuite’s Microsoft Office 365 Cloud backup and email backup to their cloud backup services.
Management team
The Management team consists of people of different continents including Asia, Africa and North America and Australia.
Chairman - Theo Hnarakis
Non-Executive Director - Bruce Tonkin
CTO - Ron Hart
CEO - Charif El-Ansari
COO - Ridley Ruth
Investors
Dropsuite Limited (ASX:DSE) is a publicly listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange. Originally, Dropmysite is a privately held technology startup that received seed funding for from Crystal Horse Investments, Stanley Street Labs and a few angel investors.
Technology
The backend of Dropmysite was originally based on Amazon AWS Infrastructure. Dropsuite provides data backup support to many country-locations in The Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. It utilizes Amazon Web Services data center support to ensure that data remains within country borders, if needed. All user data is stored online and there are no user agents to download and install.
Dropsuite’s cloud services protect user’s information with military grade 256-bit advanced encryption, allow legal grade email archiving and are compatible with Microsoft Office 365 and, G Suite Gmail, Hosted Exchange, Open-Xchange and most IMAP/POP email servers.
References
Backup software
Internet in Singapore |
35869511 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro%20Evolution%20Soccer | Pro Evolution Soccer | eFootball, formerly known as Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) internationally and in Japan, is a series of football simulation video games developed and published by Konami since 1995. It consists of eighteen main instalments and several spin-off style titles that have been released on many different platforms. The series has consistently achieved critical and commercial success.
In association football circles, PES/eFootball has a longstanding rivalry with EA's FIFA series. PES/eFootball is the second largest association football video game franchise after FIFA, with the rivalry between the two franchises considered the "greatest rivalry" in the history of sports video games. Listed as one of the best-selling video game franchises, the eFootball series has sold copies worldwide, in addition to mobile game downloads, . Konami also created a similar mobile game called PESCM or Pro Evolution Soccer Club Manager.
eFootball has also been used in esports. eFootball.Open (previously named PES World Finals or PES League) is the esports world championship held by Konami annually since 2010.
Gameplay
The Pro PES 22 Evolution Soccer series strives to emulate real football. As such, gameplay simulates a typical game of association football, with the player controlling either an entire team or a selected player; objectives coincide with the rules of association football. Various game modes have been featured in the series, allowing for gameplay variety, including the Kick Off, Online and Offline modes. In addition to these modes, there is an editing one where the player can create teams of their own.
Thachu Level League
The Master League mode, gives the user control of a team of user's selection. Originally, the players were all generic-fictional players, however this later changed giving the user the option to change the settings and choose to play with default players. These players, such as Brazilian forward Castolo, have become cult figures to many people playing the Master League. The aim is to use these players and gain points by winning matches, cups and leagues. Using acquired points to purchase real players to join the team. Ultimately, one should end up with a team of skilled players.
From PES 3 (Winning Eleven 7), players' growth and decline curves were added, where a player's statistics may improve or decline, depending on training and age. This added a new depth to purchasing players, adding value to an up-and-coming youngster whose abilities rise dramatically and creating a trade-off if the player buys skilled but declining veterans.
Editing
Fans of the series often make "option files" and "patches" which modify all player names into those of their real life counterparts, as well as including transfers from the latest transfer window and, occasionally, altered stats of more obscure players whose in-game attributes do not precisely replicate their real life skills.
"PES Stats Database" and "PES Stats" are examples of websites that are dedicated to creating accurate stats for players. More experienced gamers often use "patches", editing the actual game code and modifying the graphical content to include accurate kits for unlicensed teams, new stadiums, and footballs from Nike, Inc., Puma, Umbro and Mitre, as well as more Adidas balls. Most patches also contain licensed referee kits from FIFA and the official logos of the various European leagues. These patches are technically a breach of copyright, and are often sold illegally in territories in the Middle East and Asia. Konami have become less tolerant of this kind of fan editing in recent years, and now encrypt the data pertaining to kits and player statistics in each new release. However, fan communities invariably find ways to crack this encryption, and patches still appear once this has been achieved.
Since Pro Evolution Soccer 6 onwards, there has been a separate league with 18 generic teams (Team A, Team B, Team C etc.) present, which can be edited fully. This is thought to be due to the fact that Konami failed to get the rights to the German Bundesliga, and is usually made into the Bundesliga or another league of one's preference by patch makers. However, most people use this to put their edited players into playable teams from the start instead of having to play through Master League to purchase them or alternatively edit the existing non-generic teams. This feature does not appear in the Wii version of the game (but, as stated above, the non-generic teams can be edited anyway).
History
International Superstar Soccer (1994), the first game in Konami's International Superstar Soccer (ISS) series, released for the SNES. A rivalry subsequently emerged between the FIFA and ISS franchises.
International Superstar Soccer Pro (ISS Pro), released for the PlayStation in 1997, was considered a "game-changer" for association football games, which had been largely dominated by rival FIFA on home systems for the last several years. Developed by Konami Tokyo, ISS Pro introduced a new 3D engine capable of better graphics and more sophisticated gameplay than its rival. Whereas FIFA had a simpler "arcade-style" approach to its gameplay, ISS Pro introduced more complex simulation gameplay emphasizing tactics and improvisation, enabled by tactical variety such as nine in-match strategy options. It spawned the Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) series, which became known for having "faster-paced tactical play" and more varied emergent gameplay, while FIFA was known for having more licenses.
The PES series had sold more than units by 2002, while the FIFA series had sold over units by 2000. In the late 2000s, EA borrowed gameplay elements from PES to improve FIFA, which eventually pulled ahead commercially by a significant margin in the 2010s and emerged as the world's most successful sports video game franchise. The rivalry between FIFA and PES is considered the "greatest rivalry" in the history of sports video games.
Goal Storm / ISS Pro series
Pro Evolution Soccer series traces its roots to Goal Storm (also known as World Soccer Winning Eleven in Japan). The game was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo and was released in 1996. The first Winning Eleven game, without the World Soccer prefix, was J.League Jikkyou Winning Eleven which was released only in Japan for the PlayStation in 1995, and featured only the 14 clubs that played in 1995 J.League. The following three games in the series were also produced by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo and they were released under the name of ISS Pro for the European market and Winning Eleven for the rest of the world. Every game in this series was released on the PlayStation.
Pro Evolution Soccer series
Series overview
Pro Evolution Soccer
Tagline: "We are the Football Tribe"
The first installment in the series of Pro Evolution Soccer games was released in October 2001 for both PlayStation and PlayStation 2. It was released under the name World Soccer: Winning Eleven 5 in Japan and North America. Commentary on the game was provided by Jon Briggs and Terry Butcher.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2
Tagline: "They Will Rock You"
Pro Evolution Soccer 2 (World Soccer: Winning Eleven 6 in Japan and World Soccer: Winning Eleven 6 - International in the United States) is the second installment and was released in October 2002 and some felt that it was a slight backwards step from the original Pro Evolution Soccer. Others argued that it had improved. The pace of gameplay was much faster than in the game's older sibling, with sharper turns and quicker reactions to tackles. It also included a training session mode. Extra clubs were added, with an extra Master League division. There were two new commentators, Peter Brackley and Trevor Brooking, but this aspect of the game was criticised for the commentators' inaccuracies and tendency to speak over each other.
The licensing was much the same, but infamously all Dutch players were called "Oranges" (e.g. goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar was renamed "Oranges025", Johan Cruyff was "Oranges082", etc.), because Konami did not hold the rights from the Royal Dutch Football Association, for use from Dutch players; in fact, plenty of other football games of the period with FIFPro licences also saw this happen to them (including FIFA 2002), following Netherlands' unsuccessful campaign at the 2002 World Cup qualifiers. Also, unlike in the original game, the "unofficial" club names stopped using obvious city names (e.g. Manchester United was Manchester, Real Madrid was Madrid, etc.), and instead used very ambiguous names (e.g. Manchester United were now Aragon, Liverpool became Europort, and West Ham became Lake District). The edit mode included a club editor which offset this problem to some extent, with editable kits and logos as well as club and player names.
The game notably included tracks from Queen: "We Will Rock You" and "We are the Champions". A PlayStation version (known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2002 in Japan) was also released, which was the last Pro Evolution Soccer release for the original PlayStation.
Pro Evolution Soccer 3
First tagline: "The Season Starts Here" (Winning Eleven 7/Pro Evolution Soccer 3/Winning Eleven 7: International (US))
Second tagline: "Football is Life" (Winning Eleven 7: International (JP))
Pro Evolution Soccer 3 (World Soccer: Winning Eleven 7 in Japan and World Soccer: Winning Eleven 7 - International in the United States) is the third installment in the series and was released in 2003, and featured the Italian referee Pierluigi Collina on the cover (although he is not present as an in-game referee). The most significant update was the overhaul in the graphics engine, with more life like players and much improved likeness. The gameplay was changed to accompany this, with more fast-paced action than that of PES 2, a much better physics engine, additions such as the advantage rule improved passing and long-ball functions, while as per usual, more licences (with the infamous Dutch "Oranges" removed, replaced with pseudonyms such as "Froibaad" in the place of Patrick Kluivert), more club teams and the Master League is now split into regional divisions, with competitions equivalent to the Champions League and the UEFA Cup and as Umbro was no longer revived, the company has been replaced by Adidas.
Pro Evolution Soccer 3 is the first in the series (3rd overall) to be released for Microsoft Windows and was well received by the PC games magazines but criticised by fans for its lack of online mode and bloated system requirements at its time, particularly not supporting the common Geforce MX series. Its rival, FIFA Football 2004, had online functions and had more modest system requirements in comparison. The game was essentially a direct conversion of the PlayStation 2 code, albeit with sharper graphics and is easier to download fan made mods for the game.
Pro Evolution Soccer 4
Tagline: "The long road to the Final"
Pro Evolution Soccer 4 (World Soccer: Winning Eleven 8 in Japan and World Soccer: Winning Eleven 8 - International in the United States) was the fourth installment in the series and was released in 2004; featuring referee Pierluigi Collina, Thierry Henry and Francesco Totti on the cover. This is the first Pro Evolution Soccer game to feature full leagues, namely the English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch top divisions, though with full league licences only for the latter three. As a result, clubs in, for example, the English League, an unlicensed league, have ambiguous names like "West London Blue" and "Man Red" for Chelsea and Manchester United respectively, and their home grounds Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford are respectively named "Blue Bridge" and "Trad Brick Stadium".
The gameplay has improved from Pro Evolution Soccer 3 (though not as much of a significant leap as its predecessor) with improved AI, tweaked play-on advantages and better throughballs. Dribbling is tighter with the players (though at one-star difficulty, a player receiving the ball on either wing can dribble the ball down the length of the pitch relatively uncontested), plus free-kicks have been changed to allow lay-offs. The gameplay was criticised for its relatively easy scoring opportunities, as players can pass their way through opposing defenses, or hold on to the ball at the edge of the penalty area and simply wait for the opposing defenders to move away and thus give him space to shoot. A new 6-star difficulty was added as an unlockable in the shop, as well as the previous items, while the Master League included enhancements such as player development, so many players over 30 would see certain attributes decline as the game progresses. Conversely, players could improve upon their attributes up to the age of 24–25, though the improvement is most rapid and obvious in players aged 22 and under.
The edit mode has been enhanced rapidly, with the options to add text and logos to shirts (essentially sponsors) and pixel logo editing as well as the traditional preset shapes, thus making it easier to replicate a team. The game also includes an "International Cup" and four regional Cups:
The "European Cup" is remarkably inclusive, including almost every major European country, as well as smaller countries like Slovenia, Hungary, and Slovakia. However, countries like Israel and Iceland are not included. The Czech Republic is simply called "Czech".
The "American Championship" is a merger of the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the Copa América. It includes most North, Central and South American countries.
The "Asia-Oceania Cup" includes only five Asian countries: Japan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, and South Korea, plus Australia. In real life, Australia would later join the Asian Football Confederation, winning the 2015 AFC Asian Cup. South Korea is simply called "Korea". Adidas templates are used in Edit Kit in Edit mode
Pro Evolution Soccer 5
Tagline: "Bring it On"
Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 9 in North America and Japan) the fifth installment in the series, was released in October 2005 and featured John Terry and Thierry Henry on the cover and alongside Didier Drogba on the main menu. The improvements are mainly tweaks to the gameplay engine, while online play finally made it to the PlayStation 2 version. The game was perceived as much harder by fans, with a very punishing defence AI making it harder to score. Some players have pointed out inconsistencies in the star difficulty rating, such as 3 star mode being harder to beat than 6 star due to its more defensive nature, but in general scoring is harder. Referees are very fussy over decisions, awarding free kicks for very negligible challenges.
There are various new club licences present, including Arsenal, Chelsea, Celtic, Rangers and a few other European clubs, as well as the full Dutch, Spanish and Italian Leagues.
Since crowd animations on the PS2 version slowed down the framerate to an unplayable level in the testing phase, crowds were rendered as flat animated 2D bitmaps which, on certain angles, become unseen, making the stands appear empty; however, fully 3D-rendered crowds are present during cut-scenes. There are however fan-made patches which address this in the PC version, although no official patch was released. Official PlayStation 2 Magazine UK gave it a perfect 10/10 score.
Pro Evolution Soccer 5, was released for Xbox, Windows and PS2, all online enabled. A PSP version was released, but with stripped down features, such as no Master League, no commentary, only one stadium and limitations in the editor, due to the limitations to the UMD. The PSP version featured Wi-fi play, and the gameplay was faster and more "pin-ball like" in comparison to its console siblings, but it did not receive the same acclaim as the mainstream console/PC versions.
Pro Evolution Soccer 6
Tagline: "Express Yourself!"
Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (World Soccer: Winning Eleven 10 in Japan and Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 in the United States) is the sixth installment in the series and was officially released in the UK on 27 October 2006 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360 and PC platforms and on 9 February 2007 for the Nintendo DS. The PC version does not utilise the Xbox 360 engine but is a conversion of the PS2 edition. The PSP version is similar in many ways to its PS2 brother, while the DS version has graphics and gameplay reminiscent of the older PES series on the original PlayStation.
A criticism of the previous version was that the game was too unforgiving and so suppressed fluid attacking football. Pro Evolution Soccer 6 was issued with more tricks and an overall more attacking mentality, but whether it does make it easier to take on defenders and get forward is debatable.
More licences were added, including fully licensed international kits including the nations England, Spain and Italy to name a few (as well as the ever-present Japan licence). The French Ligue 1 is now included as fully licensed league, as well as the Spanish, Italian and Dutch leagues, plus several other individual clubs. However, the Chelsea F.C. licence from PES5 was removed and, due to a lawsuit, Konami were forced to drop the Bundesliga licence. The only Bundesliga team to appear in the game is Bayern Munich. The game had not updated Arsenal's venue to the Emirates stadium; the defunct Highbury is still present. The same applies for Bayern Munich, who, despite having moved to the Allianz Arena, are still represented in the game as playing at Munich's Olympic Stadium. Also, the recent extensions to Old Trafford are not included, while Serbia and Montenegro are still present despite the dissolution of the country in May 2006, this being due to the disestablished state competing at the 2006 World Cup. All teams which competed at the World Cup featured their 23-man squads from the tournament, including those who retired from international football (e.g. Phillip Cocu of the Netherlands) and from the game altogether (e.g. Zinedine Zidane of France), although club teams were fairly up to date.
The Xbox 360 version features next-generation, high-definition graphics and more animations, but gameplay similar to the other console versions, according to a recent interview with Seabass. The Xbox 360 version also finally introduces the Pro Evolution series to widescreen gaming, a feature that was sorely missing from the PS2 and Xbox versions of the game. Much of the gameplay and editing options were severely stripped down for the 360 release.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
Tagline: "If football is your life, PES 2008 is your game."
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2008) is the seventh installment in the series. The game was released for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 on 26 October 2007 in Europe, 2 November 2007 in Australia, and 31 December 2007 in Japan. The PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS version were released in November, and the rather different Wii version. Pro Evo Wii was released in March 2008. It was the first game in the series to drop the Winning Eleven name from its title in the United States.
The game cover features Portugal and Manchester United player Cristiano Ronaldo and a local player (Michael Owen in the UK, Didier Drogba in France, Jan Schlaudraff in Germany, Gianluigi Buffon in Italy and Lucas Neill in Australia). A new adaptive AI system entitled 'Teamvision' was implemented into the game, Teamvision is a sophisticated AI programming that learns and adapts according to an individual's style of play. As such, it will learn new ways to build attacks and to counter specific movements and previous attacking or defensive errors, ensuring games are more in line with the tactical but flowing nature of the real thing. The English commentary was provided by Jon Champion and Mark Lawrenson for the first time. 20 teams are also in the D1 and D2 Leagues, four more than in past editions.
The game's 'in-game editor' however was a large downgrade from previous versions, with players unable to add text to unlicensed team shirts or base copy specific players; however, the PC version allows for face pictures to be uploaded or directly photographed through a webcam. On the PS3, the game was a huge disappointment with many frame rate issues and strange glitches.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 (known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2009) is the eighth installment in the series. Released on 17 October in Europe, featuring FC Barcelona Argentine star Lionel Messi as its cover star (opposite Mexican midfielder Andrés Guardado from Deportivo La Coruña in some versions).
While in some respects keeping the same structure of its predecessor, PES 2009 makes a large number of improvements, starting from the graphics, now better suited for HD image technologies. Also, the overall pace of the gameplay was slowed down, with a better AI for computer-controlled teammates as well: they will look for better passing spaces and goal routes.
A new addition of this game is the Become a Legend mode, which follows the entire career of a single player (as opposed to a whole team, like in the Master League) as he moves to better teams, achieves national team caps and wins MVP awards, like the similar mode called Fantasista in J-League Winning Eleven 2007 Club Championship, a special edition only for Japan. This also inspired the Be a Pro mode introduced in FIFA 08.
This game has sponsored Lazio once in real life (during a match against Inter Milan), but the team's in-game kit does not feature the PES 2009 sponsorship. This was also the first version to include the UEFA Champions League licence.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
Tagline: "Where Champions Live!"
Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 (known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2010) is the ninth installment in the series. The cover features players Fernando Torres and Lionel Messi.
The game has gone through a complete overhaul as it tries to compete with the FIFA series. PES 2010 has improved animations and 360-degree control was introduced, available on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 versions of the game via the analog sticks on the respective controllers. PS3 owners benefited from this when using the DualShock's D-Pad, but the Wii D-Pad is limited to eight-directional control and the Xbox 360 D-Pad to sixteen-directional control due to their hardware. The A.I. was improved thanks to Teamvision 2.0. The referees were reworked to make better calls during matches. It also features more licensed teams and players than ever before. In addition to the added UEFA Champions League licence, the UEFA Europa League licence was also added, both playable in the Master League.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011
Tagline: "Engineered for Freedom."
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 (known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2011) is the tenth installment in the series. PES 2011 is a football video game developed and published by Konami with production assistance from the Blue Sky Team. The UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League feature in the game; and for the first time CONMEBOL's Copa Libertadores and UEFA Super Cup are fully licensed.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2012
Tagline: "Can You Play?"
Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 (known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2012) is the 11th installment of the series. Both Jon Champion and Jim Beglin remain as commentators. Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo who was the first time in the cover art of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 replaced Lionel Messi as the cover star.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2013
Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 (known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2013) is the 12th installment of the series. The gameplay improves the AI as well as giving the player the ability to accurately aim passes and shots. Real Madrid player Cristiano Ronaldo is featured for the front cover. For the first time of the series, all 20 teams from the Brazilian National League, Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A, are included in the game series. The UEFA Champions League and the Copa Santander Libertadores is once again appeared in the game.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2014
Pro Evolution Soccer 2014, officially abbreviated to PES 2014, also known in Asia as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2014 is the 13th installment in the series, developed and published by Konami. The game features a modified version of the new Fox Engine. It was released on 19 September 2013, in Europe, 20 September in United Kingdom, 24 September in North America and on 14 November in Japan. This game also become the last game with PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Nintendo 3DS.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2015
Tagline: "The Pitch is Ours"
Pro Evolution Soccer 2015, officially abbreviated as PES 2015 and also known in Asia as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2015, is the 14th installment in the series. The cover art features then Bayern Munich player Mario Götze. For the first time in the series' history (excluding the regional versions which included the J & K-Leagues 1 and 2), the game featured unlicensed secondary leagues.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2016
Tagline: "Love the Past, Play the Future"
Pro Evolution Soccer 2016, officially abbreviated as PES 2016 and also known in Asia as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2016, is the 15th installment in the series. It is also the game to be released during the series' 20th anniversary. The cover of the game features Brazil and Barcelona forward player Neymar. It was released on 15 September 2015, in North America, 17 September in Europe, 18 September in United Kingdom, and on 1 October in Japan. Also in April 2016, the special edition of PES 2016 called UEFA Euro 2016 which features Real Madrid and Wales player Gareth Bale on the cover. English commentary by Peter Drury is provided for the first time with Jim Beglin.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2017
Tagline: "Control Reality"
Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 (officially abbreviated as PES 2017, also known in Japan as Winning Eleven 2017) is the 16th installment in the series. On 25 May, Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 was announced and scheduled to be released on PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. The cover of the game features Barcelona players, including Neymar, Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, Ivan Rakitić and Gerard Piqué. On 26 July 2016, Konami Digital Entertainment officially announced a premium partnership with Barcelona allowing "extensive" access to the Camp Nou, which will be exclusive to the game for three years. Features includes, among others, improved passing, Real Touch ball control, and improved goalkeeping technique. Konami has released Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 for mobile phones.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2018
Tagline: "Where Legends are Made"
Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 (officially abbreviated as PES 2018, also known in Japan as Winning Eleven 2018) is the 17th installment in the game series. The cover of the game features Barcelona players, including Neymar (who was replaced by Gerard Piqué after his transfer to Paris Saint-Germain before the game's release; due to this as well, the Brazilian edition cover which was to feature him in the Barcelona colors now features Philippe Coutinho playing for the national team), Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, Andrés Iniesta and Sergi Roberto. It was released worldwide in September 2017. This was the last game to feature the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Super Cup until FIFA 19, after Konami lost the license to these franchises to EA Sports.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2019
Tagline: "The Power of Football"
Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 (officially abbreviated as PES 2019, also known in Japan as Winning Eleven 2019) is the 18th installment in the game series. PES 2019 is the first PES in 10 years not to feature the UEFA Champions League license after Konami lost the rights to EA Sports.
eFootball PES series
Series overview
eFootball PES 2020
Tagline: "Playing is Believing"
eFootball PES 2020 (officially abbreviated as eFootball PES 2020, also known in Japan as eFootball Winning Eleven 2020) is the 19th installment in the game series. eFootball PES 2020 introduces a change in the name and a focus from Konami in the online gaming space. The game will also mark its installment of the UEFA Euro 2020, which was originally scheduled in the same year before being postponed to next year following to the COVID-19 pandemic. In place of a new edition for the 2020–21 season, eFootball PES 2020 will receive a content update, known as eFootball PES 2021 Season Update, while the development team works on the following game, eFootball and its first season entitled eFootball 2022, which will see the Fox Engine replaced by Unreal Engine 4 on its eighth and ninth-generation versions, as well as PC.
In December 2019, Arsenal midfielder Mesut Özil was completely removed from the Mandarin version of eFootball PES 2020 in Mainland China following a tweet from Özil, himself a Muslim of Turkish descent, that characterized the Chinese government's vocational education and training centers in Xinjiang as a "crackdown" on Uyghurs. According to NetEase Games, they stated his comments "hurt the feelings of Chinese fans and violated the sport's spirit of love and peace. We do not understand, accept or forgive this."
eFootball series
eFootball 2022 is the first football game from Konami to not have the title PES in it. The game was released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Android, and iOS, on 30 September 2021. The cover of eFootball features Paris Saint-Germain’s Lionel Messi. eFootball was met with overwhelmingly negative reception from critics and players alike after over 50 GB of data was used for only a very few select features with only 9 available teams to play with..
Other titles
Arcade
World Soccer: Winning Eleven Arcade Game Style
World Soccer: Winning Eleven Arcade Game Style 2003
World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2006 Arcade Championship
World Soccer: Winning Eleven Arcade Championship 2008
World Soccer: Winning Eleven Arcade Championship 2010
World Soccer: Winning Eleven Arcade Championship 2012
World Soccer: Winning Eleven Arcade Championship 2014
Game Boy Advance
World Soccer Winning Eleven (2002)
J-League Winning Eleven Advance 2002 (2002)
PlayStation
ESPN MLS GameNight
ESPN MLS ExtraTime 2002
International Superstar Soccer Pro (ISS Pro)
International Superstar Soccer Pro 98 (ISS Pro 98)
Winning Eleven 3: Final Ver.
ISS Pro Evolution (ISS Pro Evolution)
ISS Pro Evolution 2 (ISS Pro Evolution 2)
World Soccer Winning Eleven 2002
Nintendo 3DS
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D
Windows MMO
Winning Eleven Online
Winning Eleven Online 2014
J-League Winning Eleven series
The J-League Winning Eleven series is exclusive to Japan and has been released since 1995 with the release of J-League Jikkyou Winning Eleven.
Management games
Card collection (trading card) games
See also
PES League
List of soccer games licensed by J. League
FIFA (video game series)
Notes
References
External links
PES League
Association football video games
Esports games
Konami franchises
Video game franchises introduced in 2001 |
35875424 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surround%20SCM | Surround SCM | Surround SCM is a software configuration management application developed by Seapine Software, now owned by Perforce since 2017. Perforce integrated the software with its Helix ALM product.
Architecture
Surround SCM has a client–server architecture. The server manages a central database of file versions and branches. Users work on files on their local hard drive and submit changed files together in changelists. The client and server communicate via a TCP/IP connection using 512-bit encryption.
Server
Surround SCM stores data in an industry-standard relational database management system. The database contains both the file contents and metadata (file state, file attributes, branching and merging history, changelists, filters, users, groups, labels, etc.). A proxy server can optionally be installed to improve performance of file retrievals for distributed teams.
Clients
There are several different categories of Surround SCM clients: GUI, CLI, API, Web UI, and plugin.
The cross-platform GUI client is developed with Qt and available on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It fully supports all end-user operations and administration operations.
The command line interface (CLI) is also available on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The CLI can be used in any command shell or script. Build scripts generally access Surround SCM files via the CLI.
Surround SCM’s open API allows users to write applications that access branches, repositories, and files on the Surround SCM Server using the C, Java, and .Net programming languages.
The plugin interfaces integrate Surround SCM client functionality into third-party applications. Surround SCM plugins are available for Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, KDevelop, Visual Studio, NetBeans, JDeveloper, PowerBuilder, WebStorm, Windows Explorer, Mac OS X Finder, Linux file system, Bugzilla, JIRA, Microsoft TFS, TestTrack, Ant, NAnt, Hudson, Jenkins, TeamCity, CruiseControl, CruiseControl.NET, Dreamweaver, FinalBuilder, Microsoft Office, and QA Wizard.
Release History
Major release versions of Surround SCM, along with their release dates:
version 1.0 (September 3, 2002)
version 1.1 (October 1, 2002)
version 1.2 (January 29, 2003)
version 1.5 (April 21, 2003)
version 2.0 (August 26, 2003)
version 2.1 (December 15, 2003)
version 3.0 (August 2, 2004)
version 3.1 (February 7, 2005)
version 4.0 (July 19, 2005)
version 4.1 (January 30, 2006)
version 5.0 (November 2, 2006)
version 2008.0 (October 9, 2007)
version 2008.1 (April 21, 2008)
version 2009.0 (February 5, 2009)
version 2009.1 (June 30, 2009)
version 2010.0 (November 16, 2009)
version 2010.1 (May 3, 2010)
version 2011.0 (October 21, 2010)
version 2011.1 (June 1, 2011)
version 2012.0 (February 9, 2012)
version 2012.1 (March 9, 2012)
version 2013.0 (October 22, 2012)
version 2013.1 (March 20, 2013)
version 2013.2 (September 12, 2013)
version 2014.0 (March 14, 2014)
version 2014.1 (September 5, 2014)
version 2015.0 (December 17, 2014)
version 2015.1 (September 8, 2015)
version 2016.0 (April 11, 2016)
version 2016.1 (October 6, 2016)
version 2017.1 (April 24, 2017)
version 2017.2 (September 18, 2017)
version 2018.1 (March 5, 2018)
version 2018.2 (August 30, 2018)
version 2019.1 (February 11, 2019)
version 2019.2 (October 15, 2019)
version 2020.1 (May 26, 2020)
version 2021.1 (July 28, 2021)
Features
Surround SCM features include:
Branching and merging
File and change set labeling
Graphical file history
Changelist and atomic transactions
Filters
Search file contents
Shelves
Configurable workflow
Email notifications
Custom fields
Code review capabilities
Role-based security groups
Single sign-on
Data stored in an RDBMS
External reports
Cross-platform GUI and CLI
Electronic signatures
Automatic client upgrades
Proxy server
Shadow folders
Awards
In 2008 Surround SCM won a Jolt Award in the Change and Configuration Management category.
See also
Comparison of revision control software
List of revision control software
References
External links
Perforce Surround SCM website
Proprietary version control systems
File comparison tools
Configuration management |
35892471 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arxan%20Technologies | Arxan Technologies | Digital Ai (Formerly known as Arxan Technologies) is an American technology company specializing in anti-tamper and digital rights management (DRM) for Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, and other applications. Arxan's security products are used to prevent tampering or reverse engineering of software, thus preventing access or modifications to said software that are deemed undesirable by its developer. The company reports that applications secured by it are running on over 500 million devices. Its products are used across a range of industries, including mobile payments & banking, automotive, healthcare and gaming.
History
Arxan is privately held and private equity-backed. In the fall of 2013, TA Associates, a private equity firm, completed a majority investment in Arxan Technologies. Previously, the company received Series B funding in 2003, followed by $13 million in Series C funding in 2007 and a Series D funding of $4 million in 2009. Early investors included Trident Capital, EDF Ventures, Legend Ventures, Paladin Capital, Dunrath Capital, TDF Fund and Solstice Capital.
Arxan was founded in 2001 by Eric Davis and Purdue University researchers, Mikhail Atallah, Tim Korb, John Rice and Hoi Chang. The first funding came from Richard Early and Dunrath Capital. Rich Early subsequently became Arxan's first CEO. The company's early intellectual property was licensed from Purdue University. The company's initial focus was on defense anti-tamper applications. Following the sale of its defense technology unit, Arxan Defense Systems, to Microsemi in 2010, Arxan focused on commercial applications.
In April 2020, Arxan Technologies joined CollabNet VersionOne and XebiaLabs to form Digital.ai, a software company with the stated aim of 'pulling software development, business agility and application security into a single platform'.
Products
Arxan offers a number of Anti-Tamper Software products for application and cryptographic key protection. These include:
Arxan Code Protection to secure Mobile, IoT & Embedded, Desktop and Server applications
Arxan Cryptographic Key & Data Protection to secure secret keys and data with white-box cryptography, which provide all the major crypto algorithms and features required to protect sensitive keys and data in hostile or untrusted operational environments. Arxan Cryptographic Key & Data Protection is FIPS140-2 validated.
In May 2012, the company announced comprehensive support for Android application protection and hardening against tampering and piracy. In June 2014, Arxan announced that its mobile application protection offerings will be sold by IBM as part of IBM's portfolio of security products.
Arxan's products are based on patented security techniques for code hardening, tamper-proofing, key security and node locking. The core technology consists of a multi-layered, interconnected network of Guards that each perform a specific security function and are embedded into application binaries to make programs tamper-aware, tamper-resistant, and self-healing. The company claims a three-layer protection paradigm of defend, detect and react as a differentiating approach.
By detecting when an attack is being attempted and responding to detected attacks with alerts and repairs, this protection helps secure software against hacking attacks and threats such as:
static reverse engineering or code analysis
dynamic reverse engineering or debugging
tampering to disable or circumvent security mechanisms (authentication, encryption, anti-virus, security policies, etc.)
tampering to modify program functionality
tampering for piracy or unauthorized use
insertion of malware into an application
counterfeiting and IP theft
stealing of cryptographic keys
IoT anti-tamper
Arxan's IoT products insert the anti-tamper protection into the firmware of the device itself, causing parts of the code to continually check each other for integrity. If any tamper attempt is detected, Arxan's product can either attempt to restore the code to its original form, stop the firmware from running entirely, send a notification to the developer or any combination of the three.
DRM
Its DRM solutions have been compared to their competitor Denuvo, with both working to provide a layer of anti-tamper security on top of already existing copy protection mechanisms added by the developer. This results in a multi-layered approach in which the original DRM software protects the software from unauthorized copying, modification or use, while Arxan prevents any attempt to remove or alter said protection. However, much like with Denuvo's application of it, this approach has also been criticised for increasing the use of system resources. Arxan has previously expressed strong confidence that its DRM solutions would not be cracked, but in fact cracks or bypasses for Arxan products have been shown to exist; in one example Zoo Tycoon Ultimate Animal Collection was successfully cracked in 2018 while using a five-layer approach featuring UWP, XbLA, MSStore, EAppX and Arxan protection simultaneously. Several more bypasses of Arxan's protection have since emerged in 2018 and 2019, with Arxan-protected Gears 5 being cracked by a scene group less than two weeks following its original release.
Media and awards
Deloitte 2014 Top 500 Fastest Growing Technology Company
CIOReview Magazine 2014 Top 50 Most Promising IoT Companies
2015 Mobile Innovations Award Winner for Best Management of Mobile Security Issues
Info Security Products Guide 2014 Winner for Best New Product: Mobile Application Integrity Protection™ Suite v 5.0
See also
Tamper resistance
Application Security
Encryption
Content Protection
Digital rights management
Cryptographic Key Types
Obfuscated Code
Cryptography
References
Companies based in San Francisco
Cryptography companies
Computer security software companies |
35896442 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny%20%28video%20game%29 | Destiny (video game) | Destiny is an online-only multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and previously published by Activision. Destiny is now self-published by Bungie after separating from Activision in 2019. It was released worldwide on September 9, 2014, for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One consoles. Destiny marked Bungie's first new console franchise since the Halo series, and it was the first game in a ten-year agreement between Bungie and Activision. Set in a "mythic science fiction" world, the game features a multiplayer "shared-world" environment with elements of role-playing games. Activities in Destiny are divided among player versus environment (PvE) and player versus player (PvP) game types. In addition to normal story missions, PvE features three-player "strikes" and six-player raids. A free roam patrol mode is also available for each destination which feature public events. PvP features objective-based modes, as well as traditional deathmatch game modes.
Players take on the role of a Guardian, protectors of Earth's last safe city as they wield a power called Light to protect the City from different alien races. Guardians are tasked with reviving a celestial being called the Traveler, while journeying to different planets to investigate and destroy the alien threats before humanity is completely wiped out. Bungie released four expansion packs, furthering the story, and adding new content, missions, and new PvP modes. Year One of Destiny featured two small expansions, The Dark Below in December 2014 and House of Wolves in May 2015. A third, larger expansion, The Taken King, was released in September 2015 and marked the beginning of Year Two, changing much of the core gameplay. The base game and the first three expansions were packaged into Destiny: The Taken King Legendary Edition. Another large expansion called Rise of Iron was released in September 2016, beginning Year Three. Rise of Iron was only released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One; PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 clients subsequently stopped receiving content updates. The base game and all four expansions were packaged into Destiny: The Collection. A sequel, Destiny 2, released in September 2017.
Upon its release, Destiny received generally positive reviews, with praise for its gameplay, graphics, and for maintaining lineage from the Halo franchise, particularly in regards to its competitive experiences. Criticism centered mostly around the game's storyline and post-campaign content. It has been cited as one of the greatest video games ever made. It sold over US$325 million at retail in its first five days, making it the biggest new franchise launch of all time. It was GamesRadar's 2014 Game of the Year and it received the BAFTA Award for Best Game at the 2014 British Academy Video Games Awards.
Gameplay
Destinys style has been described as a first-person shooter that incorporates role-playing and MMO elements, but Bungie has avoided describing Destiny as a traditional MMO game. Instead, the game has been referred to as a "shared-world shooter", as it lacks many of the characteristics of a traditional MMO game. For instance, rather than players being able to communicate with all other players in the game or on a particular server — as is the case in many conventional MMO games — Destiny includes on-the-fly matchmaking that allows players to communicate only with other players with whom they are "matched" by the game. To communicate with other players in the game world, players must use their respective console's messaging system. Time-limited events and modes are also occasionally added or featured in-game. Activities in Destiny are divided among player versus environment (PvE) and player versus player (PvP) game types across the Cosmodrome and the Plaguelands (added with Rise of Iron) on Earth, the Moon, Venus, and Mars. The Iron Banner is another PvP event that allows guardians to get high tier loot from playing these competitive multiplayer matches only available during exclusive windows of time and completing bounties. There are also PvP maps for Mars's moon Phobos and the planet Mercury. A social space on Mercury was added with the House of Wolves expansion, but requires players to go undefeated in the Trials of Osiris Crucible mode in order to access it. Another PvE area, a massive ship called the Dreadnaught that is situated in the rings of Saturn, and two PvE missions on Phobos were added with The Taken King expansion.
Character progression and classes
Players are able to improve their characters, referred to as Guardians, by gaining experience points (XP) — when a set number of experience points are accumulated, the player's character will "level up" and gain improved statistics which further enhance performance in battle. Quests, including the "main scenario" quest line, are specific tasks given to the player by non-player characters which reward items and XP. Completing main scenario quests progresses the overarching plot of the game.
Destiny features three character classes. Each class has their own specific upgrades, perks, special abilities, and three sub-classes that allow the player to finely tune their individual characters to provide a different play style. After choosing a class, players select one of three species for their character: Human, Awoken (bluish-gray-skinned descendants of Humans), or Exo (human consciousness in a machine). They can then customize their character, such as changing its gender or skin color. A character's species is only cosmetic and does not affect gameplay. Players can create two more characters to have a character of each class. The Taken King added a third sub-class for each class, but requires the purchase of the DLC to access the new sub-classes.
Hunters are based on a bounty hunter and focus on agility and mobility. Its Solar-based "Gunslinger" sub-class tree includes stat boosts that award accurate play, a throwing knife attack, the ability to upgrade to a triple jump, and the "Golden Gun" super, a very powerful, flaming magnum with a base magazine of three shots. The Arc-based "Bladedancer" sub-class has a heavier focus on close combat, offering an extended-range "Blink Strike", and an "Arc Blade" super (which allows the player to quickly dart between and kill enemies) with a temporary invisibility option. The Taken King added the Void-based "Nightstalker" sub-class that includes a bow-like super called "Shadowshot" that tethers enemies together, limiting movement and preventing enemies from using abilities for a short time. It can also be used to do stealth attacks or blind enemies for a brief time.
Warlocks are based on a space magician and focus on offensive abilities, recovery, and melee attacks that can reduce the cooldown time of its abilities. Its super in the "Voidwalker" sub-class, "Nova Bomb", is an explosively powerful sphere of Void energy capable of being thrown in different ways. Its "Sunsinger" sub-class features abilities based around the Solar element, with the "Radiance" super allowing the player to temporarily improve their statistics, or revive themselves if killed. The Taken King added the Arc-based "Stormcaller" sub-class that includes the super "Stormtrance", which produces lightning bolts that chains between enemies.
Titans are based on a Space Gladiator or "tanks", and focus on heavy damage and tough resistance. The Titan's super in the Arc-based "Striker" sub-class, "Fist of Havoc", is a ground slamming attack that destroys all enemies in its radius. Its Void-based "Defender" sub-class offers the ability to generate a shield with its "Ward of Dawn" super. The shield can also provide temporary stat bonuses to other players that step within it. The Taken King added the "Sunbreaker" sub-class, which features a Solar-based super, the "Hammer of Sol", creating a flaming hammer that can be thrown at enemies, or used for close-quarters combat.
Upon reaching the character level cap, character progression shifts to improving their "Light" level by acquiring new and better equipment. This equipment can be gained through a variety of sources, including "strikes", raids, and in-game events. Prior to The Taken King, all legendary and exotic armor, and some rare, contained an attribute called Light. Once players reached level 20, they no longer earned experience to level up; XP earned after level 20 went towards upgrading weapons and armor, and creating Motes of Light, an in-game currency. Players could only go beyond level 20 by obtaining armor with Light, and these levels were referred to as Light levels. The initial Light level cap was 30, which increased to 32 with The Dark Below and 34 with the House of Wolves. Update patch 2.0, released in preparation for The Taken King, made the character's experience level and Light level separate: level 34 is now the experience level cap for all players; level 40 for players who own The Taken King and Rise of Iron. A higher character level allows for better equipment to be equipped. A character's Light level is now an average of the attack and defense of all equipped gear. For example, if all equipped gear has 170 Light each, the character's Light level will be 170. A higher Light level improves damage output and defense. The highest obtainable Light level was 320 for players who owned The Taken King; the expansion's April Update increased it to 335. Rise of Iron increased the highest obtainable Light level to 400.
Players' equipment includes weapons and armor. Legendary and exotic items are the best items for players' characters, and only one exotic weapon and one exotic armor (excluding exotic class items) can be equipped at one time. There are several different classes of weapons that are categorized as either a primary, special (secondary), or heavy weapon. Several weapons have an elemental damage type. There is Arc (blue), Solar (orange), and Void (purple). All damage types will deplete enemy shields of that type faster, and the weapon will also do extra damage to enemies if the gameplay modifiers 'Arc Burn', 'Solar Burn' or 'Void Burn' are active. The original maximum attack damage for legendary and exotic weapons was 300. This increased to 331 with The Dark Below and 365 with the House of Wolves. Because of the change to the Light level system, The Taken King numerically changed weapons of 365 damage to 170, but with no loss in damage output (365 damage of Year 1 equals 170 damage of Year 2). As with armor, weapons' attack damage contributes to the Light level and all gear can be infused to increase their numbers.
There are six armor slots: helmet, gauntlets, chest, legs, class item, and artifact (artifacts were added with The Taken King). Each class has armor specific to them with exotic armor that complement a character's sub-class. Each piece of armor increases overall defense. Before The Taken King, class items were only cosmetic (such as the Hunter's cloak) and did not have any stat or defense boosts. With The Taken King update, class items were given defense that contributes to players' Light level. Players' Ghost companion was also given defense with The Taken King update that contributes to their Light level. In addition to earning gear from loot drops by playing missions and other activities, players can purchase gear from faction vendors. Players can pledge their allegiance to one of three factions — Dead Orbit, Future War Cult, or New Monarchy — and earning enough reputation with a faction allows players to earn and purchase that faction's legendary items. Players also earn reputation with other vendors, such as the Vanguard and Crucible, by doing playlists or bounties for that vendor, which also have their own set of legendary items.
Player versus environment (PvE)
Player versus environment game types makes up the majority of the game. PvE story missions can be played either solo or as part of a "fireteam" of up to three players. Initially, although there was an order to the story missions, they could be played in any order as more missions became available. For example, after completing Earth's second story mission, three more became available, but did not have to be played in story order. The questing system introduced in House of Wolves and refined in The Taken King requires story missions to be played in order due to quest step progression. Every day, a random story mission is featured as the Daily Heroic Story Mission, featuring bonus rewards. Each playable area offers an open world "Patrol" mode, where players can travel freely around the area and perform small tasks gathered from beacons, and they can collect materials that are used for upgrading weapons and armor. Players travel around the areas on foot or with their vehicles called Sparrows (very similar to the speeder bikes of Star Wars). Public events happen periodically and any player in the same location can participate. These location-specific events include eliminating a target, defeating incoming waves of enemies, and defending a Warsat (a crashed satellite).
"Strikes" are cooperative missions played with a party of three players that culminate with a boss; most strikes are side missions that are not part of the main plot. Players can play much harder versions of the strikes in what are called the SIVA Crisis Strike (formerly Vanguard Heroic Playlist) and the Weekly Nightfall Strike, which grant bonus rewards. While the SIVA Crisis is a playlist of strikes from The Taken King and Rise of Iron (as well as older strikes updated with Taken and SIVA-infected enemies), the Weekly Nightfall Strike, which is harder than heroic, is only one strike that changes every week with a chance for greater rewards. The Daily Heroic Story Mission, SIVA Crisis Strike, and Weekly Nightfall Strike each feature game modifiers that increase difficulty. Game modifiers can be positive or negative for the player. For example, a positive modifier would be "Small Arms", where damage for the player's primary weapons are doubled, but a negative modifier would be "Chaff", where the player's radar is disabled. Raids are advanced cooperative missions designed to be played by a team of six players — the only PvE game type that allows more than three players in a fireteam. Raids culminate with the elimination of a major boss that relates to the story. With the release of Rise of Iron, there are four raids in Destiny.
From social spaces (the Tower on Earth, the Vestian Outpost added with House of Wolves, and the Iron Temple added with Rise of Iron), players can redeem "engrams" into items, buy items, and collect challenges known as bounties to complete during activities to earn experience, build their reputation among factions, and sometimes earn items. Beyond armor and weapons, items that players can obtain include ships that represent themselves during travel cutscenes, shaders for customizing the color scheme of their armor, emblems which are banners for players' names, emotes such as a dance or gesture, and shells for their Ghost companion.
Player versus player (PvP)
In addition to these player versus environment challenges, player versus player combat exists in what is called the Crucible. The Crucible, which can have a maximum of twelve players depending on game type, contains playlists of PvP modes, including "Control", "Clash", "Rumble", and "Skirmish". Control is six-versus-six where teams try to capture and maintain control of zones. Clash is a classic six-versus-six team deathmatch. Rumble is a six-player free-for-all deathmatch. Skirmish is a three-versus-three deathmatch where players can revive allies. New modes have been added via expansions, including "Elimination" (House of Wolves), a similar mode to Skirmish except divided into nine rounds in which the team must kill all three of their opponents at once, "Rift" (The Taken King), a six-versus-six capture the flag-like mode where players must deliver a "Spark" to the opposing team's base, killing enemies in its radius, and "Supremacy" (Rise of Iron), a six-versus-six mode where players drop crests when killed and points are scored by picking up crests dropped by the enemy team.
Other modes are available occasionally during time-limited periods, such as "Salvage", a three-versus-three king of the hill game type, "Combined Arms", where the Control and Clash modes are on maps with vehicles and turrets, "Inferno" (The Dark Below), a modifier on multiple game modes where points are solely scored on kills and the player's radar is disabled, "Doubles" (The Dark Below), a two-versus-two version of Skirmish, "Mayhem" (The Taken King), a modifier on Clash and Rumble where cooldown times for all abilities are greatly reduced, and "Zone Control" (The Taken King), a modified version of Control where points are only scored for maintaining control of zones, and not by kills or point captures. A random mode is featured as the Daily and Weekly Crucible mode with bonus rewards. As of September 2015, players who do not own The Taken King or Rise of Iron expansions only have access to three-versus-three and six-versus-six Crucible playlists on previous maps with assorted modes, and no longer have access to playlists for individual modes.
In Crucible modes, player statistics (such as weapon power and defense) are balanced between players. The periodic events Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris are offered, which disable balancing. These events have their own set of bounties and allows players the chance to earn exclusive items. Iron Banner became available shortly after the launch of Destiny and originally only used the Control game mode; with the release of Rise of Iron, it rotates between Control, Clash, Rift, and Supremacy. It is available during the last week of each month. Trials of Osiris was added with the House of Wolves expansion and uses the Elimination mode. It is available every weekend from Friday until the weekly reset on Tuesday. Players who go undefeated in this mode gain access to an exclusive social space on Mercury called The Lighthouse.
A week prior to the launch of the Rise of Iron expansion, the option to make private matches was added; this option is available to all players on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, regardless if they purchase Rise of Iron. Private matches allow players to set up their own custom matches. Customization options include game mode, map, score and time limits, enabling Light level, and time of day. Players can choose the number of players for the match, including beginning a match by themselves.
Synopsis
Setting
Bungie described the setting of Destiny as a "mythic science-fiction" world. The setting, about 700 years in the future, follows a prosperous period of exploration, peace, and technological advancement known as the Golden Age. In a universe where humans have spread out and colonized planets in the Solar System, an event known as "the Collapse" saw the mysterious dissolution of these colonies, the end of the Golden Age, and mankind teetering on the brink of extinction. The only known survivors of the Collapse are those living on Earth, who were saved by "the Traveler", a white, spherical celestial body whose appearance centuries before had enabled humans to reach the stars. The Collapse was caused by a mysterious force called the Darkness, an ancient enemy of the Traveler that plagues the galaxy. The Traveler now hovers above the last safe city on Earth, simply called The Last City, which is surrounded by a massive Wall, and its presence allows the Guardians — the defenders of the City — the ability to wield an unknown power, only referred to as "Light". The player takes on the role of a Guardian, and is tasked with reviving the Traveler while investigating and destroying alien threats before humanity is completely wiped out.
Upon mankind's first attempt to repopulate and reconstruct after the Collapse, it is discovered that hostile alien races have occupied mankind's former colonies and civilizations, and are now encroaching upon the City. Throughout the game, players have to combat aggressive aliens who have occupied the Solar System. Just like the Light for the Guardians, the Darkness lends powers to these alien threats. There are five separate races in the game, each occupying different planets. Over the course of Destiny, Destiny 2 and their expansions, more about these races and their connection to the Traveler and the Darkness is discovered.
The Fallen, also known as the Eliksni, are an insectoid race of nomadic pirates who scavenge ruined settlements on Earth, Earth's Moon, and Venus for resources. The Fallen are split among several tribal-like Houses, each with its own leader known as a Kell. Long before the Traveler arrived in the System, it had visited the Fallen's home world of Riis and similarly gave rise to a golden age, where they worshipped it as their "Great Machine". In the midst of this age, the Traveler suddenly left them, and their society fell apart as Houses turned against each other. The survivors abandoned the planet to seek out the Traveler, following it to Earth and scavenging whatever technology they could along the way. Rise of Iron added a faction of Fallen called the Devil Splicers, which are Fallen who have been modified by a technological plague called SIVA. They are found on Earth in a zone outside of the Wall called the Plaguelands.
The Hive are a macabre race of ancient aliens who have created massive underground settlements beneath Earth and its Moon's surfaces. The Hive originated from a planet called Fundament that had an inescapable gravity well, and the people that lived there, the Krill, eked out a living. One of the rulers, the Osmium King, was killed in a coup, and his three daughters, Aurash, Xi Ro, and Sathona, aware their own lives were in danger, discovered that three Worm Gods, disciples of the Darkness, were trapped in the core of Fundament by the Traveler. The three sisters vowed to help feed the Worm Gods under the principles of the Sword Logic in exchange for immortality and power. The three became the first Hive: respectively, Oryx, the Taken King; Xivu Arath, the God of War; and Savathûn, the Witch Queen. The three converted the Krill to Hive servants and found the means to escape Fundament and chase down the Traveler and its allies.
The Vex are semi-organic androids who are attempting to seize control of Venus and Mars by turning them into their machines, which they have already done to Mercury. Vex are actually millions of microscopic artificial organisms that are linked via a giant mind network and survive in an organic fluid called radiolaria; each individual Vex android hosts a number of these organisms in its core. Because of their massive processing power, the Vex are constantly running simulations of the past, present, and future to try to outmaneuver their enemies in their goal to convert the entire universe to Vex, and have mastered some elements of time travel. The Vex worship the Darkness and are one of their most dangerous allies.
The Cabal are a military-industrial empire of gigantic amphibians who have established massive fortifications on Mars. Comparable to the Roman Empire, they have seized a large portion of the galaxy around their homeworld and have been continually expanding for new territories. Their bases on Mars are seen as scouting missions for a potential invasion of Earth.
The Taken, a race introduced in The Taken King, are ghostly-looking corrupted versions of regular enemies, who infest areas on every planet. Oryx, the Taken King, was granted the ability to create his Taken army by drawing foes into the Ascendant Plane, which granted them new paracausal powers but drained them of their individuality and compelled to serve the one that created them. Other major enemies have since been able to create their own armies of Taken forces.
Every race utilizes different tactics and weapons in combat. The Fallen possess cloaking and short-range teleportation technologies to increase their mobility. The Hive use superior numbers to overwhelm their opponents in close quarters while more elite units attack from a distance. The Vex utilize hard-light shields and teleport units of infantry into the battlefield en-masse. The Cabal rely on heavy armor, ballistic shields, and jump packs to combat players. The Taken, in addition to all the other races specialties, use high mobility and plenty of long-range attacks to out-maneuver the player. The Devil Splicers, in addition to the other Fallen's tactics and weapons, use multiple, unpredictable, lightning-like shots to surprise the player and hit them even while strafing. All of these races are hostile towards each other (with the exception of the Hive and the Taken), as they can often be observed attacking one another in-game for territorial dominance. The majority of the game's lore, detailing backstory on characters, weapons, the alien races, planets, etc., was found in Grimoire cards collected throughout the game but could only be accessed through Bungie's website and the Destiny app.
Characters
In addition to the player's Guardian, Destiny has many non-playable characters (NPCs) that aide the Guardians either in story missions, or by selling gear, weapons, or materials. The main NPCs in Destiny are Ghost (originally Peter Dinklage, replaced by Nolan North), a robot artificial intelligence that accompanies the Guardians; The Speaker (Bill Nighy), the representative of The Traveler; the Exo Stranger (Lauren Cohan), a mysterious female Exo who is interested in the Guardian's activities, but is not a Guardian herself; Mara Sov (Kirsten Potter), the Queen of the Reef and the Awoken, and the Kell (leader) of the Fallen House of Wolves; Prince Uldren Sov (Brandon O'Neill), the Queen's brother; Ikora Rey (Gina Torres), the Warlock Vanguard; Commander Zavala (Lance Reddick), the Titan Vanguard; Cayde-6 (Nathan Fillion), the Hunter Vanguard; and Master Rahool (Erick Avari), the Tower's Cryptarch who decodes engrams and buys curiosities from Guardians. The player's Guardian is voiced by one of six people, depending on which species and gender the player selects when creating their character: Matthew Mercer and Susan Eisenberg as the male and female Human guardians, Crispin Freeman and Grey Griffin as the male and female Awoken Guardians, and Peter Jessop and Cree Summer as the male and female Exo Guardians.
Other notable NPCs include Lord Shaxx (Lennie James), the Crucible Handler; Lakshmi-2 (Shohreh Aghdashloo), representative of Future War Cult; Arach Jalaal (Peter Stormare), representative of Dead Orbit; Executor Hideo (James Remar), representative of New Monarchy; Tess Everis (Claudia Black), Eververse Trading Company (microtransaction vendor that primarily sells emotes); Banshee-44 (John DiMaggio), the Gunsmith; Amanda Holliday (Courtenay Taylor), ship and sparrow merchant; Lord Saladin (Keith Ferguson), former Iron Banner vendor who became the main NPC of Rise of Iron; Xûr (Fred Tatasciore), an Agent of the Nine and exotic items vendor; and Eva Levante (Nika Futterman), the Guardian Outfitter (vendor that sells emblems and armor shaders who later became the vendor for seasonal events, such as Festival of the Lost and The Dawning).
Several characters were introduced in the expansions and events of Destiny. These include Petra Venj (April Stewart), the Queen's Emissary who was introduced with the Queen's Wrath event and returned as a main NPC in House of Wolves; Eris Morn (Morla Gorrondona), Crota's Bane vendor that was introduced as the main NPC of The Dark Below as well as a main NPC of The Taken King; Variks the Loyal (Dee Bradley Baker), House of Judgment vendor who was introduced as a main NPC of the House of Wolves and is a Fallen Vandal loyal to the Queen; Master Ives (Gideon Emery), the Vestian Outpost's Cryptarch; Brother Vance (Bob O'Donnell), a Disciple of Osiris and the Trials of Osiris vendor — Osiris is a character in the lore of Destiny; Tyra Karn, an archivist in the Iron Temple added with Rise of Iron who is also a Cryptarch; Shiro-4, a scout and Vanguard vendor in the Iron Temple; and Lady Efrideet (Riva Di Paola), a former Iron Lord discovered to still be alive who took command of the Iron Banner in Saladin's place, as Saladin became focused on the SIVA Crisis.
Plot
When the game begins, Ghost is searching among the detritus of Old Russia until it finds and resurrects the player's Guardian, who had been killed in an ancient battle—upon resurrection, Guardians have no memories of their past. Ghost then guides the Guardian to a jump ship and they take it to the Tower. There, they meet the Speaker, who briefs them about the Darkness. The Guardian is then tasked to probe the nearby Cosmodrome, where humanity used to launch its forays into outer space, fending off Fallen enemies and eventually the Hive, who were thought to have been confined to the Moon. The Guardian discovers that an old Russian Warmind called Rasputin, an AI built to defend Earth, is still alive and acting with unknown intent. The Guardian also tracks down codes to raise an ancient Array to connect it to long-lost colonies throughout the Solar System, and finds that Rasputin is controlling the Array. They then set off to the Moon in search of a lost Guardian who was looking for a way into the Hive fortress. After locating his corpse and dead Ghost, the player's Guardian's Ghost discovers that the Hive are raising an army and plan to invade Earth. The Guardian quickly sets about disrupting their efforts, including shutting down a ritual that the Hive were using to drain power from the Traveler, destroying a powerful weapon called the Sword of Crota, and severing their long-distance communications. Around this time, the Guardian is contacted by the Exo Stranger, a mysterious woman who summons them to Venus to face a new enemy, the Vex.
When the Guardian arrives on Venus, the Exo Stranger describes the Vex as an evil so dark it despises other evil. She tells them about the Black Garden, a city where the Vex are born, and implores the Guardian to find it and rip out its heart, as it is the only way the Traveler will begin to heal. Ghost says that they need to speak to the Awoken, who lurk out in the Reef (the asteroid belt) and refuse to take sides in the galaxy's wars. The Exo Stranger then leaves, as she did not have time to explain things further. Once the Guardian arrives at the Reef, they meet the Queen of the Reef, Mara Sov, and her brother, Prince Uldren Sov, who tells the Guardian that they will help them locate the Black Garden if they bring them the head of a Vex Gate Lord. The Guardian travels back to Venus, where they uncover the Archive, which reveals secrets about the Vex, including the location of a place called the Vault of Glass, and pathways across the galaxy. After defeating Draksis, a Fallen Kell of the House of Winter, the Guardian confronts the Vex Gate Lord, claims its head, and returns to the Queen, who tells them to take its eye to the Meridian Bay on Mars, where it can be used to enter the Black Garden.
After arriving on Mars in the Meridian Bay, Ghost informs the Guardian of its inhabitants. The Cabal have been trying to break the encryption on the Vex Gate with only limited success, but they do control many of the places that the Guardian needs to visit on Mars thanks to their Exclusion Zone, which nobody had ever penetrated. The player's Guardian becomes the first to penetrate the Exclusion Zone and heads to the Garden's Spire, which charges the Gate Lord's eye. They also travel to the Buried City, the birthplace of many technological wonders where they discover an AI that used to be linked to the Warmind of Mars, but is now controlled by Rasputin. With the Vex now present on Mars, the Guardian finds out what they are doing; they are returning to their home, the Black Garden.
The Guardian then sets off to the Black Garden. After going through a teleporter, they find themselves in a place that is not on any map of known space and time. After several battles, the Guardian reaches the heart of the Black Garden, which the Vex appear to be worshipping. The heart summons three Sol Progeny— a group of Vex units called Eschaton Mind, Imminent Mind, and Primeval Mind. After defeating the three Sol Progeny, the heart is destroyed, returning the Guardian to Mars and lifting the shroud of Darkness from the Traveler back on Earth. At the Tower, the Speaker addresses gathered Guardians in a celebratory speech. Over in the nearby hangar, though, the player's Guardian converses with the Exo Stranger, who says that the fight is far from over.
The heart of the Black Garden may have been destroyed, but beneath Venus, evil stirs. A team of Guardians decide to investigate the mysterious Vault of Glass ("Vault of Glass" raid), described as the "Vex underworld" by the Ishtar Collective. The Vault is a realm where the Vex can control reality, and even erase people from existence. This power is used by the most powerful denizens within the vault: a Vex sub-race called the Gorgons, a powerful Vex mind called the Templar, and Atheon, Time's Conflux. Both Atheon and the Templar utilize machines called Oracles to do so. While these powers do not extend to outside the Vault, its enigmatic nature has lured countless Guardians to their doom— the most infamous being the ill-fated fireteam of Kabr, the Legionless, which consisted of himself, Future War Cult Warlock Praedyth, and well-known hunter Pahanin. Pahanin was the only member to make it out alive; Praedyth was forever lost in the dark corners of time, and Kabr drank the radialoria of the Oracles, and was turned into a Vex. However, in Kabr's last moments, he used his Light to leave behind an artifact, the Aegis, to help any other Guardians daring enough to follow in his footsteps. The new fireteam of Guardians make their descent, and attempt to succeed where Kabr and his fireteam failed. Using the Aegis, the Guardians manage to defeat the Templar and its Oracles. They then successfully traverse the Gorgon's labyrinth undetected before finally reaching Atheon, Time's Conflux. A central figure of the Vex Conflux network, Atheon is able to send Guardians into the distant past or future at will, and summons versions of Vex from the past and future to aid him. The Vex mind is also capable of summoning Oracles like the Templar, and attempts to erase the new Fireteam from existence. However, despite the astronomical odds, the Guardians fight their way through time, destroy the Oracles, and defeat Atheon, eliminating a major Vex threat.
Development
Bungie had announced in 2007 it was becoming an independent studio and separating from Microsoft Game Studios, though contractually remained committed to completing Halo: Reach. As Bungie tied up development of Reach in 2010, it began developing its next new intellectual property (IP) Destiny under the code name "Project Tiger". The company recognized it would need a major publisher to support their project. According to Martin O'Donnell, they had considered going back to Microsoft and also had approached Sony Interactive Entertainment as a publishing partner, but both companies would have required Bungie to turn over control of the IP, which Bungie considered was "non-negotiable". Activision Blizzard, on the other hand, would allow Bungie to retain control on the IP with expectations of financial performance over the years. Bungie's 10-year publishing agreement with Activision Blizzard was announced by April 2010. Under Bungie's agreement with Activision, new IP developed by Bungie will be owned by Bungie, not Activision, in a deal similar to the EA Partners Program. Details of this contract were revealed during the course of Activision's lawsuit against Jason West and Vincent Zampella, founders and former employees of Infinity Ward, including provisions for four Destiny games over the course of the ten-year deal. Initially, Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick suggested that the total investment in Destiny would be around $500 million. Bungie's COO Pete Parsons clarified that the game's development cost is not even close to $500 million, saying, "For marketing you'd have to ask Activision people, but for development costs, not anything close to $500 million." Activision subsequently confirmed the $500 million figure, stating that marketing, up-front infrastructure costs, and investment in the game's engine were included, and could be amortized over the life of the IP. Bungie would earn an additional $2.5 million bonus payout if the first game achieved a Metacritic score of 90 or above.
By mid-2013, most of the ground work for Destiny had been completed including lore, game engine, and many environments and missions, tracking for a September 2013 release. However, a "supercut" of the game's story and mission structure presented by Joseph Staten's writing team did not test well with Bungie upper management, led by Jason Jones. Jones felt that the story was too dense and linear— a design philosophy he felt was important to Destiny was the ability for the player to choose where to go at any time. As a result, the entire mission progression of the game was rebuilt between mid-2013 and the game's launch in September 2014, shifting away from a structure that quickly introduced the four major environments — Earth, the Moon, Venus, and Mars — to a hub-based structure in which each planet would be visited sequentially with an expanding variety of missions on each. Existing missions were spliced and rearranged to fit this new paradigm, including dialogue and cinematics. Staten decided to leave the company amidst this reboot, though this would not be announced until September 2013.
To cement the new framework, Jones developed the director interface that exists in the shipping version of the game, from which planets and missions can be selected. He also established the "Iron Bar", a series of executive meetings which would oversee the massive project restructuring. This also involved rescoping the project to be more focused — areas such as the Hive fortress Dreadnaught, an Earth location called the European Dead Zone, and Osiris' temple on Mercury were cut — all would later return in future installments. The restructuring also required an internal delay of the release date first from September 2013 to March 2014, and again to its actual release of September 9, 2014. With Staten's departure, the writing team he had built at Bungie for the Halo series was left leaderless and isolated. As a result, much of this extra time was spent perfecting the gameplay and feel of the shooting while the narrative was only polished to a perfunctory level and "the story was written without writers".
On April 11, 2014, Bungie fired its long-time composer and audio director, Martin O'Donnell. For Destiny, O'Donnell collaborated with Paul McCartney on an eight-movement symphonic suite called Music of the Spheres which was completed in 2013. The dispute which led to his termination originated from O'Donnell's belief that the Activision deal had begun to erode the collegial culture at Bungie. Activision was reluctant to release the symphony as a standalone work and went over O'Donnell's head to replace it with their own music in a prominent E3 2013 trailer. In the ensuing disagreement, O'Donnell came into conflict with both Activision and Bungie leadership and was accused of "unacceptable conduct" in his performance review, leading to his termination. Fans were concerned that the absence of Martin O'Donnell would affect the in-game music of Destiny; however, Pete Parsons of Bungie confirmed that Destinys music was already complete by this point. O'Donnell prevailed in a civil suit against Bungie over the improper dismissal in September 2015, winning unpaid wages, profit sharing, and lost stock. However, Bungie later filed a complaint against O'Donnell in 2021 after O'Donnell had uploaded his work from Music of the Spheres and Destiny to his YouTube and Bandcamp channels, which Bungie stated was against the terms placed against O'Donnell as a result of an injunction raised in the 2015 trial, who had been ordered to return all this work to Bungie. O'Donnell was found in contempt of court in September 2021 for violating that injunction and ordered to remove the material as well as submit to review of all his electronic media for any further copies of Destiny-related materials.
Technology
Destiny incorporates a new game engine, called the Tiger Engine, that is based on the engine used for most Halo games. It allows global illumination and real-time dynamic lighting to occur together in cohesion. In addition, Bungie's goal is that Destiny will natively render graphics at 1080p on both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. An innovation in Bungie's "hopper" technology, which has been the backbone for Halos matchmaking system, will allow better player matchmaking in order to create a more natural experience in either cooperative or competitive multiplayer modes. Developers at Bungie have criticized the new engine as ill-suited to the online nature of the game. Its resource-intensive nature makes even small changes to maps require an overnight rendering and compiling process. Internal sources called the development of new maps and missions "grueling" on account of the game engine.
Design
For Destiny, lead writer Joseph Staten hoped to build a universe that would "take on a life of its own". The designers worked around "seven pillars", seven core principles which ensure that the game is accessible to both casual, novice players and experienced veterans of first-person shooters and MMOs. This includes integration with social media, allowing players to gain information about new quests and their friends' activities. In designing the playable classes, Bungie was inspired by different sources of science fiction. Hunters are a reconnaissance class meant to be reminiscent of the classic bounty hunter. Bungie cites as influences Star Wars Han Solo and classic characters from old Western films such as Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name. Warlocks combine weapons with special powers from "the Traveler", and are meant to be a form of "space wizard". The Warlock class is influenced by the Star Wars series's Jedi Knights, The Lord of the Rings series's Gandalf, and The Matrix series's Morpheus. Titans, which favor heavy weapons and melee attacks and are intended to be reminiscent of the classic "future soldier", were inspired by Bungie's own Master Chief from Halo, Stormtroopers from Star Wars, and other "space marines" from science fiction. Bungie also cited the influence of action role-playing games Monster Hunter and Dark Souls, noting their mechanical depth and brutality.
Peter Dinklage originally voiced the character Ghost in the base game. The character did not have any lines in the two expansions of Year One. Nolan North replaced Dinklage for The Taken King and also re-recorded all of Ghost's lines from the original game, as Bungie wanted "to create a consistent storytelling experience from beginning to end". North was excited to put his mark on the role and hopes to evolve the character in future Destiny releases. He said that he did not listen to any of Dinklage's recordings, as he did not want any preconceived notions to influence his performance. According to Bungie, the actor change was made due to Dinklage's availability. David Cross was hired to write jokes for the character Ghost but none of his work was used in the final game.
Soundtrack
Destiny Original Soundtrack
Destiny (Original Soundtrack) is the official soundtrack for the video game, composed by Michael Salvatori, C Paul Johnson, Martin O'Donnell and Paul McCartney. Released digitally via iTunes on September 26, 2014, the soundtrack contains 44 instrumental compositions from the game. The soundtrack marked O'Donnell's final work for Bungie, after years of composing for the Halo franchise, as well as several games before that. In addition, McCartney wrote and recorded an original song inspired by the game, titled "Hope for the Future".
Early in Destinys development, O'Donnell was contacted by Pete Parsons (current Chief Operating Officer of Bungie), and was asked to begin writing music for the game. At the time, Destiny was still in its infancy, as it lacked any gameplay material for O'Donnell to score music to, so instead, O'Donnell began creating music based solely on the games ideas, stories, and artwork. By February 17, 2013, over 50 minutes of the soundtrack had already been recorded with a 106-piece orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London. O'Donnell gave the early pieces of music to Bungie in hopes that they would foster inspiration within the development team.
Unlike the Halo series, where pieces of music were only 2–3 minutes long, O'Donnell has stated that the soundtrack for Destiny has no time restrictions, with the pieces clocking in "as long as they need to be". O'Donnell collaborated with Paul McCartney on the soundtrack for the better part of two years, as they traded ideas, melody samples, and themes back and forth. On April 11, 2014, Martin O'Donnell was dismissed without cause by the board of directors at Bungie. This caused concern as to whether this would affect the game; however, Pete Parsons stated that O'Donnell's work on the game had been completed before his dismissal and would appear in the final product.
Music of the Spheres
Music of the Spheres is an eight-part musical companion piece to Destiny, composed by Marty O’Donnell together with Michael Salvatori and Paul McCartney. Parts of the music were used to accompany a Destiny trailer at E3 2013, and in the official soundtrack. But following O'Donnell's dismissal from and subsequent legal dispute with Bungie, Music of the Spheres remained unreleased. It was leaked to the Internet by unknown persons in December 2017. Bungie officially released the album on June 1, 2018.
Release
Destiny concept art and plot elements first leaked in November 2012. Bungie supplemented the leak with more details, expressing regret that another upcoming video game had been revealed ahead of schedule. Destinys official unveiling occurred at the PlayStation 4 announcement event on February 20, 2013. An alpha test took place from June 12 to 16, 2014 exclusively on PS4. A public beta test began on PlayStation consoles on July 17, 2014 and Xbox consoles on July 23, 2014, available to players who pre-ordered the game. Before the beta closed on July 27, it attracted around 4.6 million players. The game went gold on August 23, 2014. Destiny was released worldwide on September 9, 2014 for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Players who pre-ordered the game received early access to the Vanguard Armory. Additionally, pre-orders from GameStop received an exclusive "red" sparrow vehicle. Players who pre-ordered Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare received a Blacksmith armor shader in Destiny. Those who purchased the digital PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 versions of the game were allowed to download the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One clients respectively at no additional cost, until January 15, 2015.
Some of the game's initial content, including certain items and missions, were timed exclusives for PlayStation platforms. These included the "Dust Palace" strike, the "Exodus Blue" Crucible map, two exotic weapons (the auto rifle "Monte Carlo" and hand cannon "Hawkmoon"), a rare gear set for each class (Manifold Seeker for Warlock, Vanir for Titan, and Argus for Hunter), and three ships ("Aurora Awake", "Crypt Hammer", and "Outrageous Fortune"). Each expansion followed suit and had timed exclusives for PlayStation platforms. The initial exclusive content and the content of the first two expansions became available for the Xbox platforms with the release of The Taken King. The Taken Kings and Rise of Irons exclusive content became available in October 2017.
Three collector's editions of Destiny were released: the Limited Edition, the Ghost Edition, and the Digital Limited Edition. The Limited Edition included a Steelbook game case, the Arms & Armament Field Guide, postcards from the Golden Age, Antique Star Chart, and in-game content: an exclusive Ghost shell, ship, character emblem, and the Destiny Expansion Pass. The Ghost Edition included everything in the Limited Edition, as well as a motion-activated replica Ghost with lights and the voice of Peter Dinklage and a set of photos and stickers. The Digital Limited Edition included Destiny and the in-game content included in the physical collector's editions. A PS4 bundle was also available, which included a 500GB glacier white PS4 and a copy of Destiny.
With the release of The Taken King, two new retail versions of Destiny, the "Legendary Edition" and "Collector's Edition", were released alongside The Taken King: both included a copy of the game, all "Year One" DLC, and The Taken King. A Digital Collector's Edition was also available. Year One players received commemorative items when purchasing The Taken King. A new PS4 bundle was also available, which included a limited edition white 500GB PS4 with Destiny artwork on the face of the console, the Legendary Edition of The Taken King, and all bonus content from the Legendary and Digital Collector's Editions. Players who purchased The Taken King received an item called Spark of Light, which boosted one new character to level 25, the minimum level needed to play The Taken Kings content.
With the release of Rise of Iron, a new retail version of Destiny was also released alongside the expansion called "Destiny: The Collection". It includes a copy of the game, and all DLC up to and including Rise of Iron. Like The Taken King, players who purchase Rise of Iron receive an item called Spark of Light, although this one boosts one new character to level 40, which is the minimum level needed to play Rise of Irons content.
Post-release content
Prior to the official release of Destiny in September 2014, Bungie declared that a major component of the game would be a continuous release of new content. Bungie Director of Production Jonty Barnes said: "We're going to continuously update the game from now until the end of time. That's always going to be part of the philosophy of Destiny. We always wanted to build a new universe but keep building upon it, rather than to do a complete and utter restart periodically." By the time of Destinys launch, two planned packs of downloadable content (DLC) had been officially announced: The Dark Below and House of Wolves. From the launch of Destiny, players could purchase the Destiny Expansion Pass, which included the first two expansions at a discounted price versus buying them separately. Players also received an exclusive sparrow (EV-30 Tumbler) if they purchased the Expansion Pass or The Dark Below by January 15, 2015. At E3 2015, Bungie officially announced a new expansion called The Taken King. A new, large expansion was confirmed in February 2016; its title, Rise of Iron, was revealed in June 2016.
Bungie released the game's first raid, the "Vault of Glass", as part of the September 16, 2014, update and at the time, it was described as "Destinys most difficult mission". The Vault of Glass centers on the Vex race on Venus and requires players to defeat Atheon, Time's Conflux. In the weeks proceeding from the release of Destiny, players were reporting areas that could be accessed by various glitches or secret accesses. These areas have been described as appearing "half-baked", and were noted to often be devoid of items or NPCs. In an interview with Eurogamer, on the claims that these were on-disc DLC, Bungie president Harold Ryan replied that the content were incomplete resources intended to reduce download requirements for future DLC.
The October 13, 2015, update brought the new vending shop "Eververse Trading Company", featuring NPC Tess Everis who now sells emotes in exchange for a new in-game currency, Silver — some complimentary Silver was given to all players when logging in after the update. Players can obtain more Silver via microtransactions. One of the first emotes was the Enthusiastic Dance, inspired by the Carlton Dance from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Bungie stressed that these emotes are completely optional and the microtransactions are an effort to "bolster the service provided by our live team for another full year". On December 15, 2015, boosting packs became available as microtransactions. The pack automatically boosts one character to level 25, and also features a temporary stat boost and "Telemetry" items to assist in further leveling.
For Year Two following the release of The Taken King, senior designer Derek Carroll explained that the studio wanted to shift towards an "event-based model" with "surprises" for players, available to all owners of The Taken King at no additional charge, as opposed to a timed roadmap, as had previously been speculated. Marketing director Eric Osborne further clarified its plans for "Year Two", stating that it would not consist solely of time-limited events as had been implied by others, but new "events, activities, content, and features", as well as an event planned for early 2016 that will be "far larger than anything you’ve seen since the release of The Taken King".
Prior to Rise of Irons launch and due to the expansion only being released for current consoles (PS4 and One), players' accounts on legacy consoles (PS3 and 360) were split from current consoles. Accounts were previously shared across consoles of the same family. Legacy consoles received their last update on July 26, 2016, excluding emergency fixes for future game-breaking issues.
Expansions
The Dark Below was released on December 9, 2014. The expansion added new content centering on the Hive race and their deity Crota, Son of Oryx. In addition to a new raid, "Crota's End", maximum attack damage was increased to 331 and the Light level increased to 32. House of Wolves was released on May 19, 2015; the expansion added new content centering on the Fallen race as players attempt to thwart a campaign by Skolas, Kell of Kells, to unite the Fallen race under his rule. Maximum attack damage was increased to 365 and the Light level increased to 34. A new social space was added (Vestian Outpost), as well as two multiplayer modes: the Prison of Elders (a PvE arena) and Trials of Osiris (PvP game type).
The Taken King was released on September 15, 2015, marking the end of "Year One" of Destiny. The expansion focuses on Oryx, The Taken King and father of Crota, as he leads a new race of enemy, the Taken, to avenge his son's death. A new raid, "King's Fall", was added, new sub-classes were added, as well as many changes to the core gameplay of Destiny, including maximum Light level of 320. The Taken Kings April 12, 2016 update, referred to as the "April Update", increased the maximum Light level to 335. The update also added new challenges and increased difficulty for the Prison of Elders PvE arena, among other activities. A new quest storyline was also added where players must defeat Malok, a Taken prince attempting a rise to power in the aftermath of Oryx's defeat.
Rise of Iron was released on September 20, 2016, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One only, and marked the end of "Year Two". It focuses on the Fallen race as they have breached the Wall that surrounds the Cosmodrome and have acquired the SIVA virus, a Golden Age nanotechnology characterized by self-replication and self-assembly. Lord Saladin guides players as they set out to become the new generation of the Iron Lords and wipe out SIVA. New additions include a new PvP game mode, a significant light level increase (385 at launch, 400 with hard raid), a new Patrol zone on Earth (The Plaguelands), a new social space (Iron Temple), and a new raid, "Wrath of the Machine". The final update to Destiny released on March 28, 2017. Titled "Age of Triumph", it added a new 13-page record book, tracking players' progress since the original release of Destiny, and all raids prior to Rise of Iron were increased to Light level 390 with updated rewards that can drop at 400 Light.
Events
Shortly after the launch of Destiny, a two-week long event began on September 23, 2014, called "Queen's Wrath" with Petra Venj as its main NPC. This event featured bounties and multiple challenges on existing missions for players to complete to obtain exclusive items. A two-week long Halloween-themed event began on October 26, 2015 called "Festival of the Lost" where players could complete quest lines to earn decorative masks for their Guardians. Eva Levante was the main NPC for this event. It returned the following year on October 25, 2016, featuring new quests, masks, and rewards from new NPC Tyra Karn in the Iron Temple, as well as returning ones from the previous year from Eva Levante. On December 8, 2015, a new three-week long event became available called the "Sparrow Racing League" (SRL) with Amanda Holliday as its main NPC. In this event, players raced against each other on their sparrows, which Bungie described as a "six-player, free-for-all death race through enemy territory". It was only available to players who owned The Taken King. Sparrow Racing League returned as part of a new holiday event called "The Dawning" on December 13, 2016. The event introduced a new scoring system for Strikes, new quests, weapons, gear, gifts, and treasures, and SRL itself featured new tracks and new rewards. A Valentine's Day-themed event called "Crimson Days" commenced on February 9, 2016 and lasted for one week. Lord Shaxx was the main NPC of the event, and featured a new Crucible mode called Crimson Doubles, a two-versus-two Elimination-style game with a special buff.
Gameplay changes
Alongside the new story content of The Taken King, other major changes were made to the core gameplay of Destiny as part of the version 2.0 patch released on September 8, 2015, which coincided with a week-long free preview of the PvP multiplayer modes and maps of The Taken King; some of these changes apply to all users, regardless of whether they purchase The Taken King. The voice of the player's Ghost, Peter Dinklage, was replaced by Nolan North; all of Dinklage's existing Ghost dialogue was retroactively replaced with new versions recorded by North.
Experience points are used to level past 20, as opposed to the previous "Light level" system. Characters' previously existing Light levels were converted to character levels when transitioning to the 2.0 patch, while a new separate Light level was determined by averaging the strength and power of the character's equipped gear. Class items, newly introduced Ghost shells for all players, and a new equippable item, a relic, provide additional boosts to a player's abilities. The process of earning faction reputation changed; players "pledge" to a faction for a week, during which they earn reputation for the chosen faction in addition to standard reputation. The Gunsmith NPC now offers reputation for the completion of weapon field testing bounties, which allow the ability to purchase a weekly Legendary weapon from his "Foundry Orders". A mercy rule and matchmaking improvements were added to the Crucible. Players' vaults can now hold up to 108 armor pieces, 108 weapons, and 72 miscellaneous items.
A new "Progress" tab was added to the user menu, which displays character progression through the game's quest storylines, as well as currently active bounties and faction reputation. Up to four active bounties and quests can be pinned to be displayed on the bottom-right of the screen when Nav Mode is used. Players can turn in quests and bounties at any time, and up to 32 quests and 16 bounties can be stored in their inventory. All existing storylines were adapted to work under this new system. A new interface known as "Collections" allows players to track their exotic items, emblems, armor shaders, sparrows, ships, and emotes that they have found, as well as clues for how to obtain those they do not possess.
The new "Legendary Mark" currency replaces Vanguard and Crucible marks (which were completely removed), and are shared across all of a user's characters. Legendary Marks can be used to re-purchase exotic items that had already been found by a user, along with upgraded versions of some pre-existing exotics through the new "Exotic Blueprints" system (although this also requires Exotic Shards), and engrams that are guaranteed to contain a legendary weapon. Gear can be "infused" with more powerful items to increase their strength, provided they are "of the same Year and gear slot, a similar quality and a higher level than the current gear". This allows players the choice of what weapons and gear they want to make the strongest.
Newer weapons and some Year One exotics are capable of higher damage than existing Year One weapons; damage values on all existing weapons were scaled down numerically from 365 to 170 (though damage output is the same), with higher values representing weapons that are more powerful than those from Year One.
Reception
Critical reception
Destiny received a generally positive critical reception upon release. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the Xbox One version 75/100 based on 11 reviews, and the PlayStation 4 version 76/100 based on 95 reviews. Bungie halted pre-release reviews stating that they felt the game should be graded only when its social aspects were operative and populated with "thousands of gamers" in order to give a proper assessment.
GameSpot described the game as "a multiplayer shooter that cobbles together elements of massively multiplayer games but overlooks the lessons developers of such games learned many years ago"; however, the game's competitive multiplayer modes were praised for carrying on Bungie's expertise from the Halo franchise with well-designed maps. Tom Watson admitted in New Statesman that it "has taken over my life". He praised how the game "plundered the best bits of other successful franchises" such as Halo, Call of Duty, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and World of Warcraft. Danny O'Dwyer stated that Destinys development surfaces some troubling ethical questions about the role of design in video game addiction, comparing it to slot machines and lab-pigeons in variable reward experiments. "I'm not saying it's a bad game... I'm saying it's a manipulative one. I mean it's 'Farmville' for shooter fans; instead of farming for land, you're farming for XP, loot, and whatever fake new currency the game creates to keep you inside another masterfully crafted ratio-scheduling system." The Verge criticized the game's reliance on collaboration with other players that demands at least a few hours each week in order to keep up with character power levels with a player's friends or being forced to play with strangers to complete the story content.
GameTrailers gave a generally positive review, but also criticized the weak story and uninspired game locations. However, they did praise the graphics as well as the rush the combat can provide the player. A general lack of cohesive communication between players was also criticized, with Game Informer calling it "downplayed and difficult". Eurogamer felt that the game's environments were "meticulously built, with plenty of enticing nooks and thoughtfully placed cover to support that thrilling combat", but that Patrol mode exposed the worlds as being more like "giant shooter levels connected by narrow passageways than a truly expansive open world".
Destiny was criticized for its lack of story content, with many pointing to the disjointed narrative and shallow plot implementation. Bungie has since acknowledged that the story was lacking in some respects, and stated that the game's first DLC expansion, The Dark Below, would focus on providing more background to the universe of Destiny. The game's end-game content was the subject of criticism, due to its particular focus on grinding for rare items through various means (including multiplayer games and other missions). The discovery of "loot caves" — locations with quickly re-spawning enemies that could previously be used to farm for items — along with initial issues surrounding the Vault of Glass raid mission became associated with these lingering issues. Despite the criticism, the game received the title of Game of the Year from GamesRadar, the BAFTA Award for Best Game at the British Academy Video Games Awards. At the 2014 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR), the game won Original Dramatic Score, New IP and Control Precision, and was nominated for Game Design(New IP), Control Design (3D), Character Design and Art Direction (Contemporary).
Sales
On September 10, 2014, Activision claimed that Destiny was the most successful new gaming franchise launch, as the game shipped more than US$500 million to retail stores and first-parties worldwide. As of September 17, 2014, there have been over 11 million gameplay sessions within North America. It was also the biggest software launch for the PlayStation 4 since holiday 2013. On November 4, 2014, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg revealed that the game has 9.5 million registered players. On December 23, 2014, Bungie revealed that 13 million people have played the game since its launch. As of January 5, 2015, the game has 16 million registered players. As of September 17, 2015, the game has 20 million players.
Destiny sold 91,277 physical retail copies for PlayStation 4 and 49,503 retail copies for PlayStation 3 within the first week of release in Japan, placing second and third place respectively within the Japanese software sales charts for that particular week. Destiny was the third best-selling retail game in the United States in 2014. On May 6, 2015, Activision Blizzard announced that Destiny, along with another title from its subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment, Hearthstone have generated nearly US$1 billion for the company.
57% of Taken Kings UK sales were on PlayStation 4.
As of November 2015, Destiny had 25 million registered users, a five million increase in three months.
Sequel
In November 2014, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said "Work has also begun on future expansion packs as well as on our next full game release". Based on documents of the original release schedule for Destiny, Bungie and Activision intended to release new, disc-based sequels every other year until 2019, with large downloadable expansions in between. Originally planned for a September 2016 release (based on the original documents), Bungie confirmed on February 11, 2016 that a full sequel would be released in 2017. That same month, video game writer Christopher Schlerf, who was the lead writer for Halo 4 and worked on Mass Effect: Andromeda, joined Bungie. In December 2016, Bungie announced that Vicarious Visions would be joining the development team along with Activision.
Bungie had confirmed that players' characters and progression would carry over into future releases. However, this was only true for the expansions of the original Destiny. For the sequel, players who reached level 20 and completed the Black Garden quest in the original had their characters' physical appearance carry over, but not their progression (e.g., powers and gear). Bungie did award veteran players in the sequel to acknowledge their accomplishments in the original Destiny. Bungie stated that the original Destiny would remain online even after the release of the sequel; players' characters will remain intact with their progression and items, and the game will be supported with patch updates.
Destiny 2 was officially confirmed on March 27, 2017. This was followed up with a teaser trailer narrated by Cayde-6. The teaser showed the Tower under attack by the Cabal. A full reveal trailer released on March 30, showing the three class Vanguards, Commander Zavala, Cayde-6, and Ikora Rey, rallying Guardians in the war-torn Tower. The Cabal are being led by Ghaul, commander of the brutal Red Legion. It was also officially confirmed that in addition to releasing on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in September 2017, Destiny 2 would release on Microsoft Windows in October 2017, and exclusively via the Battle.net app, rather than Steam. In October 2019, the game was removed from Battle.net and was published via Steam.
References
Note
Footnote
External links
Destiny at Bungie
2014 video games
Action role-playing video games
Activision games
Destiny (video game series)
Fiction set on Mercury (planet)
Fiction set on Phobos (moon)
Video games set on Venus
First-person shooter multiplayer online games
Interactive Achievement Award winners
Loot shooters
Nanotechnology in fiction
PlayStation 3 games
PlayStation 4 games
Post-apocalyptic video games
Rings of Saturn in fiction
Role-playing video games
Science fantasy video games
Transhumanism in video games
Video games about amnesia
Video games about artificial intelligence
Video games about cyborgs
Video games about robots
Video games developed in the United States
Video games featuring protagonists of selectable gender
Video games scored by Martin O'Donnell
Video games scored by Michael Salvatori
Video games set in Europe
Video games set on Mars
Video games set on the Moon
Video games using Havok
Video games with downloadable content
Video games with expansion packs
Xbox 360 games
Xbox One games |
35924819 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard%20%28information%20security%29 | Guard (information security) | In information security, a guard is a device or system for allowing computers on otherwise separate networks to communicate, subject to configured constraints. In many respects a guard is like a firewall and guards may have similar functionality to a gateway.
Whereas a firewall is designed to limit traffic to certain services, a guard aims to control the information exchange that the network communication is supporting at the business level. Further, unlike a firewall a guard provides assurance that it is effective in providing this control even under attack and failure conditions.
A guard will typically sit between a protected network and an external network, and ensure the protected network is safe from threats posed by the external network and from leaks of sensitive information to the external network.
A guard is usually dual-homed, though guards can connect more than two networks, and acts as a full application layer proxy, engaging in separate communications on each interface. A guard will pass only the business information carried by the protocols from one network to another, and then only if the information passes configured checks which provide the required protection.
History
The development of guards began in the late 1970s with the creation of several "Secure Communications Processors" and "Guard" applications. The secure communications processors were high assurance operating systems and security kernels developed to support controlled plain-text bypasses for packet network encryption devices. The guard applications were designed to sanitise data being exported from a classified system to remove any sensitive information from it.
The Honeywell Secure Communications Processor (SCOMP) was an early guard platform. This was evaluated against the DoD Computer Security Center Orange Book evaluation criteria at level A1.
The RSRE Secure User Environment (SUE) ran on a PDP-11/34. It was very simple separation kernel designed and constructed by T4 Division of the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) at Malvern, England.
The Advanced Command and Control Architectural Testbed (ACCAT) guard was developed to export email from a classified system through a human review stage.
Later developments of guards addressed the problem of automatic "downgrading" of information exported from a classified system. The Secure Network Server (SNS) Mail Guard (SMG) enforced source/destination address whitelists, security label checks, attachment type filtering and digital signatures to ensure sensitive information is not released
Firewalls were a later development, arriving around 1987. Over time the functionality of firewalls have increased to provide similar capabilities to guards. The main difference remaining is that guards are built in such a way to provide assurance that they are effective at protecting the network and themselves.
The SWIPSY firewall toolkit was developed by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency to act as a general Guard platform. SWIPSY was layered on top of Trusted Solaris 8.
Functionality
Guards were initially designed to control the release of information from classified systems, protecting the confidentiality of the sensitive information handled by the protected system. Since then their scope has been extended to cover controls over the import of data, in order to protect the integrity of information and availability of services in the protected network.
Guards generally provide the following functionality:
source and destination address authentication
source and destination address whitelisting
security label checks against source and destination clearances
data format whitelisting
data format consistency and validity checking
scanning data for known malware
validation of digital signatures
inspection of encrypted content
checking text against a blacklist of phrases
removal of redundant data
generation of logs recording security relevant events
self-test mechanisms
Assurance
Guards are functionally equivalent to a bastion host acting as an application proxy placed within a DMZ network, where the proxy imposes the necessary controls over the data that is exchanged to provide the protection against external threats and internal leaks. But they can be distinguished by the way they are constructed. A DMZ network relies on the outer packet filtering firewalls to route traffic to the bastion host. If the firewalls function incorrectly they may pass traffic through the DMZ without passing through the bastion host, so the checks imposed by the proxies are bypassed. Also, if the networking stack of the bastion host behaves incorrectly it may route traffic through the DMZ without passing through the proxies.
A guard is constructed so the software that needs to function correctly is minimised and that the work needed to demonstrate this to a third party is also minimised. That is, guards are engineered to provide assurance that they apply the appropriate checks.
Guards can use a trusted operating system to separate the security critical checker components from the less critical protocol handling components. In this way failure of the protocol handling components cannot cause data to bypass the checker. For example, Security-Enhanced Linux is used by the Nexor guards and Solaris 10 with Trusted Extensions is used by the Radiant Mercury and the ISSE Guard, and by Deep-Secure. The type enforcement controls developed for the LOCK operating system were used in Sidewinder.
Guards can also use physically separate computers to ensure that critical components are not bypassed.
Products
Government-off-the-shelf products:
Radiant Mercury
ISSE Guard
Commercial-off-the-shelf products:
Rockwell Collins Guards (Rockwell Collins)
Deep-Secure Mail Guard (Deep-Secure)
Nexor CDS (Nexor)
Raytheon High Speed Guard (Raytheon)
SDoT Security Gateway (Infodas)
Standard Automated Guard Environment (SAGE) (BAE Systems)
SyBard::Sentry (QinetiQ)
See also
Data Diode
High Assurance Guard
References
Data security |
35951369 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PureSystems | PureSystems | PureSystems is an IBM product line of factory pre-configured components and servers also being referred to as an "Expert Integrated System". The centrepiece of PureSystems is the IBM Flex System Manager in tandem with the so-called "Patterns of Expertise" for the automated configuration and management of PureSystems.
PureSystems can host four different operating systems (AIX, IBM i, Linux, Windows) and five hypervisors (Hyper-V, KVM, PowerVM, VMware, Xen) on two different instruction set architectures: Power ISA and x86. PureSystems is marketed as a converged system, which packages multiple information technology components into a single product.
Architecture
The architecture itself is called IBM Flex System.
It aims at managing hybrid cloud infrastructure environments "out of the box".
The basic intention is for the combination of integrated hardware and software that can be easily maintained. A similar concept had already been introduced with the IBM AS/400. Today, such systems are called converged systems. More specialized integrated hardware and software are referred to as appliances.
The compute nodes of the server blades can be x86 or Power ISA and they can be used either individually or mixed in the same rack simultaneously, thus offering a hybrid ensemble which borrows from the zEnterprise/zBX ensemble (cf. a gameframe), including its ability to manage a combined physical/virtual hybrid environment from a single console.
PureSystems is shipped with the IBM Flex System Manager. It is an appliance which manages the resources according to the so-called "Patterns of Expertise", which provide field engineers' expertise from decades of system configuration.
These "Patterns of Expertise" offer industry-specific (e.g. banking, insurance, automotive) defaults for the fully automatic and optimal orchestration of resources (e.g. workload balancing). PureApplication uses in conjunction with the IBM System Manager first Flex repeatable software patterns (pattern) and industry-specific processes, which are derived from the year-long collaboration of IBM with their customers and business partners.
Platform
The basic building block of the system is the 10U high Flex Enterprise system chassis with 14 bays in the front for compute nodes ("servers") and storage nodes. Additionally, there are bays in the rear for I/O modules.
A flex-chassis can accommodate up to 14 horizontal compute and storage nodes in the front, and 4 vertically oriented switch modules in the rear. Contrasting to this, the IBM BladeCenter (9U high) has vertically oriented compute nodes ("blades"). This means that the components between the BladeCenter chassis and Flex chassis are not interchangeable.
Based upon the Flex Systems architecture (the components of which are individually available), there are three main products:
PureFlex System (IaaS)
PureApplication System (PaaS)
PureData System (tightly coupled and specialized computer appliance / software appliance)
PureFlex
PureFlex is a factory pre-configured and combined hardware-/software system for IaaS in terms of cloud computing. It combines server, network and storage. IBM PureFlex is available in three configurations: Express, Standard, Enterprise.
PureApplication
PureApplication is a pre-configured platform for platform as a service applications. It is optimized for transaction-oriented web and database applications. PureApplication comes with IBM DB2 database and WebSphere Application Server pre-configured so users can run their applications into a preconfigured middleware engine.
Unlike PureFlex, which is sold by IBM Systems and Technology Group (STG), PureApplication is marketed by the IBM Software Group (SWG).
IBM claims that PureApplication allows for installation (or deployment) of new applications within four hours.
The system's virtual pattern deployers encrypt on-disk data using Security First Corp's SPxBitFiler-IPS encryption technology, which is also licensed by IBM for its Cloud Data Encryption Service (ICDES).
IBM PureApplication System is available in three classes:
W1500-32 and W1500-64, using Intel Xeon E5-2670 processors, housed in a 25U rack
W1500-96 through to W1500-608, using Intel Xeon E5-2670 processors, housed in a 42U rack
W1700-96 through to W1700-608, using IBM POWER7+ processors, housed in a 42U rack
PureData
PureData Systems takes the approach of PureApplication a step further being essentially a tightly coupled and specialized computer appliance and software appliance, the latter supporting both Oracle and DB2. It is thence marketed by the IBM Information Management Software, a brand of IBM Software Group (SWG).
PureData is focused at three main tasks within enterprise computing: business intelligence, near real-time data analysis and online transactional processing.
It comes in four flavours:
PureData Systems for Transactions
PureData Systems for Analytics
PureData Systems for Operational Analytics
PureData Systems for Hadoop
PureData System for Transactions is a highly reliable and scalable database platform. It is aimed at e-commerce [i.e. retail and credit card processing environments) which depends on rapid handling of transactions and interactions. These transactions are small in size, but their sheer volume and frequency require a specialized environment. The new system can provide 5x performance improvement, partly through advances in high performance storage.
PureData System for Analytics builds on Netezza technology and it is aimed at business intelligence that entails huge queries with complex algorithms. It provides a large library of database analytical functions for data warehouse applications, and can scale across the terabyte or petabytes running on the system. It can support extremely high volume high speed analytics for clients (e.g. mobile phone carriers who want to identify potential churn and provide offers to retain customers).
PureData Systems for Operational Analytics is an operational warehouse system which supports real-time decision making. In contrast to PureData System for Analytics, which is aimed at handling large sets of data at a time, PureData for Operational Analytics is more or less a stream computing system that can analyze many small sets of data in real-time while PureData for Analytics will provide analysis only in hindsight, although with large sets of data.
Potential uses of PureData Systems for Operational Analytics are fraud detection or analysis of rapid fluctuations in supply-and-demand cycles.
PureData Systems for Hadoop H 1001 is a standards-based - so-called expert integrated - system which architecturally integrates IBM InfoSphere BigInsights, Hadoop-based software, server (IBM System x), and storage into a single appliance. Moreover, it integrates with IBM DB2, IBM Netezza, IBM PureData System for Analytics, and IBM InfoSphere Guardium.
Hardware
Compute Nodes
Intel based
Compute nodes based on x86 processors from Intel.
x220
Flex System x220 compute node Type 7906
Standard-width compute node
Processors: Xeon E5-2400
x222
Flex System x220 compute node Type 7916
Half-width compute node
Processors: E5-2400
x240
Flex System x240 compute node Type 7162, 8737
Standard-width compute node
Processors: Type 7162: E5-2600 v2; Type 8737: E5-2600 v2 or E5-2600
x240 M5
Flex System x240 M5 compute node Type 9532
Standard-width compute node
Processors: E5-2600 v4
x440
Flex System x440 compute node Type 7167, 7917
Double-width compute node
Processors: Type 7917: Xeon E5-4600; Type 7167: E5-4600 v2
x280 X6, x480 X6, and x880 X6
IBM Flex System x280 X6, x480 X6, and x880 X6 compute nodes Type 7196, 7903
Double-width compute node
Processors:
x280 X6 Type 7903: Xeon E7-2800 v2
x480 X6 Type 7903: Xeon E7-4800 v2; Type 7196: Xeon E7-4800 v3
x880 X6 Type 7903: Xeon E7-8800 v2; Type 7196: Xeon E7-8800 v3
Scalability:
x280 X6: Does not scale
x480 X6: Scales up to 4-socket by adding one x480 Compute Node + 4S scalability kit
x880 X6: Scales up to 4-socket by adding one x880 Compute Node + 4S scalability kit; up to 8-socket by adding three x880 Compute Nodes + 8S scalability kit
Power based
Compute nodes based on Power ISA-based processors from IBM.
p24L
IBM Flex System p24L Compute Node: 1457-7FL
Standard-width compute node
Processors: Two IBM POWER7
16 DIMM sockets
512 GB using 16x 32 GB DIMMs maximum memory size
Two I/O connectors for adapters. PCIe 2.0 x16 interface
p260
IBM Flex System p260 Compute Node: 7895-22X, 23A, and 23X
Standard-width compute node
Processors: Two IBM POWER7 (model 22X) or POWER7+ (models 23A and 23X)
16 DIMM sockets
512 GB using 16x 32 GB DIMMs maximum memory size
Two I/O connectors for adapters. PCIe 2.0 x16 interface
p270
IBM Flex System p270 Compute Node: 7954-24X
Standard-width compute node
Processors: Two IBM POWER7+
16 DIMM sockets
512 GB using 16x 32 GB DIMMs maximum memory size
Two I/O connectors for adapters. PCIe 2.0 x16 interface
p460
IBM Flex System p460 Compute Node: 7895-42X and 43X
Double-width compute node
Processors: Four IBM POWER7 (model 42X) or POWER7+ (model 43X)
32 DIMM sockets
1 TB using 32x 32 GB DIMMs maximum memory size
Four I/O connectors for adapters. PCIe 2.0 x16 interface
Software
Both IBM and its partners provide software which is specifically certified for PureSystems ("Ready for IBM PureSystems ").
Currently, over 125 ISVs have already certified products for PureSystems, and business partners such as system integrators, resellers, distributors, ISVs or MSP can integrate PureSystems into their portfolio.
Miscellaneous
PureSystems was announced April 11, 2012.
It was mainly assembled at IBM Rochester Campus in Rochester, MN.
But on March 6, 2013, IBM decided to shift production of Power Systems, PureSystems and PureFlex Systems servers to Guadalajara, Mexico from Rochester, Minnesota. After 2014, most systems will be assembled in Mexico.
Videos
IBM PureSystems Family Tour with Jason McGee
What are IBM PureApplication Systems? (Part One)
IBM PureSystems Product Family - IBM PureData™ System Overview
IBM PureSystems - PureData System Overview w/Inhi Cho Suh
See also
List of IBM products
IBM AS/400
System p
System x
System z
References
External links
Homepage for PureSystems
Homepage for Smarter Computing
IBM Redbooks: Overview of IBM PureSystems
IBM Redbooks: IBM PureFlex System and IBM Flex System Products & Technology
IBM Redbooks Product Guides
Portal IBM PureSystems Centre
IBM PureSystems - IBM Developerworks
IBM DeveloperWorks: IBM PureSystems & Rational
HRG Assessment: Comparing IBM PureSystems and Cisco UCS by Harvard Research Group
Part I-V: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue Apr, 12 2012 Series of five articles at storageioblog.com
IBM server computers |
35951900 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data%20grid | Data grid | A data grid is an architecture or set of services that gives individuals or groups of users the ability to access, modify and transfer extremely large amounts of geographically distributed data for research purposes. Data grids make this possible through a host of middleware applications and services that pull together data and resources from multiple administrative domains and then present it to users upon request. The data in a data grid can be located at a single site or multiple sites where each site can be its own administrative domain governed by a set of security restrictions as to who may access the data. Likewise, multiple replicas of the data may be distributed throughout the grid outside their original administrative domain and the security restrictions placed on the original data for who may access it must be equally applied to the replicas. Specifically developed data grid middleware is what handles the integration between users and the data they request by controlling access while making it available as efficiently as possible. The adjacent diagram depicts a high level view of a data grid.
Middleware
Middleware provides all the services and applications necessary for efficient management of datasets and files within the data grid while providing users quick access to the datasets and files. There is a number of concepts and tools that must be available to make a data grid operationally viable. However, at the same time not all data grids require the same capabilities and services because of differences in access requirements, security and location of resources in comparison to users. In any case, most data grids will have similar middleware services that provide for a universal name space, data transport service, data access service, data replication and resource management service. When taken together, they are key to the data grids functional capabilities.
Universal namespace
Since sources of data within the data grid will consist of data from multiple separate systems and networks using different file naming conventions, it would be difficult for a user to locate data within the data grid and know they retrieved what they needed based solely on existing physical file names (PFNs). A universal or unified name space makes it possible to create logical file names (LFNs) that can be referenced within the data grid that map to PFNs. When an LFN is requested or queried, all matching PFNs are returned to include possible replicas of the requested data. The end user can then choose from the returned results the most appropriate replica to use. This service is usually provided as part of a management system known as a Storage Resource Broker (SRB). Information about the locations of files and mappings between the LFNs and PFNs may be stored in a metadata or replica catalogue. The replica catalogue would contain information about LFNs that map to multiple replica PFNs.
Data transport service
Another middleware service is that of providing for data transport or data transfer. Data transport will encompass multiple functions that are not just limited to the transfer of bits, to include such items as fault tolerance and data access. Fault tolerance can be achieved in a data grid by providing mechanisms that ensures data transfer will resume after each interruption until all requested data is received. There are multiple possible methods that might be used to include starting the entire transmission over from the beginning of the data to resuming from where the transfer was interrupted. As an example, GridFTP provides for fault tolerance by sending data from the last acknowledged byte without starting the entire transfer from the beginning.
The data transport service also provides for the low-level access and connections between hosts for file transfer. The data transport service may use any number of modes to implement the transfer to include parallel data transfer where two or more data streams are used over the same channel or striped data transfer where two or more steams access different blocks of the file for simultaneous transfer to also using the underlying built-in capabilities of the network hardware or specifically developed protocols to support faster transfer speeds. The data transport service might optionally include a network overlay function to facilitate the routing and transfer of data as well as file I/O functions that allow users to see remote files as if they were local to their system. The data transport service hides the complexity of access and transfer between the different systems to the user so it appears as one unified data source.
Data access service
Data access services work hand in hand with the data transfer service to provide security, access controls and management of any data transfers within the data grid. Security services provide mechanisms for authentication of users to ensure they are properly identified. Common forms of security for authentication can include the use of passwords or Kerberos (protocol). Authorization services are the mechanisms that control what the user is able to access after being identified through authentication. Common forms of authorization mechanisms can be as simple as file permissions. However, need for more stringent controlled access to data is done using Access Control Lists (ACLs), Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Tasked-Based Authorization Controls (TBAC). These types of controls can be used to provide granular access to files to include limits on access times, duration of access to granular controls that determine which files can be read or written to. The final data access service that might be present to protect the confidentiality of the data transport is encryption. The most common form of encryption for this task has been the use of SSL while in transport. While all of these access services operate within the data grid, access services within the various administrative domains that host the datasets will still stay in place to enforce access rules. The data grid access services must be in step with the administrative domains access services for this to work.
Data replication service
To meet the needs for scalability, fast access and user collaboration, most data grids support replication of datasets to points within the distributed storage architecture. The use of replicas allows multiple users faster access to datasets and the preservation of bandwidth since replicas can often be placed strategically close to or within sites where users need them. However, replication of datasets and creation of replicas is bound by the availability of storage within sites and bandwidth between sites. The replication and creation of replica datasets is controlled by a replica management system. The replica management system determines user needs for replicas based on input requests and creates them based on availability of storage and bandwidth. All replicas are then cataloged or added to a directory based on the data grid as to their location for query by users. In order to perform the tasks undertaken by the replica management system, it needs to be able to manage the underlying storage infrastructure. The data management system will also ensure the timely updates of changes to replicas are propagated to all nodes.
Replication update strategy
There are a number of ways the replication management system can handle the updates of replicas. The updates may be designed around a centralized model where a single master replica updates all others, or a decentralized model, where all peers update each other. The topology of node placement may also influence the updates of replicas. If a hierarchy topology is used then updates would flow in a tree like structure through specific paths. In a flat topology it is entirely a matter of the peer relationships between nodes as to how updates take place. In a hybrid topology consisting of both flat and hierarchy topologies updates may take place through specific paths and between peers.
Replication placement strategy
There are a number of ways the replication management system can handle the creation and placement of replicas to best serve the user community. If the storage architecture supports replica placement with sufficient site storage, then it becomes a matter of the needs of the users who access the datasets and a strategy for placement of replicas. There have been numerous strategies proposed and tested on how to best manage replica placement of datasets within the data grid to meet user requirements. There is not one universal strategy that fits every requirement the best. It is a matter of the type of data grid and user community requirements for access that will determine the best strategy to use. Replicas can even be created where the files are encrypted for confidentiality that would be useful in a research project dealing with medical files. The following section contains several strategies for replica placement.
Dynamic replication
Dynamic replication is an approach to placement of replicas based on popularity of the data. The method has been designed around a hierarchical replication model. The data management system keeps track of available storage on all nodes. It also keeps track of requests (hits) for which data clients (users) in a site are requesting. When the number of hits for a specific dataset exceeds the replication threshold it triggers the creation of a replica on the server that directly services the user’s client. If the direct servicing server known as a father does not have sufficient space, then the father’s father in the hierarchy is then the target to receive a replica and so on up the chain until it is exhausted. The data management system algorithm also allows for the dynamic deletion of replicas that have a null access value or a value lower than the frequency of the data to be stored to free up space. This improves system performance in terms of response time, number of replicas and helps load balance across the data grid. This method can also use dynamic algorithms that determine whether the cost of creating the replica is truly worth the expected gains given the location.
Adaptive replication
This method of replication like the one for dynamic replication has been designed around a hierarchical replication model found in most data grids. It works on a similar algorithm to dynamic replication with file access requests being a prime factor in determining which files should be replicated. A key difference, however, is the number and frequency of replica creations is keyed to a dynamic threshold that is computed based on request arrival rates from clients over a period of time. If the number of requests on average exceeds the previous threshold and shows an upward trend, and storage utilization rates indicate capacity to create more replicas, more replicas may be created. As with dynamic replication, the removal of replicas that have a lower threshold that were not created in the current replication interval can be removed to make space for the new replicas.
Fair-share replication
Like the adaptive and dynamic replication methods before, fair-share replication is based on a hierarchical replication model. Also, like the two before, the popularity of files play a key role in determining which files will be replicated. The difference with this method is the placement of the replicas is based on access load and storage load of candidate servers. A candidate server may have sufficient storage space but be servicing many clients for access to stored files. Placing a replicate on this candidate could degrade performance for all clients accessing this candidate server. Therefore, placement of replicas with this method is done by evaluating each candidate node for access load to find a suitable node for the placement of the replica. If all candidate nodes are equivalently rated for access load, none or less accessed than the other, then the candidate node with the lowest storage load will be chosen to host the replicas. Similar methods to the other described replication methods are used to remove unused or lower requested replicates if needed. Replicas that are removed might be moved to a parent node for later reuse should they become popular again.
Other replication
The above three replica strategies are but three of many possible replication strategies that may be used to place replicas within the data grid where they will improve performance and access. Below are some others that have been proposed and tested along with the previously described replication strategies.
Static – uses a fixed replica set of nodes with no dynamic changes to the files being replicated.
Best Client – Each node records number of requests per file received during a preset time interval; if the request number exceeds the set threshold for a file a replica is created on the best client, one that requested the file the most; stale replicas are removed based on another algorithm.
Cascading – Is used in a hierarchical node structure where requests per file received during a preset time interval is compared against a threshold. If the threshold is exceeded a replica is created at the first tier down from the root, if the threshold is exceeded again a replica is added to the next tier down and so on like a waterfall effect until a replica is placed at the client itself.
Plain Caching – If the client requests a file it is stored as a copy on the client.
Caching plus Cascading – Combines two strategies of caching and cascading.
Fast Spread – Also used in a hierarchical node structure this strategy automatically populates all nodes in the path of the client that requests a file.
Tasks scheduling and resource allocation
Such characteristics of the data grid systems as large scale and heterogeneity require specific methods of tasks scheduling and resource allocation. To resolve the problem, majority of systems use extended classic methods of scheduling. Others invite fundamentally different methods based on incentives for autonomous nodes, like virtual money or reputation of a node.
Another specificity of data grids, dynamics, consists in the continuous process of connecting and disconnecting of nodes and local load imbalance during an execution of tasks. That can make obsolete or non-optimal results of initial resource allocation for a task. As a result, much of the data grids utilize execution-time adaptation techniques that permit the systems to reflect to the dynamic changes: balance the load, replace disconnecting nodes, use the profit of newly connected nodes, recover a task execution after faults.
Resource management system (RMS)
The resource management system represents the core functionality of the data grid. It is the heart of the system that manages all actions related to storage resources. In some data grids it may be necessary to create a federated RMS architecture because of different administrative policies and a diversity of possibilities found within the data grid in place of using a single RMS. In such a case the RMSs in the federation will employ an architecture that allows for interoperability based on an agreed upon set of protocols for actions related to storage resources.
RMS functional capabilities
Fulfillment of user and application requests for data resources based on type of request and policies; RMS will be able to support multiple policies and multiple requests concurrently
Scheduling, timing and creation of replicas
Policy and security enforcement within the data grid resources to include authentication, authorization and access
Support systems with different administrative policies to inter-operate while preserving site autonomy
Support quality of service (QoS) when requested if feature available
Enforce system fault tolerance and stability requirements
Manage resources, i.e. disk storage, network bandwidth and any other resources that interact directly or as part of the data grid
Manage trusts concerning resources in administrative domains, some domains may place additional restrictions on how they participate requiring adaptation of the RMS or federation.
Supports adaptability, extensibility, and scalability in relation to the data grid.
Topology
Data grids have been designed with multiple topologies in mind to meet the needs of the scientific community. On the right are four diagrams of various topologies that have been used in data grids. Each topology has a specific purpose in mind for where it will be best utilized. Each of these topologies is further explained below.
Federation topology is the choice for institutions that wish to share data from already existing systems. It allows each institution control over their data. When an institution with proper authorization requests data from another institution it is up to the institution receiving the request to determine if the data will go to the requesting institution. The federation can be loosely integrated between institutions, tightly integrated or a combination of both.
Monadic topology has a central repository that all collected data is fed into. The central repository then responds to all queries for data. There are no replicas in this topology as compared to others. Data is only accessed from the central repository which could be by way of a web portal. One project that uses this data grid topology is the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) in the United States. This works well when all access to the data is local or within a single region with high speed connectivity.
Hierarchical topology lends itself to collaboration where there is a single source for the data and it needs to be distributed to multiple locations around the world. One such project that will benefit from this topology would be CERN that runs the Large Hadron Collider that generates enormous amounts of data. This data is located at one source and needs to be distributed around the world to organizations that are collaborating in the project.
Hybrid Topology is simply a configuration that contains an architecture consisting of any combination of the previous mentioned topologies. It is used mostly in situations where researchers working on projects want to share their results to further research by making it readily available for collaboration.
History
The need for data grids was first recognized by the scientific community concerning climate modeling, where terabyte and petabyte sized data sets were becoming the norm for transport between sites. More recent research requirements for data grids have been driven by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). These examples of scientific instruments produce large amounts of data that need to be accessible by large groups of geographically dispersed researchers. Other uses for data grids involve governments, hospitals, schools and businesses where efforts are taking place to improve services and reduce costs by providing access to dispersed and separate data systems through the use of data grids.
From its earliest beginnings, the concept of a Data Grid to support the scientific community was thought of as a specialized extension of the “grid” which itself was first envisioned as a way to link super computers into meta-computers. However, that was short lived and the grid evolved into meaning the ability to connect computers anywhere on the web to get access to any desired files and resources, similar to the way electricity is delivered over a grid by simply plugging in a device. The device gets electricity through its connection and the connection is not limited to a specific outlet. From this the data grid was proposed as an integrating architecture that would be capable of delivering resources for distributed computations. It would also be able to service numerous to thousands of queries at the same time while delivering gigabytes to terabytes of data for each query. The data grid would include its own management infrastructure capable of managing all aspects of the data grids performance and operation across multiple wide area networks while working within the existing framework known as the web.
The data grid has also been defined more recently in terms of usability; what must a data grid be able to do in order for it to be useful to the scientific community. Proponents of this theory arrived at several criteria. One, users should be able to search and discover applicable resources within the data grid from amongst its many datasets. Two, users should be able to locate datasets within the data grid that are most suitable for their requirement from amongst numerous replicas. Three, users should be able to transfer and move large datasets between points in a short amount of time. Four, the data grid should provide a means to manage multiple copies of datasets within the data grid. And finally, the data grid should provide security with user access controls within the data grid, i.e. which users are allowed to access which data.
The data grid is an evolving technology that continues to change and grow to meet the needs of an expanding community. One of the earliest programs begun to make data grids a reality was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1997 at the University of Chicago. This research spawned by DARPA has continued down the path to creating open source tools that make data grids possible. As new requirements for data grids emerge projects like the Globus Toolkit will emerge or expand to meet the gap. Data grids along with the "Grid" will continue to evolve.
Notes
References
Further reading
Data management |
35954361 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud%20computing%20architecture | Cloud computing architecture | Cloud computing architecture refers to the components and subcomponents required for cloud computing. These components typically consist of a front end platform (fat client, thin client, mobile ),back end platforms (servers, storage), a cloud based delivery, and a network (Internet, Intranet, Intercloud). Combined, these components make up cloud computing architecture.
Client platforms
Cloud computing architectures consist of front-end platforms called clients or cloud clients. These clients are servers, fat (or thick) clients, thin clients, zero clients, tablets and mobile devices that users directly interact with. These client platforms interact with the cloud data storage via an application (middle ware), via a web browser, or through a virtual session. Virtual sessions in particular require secure encryption algorithm frame working which spans the entire interface.
Zero client
The zero or ultra-thin client initializes the network to gather required configuration files that then tell it where its OS binaries are stored. The entire zero client device runs via the network. This creates a single point of failure, in that, if the network goes down, the device is rendered useless.
Storage
An online network storage where data is stored and accessible to multiple clients. Cloud storage is generally deployed in the following configurations: public cloud, private cloud, community cloud, or some combination of the three also known as hybrid cloud.
In order to be effective, the cloud storage needs to be agile, flexible, scalable, multi-tenancy, and secure.
Delivery
Software as a service (SaaS)
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) service-model involves the cloud provider installing and maintaining software in the cloud and users running the software from cloud over the Internet (or Intranet). The users' client machines require no installation of any application-specific software since cloud applications run in the cloud. SaaS is scalable, and system administrators may load the applications on several servers. In the past, each customer would purchase and load their own copy of the application to each of their own servers, but with the SaaS the customer can access the application without installing the software locally. SaaS typically involves a monthly or annual fee.
Software as a service provides the equivalent of installed applications in the traditional (non-cloud computing) delivery of applications.
Software as a service has four common approaches:
single instance
multi-instance
multi-tenant
flex tenancy
Of these, flex tenancy is considered the most user adaptive SaaS paradigm in designated multi-input four way manifold models. Such systems are based on simplified encryption methods that target listed data sequences over multiple passes. The simplicity of this concept makes flex tenancy SaaS popular among those without informatics processing experience, such as basic maintenance and custodial staff in franchise businesses.
Development as a service (DaaS)
Development as a service is web based, community shared tool set. This is the equivalent to locally installed development tools in the traditional (non-cloud computing) delivery of development tools.
Data as a service (DaaS)
Data as a service is web based design construct where cloud data is accessed through a defined API layer. DaaS services are often considered as a specialized subset of a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering.
Platform as a service (PaaS)
Platform as a service is cloud computing service which provides the users with application platforms and databases as a service. This is equivalent to middleware in the traditional (non-cloud computing) delivery of application platforms and databases.
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
Infrastructure as a service is taking the physical hardware and going completely virtual (e.g. all servers, networks, storage, and system management all existing in the cloud). This is the equivalent to infrastructure and hardware in the traditional (non-cloud computing) method running in the cloud. In other words, businesses pay a fee (monthly or annually) to run virtual servers, networks, storage from the cloud. This will mitigate the need for a data center, heating, cooling, and maintaining hardware at the local level.
Networking
Generally, the cloud network layer should offer:
High bandwidth and low latency
Allowing users to have uninterrupted access to their data and applications.
Agile network
On-demand access to resources requires the ability to move quickly and efficiently between servers and possibly even clouds.
Network security
Security is always important, but when you are dealing with multi-tenancy, it becomes much more important because you're dealing with segregating multiple customers.
See also
Cloud collaboration
Cloud computing
Cloud computing comparison
Cloud database
Cloud storage
Further reading
Reese, G. (2009). Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, Inc. (2009).
Rhoton, J. and Haukioja, R. (2011). Cloud Computing Architected: Solution Design Handbook. Recursive Limited, 2011. .
Shroff, Dr. Gautam. Enterprise Cloud Computing: Technology, Architecture, Applications.
References
Cloud computing |
35962585 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame%20%28malware%29 | Flame (malware) | Flame, also known as Flamer, sKyWIper, and Skywiper, is modular computer malware discovered in 2012 that attacks computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. The program is used for targeted cyber espionage in Middle Eastern countries.
Its discovery was announced on 28 May 2012 by the MAHER Center of the Iranian National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), Kaspersky Lab and CrySyS Lab of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. The last of these stated in its report that Flame "is certainly the most sophisticated malware we encountered during our practice; arguably, it is the most complex malware ever found." Flame can spread to other systems over a local network (LAN). It can record audio, screenshots, keyboard activity and network traffic. The program also records Skype conversations and can turn infected computers into Bluetooth beacons which attempt to download contact information from nearby Bluetooth-enabled devices. This data, along with locally stored documents, is sent on to one of several command and control servers that are scattered around the world. The program then awaits further instructions from these servers.
According to estimates by Kaspersky in May 2012, Flame had initially infected approximately 1,000 machines, with victims including governmental organizations, educational institutions and private individuals. At that time 65% of the infections happened in Iran, Israel, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, with a "huge majority of targets" within Iran. Flame has also been reported in Europe and North America. Flame supports a "kill" command which wipes all traces of the malware from the computer. The initial infections of Flame stopped operating after its public exposure, and the "kill" command was sent.
Flame is linked to the Equation Group by Kaspersky Lab. However, Costin Raiu, the director of Kaspersky Lab's global research and analysis team, believes the group only cooperates with the creators of Flame and Stuxnet from a position of superiority: "Equation Group are definitely the masters, and they are giving the others, maybe, bread crumbs. From time to time they are giving them some goodies to integrate into Stuxnet and Flame."
In 2019, researchers Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade and Silas Cutler announced their discovery of the resurgence of Flame. The attackers used 'timestomping' to make the new samples look like they were created before the 'suicide' command. However, a compilation error included the real compilation date (circa 2014). The new version (dubbed 'Flame 2.0' by the researchers) includes new encryption and obfuscation mechanisms to hide its functionality.
History
Flame (a.k.a. Da Flame) was identified in May 2012 by the MAHER Center of the Iranian National CERT, Kaspersky Lab and CrySyS Lab (Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security) of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics when Kaspersky Lab was asked by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union to investigate reports of a virus affecting Iranian Oil Ministry computers. As Kaspersky Lab investigated, they discovered an MD5 hash and filename that appeared only on customer machines from Middle Eastern nations. After discovering more pieces, researchers dubbed the program "Flame" after one of the main modules inside the toolkit .
According to Kaspersky, Flame had been operating in the wild since at least February 2010. CrySyS Lab reported that the file name of the main component was observed as early as December 2007. However, its creation date could not be determined directly, as the creation dates for the malware's modules are falsely set to dates as early as 1994.
Computer experts consider it the cause of an attack in April 2012 that caused Iranian officials to disconnect their oil terminals from the Internet. At the time the Iranian Students News Agency referred to the malware that caused the attack as "Wiper", a name given to it by the malware's creator. However, Kaspersky Lab believes that Flame may be "a separate infection entirely" from the Wiper malware. Due to the size and complexity of the program—described as "twenty times" more complicated than Stuxnet—the Lab stated that a full analysis could require as long as ten years.
On 28 May, Iran's CERT announced that it had developed a detection program and a removal tool for Flame, and had been distributing these to "select organizations" for several weeks. After Flame's exposure in news media, Symantec reported on 8 June that some Flame command and control (C&C) computers had sent a "suicide" command to infected PCs to remove all traces of Flame.
According to estimates by Kaspersky in May 2012, initially Flame had infected approximately 1,000 machines, with victims including governmental organizations, educational institutions and private individuals. At that time the countries most affected were Iran, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
A sample of the Flame malware is available at GitHub
Operation
Flame is an uncharacteristically large program for malware at 20 megabytes. It is written partly in the Lua scripting language with compiled C++ code linked in, and allows other attack modules to be loaded after initial infection. The malware uses five different encryption methods and an SQLite database to store structured information. The method used to inject code into various processes is stealthy, in that the malware modules do not appear in a listing of the modules loaded into a process and malware memory pages are protected with READ, WRITE and EXECUTE permissions that make them inaccessible by user-mode applications. The internal code has few similarities with other malware, but exploits two of the same security vulnerabilities used previously by Stuxnet to infect systems. The malware determines what antivirus software is installed, then customises its own behaviour (for example, by changing the filename extensions it uses) to reduce the probability of detection by that software. Additional indicators of compromise include mutex and registry activity, such as installation of a fake audio driver which the malware uses to maintain persistence on the compromised system.
Flame is not designed to deactivate automatically, but supports a "kill" function that makes it eliminate all traces of its files and operation from a system on receipt of a module from its controllers.
Flame was signed with a fraudulent certificate purportedly from the Microsoft Enforced Licensing Intermediate PCA certificate authority. The malware authors identified a Microsoft Terminal Server Licensing Service certificate that inadvertently was enabled for code signing and that still used the weak MD5 hashing algorithm, then produced a counterfeit copy of the certificate that they used to sign some components of the malware to make them appear to have originated from Microsoft. A successful collision attack against a certificate was previously demonstrated in 2008,
but Flame implemented a new variation of the chosen-prefix collision attack.
Deployment
Like the previously known cyber weapons Stuxnet and Duqu, it is employed in a targeted manner and can evade current security software through rootkit functionality. Once a system is infected, Flame can spread to other systems over a local network or via USB stick. It can record audio, screenshots, keyboard activity and network traffic. The program also records Skype conversations and can turn infected computers into Bluetooth beacons which attempt to download contact information from nearby Bluetooth enabled devices. This data, along with locally stored documents, is sent on to one of several command and control servers that are scattered around the world. The program then awaits further instructions from these servers.
Unlike Stuxnet, which was designed to sabotage an industrial process, Flame appears to have been written purely for espionage. It does not appear to target a particular industry, but rather is "a complete attack toolkit designed for general cyber-espionage purposes".
Using a technique known as sinkholing, Kaspersky demonstrated that "a huge majority of targets" were within Iran, with the attackers particularly seeking AutoCAD drawings, PDFs, and text files. Computing experts said that the program appeared to be gathering technical diagrams for intelligence purposes.
A network of 80 servers across Asia, Europe and North America has been used to access the infected machines remotely.
Origin
On 19 June 2012, The Washington Post published an article claiming that Flame was jointly developed by the U.S. National Security Agency, CIA and Israel's military at least five years prior. The project was said to be part of a classified effort code-named Olympic Games, which was intended to collect intelligence in preparation for a cyber-sabotage campaign aimed at slowing Iranian nuclear efforts.
According to Kaspersky's chief malware expert, "the geography of the targets and also the complexity of the threat leaves no doubt about it being a nation-state that sponsored the research that went into it." Kaspersky initially said that the malware bears no resemblance to Stuxnet, although it may have been a parallel project commissioned by the same attackers.
After analysing the code further, Kaspersky later said that there is a strong relationship between Flame and Stuxnet; the early version of Stuxnet contained code to propagate via USB drives that is nearly identical to a Flame module that exploits the same zero-day vulnerability.
Iran's CERT described the malware's encryption as having "a special pattern which you only see coming from Israel". The Daily Telegraph reported that due to Flame's apparent targets—which included Iran, Syria, and the West Bank—Israel became "many commentators' prime suspect". Other commentators named China and the U.S. as possible perpetrators. Richard Silverstein, a commentator critical of Israeli policies, claimed that he had confirmed with a "senior Israeli source" that the malware was created by Israeli computer experts. The Jerusalem Post wrote that Israel's Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon appeared to have hinted that his government was responsible, but an Israeli spokesperson later denied that this had been implied. Unnamed Israeli security officials suggested that the infected machines found in Israel may imply that the virus could be traced to the U.S. or other Western nations. The U.S. has officially denied responsibility.
A leaked NSA document mentions that dealing with Iran's discovery of FLAME is an NSA and GCHQ jointly-worked event.
See also
Cyber electronic warfare
Cyber security standards
Cyberterrorism
Operation High Roller
Notes
References
2012 in computing
Rootkits
Privilege escalation exploits
Cryptographic attacks
Cyberwarfare
Espionage scandals and incidents
Exploit-based worms
Cyberwarfare in Iran
Cyberattacks on energy sector
Spyware
Hacking in the 2010s |
35974492 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/329th%20Armament%20Systems%20Group | 329th Armament Systems Group | The 329th Armament Systems Group is an inactive United States Air Force unit, last assigned to the Air Armament Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. It was inactivated in 2007.
The group was first activated in July 1942 as the 329th Fighter Group. It acted as an Operational Training Unit for fighter units and as a Replacement Training Unit for Lockheed P-38 Lightning pilots deploying to overseas theaters until 1944, when it was disbanded in a major reorganization of the Army Air Forces training units.
The group was activated again as part of Project Arrow, a program by Air Defense Command (ADC) to revive World War II fighter units to replace its Air Defense Groups. It was inactivated in 1959 when ADC realigned its fighter force.
The Air Armament Systems Group was activated in 2005 as part of the Air Force Materiel Command Transformation, in which Air Force Materiel Command replaced its traditional directorates with wings, groups, and squadrons. The following year it was consolidated with the 329th Group as the 329th Armament Systems Group. It was inactivated in 2007 when the Air Armament Center combined its units into the 308th Armament Systems Wing.
History
World War II
The group was activated at Hamilton Field in June 1942 under Fourth Air Force as the 329th Fighter Group, with the 330th, 331st, and 332d Fighter Squadrons assigned. Four days after its activation, the group moved to Paine Field, Washington. The group initially acted as an Operational Training Unit (OTU). The OTU program involved establishing an oversized parent unit which would provide cadres to organize "satellite groups." The group also served as a Replacement Training Unit, training Lockheed P-38 Lightning pilots in the final phases of fighter pilot training before shipping overseas.
In September 1942 the group headquarters moved to Grand Central Air Terminal, California along with the 330th Squadron, while the 331st Squadron moved to Inglewood, California, and the 332d to Santa Ana Army Air Base. From this time until it was disbanded, the group's squadrons would be dispersed over several bases in California and Washington. November 1942 saw another shuffle of squadrons as the 331st moved to Van Nuys Army Air Field. The group was expanded the same month when it was joined by the 337th Fighter Squadron. The 337th returned to the United States from Iceland, where its place was taken by the 50th Fighter Squadron. It took the place of the 330th at Grand Central. The 330th moved to Lindbergh Field, where it assumed an air defense mission in 1943. Most of the group eventually found itself at Ontario Army Air Field, California. The 331st and 337th Squadrons moved there in December 1943, and were joined by group headquarters in February 1944.
The group was disbanded in 1944 and its personnel and equipment at Ontario were transferred to the 442d AAF Base Unit (Replacement Training Unit, Fighter) as part of an Army Air Forces (AAF) reorganization in which units not programmed to deploy overseas were replaced by AAF Base Units in order to free up manpower for overseas assignment because standard military units, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were not proving well adapted to the training mission. Accordingly, a more functional system was adopted in which each AAF base was organized into a separate numbered unit.
Cold War
The group was reconstituted in 1955 as the 329th Fighter Group (Air Defense) and activated by Air Defense Command (ADC) as part of Project Arrow, which was designed to bring back on the active list fighter units which had compiled memorable records in the two world wars. The group replaced the 4700th Air Defense Group at Stewart Air Force Base and absorbed the 4700th's personnel and equipment. The 330th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was reassigned to the 329th, and the 331st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron replaced the 539th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, which moved to McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, since another purpose of Project Arrow was to reunite fighter groups with their traditional squadrons. The group was tasked with air defense in the northeastern United States, flying radar equipped and Mighty Mouse rocket armed North American F-86D Sabres. The group also served as the host organization for all USAF units stationed at Stewart and was assigned a number of support organizations to fulfil this mission.
In December 1956, both of the group's squadrons began to receive upgraded Sabres equipped with data link communications equipment to interface with the Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) air defense system. The group was reduced to a single operational squadron in August 1958, when the 331st Squadron moved to Webb Air Force Base, Texas and was reassigned. In July of the following year, its remaining operational squadron was inactivated and the group followed the next month and its support functions at Stewart were assumed by the 4603d Air Base Group.
Armament systems development
In 2005, the Air Combat Support Systems Group was established as a systems development unit at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida as part of the Air Force Materiel Command Transformation, which replaced traditional program offices with named wings, groups, and squadrons. In May 2006, this named group was consolidated with the 329th Group and on 15 May became the 329th Armament Systems Group. Its subordinate squadrons were simultaneously given numbers to replace their previous squadron names.
The 329th Armament Systems Group was responsible for developing air combat test and training systems, expeditionary support equipment, munitions handling equipment and armament subsystems, explosive ordnance disposal support equipment, and realistic electronic warfare threat simulators for the United States and allied forces worldwide. In 2007 it began a study to develop a common instrumentation system for all Department of Defense ranges to ease the transfer of information among ranges, increase instrumentation accuracy and data transfer rates, and improve the encryption of transferred data.
The group was inactivated in September 2007, when the Air Armament Center combined its armament systems units into the 308th Armament Systems Wing.
Lineage
329th Fighter Group
Constituted as 329th Fighter Group on 24 June 1942
Activated on 10 July 1942
Redesignated 329th Fighter Group (Twin Engine) on 17 September 1942
Disbanded on 31 March 1944.
Redesignated 329th Fighter Group (Air Defense), on 20 June 1955
Activated on 18 August 1955
Inactivated on 1 August 1959.
Redesignated 329th Tactical Fighter Group on 31 July 1985 (remained inactive)
Consolidated with Air Combat Support Systems Group as Air Combat Support Systems Group on 3 May 2006
Air Combat Support Systems Group
Constituted as Air Combat Support Systems Group on 23 November 2004
Activated on 27 January 2005
Consolidated with 329th Fighter Group (Air Defense) on 3 May 2006
Redesignated 329th Armament Systems Group on 15 May 2006
Inactivated on 7 September 2007
Assignments
IV Fighter Command, 10 July 1942
Los Angeles Air Defense Wing (later Los Angeles Fighter Wing), 12 April 1943
Fourth Air Force, 1 March 1944 – 31 March 1944
4707th Air Defense Wing, 18 August 1955
4622d Air Defense Wing (later Boston Air Defense Sector), 18 October 1956 – 1 August 1959
Air Armament Center, 27 January 2005 – 7 September 2007
Stations
Hamilton Field, California, 10 July 1942
Paine Field, Washington, 14 July 1942
Grand Central Airport, California, 11 September 1942
Ontario Army Airfield, California, 27 February – 31 March 1944
Stewart Air Force Base, New York, 18 August 1955 – 1 August 1959
Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, 27 January 2005 – 7 September 2007
Components
Operational Squadrons
330th Fighter Squadron (later 330th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron): 10 July 1942 – 31 March 1944, 18 August 1955 – 1 July 1959
331st Fighter Squadron (later 331st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron): 10 July 1942 – 31 March 1944, 18 August 1955 – 15 August 1958
332d Fighter Squadron: 10 July 1942 – 31 March 1944
337th Fighter Squadron: 26 November 1942 – 31 March 1944
Support Units
329th USAF Infirmary (later 329th USAF Dispensary), 18 August 1955 – 1 August 1959
329th Air Base Squadron, 18 August 1955 – 1 August 1959
329th Consolidated Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, 8 July 1957 – 1 August 1959
329th Materiel Squadron, 18 August 1955 – 1 August 1959
Systems Squadrons
Agile Combat Support Systems Squadron (later 688th Armament Systems Squadron), 27 January 2005 – 7 September 2007
Sensors, Data Link, & Ground Stations Systems Squadron (later 689th Armament Systems Squadron), 27 January 2005 – 7 September 2007
Aircraft
Lockheed P-38 Lightning, 1942–1944
North American F-86D Sabre, 1955–1959
North American F-86L Sabre, 1956–1959
Campaigns
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Buss, Lydus H.(ed), Sturm, Thomas A., Volan, Denys, and McMullen, Richard F., History of Continental Air Defense Command and Air Defense Command July to December 1955, Directorate of Historical Services, Air Defense Command, Ent AFB, CO, (1956)
External links
Armament systems units of the United States Air Force
1942 establishments in the United States |
35997845 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password%20bank | Password bank | A password bank is software that secures a place for web users to store unlimited passwords and user names. The program integrates voice biometric authentication (speaker recognition) with a minimum of three layers of data encryption. A password bank should not be confused with a password manager, which typically encrypts data (passwords), but utilizes a different mechanism than voice biometric for authentication.
Origins of password banks
The average web user needs to remember 6.5 passwords, leaving many users to try to cut corners. The challenge in remembering all of these passwords tends to invoke one of two actions: changing passwords on a regular basis or using a single password for all websites. With the latter, an attacker would only need to break one password to harvest an individual's entire online identity. Password cracking is an issue professional organizations are protecting themselves against.
In June 2011, the storage service Drop Box failed to protect password authentication for a period of four hours, exposing the files of 25 million users. The Ponemon Institute surveyed 830 information technology, security, and compliance professionals. Over half of them cited emails as the main cause of data leaks.
As a result, industry experts continue to seek out alternatives to standard passphrase authentication systems. Opus Senior Analyst Researcher Dan Miller said that “Voice biometrics strikes the right balance between strong authentication and usability.” Opus Research in connection with ValidSoft concluded that “the conditions are ripe for the emergence of voice biometrics as the dominant means of authentication, particularly for financial transactions. The key drivers are the growth of mobile banking and e-finance together with the intrinsic lack of security on mobile devices. A secure means of authenticating mobile devices is an increasing necessity.”
Vulnerabilities
Critics of voice biometrics have identified duplication as its biggest challenge. The prevalent risk of someone copying an individual's voice has slowed down the integration of biometrics into data security systems. A password bank works around this pitfall by implementing a process known as random phrasology.
Each human voice is unique and consists of over 2000 biometric parameters. Voice biometric software records the highly specific timber of each voice and creates a unique and proprietary log in as authentication. Each time a user attempts to log in, they are prompted to read a random phrase. A password bank has a minimum of 100 phrases built into its software. Users are granted three opportunities to read the phrase accurately. If the sentence is read properly and the voice parameters (timber) match the attempted user's pre-recorded voice, they will then be logged in.
In terms of duplication probability, there is a less than one per cent chance that a copied voice could match the random phrase.
Encryption
A password bank differs from a password manager in that the encryption mechanism to secure data (passwords) includes three layers of different encryption families. In addition, data is encrypted within private clouds as well as along public clouds (between mobile devices and PCs.)
Data stored in secure private corporate clouds is referred to as “rested.” Data shared between two independent devices is considered to be “in motion.” The distinction represents a significant shift in communication as data is sent and shared from remote locations.
Modular approach
Password banks utilize a modular approach when designing data security systems. Software utilizing modular programming divides mechanisms such as authentication and authorization into separate components, allowing each part to be removed or reconfigured with ease.
Password banks are built on the premise that solid security (voice biometric authentication and three layered encryption) will not interfere with ease of use.
References
External links
An Exploration of Voice Biometrics
Identity management
Password managers |
36017435 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous%20blog | Anonymous blog | An anonymous blog is a blog without any acknowledged author or contributor. Anonymous bloggers may achieve anonymity through the simple use of a pseudonym, or through more sophisticated techniques such as layered encryption routing, manipulation of post dates, or posting only from publicly accessible computers. Motivations for posting anonymously include a desire for privacy or fear of retribution by an employer (e.g., in whistleblower cases), a government (in countries that monitor or censor online communication), or another group.
Deanonymizing techniques
Fundamentally, deanonymization can be divided into two categories:
Social correlation compares known details about a person's life with the contents of an anonymous blog to look for similarities. If the author does not attempt to conceal their identity, social correlation is a very straightforward procedure: a simple correlation between the "anonymous" blogger's name, profession, lifestyle, etc., and the known person. Even if an author generally attempts to conceal their identity (by not providing their name, location, etc.), the blog can be deanonymized by correlating seemingly innocuous, general details.
Technical identification determines the author's identity through the blog's technical details. In extreme cases, technical identification entails looking at the server logs, the Internet provider logs, and payment information associated with the domain name.
These techniques may be used together. The order of techniques employed typically escalates from the social correlation techniques, which do not require the compliance of any outside authorities (e.g., Internet providers, server providers, etc.), to more technical identification.
Types
Just as a blog can be on any subject, so can an anonymous blog. Most fall into the following major categories:
Political: A commentary on the political situation within a country, where being open may risk prosecution. Anonymous blogging can also add power to a political debate, such as in 2008 when blogger Eduwonkette, later revealed as Columbia University sociology graduate student Jennifer Jennings, successfully questioned New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's takeover of New York schools.
Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary: These can either be inspiring activity or counter activity, often against a violent state apparatus. For example, Salam Pax, the Baghdad blogger, wrote for The Guardian newspaper under a pseudonym that he could shed only when Saddam Hussein no longer ruled in Iraq. Similar bloggers appeared during the Arab Spring.
Dissident: Dissident blogs may document life under an oppressive or secretive regime, while not actively promoting or inspiring revolutionary or counter-revolutionary action. Mosul Eye, which has described life under ISIL occupation in Mosul, Iraq, has been called one of the few reliable sources of information on life inside the city since it began in June 2014.
Religious: Views and comments about religious view points and issues, perhaps questioning some written standpoints.
Whistleblower: The whistleblower blog is a modern-day twist on the classical "insider spotting illegality" theme. This can cover all sectors or issues. Among the most notable is that by the Irish Red Cross head of the international department Noel Wardick, who highlighted that €162,000 in donations to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami had sat in an account for over three years. After spending over €140,000 on private investigators and legal expenses to find the whistle blower, including court orders to obtain Wardick's identity from UPC and Google, the IRC disciplined and later dismissed Wardick. In 2010, an internal enquiry into Wardick's allegations found other such bank accounts, and proposals to overhaul the IRC's management were discussed in the Dáil on 15 December. Questions were answered by Tony Killeen, then the Minister of Defence. Wardick later successfully sued the IRC for unfair dismissal.
Company insider: A company employee or insider reports on company operations and issues from within the organisation. The most famous is probably the Dooce.com blogger Heather Armstrong, who was fired for writing satirical accounts of her experiences at a dot-com startup on her personal blog, dooce.com.
Community pressure: Written by a citizen of an area, on a particular subject, to bring about a change. In 2007, reporter and blogger Mike Stark came out in support of anonymous blogger Spocko, who was trying to bring what he called "violent commentary" on San Francisco area radio station KSFO to the attention of its advertisers.
Experience/Customer Service: Most experience blogs focus on personal insights or views of customer service, frequently with dissatisfaction. Most anonymous experience blogs are written anonymously as they allow the customer/user to keep experiencing and using the service, and reporting/blogging, while nudging at a defined and appropriate level against the target organisation. Among these are Sarah Wu's/Mrs Q. "Fed Up With Lunch" blog, a chronicle of her experience as an adult eating Chicago area high school lunch every day for a year, which has now been turned into a book.
Personal: The personal blog strays into personal life in ways that allow more risk taking and open in terms of detail. Hence, many of these blogs are sexual in nature, although many also exist for those with health problems and disabilities and how they see the world and cope with its challenges. Some of the latest personal blogs are seen by many as extended group therapy, covering issues including weight loss.
Recently, anonymous blogging has moved into a more aggressive and active style, with organized crime groups such as the Mafia using anonymous blogs against mayors and local administrators in Italy.
How online identity is determined
IP addresses
An IP address is a unique numerical label assigned to a computer connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. The most popular implementation of the Internet Protocol would be the Internet (capitalized, to differentiate it from smaller internetworks). Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are allocated chunks of IP addresses by a Regional Internet registry, which they then assign to customers. However, ISPs do not have enough addresses to give the customers their own address. Instead, DHCP is used; a customer's device (typically a modem or router) is assigned an IP address from a pool of available addresses. It keeps that address for a certain amount of time (e.g., two weeks). If the device is still active at the end of the lease, it can renew its connection and keep the same IP address. Otherwise, the IP address is collected and added to the pool to be redistributed. Thus, IP addresses provide regional information (through Regional Internet registries) and, if the ISP has logs, specific customer information. While this does not prove that a specific person was the originator of a blog post (it could have been someone else using that customer's Internet, after all), it provides powerful circumstantial evidence.
Word and character frequency analysis
Character frequency analysis takes advantage of the fact that all individuals have a different vocabulary: if there is a large body of data that can be tied to an individual (for example, a public figure with an official blog), statistical analysis can be applied to both this body of data and an anonymous blog to see how similar they are. In this way, anonymous bloggers can tentatively be deanonymized.
See also
Anonymous P2P
Anonymous web browsing
List of anonymously published works
Citizen journalism
Mix network
Anonymous remailer
Tor (anonymity network)
I2P
References
External links
Computer Law and Security Report Volume 22 Issue 2, Pages 127-136 blogs, Lies and the Doocing by Sylvia Kierkegaard (2006)
Legal Guide for bloggers by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Blog Personal
Blogging
Internet terminology
Non-fiction genres
Internet privacy
Anonymity |
36025084 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacKeeper | MacKeeper | MacKeeper is utility software distributed by Clario Tech Limited. MacKeepers was developed by ZeoBIT and is presently distributed by Clario Tech. The first beta version was released on 13 May 2010. It is designed to operate on computers running macOS. Versions 1.0 and 2.0 received mixed reviews, while the 3.0 version released in 2015 was reviewed mostly negatively and according to MacWorld was difficult to uninstall. The latest 5.0 version was released in 2020 after Clario Tech acquired Kromtech’s MacKeeper in 2019 and relaunched the software.
History
MacKeeper was initially developed in 2009 by Ukrainian programmers in Zeobit. The first beta version, MacKeeper 0.8, was released on 13 May 2010. MacKeeper 1.0 was released on October 26, 2010. MacKeeper 2.0 was released on 30 January 2012 at Macworld – iWorld with an expanded number of utilities related to security, data control, cleaning and optimization. Kromtech Alliance acquired MacKeeper from Zeobit in April 2013. MacKeeper 3.0 was released in June 2014 as software as a service with a new "human expert" feature and optimization with OS X Yosemite. In July 2018, MacKeeper 4.0 was released.
In April 2013, Zeobit sold MacKeeper to Kromtech Alliance Corp. Kromtech was closely affiliated with Zeobit in Ukraine and hired many former Kyiv-based Zeobit employees. In December 2015 security researcher Chris Vickery discovered a publicly accessible database of 21GB of MacKeeper user data on the internet, exposing the usernames, passwords and other information of over 13 million MacKeeper users. According to Kromtech, this was the result of a "server misconfiguration" and the error was "fixed within hours of the discovery".
In 2019 Clario acquired the IP and human capital of Kromtech, including all of Mackeeper.
, five major versions of MacKeeper had been released.
Features
It integrates Avira's anti-malware scanning engine, but some versions opened a critical security hole. The filesystem-level encryption tool can encrypt files or folders with a password. The data recovery utility permits users to recover unintentionally deleted files. A backup software is also included, which can copy files to a USB flash drive, External HDD or FTP server. The data erasure permits users to permanently delete files although PC World argues that this feature duplicates the secure empty trash feature formerly built into macOS. The disk cleaner finds and removes junk files on the hard drive in order to free up space.
Reception
Version 1.0 and 2.0
The earlier bundles received mixed reviews, with reviewers being divided as to the effectiveness of the software. Macworld gave MacKeeper 3.5 out of 5 stars in August 2010, based on the 0.9.6 build of the program, and found it a reasonably priced set of tools but experienced lagging while switching between tools. MacLife rated it at 2.5 out of 5 and said it to be useful mainly for freeing up drive space, but found other features offered inconsistent results and believed most users won’t need its antivirus feature. AV-Comparatives found that MacKeeper had an excellent ability to detect Mac-based malware. They noted that it was "very well suited to enthusiasts who have a good understanding of security issues, but not ideal for non-expert users who need pre-configured optimal security for their Macs." Zeobit claims that negative attacks were launched against MacKeeper by an unnamed competitor, and that many users and press were confusing MacKeeper with another application.
Version 3.0
Reviews of the latest software version have been largely negative. A May 2015 test by PC World found that MacKeeper identified the need for extensive corrections on brand new fully patched machines. In December 2015, Business Insider and iMore suggested users avoid the product and not install it. Top Ten Reviews has removed MacKeeper from its top 10 ranking noting that the software had more features than its competitors but its performance in Mac malware identification tests showed other software had better detection rates, resulting in a score of 7.5 out of 10. A July 2017 AV-TEST assessment found MacKeeper only detected 85.9 percent of the tested malware.
MacKeeper has been criticized for being very difficult to uninstall; according to MacWorld, people frequently ask how they can get rid of MacKeeper. Both Tom's Guide and MacWorld have published how-to guides for deleting the software. MacWorld observed that aggressive MacKeeper advertising leads people to believe that the software is either malware or a scam, when it is neither; MacWorld also notes that some pop-up and pop-under ads may be due to third-party installers. Computerworld described MacKeeper as "a virulent piece of software that promises to cure all your Mac woes, but instead just makes things much worse".
Version 4.0
MacKeeper 4.0 was released in July 2018. It included such improvements as anti-tracking, macOS VPN and a combination of security, privacy, and anti-fraud technologies.
Version 5.0
MacKeeper 5.0., released in November 2020, was notarized by Apple and AV-tested.
According to Macobserver the new version with security certifications is allowed a low-level system privilege on Mac hardware. TechRadar rated Mackeeper 5.0. as a product with "a decent level of protection and performance optimization features".
MacKeeper 5.0. has the following major tools:
Find & Fix - one-click scan to review Mac status
Antivirus with real-time protection
ID Theft Guard which detects data breaches and password leaks
StopAd to block ads at Chrome and Safari
Safe Cleanup to detect and remove unneeded attachments and files
Duplicates Finder to spot duplicate files and sort similar photos or screenshots
VPN
Marketing techniques
Multiple reviewers have criticized Zeobit's marketing and promotional techniques. Kromtech buys upwards of 60 million ad impressions a month, making it one of the largest buyers of web traffic aimed at Mac users. Zeobit has been accused of employing misleading advertising with regard to its promotion of MacKeeper, including aggressive affiliate marketing, pop-under ads and planting sockpuppet reviews as well as websites set up to discredit their competitors. Kromtech has also had issues with affiliate advertisers, attracted by the 50 percent commissions Kromtech pays for sales of MacKeeper, who have wrapped MacKeeper ads into adware.
In 2018, Kromtech began to take steps against affiliate marketers it said were scamming users. The company recovered after changing the management.
Lawsuits
In January 2014, a class action lawsuit was filed against Zeobit in Illinois. The lawsuit alleged that "neither the free trial nor the full registered versions of MacKeeper performed any credible diagnostic testing" and reported that a consumer's Mac was in need of repair and was at-risk due to harmful error. In May 2014 a lawsuit was filed against Zeobit in Pennsylvania, alleging that MacKeeper fakes security problems to deceive victims into paying for unneeded fixes. On 10 August 2015, Zeobit settled a class action lawsuit against it for . Customers who bought MacKeeper before 8 July 2015 can apply to get a refund.
Kromtech also filed at least two unsuccessful lawsuits against those it perceives are defaming them. In July 2013 Kromtech filed a lawsuit against Macpaw, the developers of CleanMyMac. Kromtech alleged that Macpaw employees created several usernames and posts on several websites defaming the MacKeeper software. The case was dismissed before the hearing. A year later, in 2014, Kromtech again filed a lawsuit against David A. Cox alleging that he defamed Kromtech by calling MacKeeper a fraudulent application in a YouTube video. The judge dismissed the case for lack of personal jurisdiction. In July 2016, Kromtech sent a cease and desist letter to Luqman Wadood, a 14-year old technology reviewer for alleged harassment and slander of the MacKeeper brand in a number of YouTube videos. Luqman said the videos were diplomatic.
See also
Comparison of antivirus software
Comparison of firewalls
Internet Security
References
Antivirus software
Proprietary software
MacOS-only software
Utilities for macOS
MacOS security software |
36074404 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySocialCloud | MySocialCloud | MySocialCloud is a cloud-based bookmark vault and password website that allows users to log into all of their online accounts from a single, secure website. The company's investors include Sir Richard Branson, Insight Venture Partners’ Jerry Murdock, and PhotoBucket founder Alex Welch. The company and its founders have been featured in TechCrunch and The Huffington Post.
History
MySocialCloud was co-founded by Scott Ferreira, Stacey Ferreira, and Shiv Prakash in 2011. The idea for a one-stop password storage and login tool came when a computer crash left Scott without documents he used to store access information to his online data.
In 2013, the siblings sold MySocialCloud to Reputation.com.
Services
MySocialCloud is cloud-based, and the platform lets users securely store passwords and automatically log into several social media websites simultaneously. The website auto-populates password fields, letting the user log into all of the sites at the push of a button.
The service also provides users with security updates for the websites they have included in their profile, and informs users if a website has been hacked. Security played a major role during development of the platform. Passwords stored on the service are salted and hashed with a two-way encryption method known as AES.
References
External links
http://mysocialcloud.com/
Web applications
Web development
Software architecture |
36097799 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD%20Cryptographic%20Framework | OpenBSD Cryptographic Framework | The OpenBSD Cryptographic Framework (OCF) is a service virtualization layer for the uniform management of cryptographic hardware by an operating system. It is part of the OpenBSD Project, having been included in the operating system since OpenBSD 2.8 (December, 2000). Like other OpenBSD projects such as OpenSSH, it has been ported to other systems based on Berkeley Unix such as FreeBSD and NetBSD, and to Solaris and Linux. One of the Linux ports is supported by Intel for use with its proprietary cryptographic software and hardware to provide hardware-accelerated SSL encryption for the open source Apache HTTP Server.
Background
Cryptography is computationally intensive and is used in many different contexts. Software implementations often serve as a bottleneck to information flow or increase network latency. Specialist hardware such as cryptographic accelerators can mitigate the bottleneck problem by introducing parallelism. Certain kinds of hardware, hardware random number generators, can also produce randomness more reliably than a pseudo-random software algorithm by exploiting the entropy of natural events.
Unlike graphics applications such as games and film processing where similar hardware accelerators are in common use and have strong operating system support, the use of hardware in cryptography has had relatively low uptake. By the late 1990s, there was a need for a uniform operating system layer to mediate between cryptographic hardware and application software that used it. The lack of this layer led to the production of applications that were hard-coded to work with one or a very small range of cryptographic accelerators.
The OpenBSD Project, which has a history of integrating strong, carefully audited cryptography into its operating system's core, produced a framework for the provision of cryptographic hardware acceleration as an operating system service.
/dev/crypto
Application-level support is provided through the pseudo-device , which provides access to the hardware drivers through a standard ioctl interface. This simplifies the writing of applications and removes the need for the application programmer to understand the operational details of the actual hardware that will be used.
Implications for other subsystems
The OpenBSD implementation of IPsec, the packet-level encryption protocol, was altered so that packets can be decoded in batches, which improves throughput. One rationale for this is to maximize efficiency of hardware usage—larger batches reduce the bus transmission overhead—but in practice the IPsec developers have found that this strategy improves the efficiency even of software implementations.
Many Intel firmware hubs on i386 motherboards provide a hardware random number generator, and where possible this facility is used to provide entropy in IPsec.
Because OpenSSL uses the OCF, systems with hardware that supports the RSA, DH, or DSA cryptographic protocols will automatically use the hardware without any modification of the software.
Backdoor allegations investigated
On 11 December 2010, a former government contractor named Gregory Perry sent an email to OpenBSD project leader Theo de Raadt alleging that the FBI had paid some OpenBSD ex-developers 10 years previously to compromise the security of the system, inserting "a number of backdoors and side channel key leaking mechanisms into the OCF". Theo de Raadt made the email public on 14 December by forwarding it to the openbsd-tech mailing list and suggested an audit of the IPsec codebase. De Raadt's response was skeptical of the report and he invited all developers to independently review the relevant code. In the weeks that followed, bugs were fixed but no evidence of backdoors was found.
Similarly named Solaris product
Oracle's proprietary operating system Solaris (originally developed by Sun) features an unrelated product called the Solaris Cryptographic Framework, a plug-in system for cryptographic algorithms and hardware.
See also
OpenBSD security features
Crypto API (Linux)
Microsoft CryptoAPI
References
External links
Cryptography in OpenBSD, overview document provided by the OpenBSD project.
OCF Linux Project.
Cryptographic Framework
Applications of cryptography
Cryptographic software |
36128856 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open%20Smart%20Grid%20Protocol | Open Smart Grid Protocol | The Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) is a family of specifications published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) used in conjunction with the ISO/IEC 14908 control networking standard for smart grid applications. OSGP is optimized to provide reliable and efficient delivery of command and control information for smart meters, direct load control modules, solar panels, gateways, and other smart grid devices. With over 5 million OSGP based smart meters and devices deployed worldwide it is one of the most widely used smart meter and smart grid device networking standards.
Protocol layers and features
OSGP follows a modern, structured approach based on the OSI protocol model to meet the evolving challenges of the smart grid.
At the application layer, ETSI TS 104 001 provides a table-oriented data storage based, in part, on the ANSI C12.19 / MC12.19 / 2012 / IEEE Std 1377 standards for Utility Industry End Device Data Tables and ANSI C12.18 / MC12.18 / IEEE Std 1701, standard Protocol Specification for ANSI Type 2 Optical Port for its services and payload encapsulation. This standard and command system that provides for not only smart meters and related data but for general purpose extension to other smart grid devices.
ETSI TS 104 001 is an updated version of the application layer specification that incorporates enhanced security features, including AES 128 encryption, and replaces the previously ETSI GS OSG 001 version. OSGP is designed to be very bandwidth efficient, enabling it to offer high performance and low cost using bandwidth constrained media such as the power line. For example, just as SQL provides an efficient and flexible database query language for enterprise applications, OSGP provides an efficient and flexible query language for smart grid devices. As with SQL, OSGP supports reading and writing of single attributes, multiple elements, or even entire tables. As another example, OSGP includes capabilities for an adaptive, directed meshing system that enables any OSGP device to serve as a message repeater, further optimizing bandwidth use by repeating only those packets that need to be repeated. OSGP also includes authentication and encryption for all exchanges to protect the integrity and privacy of data as is required in the smart grid.
The intermediate layers of the OSGP stack leverage the ISO/IEC 14908 control networking standard, a field-proven multi-application widely used in smart grid, smart city, and smart building applications with more than 100 million devices deployed worldwide. ISO/IEC 14908 is highly optimized for efficient, reliable, and scalable control networking applications. The low overhead of ISO/IEC 14908 enables it to deliver high performance without requiring high bandwidth.
Since it builds on ISO/IEC 14908, which is media independent, OSGP has the possibility to be used with any current or future physical media. OSGP today uses ETSI TS 103 908 (PowerLine Telecommunications) as its physical layer. Although a new standard, products that conform to ETSI TS 103 908 prior to its formal adoption have been on the market for many years, with over 40 million smart meter and grid devices deployed.
In 2020, IEC approved and published an International Standard (IEC 62056-8-8) defining the OSGP Communication Profile for the DLMS/COSEM suite of standards.
In addition, CEN/CENELEC approved and published a standard (CLC/TS 50586) for OSGP that describes its data interface model, application-level communication, management functionalities, and security mechanism for the exchange of data with smart-grid devices.
Both of these standards were part of the outcomes of the EU Smart Metering Mandate M/441 and its decision identifying OSGP as one of the protocols that can be used for Smart Metering deployments in Europe.
In is also important to define interoperability between information systems and applications, and this needs to be ensured independent of the physical layers. This is achieved using NTA 8150, which defines APIs higher level web services protocols (e.g. SOAP and xml). The NTA 8150 consists of two parts; 1) System Software API, description of the architecture and the API for AMI; 2) API usage per use case, description for specific AMI use cases, as examples.
Standards
OSGP is built upon the following open standards.
ETSI Technical specification TS 104 001: Open Smart Grid Protocol. Produced by the ETSI Technical Committee for Powerline Telecommunications (TC PLT ), this application layer protocol can be used with multiple communication media.
ISO/IEC 14908-1: Information technology—Control network protocol—Part 1: Protocol stack. Published through ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6, this standard specifies a multi-purpose control network protocol stack optimized for smart grid, smart building, and smart city applications.
ETSI Technical specification TS 103 908: Powerline Telecommunications (PLT); BPSK Narrow Band Power Line Channel for Smart Metering Applications. This specification defines a high-performance narrow band powerline channel for control networking in the smart grid that can be used with multiple smart grid devices. It was produced by the ETSI Technical Committee for Powerline Telecommunications (TC PLT ).
IEC 62056-8-8: This standard specifies an OSGP and ISO/IEC 14908 communication profile based on the OSGP lower layer stacks as part of the IEC 62056 DLMS/COSEM Suite series.
CLC/TS 50586: This standard describes the OSGP data interface model, application-level communication, management functionalities, and security mechanism for the exchange of data with smart-grid devices.
ANSI C12.19: This standard (as are its companions MC12.19 and IEEE Std 1377™ standards) concepts, data types, and basic tables and procedures were mapped into Clause 6, "OSGP Device data representation" and Normative Annex A, "Basic Tables" in ETSI Technical specification TS 104 001.
ANSI C12.18: (as are its companions MC12.18 and IEEE Std 1701™ standards) services and payload encapsulation were mapped into clause "Basic OSGP services" in ETSI Technical specification TS 104 001.
NTA 8150 Part 1: This standard specifies the System Software API, description of the architecture and the API for AMI
NTA 8150 Part 2 This standard specifies the API usage per use case, description for specific AMI use cases, as examples.
OSGP is supported and maintained by the OSGP Alliance (formerly known as Energy Services Network Association), a non-profit corporation composed of utilities, manufacturers and system integrators.
See also
Distributed generation
Smart grid
Smart meter
Virtual power plant
References
External links
OSGP Alliance
European Telecommunications Standards Institute
Energy Services Network Association
LonWorks - Echelon's connection with OSGP
International Organization for Standardization
Frost & Sullivan Recognizes OSGP market share
Emerging technologies
Communications protocols
Open standards |
36130575 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classes%20of%20computers | Classes of computers | Computers can be classified, or typed, in many ways. Some common classifications of computers are given below.
Classes by purpose
|-
|style="text-align: left;"|Notes:
Microcomputers (personal computers)
Microcomputers became the most common type of computer in the late 20th century. The term “microcomputer” was introduced with the advent of systems based on single-chip microprocessors. The best-known early system was the Altair 8800, introduced in 1975. The term "microcomputer" has practically become an anachronism.
These computers include:
Desktop computers – A case put under or on a desk. The display may be optional, depending on use. The case size may vary, depending on the required expansion slots. Very small computers of this kind may be integrated into the monitor.
Rackmount computers – The cases of these computers fit into 19-inch racks, and maybe space-optimized and very flat. A dedicated display, keyboard, and mouse may not exist, but a KVM switch or built-in remote control (via LAN or other means) can be used to gain console access.
In-car computers (carputers) – Built into automobiles, for entertainment, navigation, etc.
Laptops and notebook computers – Portable and all in one case.
Tablet computer – Like laptops, but with a touch-screen, entirely replacing the physical keyboard.
Smartphones, smartbooks, and palmtop computers – Small handheld personal computers with limited hardware specifications.
Programmable calculator– Like small handhelds, but specialized in mathematical work.
Video game consoles – Fixed computers built specifically for entertainment purposes.
Handheld game consoles – The same as game consoles, but small and portable.
Minicomputers (mid-range computers)
Minicomputers (colloquially, minis) are a class of multi-user computers that lie in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the smallest mainframe computers and the largest single-user systems (microcomputers or personal computers). The term supermini computer or simply supermini was used to distinguish more powerful minicomputers that approached mainframes in capability. Superminis (such as the DEC VAX or Data General Eclipse MV/8000) were usually 32-bit at a time when most minicomputers (such as the PDP-11 or Data General Eclipse or IBM Series/1) were 16-bit. These traditional minicomputers in the last few decades of the 20th century, found in small to medium-sized businesses, laboratories and embedded in (for example) hospital CAT scanners, often would be rack-mounted and connect to one or more terminals or tape/card readers, like mainframes and unlike most personal computers, but require less space and electrical power than a typical mainframe.
Mainframe computers
The term mainframe computer was created to distinguish the traditional, large, institutional computer intended to service multiple users from the smaller, single-user machines. These computers are capable of handling and processing very large amounts of data quickly. Mainframe computers are used in large institutions such as government, banks, and large corporations.
They are measured in MIPS (million instructions per second) and can respond to hundreds of millions of users at a time.
Supercomputers
A supercomputer is focused on performing tasks involving intense numerical calculations such as weather forecasting, fluid dynamics, nuclear simulations, theoretical astrophysics, and complex scientific computations. A supercomputer is a computer that is at the front-line of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation. The term supercomputer itself is rather fluid, and the speed of today's supercomputers tends to become typical of tomorrow's ordinary computer. Supercomputer processing speeds are measured in floating-point operations per second, or FLOPS. An example of a floating-point operation is the calculation of mathematical equations in real numbers. In terms of computational capability, memory size and speed, I/O technology, and topological issues such as bandwidth and latency, supercomputers are the most powerful, are very expensive, and not cost-effective just to perform batch or transaction processing. These computers were developed in 1970s and are the fastest and the highest capacity computers
Classes by function
Servers
Server usually refers to a computer that is dedicated to providing one or more services. A server is expected to be reliable (e.g. error-correction of RAM; redundant cooling; self-monitoring, RAID), fit for running for several years, and giving useful diagnosis in case of an error. For even increased security, the server may be mirrored. Many smaller servers are actually personal computers that have been dedicated to provide services for other computers.
A database server is a server which uses a database application that provides database services to other computer programs or to computers. Database management systems (DBMSs) frequently provide database-server functionality, and some database management systems (such as MySQL) rely exclusively on the client–server model for database access while others (such as SQLite) are meant for using as an embedded database. Users access a database server either through a "front end" running on the user's computer – which displays requested data – or through the "back end", which runs on the server and handles tasks such as data analysis and storage.
A file server does not normally perform computational tasks or run programs on behalf of its client workstations but manage and store a large collection of computer files. The crucial function of a file server is storage. File servers are commonly found in schools and offices, where users use a local area network to connect their client computers and use Network-attached storage (NAS) systems to provide data access.
A web server is a server that can satisfy client requests on the World Wide Web. A web server can, in general, contain one or more websites. A web server processes incoming network requests over HTTP and several other related protocols. The primary function of a web server is to store, process and deliver web pages to clients. The communication between client and server takes place using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Pages delivered are most frequently HTML documents, which may include images, style sheets and scripts in addition to the text content.
A terminal server enables organizations to connect devices with an RS-232, RS-422 or RS-485 serial interface to a local area network (LAN). Products marketed as terminal servers can be very simple devices that do not offer any security functionality, such as data encryption and user authentication. These provide GUI sessions that can be used by client PCs that work someway like a remote control. Only the screen (and audio) output is shown on the client. The GUI applications run on the server, data (like in files) would be stored in the same LAN, thus avoiding problems, should a client PC be damaged or stolen.
A server may run several virtual machines (VMs) for different activities, supplying the same environment to each VM as if it ran on dedicated hardware. Different operating systems (OS) can therefore be run at the same time. This technology approach needs special hardware support to be useful and was first the domain of mainframes and other large computers. Nowadays, most personal computers are equipped for this task, but for long-term operation or critical systems, specialized server hardware may be needed.
Another approach is to implement VMs on the operating system level, so all VMs run on the same OS instance (or incarnation), but are fundamentally separated to not interfere with each other.
Workstations
Workstations are computers that are intended to serve one user and may contain special hardware enhancements not found on a personal computer. By the mid 1990s personal computers reached the processing capabilities of mini computers and workstations. Also, with the release of multi-tasking systems such as OS/2, Windows NT and Linux, the operating systems of personal computers could do the job of this class of machines. Today, the term is used to describe desktop PCs with high-performance hardware. Such hardware is usually aimed at a professional, rather than enthusiast, market (e.g. dual-processor motherboards, error-correcting memory, professional graphics cards).
Information appliances
Information appliances are computers specially designed to perform a specific "user-friendly" function—such as editing text, playing music, photography, videography etc. The term is most commonly applied to battery-operated mobile devices, though there are also wearable devices.
Embedded computers
Embedded computers are computers that are a part of a machine or device. Embedded computers generally execute a program that is stored in non-volatile memory and is only intended to operate a specific machine or device. Embedded computers are very common. The majority are microcontrollers. Embedded computers are typically required to operate continuously without being reset or rebooted, and once employed in their task the software usually cannot be modified. An automobile may contain a number of embedded computers; however, a washing machine or DVD player would contain only one microcontroller. Embedded computers are chosen to meet the requirements of the specific application, and most are slower and cheaper than CPUs found in a personal computer.
Classes by usage
Public computer
Public computers are open for public uses, possibly as an Interactive kiosk. There are many places where one can use them, such as cybercafes, schools and libraries.
They are normally fire-walled and restricted to run only their pre-installed software. The operating system is difficult to change and/or resides on a file server. For example, "thin client" machines in educational establishments may be reset to their original state between classes. Public computers are generally not expected to keep an individual's data files.
Personal computer
A personal computer has one user who may also be the owner (although the term has also come also mean any computer hardware somewhat like the original IBM PC, irrespective of how it is used). This user often may use all hardware resources, has complete access to any part of the computer and has rights to install/remove software. Personal computers normally store personal files, and often the owner/user is responsible for routine maintenance such as removing unwanted files and virus-scanning. Some computers in a business setting are for one user but are also served by staff with protocols to ensure proper maintenance.
Shared computer
These are computers where different people might log on at different times; unlike public computers, they would have usernames and passwords assigned on a long-term basis, with the files they see and the computer's settings adjusted to their particular account. Often the important data files will reside on a central file server, so a person could log onto different computers yet still see the same files. The computer (or workstation) might be a "thin client" or X terminal, otherwise it may have its own disk for some or all system files, but usually will need to be networked to the rest of the system for full functionality. Such systems normally require a system administrator to set up and maintain the hardware and software.
Display computer
Computers that are used just to display selected material (usually audio-visual, or simple slide shows) in a shop, meeting or trade show. These computers may have more capabilities than they are being used for; they are likely to have WiFi and so be capable of Internet access, but are rarely firewalled (but have restricted port access or monitored in some way). Such computers are used and maintained as appliances, and not normally used as the primary store for important files.
Classed by generation of computer technology
The history of computing hardware is often used to reference the different generations of computing devices:
First generation computers (1940-1955): It used vacuum tubes such as the 6J6 or specially designed tubes - or even mechanical arrangements, and were relatively slow, energy-hungry and the earliest computers were less flexible in their programmability.
Second generation computers (1956-1963): It used discrete transistors, and so were smaller and consumed less power.
Third generation computers (1964-1970): It used Integrated Circuits (ICs), the main difference between hardware in computers of the 1960s and today being the density of transistors in each IC (beginning with Small Scale Integration chips like the Transistor-transistor logic (TTL) SN7400 gates with 20 transistors, through Medium Scale Integration and Large Scale Integration to Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) with over ten billion transistors in a single silicon-based IC "chip".
Fourth generation computers(1971-present): It uses Microprocessors, as millions of ICs were built onto a single silicon-based chip. Since then form factor of computers reduced, task processing & graphic rendering improved and it became more battery-powered with the advent of personal mobile devices such as laptops, tablets, smartphones etc.
See also
List of computer size categories
Bell's law of computer classes
Analog computers
Feng's classification
Flynn's taxonomy
References
External links
Four types of Computers |
36149934 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventus%20%28wireless%20company%29 | Ventus (wireless company) | Ventus is an American company founded in 1999 and headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut that provides secure private line wireless services, and manufactures cellular wireless hardware.
Ventus
Ventus provides managed network solutions for cellular wireless networking and fixed line services including PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry) compliant data transport, integration services, data encryption, and integrated network administration and monitoring systems. Ventus' IT services are delivered via products developed by the company's network hardware technologies division.
Ventus Technologies
Ventus Technologies designs and manufactures cellular routers and other wireless hardware for machine-to-machine and enterprise wireless applications. Ventus' hardware includes dual-carrier, modular, multi-interface embedded wireless 4G LTE/3G routers and multi-band cellular antennas.
Products and Services
Services & Applications
Managed Network Solutions for Business
Build: From pre-sales engineering to network management to build and pilot, single source for network connectivity
Host: All solutions are hosted to preserve continuity, speed new deployments, and facilitate technical support
Deploy: Scalability is seamless with Ventus project management, field services, and plug-and-play hardware
Maintain: Comprehensive monitoring and 24x7x365 access to expert tech support keep networks up and stable
Managed Wireless WAN (WWAN) solutions Ideal for: ATMs, ITMs, BTMs, lottery, gaming, self-service kiosks, Member of ATMIA, vending machines, POS (Point of Sale), digital signage, security cameras/DVRs, remote device monitoring, alarm panels, VoIP (Voice over IP)
Managed Wi-Fi solutions
Managed SD-WAN, Hybrid WAN, and WAN solutions for chain locations, branch offices, retail, temporary, mobile, and pop-up sites
Managed failover for business continuity with 4G LTE Backup for fixed-line connections
Source from local, regional, and national network service providers: Wireless, Ethernet, MPLS, Broadband (DSL, Fiber, FiOS), Dedicated Internet Access (DIA)
Hardware & Software
Ventus designs network solutions around Ventus Technologies proprietary routers and routing equipment from third-party manufacturers including Cisco, HP, Fortinet, and other leading CPE vendors.
All hardware is pre-configured and plug-and-play ready prior to deployment.
4G LTE and 5G dual-carrier; high-gain and wideband antennas, signal amplifiers, protocol converters, networking equipment
Security features include firewall, VPN, and high-level encryption
Management & Monitoring
Managed Network Solutions include network architecture design, hardware provisioning and network connectivity, on-site installation management, monitoring, maintenance, and technical support
Technical Support
24x7x365 Technical Support Center, Network Operations Center Support (NOC), Field Installation and Deployment Services, Engineering Support
In addition, Ventus is certified as meeting the Payment Card Industry's (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS).
References
External links
Official Website
1999 establishments in New York (state)
Companies based in Norwalk, Connecticut
American companies established in 1999
Computer companies established in 1999
Manufacturing companies based in Connecticut
Networking companies of the United States
Networking hardware companies |
36157051 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows%20Phone%208 | Windows Phone 8 | Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system from Microsoft. It was released on October 29, 2012, and, like its predecessor, it features a flat user interface based on the Metro design language. It was succeeded by Windows Phone 8.1, which was unveiled on April 2, 2014.
Windows Phone 8 replaces the Windows CE-based architecture used in Windows Phone 7 with the Windows NT kernel found in Windows 8. Windows Phone 7 devices cannot run or update to Windows Phone 8, and new applications compiled specifically for Windows Phone 8 are not made available for Windows Phone 7 devices. Developers can make their apps available on both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 devices by targeting both platforms via the proper SDKs in Visual Studio.
Windows Phone 8 devices are manufactured by Microsoft Mobile (formerly Nokia), HTC, Samsung and Huawei.
History
On June 20, 2012, Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 8 (codenamed Apollo), a third generation of the Windows Phone operating system for release later in 2012. Windows Phone 8 replaces its previously Windows CE-based architecture with one based on the Windows NT kernel, and shares many components with Windows 8, allowing developers to easily port applications between the two platforms.
Windows Phone 8 also allows devices with larger screens (the four confirmed sizes are "WVGA 800×480 15:9","WXGA 1280×768 15:9","720p 1280×720 16:9","1080p 1920x1080 16:9" resolutions) and multi-core processors, NFC (that can primarily be used to share content and perform payments), backwards compatibility with Windows Phone 7 apps, improved support for removable storage (that now functions more similarly to how such storage is handled on Windows and Android), a redesigned home screen incorporating resizable tiles across the entire screen, a new Wallet hub (to integrate NFC payments, coupon websites such as Groupon, and loyalty cards), and "first-class" integration of VoIP applications into the core functions of the OS. Additionally, Windows Phone 8 will include more features aimed at the enterprise market, such as device management, BitLocker encryption, and the ability to create a private Marketplace to distribute apps to employeesfeatures expected to meet or exceed the enterprise capabilities of the previous Windows Mobile platform. Additionally, Windows Phone 8 will support over-the-air updates, and all Windows Phone 8 devices will receive software support for at least 36 months after their release.
In the interest of ensuring it is released with devices designed to take advantage of its new features, Windows Phone 8 will not be made available as an update for existing Windows Phone 7 devices. Instead, Microsoft released Windows Phone 7.8 as an update for Windows Phone 7 devices, which backported several features such as the redesigned home screen.
Addressing some software bugs with Windows Phone 8 forced Microsoft to delay some enterprise improvements, like VPN support, until the 2014 release of Windows Phone 8.1.
Support
In March 2013, Microsoft announced that updates for the Windows Phone 8 operating system would be made available through July 8, 2014. Microsoft pushed support up to 36 months, announcing that updates for the Windows Phone 8 operating system would be made available through January 12, 2016. Windows Phone 8 devices will be upgradeable to the next edition of Windows Phone 8.1.
Features
The following features were confirmed at Microsoft's 'sneak peek' at Windows Phone on June 20, 2012 and the unveiling of Windows Phone 8 on October 29, 2012:
Core
Windows Phone 8 is the first mobile OS from Microsoft to use the Windows NT kernel, which is the same kernel that runs Windows 8. The operating system adds improved file system, drivers, network stack, security components, media and graphics support. Using the NT kernel, Windows Phone can now support multi-core CPUs of up to 64 cores, as well as 1280×720 and 1280×768 resolutions, in addition to the base 800×480 resolution already available on Windows Phone 7. Furthermore, Windows Phone 8 also adds support for MicroSD cards, which are commonly used to add extra storage to phones. Support for 1080p screens was added in October 2013 with the GDR3 update.
Due to the switch to the NT kernel, Windows Phone 8 also supports native 128-bit Bitlocker encryption and Secure Boot. Windows Phone 8 also supports NTFS due to this switch.
Web
Internet Explorer 10 is the default browser in Windows Phone 8 and carries over key improvements also found in the desktop version. The navigation interface has been simplified down to a single customizable button (defaults to stop / refresh) and the address bar. While users can change the button to a 'Back' button, there is no way to add a 'Forward' button. However, as the browser supports swipe navigation for both forwards and back, this is a minor issue.
Multitasking
Unlike its predecessor, Windows Phone 8 uses true multitasking, allowing developers to create apps that can run in the background and resume instantly.
A user can switch between "active" tasks by pressing and holding the Back button, but any application listed may be suspended or terminated under certain conditions, such as a network connection being established or battery power running low. An app running in the background may also automatically suspend, if the user has not opened it for a long duration of time.
The user can close applications by opening the multitasking view and pressing the "X" button in the right-hand corner of each application window, a feature that was added in Update 3.
Kids Corner
Windows Phone 8 adds Kids Corner, which operates as a kind of "guest mode". The user chooses which applications and games appear on the Kids Corner. When Kids Corner is activated, apps and games installed on the device can be played or accessed without touching the data of the main user signed into the Windows Phone.
Rooms
Rooms is a feature added specifically for group messaging and communication. Using Rooms, users can contact and see Facebook and Twitter updates only from members of the group created. Members of the group can also share instant messages and photos from within the room. These messages will be shared only with the other room members. Microsoft will be removing this feature sometime during March 2015.
Driving Mode
With the release of Update 3 in late 2013, pairing a Windows Phone 8 device with a car via Bluetooth now automatically activates "Driving Mode", a specialized UI designed for using a mobile device while driving.
Data Sense
Data Sense allows users to set data usage limits based on their individual plan. Data Sense can restrict background data when the user is near their set limit (a heart icon is used to notify the user when background tasks are being automatically stopped). Although this feature was originally exclusive to Verizon phones in the United States, the GDR2 update released in July 2013 made Data Sense available to all Windows Phone 8 handsets.
NFC and Wallet
Select Windows Phones running Windows Phone 8 add NFC capability, which allows for data transfer between two Windows Phone devices, or between a Windows Phone device, and a Windows 8 computer or tablet, using a feature called "Tap and Send".
In certain markets, NFC support on Windows Phone 8 can also be used to conduct in-person transactions through credit and debit cards stored on the phone through the Wallet application. Carriers may activate the NFC feature through SIM or integrated phone hardware. Orange will be first carrier to support NFC on Windows Phone 8. Besides NFC support for transactions, Wallet can also be used to store credit cards in order to make Windows Phone Store and other in-app purchases (that is also a new feature), and can be used to store coupons and loyalty cards.
Syncing
The Windows Phone app succeeds the Zune Software as the sync application to transfer music, videos, other multimedia files and office documents between Windows Phone 8 and a Windows 8/Windows RT computer or tablet. Versions for OS X and Windows Desktop are also available. Windows Phone 7 devices are not compatible with the PC version of the app, but will work with the Mac version. (Zune is still used for syncing Windows Phone 7s with PCs, and thus remains downloadable from the Windows Phone website.)
Due to Windows Phone 8 identifying itself as an MTP device, Windows Media Player and Windows Explorer may be used to transfer music, videos and other multimedia files unlike in Windows Phone 7. Videos transferred to a computer are limited to a maximum size of 4 GB.
Other features
Xbox SmartGlass allows control of an Xbox 360 and Xbox One with a phone (available for Windows Phone, iOS and Android).
Xbox Music+Video services support playback of audio and video files in Windows Phone, as well as music purchases. Video purchases were made available with the release of a standalone version of Xbox Video in late 2013 that can be downloaded from the Windows Phone Store.
Native code support (C++)
toast notifications sent by apps and app developers using the Microsoft Push Notification Service.
Simplified porting of Windows 8 apps to Windows Phone 8 (compatibility with Windows 8 "Modern UI" apps)
Remote device management of Windows Phone similar to management of Windows PCs
VoIP and video chat integration for any VoIP or video chat app (integrates into the phone dialer, people hub)
Firmware over the air for Windows Phone updates
Minimum 36 month support of Windows Phone updates to Windows Phone 8 devices.
Camera app now supports "lenses", which allow third parties to skin and add features to camera interface.
Native screen capture is added by pressing home and power buttons simultaneously.
Hebrew language support is added for Microsoft to introduce Windows Phone to the Israeli market.
Hardware specifications
Version history
Reception
Reviewers generally praised the increased capabilities of Windows Phone 8, but noted the smaller app selection when compared to other phones. Brad Molen of Engadget mentioned that "Windows Phone 8 is precisely what we wanted to see come out of Redmond in the first place," and praised the more customizable Start Screen, compatibility with Windows 8, and improved NFC support. However, Molen also noted the drawback of a lack of apps in the Windows Phone Store. The Verge gave the OS a 7.9/10 rating, stating that "Redmond is presenting one of the most compelling ecosystem stories in the business right now," but criticized the lack of a unified notifications center. Alexandra Chang of Wired gave Windows Phone 8 an 8/10, noting improvement in features previously lacking in Windows Phone 7, such as multi-core processor support, faster Internet browsing, and the switch from Bing Maps to Nokia Maps, but also criticized the smaller selection of apps.
Usage
IDC reported that in Q1 2013, the first full quarter where WP8 was available to most countries, Windows Phone market share jumped to 3.2% of the worldwide smartphone market, allowing the OS to overtake BlackBerry OS as the third largest mobile operating system by usage.
Roughly a year after the release of WP8, Kantar reported in October 2013 that Windows Phone grew its market share substantially to 4.8% in the United States and 10.2% in Europe. Similar statistics from Gartner for Q3 2013 indicated that Windows Phone's global market share increased 123% from the same period in 2012 to 3.6%.
In Q1 2014 IDC reported that global market share of Windows Phone has dropped to 2.7%.
See also
List of Windows Phone 8 devices
References
External links
Official website (Archive)
Windows Phone
Phone 8
Smartphones |
36157434 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkhard%20Schr%C3%B6der | Burkhard Schröder | Burkhard Schröder is a German journalist based in Berlin. From 2005 to 2007, he was the editor of Berliner Journalisten.
Life
Schroeder writes for the online magazine Telepolis and deals primarily with the themes of Internet culture, Internet and right-wing radicalism. One of his most known books is entitled Nazis and Pop appeared in the espresso-Verlag.
Schroeder's book Tron - Death of a Hacker Under the Alias of the "Tron" about the late German hacker Boris Floricic has been a source of controversy in the German hacker subculture. While the then Speaker of the Chaos Computer Club, Andy Mueller-Maguhn and the relatives of the dead believe Floricic was murdered, Schroeder's research findings suggest how the results of the police investigation concluded that Floricic committed suicide.
On 12 November 2008, Berlin police searched Schroeder's home and confiscated his computer. The search warrant was based on the suspicion of an offense "aiding and abetting access" to material published by people "inciting racial hatred [and] denying the Holocaust" - a criminal offense in Germany. . He was accused of having bomb-making instructions with the intent to publish them. On 30 June 2009, he spoke freely, the District Court Berlin-Tiergarten. He was ultimately acquitted in October 2010.
Schroeder is co-founder of the nonprofit association German Privacy Foundation (GPF). The GPF provides information under the statutes of secure communications on the Internet and wants to ensure that the topics of encryption and anonymity on the net are shown better in the media.
Works
Books
Among men. Brothers, buddies, comrades. Universe Books, New 1988,
From cuts. About power and powerlessness of emotions after a breakup. Universe Books, New 1989,
Traces of Power. Cowards, Schumacker, muscular men. Universe Books, New 1990,
Right guys. Skinheads, fascists, hooligans. Universe Books, New 1992,
Heroin. Corner addiction? - An educational book Universe Books, New 1993,
I was a neo-Nazi. Report on the dropout Ingo Hasselbach. Ravensburger Verlag, Ravensburg, 1994,
Neo-Nazis and computer networks. Universe Books, New 1995,
The V-man. Red Book publishing, Hamburg 1997,
In the grip of right-wing scene -. East German cities in fear Universe Books, New 1997,
Tron - Death of a Hacker Universe Books, New 1999.
Nazis are pop. Espresso Verlag, Berlin 2000,
The conquistadors. Universe Books, New 2001,
Dropouts. Ravensburger Verlag, Ravensburg, 2002,
The on-line search (with Claudia Schröder), dpunkt.verlag / Telepolis, Hanover, 2008,
Science fiction
The Einstein-Bose condensate - published in June 1997 in the Isaac Asimov-Magazine No. 49, entitled Guerrilla Cypher, Heyne Verlag
Brother - published in the EU 3/2000
Eidolon - published in c't 17/2002
Salvaje - published in ThunderYEAR2002
Collaborative works
Klaus Farin, Henning Flad, Frauke chair, Rainer Erb, Burkhard Schröder: Reactionary rebels: far-right music publisher in Germany Tilsner, Bad Tolz 2001.
A career in German: Günter Grass, Daniela Dahn, Johano Strasser (eds.). In a rich country - testimony to the suffering everyday society Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, 2002.
References
External links
Burkhard Schröder's Personal Website
Berliner Journalisten
German Privacy Foundation
German journalists
German male journalists
German non-fiction writers
Living people
German male writers
Year of birth missing (living people) |
36181451 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware%20research | Malware research | The notion of a self-reproducing computer program can be traced back to initial theories about the operation of complex automata. John von Neumann showed that in theory a program could reproduce itself. This constituted a plausibility result in computability theory. Fred Cohen experimented with computer viruses and confirmed Neumann's postulate and investigated other properties of malware such as detectability and self-obfuscation using rudimentary encryption. His 1988 Doctoral dissertation was on the subject of computer viruses.
Cohen's faculty advisor, Leonard Adleman, presented a rigorous proof that, in the general case, algorithmic determination of the presence of a virus is undecidable. This problem must not be mistaken for that of determination within a broad class of programs that a virus is not present. This problem differs in that it does not require the ability to recognize all viruses.
Adleman's proof is perhaps the deepest result in malware computability theory to date and it relies on Cantor's diagonal argument as well as the halting problem. Ironically, it was later shown by Young and Yung that Adleman's work in cryptography is ideal in constructing a virus that is highly resistant to reverse-engineering by presenting the notion of a cryptovirus. A cryptovirus is a virus that contains and uses a public key and randomly generated symmetric cipher initialization vector (IV) and session key (SK).
In the cryptoviral extortion attack, the virus hybrid encrypts plaintext data on the victim's machine using the randomly generated IV and SK. The IV+SK are then encrypted using the virus writer's public key. In theory the victim must negotiate with the virus writer to get the IV+SK back in order to decrypt the ciphertext (assuming there are no backups). Analysis of the virus reveals the public key, not the IV and SK needed for decryption, or the private key needed to recover the IV and SK. This result was the first to show that computational complexity theory can be used to devise malware that is robust against reverse-engineering.
A growing area of computer virus research is to mathematically model the infection behavior of worms using models such as Lotka–Volterra equations, which has been applied in the study of biological virus. Various virus propagation scenarios have been studied by researchers such as propagation of computer virus, fighting virus with virus like predator codes, effectiveness of patching etc.
Behavioral malware detection has been researched more recently. Most approaches to behavioral detection are based on analysis of system call dependencies. The executed binary code is traced using strace or more precise taint analysis to compute data-flow dependencies among system calls. The result is a directed graph such that nodes are system calls, and edges represent dependencies. For example, if a result returned by system call (either directly as a result or indirectly through output parameters) is later used as a parameter of system call . The origins of the idea to use system calls to analyze software can be found in the work of Forrest et al. Christodorescu et al. point out that malware authors cannot easily reorder system calls without changing the semantics of the program, which makes system call dependency graphs suitable for malware detection. They compute a difference between malware and goodware system call dependency graphs and use the resulting graphs for detection, achieving high detection rates. Kolbitsch et al. pre-compute symbolic expressions and evaluate them on the syscall parameters observed at runtime.
They detect dependencies by observing whether the result obtained by evaluation matches the parameter values observed at runtime. Malware is detected by comparing the dependency graphs of the training and test sets. Fredrikson et al. describe an approach that uncovers distinguishing features in malware system call dependency graphs. They extract significant behaviors using concept analysis and leap mining. Babic et al. recently proposed a novel approach for both malware detection and classification based on grammar inference of tree automata. Their approach infers an automaton from dependency graphs, and they show how such an automaton could be used for detection and classification of malware.
Research in combining static and dynamic malware analysis techniques is also currently being conducted in an effort to minimize the shortcomings of both. Studies by researchers such as Islam et al. are working to integrate static and dynamic techniques in order to better analyze and classify malware and malware variants.
See also
History of computer viruses
References
Malware |
36197065 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smudge%20attack | Smudge attack | A smudge attack is an information extraction attack that discerns the password input of a touchscreen device such as a cell phone or tablet computer from fingerprint smudges. A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania were the first to investigate this type of attack in 2010. An attack occurs when an unauthorized user is in possession or is nearby the device of interest. The attacker relies on detecting the oily smudges produced and left behind by the user's fingers to find the pattern or code needed to access the device and its contents. Simple cameras, lights, fingerprint powder, and image processing software can be used to capture the fingerprint deposits created when the user unlocks their device. Under proper lighting and camera settings, the finger smudges can be easily detected, and the heaviest smudges can be used to infer the most frequent input swipes or taps from the user.
Smudge attacks are particularly successful when performed on devices that offer personal identification numbers (PINs), text-based passwords, and pattern-based passwords as locking options. There are various proposed countermeasures to mitigate attacks, such as biometrics, TinyLock, and SmudgeSafe, all which are different authentication schemes. Many of these methods provide ways to either cover up the smudges using a stroking method or implement randomized changes so previous logins are different from the current input.
Background
The smudge attack method against smartphone touch screens was first investigated by a team of University of Pennsylvania researchers and reported at the 4th USENIX Workshop on Offensive Technologies. The team classified the attack as a physical side-channel attack where the side-channel is launched from the interactions between a finger and the touchscreen. The research was widely covered in the technical press, including reports on PC Pro, ZDNet, and Engadget. The researchers used the smudges left behind on two Android smartphones and were able to break the password fully 68% of the time and partially 92% of the time under proper conditions.
Once the threat was recognized, Whisper Systems introduced an app in 2011 to mitigate the risk. The app provided their own versions of a pattern lock and PIN authentication that required users to complete certain tasks to cover up the smudges created during the authentication process. For the PIN verification option, the number options were vertically lined-up, and user were required to swipe downward over the smudged area. For the pattern lock, the app presented a 10x10 grid of stars the users had to swipe over and highlight before accessing the home screen.
Dangers
Interpreting the smudges on the screen is a relatively easy task for attackers, and the ramifications of an attack can negatively affect the victim. The smudge attack approach could also be applied to other touchscreen devices besides mobile phones that require an unlocking procedure, such as automated teller machines (ATMs), home locking devices, and PIN entry systems in convenience stores. Those who use touchscreen devices or machines that contain or store personal information are at a risk of data breaches. The human tendency for minimal and easy-to-remember PINs and patterns also lead to weak passwords, and passwords from weak password subspaces increase the ease at which attackers can decode the smudges.
Smudge attacks are particularly dangerous since fingerprint smudges can be hard to remove from touchscreens, and the persistence of these fingerprints increases the threat of an attack. The attack does not depend on finding perfect smudge prints, and it is still possible for attackers to figure out the password even after cleaning the screen with clothing or with overlapping fingerprints. Cha et al. in their paper, "Boosting the Guessing Attack Performance on Android Lock Patterns with Smudge Attacks," tested an attack method called smug that combined smudge attacks and pure guessing attacks. They found that even after the users were asked to use the Facebook app after unlocking the device, 31.94% of the phones were cracked and accessed.
Another danger of smudge attacks is that the basic equipment needed to perform this attack, a camera and lights, is easily obtainable. Fingerprint kits are also an accessible and additional, but not required, piece of equipment ranging from $30-$200. These kits increase the ease with which an attacker can successfully break into a phone in possession.
Types of attackers
The team at the University of Pennsylvania identified and considered two types of attackers: passive and active.
Active
An active attacker is classified as someone who has the device in hand and is in control of the lighting setup and angles. These attackers can alter the touchscreen in a way to better identify the PIN or pattern code by cleaning or using fingerprint powder. A typical setup from an active attacker could include a mounted camera, the phone placed on a surface, and a single light source. Slight variations in the setup include the type and size of the light source and the distance between the camera and the phone. A more experienced attacker would pay closer attention to the angle of the light and camera, the lighting source, and the type of camera and lens used to get the best picture, taking into account the shadows and highlights when the light reflects.
Passive
A passive attacker is an observer who does not have the device in hand and instead has to perform an eavesdropping-type attack. This means they will wait for the right opportunity to collect the fingerprint images until they can get in possession of the gadget. The passive attacker does not have control of the lighting source, the angle, the position of the phone, and the condition of the touchscreen. They are dependent on the authorized user and their location to get a good quality picture to crack the security code later on.
Methods and techniques
There are different steps and techniques that attackers use to isolate the fingerprint smudges to determine the lock pattern or PIN. The attacker first has to identify the exact touch screen area, any relevant smudges within that area, and any possible combination or pattern segments.
Preprocessing
In the cases where the fingerprints are not super visible to the eye, preprocessing is used to identify the most intact fingerprints determined by the number of ridge details they have. Selecting the fingerprints with the most ridge details differentiates between the user's fingerprints and those with whom the device is shared. When pressing a finger down on the touch screen surface to create a fingerprint, the liquid from the edges of the ridges fill in the contact region. This fingerprint liquid is made up of substances from the epidermis, the secretory glands, and extrinsic contaminants such as dirt or outside skin products. As the fingertip is lifted, the liquid also retracts, leaving behind the leftover traces. Attackers are able to use fingerprint powder to dust over these oil smudges to unveil the visible fingerprint and their ridges. The powder can enhance the diffuse reflection, which reflects from rough surfaces and makes the dusted smudge more visible to the human eye. There are different powders to choose from based on the colors that best contrasts with the touchscreen and the environment. Examples of powders are aluminum, bronze, cupric oxide, iron, titanium dioxide, graphite, magnetic, and fluorescent powder. This dusting action also mimics the processes used in a crime scene investigation.
Preserving fingerprints
Preserving fingerprints utilizes a camera to capture multiple pictures of the fingerprint images or the keypad with different light variations. Generally, high-resolution cameras and bright lights work the best for identifying smudges. The goal is to limit any reflections and isolate the clear fingerprints.
Visibility of objects
The visibility of the fingerprint relies on the light source, the reflection, and shadows. The touch screen and surface of a smart device can have different reflections that change how someone views the image of the fingerprint.
Diffuse Reflection : Incident rays that are reflected at many angles and produced from rough surfaces. Diffuse reflection of light reflects the image of the fingerprint that the human eye can see. The techniques used in preprocessing and strong light enhances the diffuse reflection for a clearer photo.
Specular Reflection : Incident rays are reflected at one angle and produced from smooth surfaces. Specular reflection of light reflects a "virtual" image (since it doesn't produce light) that seems to come from behind the surface. An example of this is a mirror.
Mapping fingerprints to keypad
Fingerprint mapping uses the photographed smudge images to figure out what keys were used by laying the smudge images over the keypad or by comparing the image with a reference picture. Mapping the positions of smudges helps the attacker figure out which tapped keys were used by the authorized user. First, the fingerprints and keypad images are resized and processed to find the areas the corresponding fingerprints and keys occupy. Next, the Laplace edge detection algorithm is applied to detect the edges of the ridges of a finger, sharpen the overall fingerprint, and eliminate any of the background smudges. The photo is then converted into a binary image to create a contrast between the white fingerprints and the black background. Using this image with grid divisions also helps clarify where the user has tapped based on the locations with the largest number of white dots in each grid area.
Differentiating between multiple fingerprints
In the case that there are multiple users, grouping fingerprints can help classify which ones belong to each person. Fingerprints have both ridges and valleys, and differentiating them is determined by the overall and local ridge structure. There are three patterns of fingerprint ridges– arch, loop, and whorl– that represent the overall structure, and the ridge endings or bifurcation represent the local structure or minutiae points. Different algorithms incorporate these fingerprint traits and structure to group the fingerprints and identify the differences. Some examples of algorithms used are Filterbank, adjacent orientation vector (AOV) system, and correlation-filter.
Filterbank requires whole fingerprints and cannot identify just the tips of the finger since it uses both the local and overall structure. The algorithm works by selecting a region of interest and dividing it into sectors. A feature vector with all the local features is formed after filtering each sector, and the Euclidean distance of the vectors of two fingerprint images can be compared to see if there is a match.
Adjacent orientation vector system matches fingerprints based only on the number of minutiae pairs and the finger details rather than the global/overall structure of the finger. The algorithm works by numbering all of the ridges of the minutiae pairs and creating an AOV consisting of that number and the difference between adjacent minutiae orientations. The AOV score or distance of the two fingerprints are computed and checked against a threshold after fine matching to see if the fingerprints are the same.
Correlation filter works with both whole fingers and fingertips. This algorithm works by using a correlation filter or training image of the fingerprint to the image to find the local and overall ridge pattern and ridge frequency. When verifying a fingerprint, the transformation is applied to the test image and multiplied by the results of applying the correlation filter on the person of interest. If the test subject and template match, there should be a large result.
Smudge-supported pattern guessing (smug)
Smug is a specific attack method that combines image processing with sorting patterns to figure out pattern-based passwords. First, the attackers take a picture of the smudge area using an appropriate camera and lighting. Using an image-matching algorithm, the captured image is then compared to a reference picture of the same device to properly extract a cropped picture focused on the smudges. Next, the smudge objects are identified using binary, Canny edge detection, and Hough transformation to enhance the visibility of the fingerprint locations. Possible segments between the swipes and points are detected with an algorithm to form the target pattern. The segments are then filtered to remove unwanted and isolated edges to only keep the edges that follow the segment direction. These segments are identified by figuring out if the smudge between two grid points is part of a pattern after comparing the number of smudge objects against the set threshold. Lastly, these segments are used in a password model to locate potential passwords (e.g. n-gram Markov model). An experiment conducted found that this method was successful in unlocking 360 pattern codes 74.17% of the time when assisted by smudge attacks, an improvement from 13.33% for pure guessing attacks.
Types of vulnerable security methods
Smudge attacks can be performed on various smart device locking methods such as Android Patterns, PINs, and text-based passwords. All of these authentication methods require the user to tap the screen to input the correct combination, which leads to susceptibility to smudge attacks that look for these smudges.
Personal Identification Numbers (PINs)
Main Article: Personal Identification Numbers
A PIN is a four or six number code unique to the individual and is one of the most widely used authentication method for mobile phones at 78% of mobile phone users utilizing this function. Four-digit PINs are mainly used by English users and six-digit PINs are used by users in Asia. There are only 10 number options to choose from, and four-digit PINs have 10,000 different number combinations and six-digit PINs have 1,000,000. PINs are not only susceptible to smudge attacks but other attacks possible through direct observation like shoulder-surfing attacks or just pure guessing like brute-force attacks. They are also used heavily in electronic transactions or for using ATMs and other banking situations. If a PIN is shared or stolen, the device or machine cannot detect whether the user is the rightful owner since it only relies on if the correct number is inputted. In relation to smudge attacks, this allows attackers to easily steal information since there is no other way to authenticate the user for who they actually are.
Text-based passwords
Main Article: Passwords
Text-based passwords is a popular type of security measure that people use to lock their phones in an alphanumeric way. Users can use any combination of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, punctuation, and special characters to create their passwords. Touchscreen devices that use text-based passwords will contain fingerprint smudges in the location of corresponding numbers or letters on the alphanumeric keypad. Attackers can use this to perform the smudge attack. The downfall to text-based passwords is not only its vulnerability to smudge attacks but also the tendency of users to forget the password. This causes many users to use something that is easy to remember or to reuse multiple passwords across different platforms. These passwords fall under what is called a weak password subspace within the full password space and makes it easier for attackers to break in through brute-force dictionary attacks. An early study reviewed 3289 passwords, and 86% of them had some sort of structural similarity such as containing dictionary words and being short.
Draw-a-Secret (DAS)
Main Article: Draw-a-Secret
Draw-a-Secret is a graphical authentication scheme that requires the users to draw lines or points on a two-dimensional grid. A successful authentication depends on if the user can exactly replicate the path drawn. Android Pattern Password is a version of Pass-Go that follows the concept of DAS.
Pass-Go
Pass-Go uses a grid so that there isn’t a need to store a graphical database and allows the user to draw a password as long as they want. Unlike DAS, the scheme relies on selecting the intersections on a grid instead of the cells on the screen, and users can also draw diagonal lines. Tao and Adam who proposed this method found that over their three month study, many people drew longer pattern passwords, which goes against the tendency to choose minimal and easy-to-remember passwords.
Android Pattern passwords
Android pattern lock is a graphical password method introduced by Google in 2008 where users create a pattern on a line-connecting 3x3 grid. About 40% of Android users use pattern lock to secure their phones. There are 389,112 possible patterns that the user can draw up. Each pattern must contain at least 4 points on the grid, use each contact point once, and cannot skip intermediate points between points unless it's been used earlier. Touchscreen devices that use Android pattern lock will leave behind swipes that give away the right location and combination an attacker needs to unlock the phone as an unauthorized user. The security of Android pattern lock against smudge attacks was tested by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, and from the swipes left behind from the drawn pattern, they were able to discern the code fully 68% of the time and partially 92% of the time under proper conditions.
Countermeasures
Physiological biometrics such as Android Face Unlock, iPhone Touch ID and Face ID, and Trusted Voice have been recently implemented in mobile devices as the main or alternative method of validation. There are also other novel ways that have potential to be a future security scheme but haven't been implemented yet into mainstream usage. Some of these ways avoid the requirement to input anything with their fingers and thus eliminating the ability for attackers to use smudges to determine the password lock.
Strong passwords
Although there are many countermeasures that help protect against smudge attacks, creating secure passwords can be the first step to protecting a device. Some of the recommended steps are:
Passwords should be at least 8 characters long. A longer password strays away from the weak password subspace and makes it harder for the attacker to interpret more fingerprint smudges
Avoid using words in the dictionary as they can be more common and make the password weak.
Change passwords frequently.
Use randomly generated passwords. Random passwords prevent a user from selecting commonly used and easy-to-remember words that are easily susceptible to attacks.
Avoid using the same password for every security authentication system. This prevents attackers from accessing other information if they happen to discover one of the passwords.
Although these are the recommended tips for stronger passwords, users can run out of strong password options they will remember and later forget the passcode after frequent changes. To avoid this, users tend to choose short, weaker passwords to make it more convenient and shorten the unlocking time.
Anti-fingerprint protection
Researchers have looked into anti-fingerprint properties that can allow people to keep their current password schemes and not worry about the leftover smudges. Surfaces that are able to repel the water and oils from the finger are called amphiphobic. Surfaces that have low surface energy and surface transparency (low roughness) are typically anti-smudge due to their higher contact angles and low molecular attraction. Low molecular attraction means that there is little to no adhesion for the oil and water molecules to bind to the surface and leave behind a trace. However, achieving these properties while still functioning as a touchscreen is hard as the low surface energy alters the durability and functionality of the touchscreen itself.
With this research, various anti-smudge screen protectors have been put on the market such as Tech Armor's anti-glare and anti-fingerprint film screen protector and ZAGG's InvisibleShield Premium Film and Glass Elite (tempered glass) antimicrobial screen protectors. ZAGG markets its InvisibleShield as smudge resistant, glare resistant, and scratch proof. These phone accessories can range from 30 to 60 dollars.
There have also been various smartphones on the market that have been pitched as having an oleophobic coating, which resists oil to keep the touchscreen free from fingerprints. The oleophobic screen beads up any oil residuals, preventing them from sticking to the surface and making it easy to wipe finger residuals off without smearing. In July 2016, Blackberry released the DTEK50 smartphone with an oleophobic coating. Other phone developers have used this for the touchscreens of their devices such as Apple's many generations of iPhones, Nokia, and Lumia. and HTC Hero.
Biometrics
Main Article: Biometrics
Biometrics is a type of authentication that identifies a user based on their behavior or physical characteristics, such as keystrokes, gait, and facial recognition rather than what one can recall or memorize. A biometrics system takes the unique features from the individual and records them as a biometric template, and the information is compared with the current captured input to authenticate a user. Biometrics is categorized as either physiological or behavioral by the US National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee (NSTC) on Biometrics. This type of security can serve as a secondary protection to traditional password methods that are susceptible to smudge attacks on their own since it doesn't rely on entering a memorized number or pattern or recalling an image. Research conducted on biometric authentication found that a mix or hybrid of biometrics and traditional passwords or PINs can improve the security and usability of the original system.
One of the downsides to biometrics is mimicry attacks where the attackers mimic the user. This can increase the vulnerability of the device if attackers turn to methods that allow them to copy the victim’s behavior. Some of these methods include using a reality-based app that guide attackers when entering the victim’s phone or using transparent film with pointers and audio cues to mimic the victim’s behavior. Another vulnerability is that the biometric template can be leaked or stolen through hacking or other various means to unauthorized people. A possible solution to any theft, leak, or mimicry are fingerprint template protection schemes as they make it difficult for attackers to access the information through encryption and added techniques.
Physiological
Physiological biometrics authenticates a user based on their human characteristics. Measuring the characteristics unique to each individual creates a stable and mostly consistent mechanism to authenticate a person since these features do not change very quickly. Some examples of physiological biometric authentication methods are listed below.
Iris recognition
Fingerprint recognition
Hand geometry
Facial recognition
Behavioral
Behavioral biometrics authenticates a user based on the behavior, habits, and tendencies of the true user. Some examples include voice recognition, gait, hand-waving, and keystroke dynamics. The schemes listed below have been proposed to specifically protect from smudge attacks.
Touch-Interaction: Touch-interaction is a proposed way of authenticating a user based on their interactions with the touch screen such as tapping or sliding. There are two types: static that checks the user once and continuous that checks the user multiple times. The convenience of this method is that it doesn't require extra sensors and can check and monitor the user in the background without the help or attention of the user. Chao et al. describes the process in which the up, down, right, and left motions are checked in terms of the position of the finger, the length of the swipe, the angle, the time it takes, the velocity, acceleration, and finger pressure. In their conducted experiment, they tested on how usable and reliable the touch-based method is and found that all of the touch operations were stable and blocked unauthorized users with an expected error rate of 1.8%. However, there are still other factors like the smartphone type, the software, environment, familiarity of the phone, and physical state of the user that could create variability and thus a higher rate of error.
BEAT : This specific unlocking method is called BEAT, which authenticates the behavior of the user or how they perform a gesture or signature. A gesture is swiping or pinching the touch screen, and a signature scheme requires the user to sign their name. This method is secure from smudge attacks and also does not need extra hardware. BEAT works by first asking the user to perform the action 15 to 20 times to create a model based on how they performed the action to use for authentication. The features identified are velocity magnitude, device acceleration, stroke time, inter-stroke time, stroke displacement magnitude, stroke displacement direction, and velocity direction. Machine learning techniques are then applied to determine whether the user is legitimate or not. An experiment was conducted using the BEAT method on Samsung smartphones and tablets and found that after collecting 15,009 gesture samples and 10,054 signature samples, the error rate of 3 gestures is 0.5% and about 0.52% for one signature.
SmudgeSafe
SmudgeSafe is another authentication method protected from smudge attacks that uses 2-dimension image transformations to rotate, flip, or scale the image at the login screen page. The user will draw a graphical password shaper created from the points on an image as usual, but the image will look different every time the user logs in. The changes done on the image are randomized, so previous login smudges do not give hints to attackers on what the input is. To ensure that the transformations applied will significantly change the locations of the password points, the area of these specific locations on the image is restricted. In a study comparing SmudgeSafe's graphical authentication method to lock patterns and PINs, SmudgeSafe performed the best with a mean of 0.51 passwords guessed per participant. The pattern lock had a mean of 3.50 and PINs had a mean of 1.10 passwords correctly guessed per participant.
TinyLock
TinyLock was proposed by Kwon et al. and uses two grids; the top one is for the pressed cells for the confirmation process, and the bottom one is a drawing pad for the authentication process. The top grid is used to notify the user by flickering and vibrating if the user is on the correct initial dot before they start drawing. The bottom half of the screen contains a tiny 3 x 3 grid used for drawing the secret password. The grid is much smaller in size compared to traditional pattern locks, which forces the user to draw in a confined space to squeeze all the smudges in a small area. This method mitigates smudge attacks because the smudges are all smushed together, and the users are required to draw a circular virtual wheel in either direction after drawing the pattern password. However, this method is not completely free from shoulder-surfing attacks. Also, another drawback is the grid dots are hard to visualize due to the small size, which makes it difficult to draw complex patterns and unlock without error.
ClickPattern
ClickPattern uses a 3 x 3 grid labeled one through nine, and the user has to click on the nodes that correlate with the end of a drawn line to prevent swiping on the screen. Doing this creates smudges that are harder to distinguish from normal screen usage. If anything, the smudges created will reveal the nodes used but not the pattern, thus being more protected from smudge attacks than Android pattern lock. On the lock screen, ClickPattern consists of these three components:
Grid 3 x 3
Table numbered 1- 9
Okay and Undo Button
The user is authenticated when the inputted pattern is the same as the original pattern and in the same exact order and direction. To create a valid pattern, the pattern must have at least 4 points and none of them can be used more than once. The pattern will also always contain dots in between a sequence, even though it does not necessarily need to be clicked. Users can also go through previously used dots to access an unused node.
Multi-touch authentication with Touch with Fingers Straight and Together (TSFT)
This multi-touch authentication uses geometric and behavioral characteristics to verify users on a touch screen device. According to Song et al., this TFST gesture takes an average of 0.75 seconds to unlock, is very easy to use, and simple to follow. The user puts two to four fingers together in a straight position, decreasing the amount of surface compared to other multi-touch methods. With the fingers in this fixed hand posture, the user can choose to either trace a simple or complex pattern, and the screen will pick up the positions of the fingers and record each trace movement in the form of touch events. These touch events account for the X and Y-coordinates, the amount of pressure applied, the finger size, the timestamp, and the size of the touched area, and are compared to the template created during the registration process. The physiological features or hand geometry include a measurement between possible strokes from the performed gesture. Horizontal strokes track the finger length differences, and vertical strokes track the finger width. Since the user always places their fingers in a straight position, the measurements of the finger will stay the same and provide consistent verification. Lastly, there are behavioral features that are traced, specifically the length of the stroke, the time it takes, the velocity of the stroke, the tool or the area for each touch point in relation to finger size, the touch area size, the pressure applied, and the angle of the stroke. For one stroke, there are 13 behavioral features, and this increases to 26, 39, and 52 for up to four strokes.
Bend passwords
With new technology geared towards creating a flexible display for smartphone devices, there are more opportunities to create novel authentication methods. Bend passwords are an original type of password authentication used for flexible screens. It involves different bend gestures that the users perform by twisting or disfiguring the display surface, and there are a total of 20 gestures currently available. The bending can be a part of a single gesture by individually bending one of the four corners of the display or part of a multi-bend gesture by simultaneously bending pairs of corners.
Fractal-Based Authentication Technique (FBAT)
A new proposed authentication method called Fractal-Based Authentication Technique (FBAT) uses Sierpinski’s Triangle to authenticate users. This process combines recognition-based and cued recall-based authentication as the users have to recognize and click on their personal pre-selected color triangles as the level of triangles increases. For smartphones, the level of triangles is set at 3 due to the limited size of the touch screen, but it can increase for bigger tablets. At level 3, the probability that an attacker will guess the password is 0.13%. Recognition-based requires users to recognize pre-selected images and cued recall-based graphical requires users to click on pre-selected points on an image. In the Sierpinski triangle, a selected colored pattern is created during the registration and is hidden in the device. To authenticate themselves, a user must select the correct pattern in each level while the triangles randomly shuffle. Since the colored triangles are randomly generated, they can be found in different locations for every authentication, thus leaving smudges behind that do not give any clues to potential attackers. This technique can be used on Android devices, ATM machines, laptops, or any device that uses authentication to unlock.
2 x 2 and 1 x 2 Knock Code
Knock Code is authentication method introduced by LG Electronics that allows users to unlock a phone without turning it on by tapping the correct area in the right sequence. The screen is split into four sections, with the vertical and horizontal lines changing. There are two variations of Knock Code that have been proposed—the 2 x 2 and 1 x 2 knock code. These variations can protect against smudge attacks due to the sliding operations that erase the knocking at the end after the taps are inputted. In a user study that compared the original Knock Code and the Android Pattern Lock, these variation schemes were more resistance to smudge attacks.
2 x 2 knock code: The 2 x 2 knock code adds the sliding gesture which helps increase the amount of password combinations to about 4.5 billion ways or 53 thousand times bigger than the original Knock Code. This scheme uses four parts of the grid and aims to decrease the amount of gestures performed while still having a high level of security.
1 x 2 knock code: The 1 x 2 scheme also uses sliding operations but decreases the amount of areas to two that are side-to-side. Flexible area recognition, which is the algorithm used, doesn’t allow sliding operations in the same area for convenience, and the user only has to use their thumb to unlock the phone. The amount of passwords in the subspace is the exact same as the original Knock Code.
Future
There has been movement towards physiological biometric authentication in current smartphone security such as fingerprint and facial recognition that allow the user to replace their PINs and alphanumeric passcodes. However, even new and advanced authentication methods have flaws and weaknesses that users can take advantage of. For example, in an examination of touch authentication, researchers observed similar swiping behavior and finger pressure in a large number of phone users, and this generic information can aid attackers in performing successful attacks. Research on biometrics and multi-gesture authentication methods is continuing to help combat attacks on traditional passwords and eliminate the vulnerabilities of novel schemes as new trends and new technology are developed.
See also
Biometric Points
Keystroke dynamics
Lock screen
Password Strength
Mobile Security
Shoulder-surfing
Lipophobicity
References
Computer security exploits |
36250682 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messenger%20%28software%29 | Messenger (software) | Messenger is an instant messaging app and platform developed by Facebook (now Meta Platforms). Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the company revamped its messaging service in 2010, released standalone iOS and Android apps in 2011, and released standalone Facebook Portal hardware for Messenger calling in 2018. Later, Facebook launched a dedicated website interface, Messenger.com, and separated the messaging functionality from the main Facebook app, allowing users to use the web interface or download one of the standalone apps. In April 2020, Facebook released a Messenger desktop app for Windows and macOS.
Messenger is used to send messages and exchange photos, videos, stickers, audio, and files, and also react to other users' messages and interact with bots. The service also supports voice and video calling. The standalone apps support using multiple accounts, conversations with optional end-to-end encryption, and playing games.
History
Following tests of a new instant messaging platform on Facebook in March 2008, the feature, then-titled "Facebook Chat", was gradually released to users in April 2008. Facebook revamped its messaging platform in November 2010, and subsequently acquired group messaging service Beluga in March 2011, which the company used to launch its standalone iOS and Android mobile apps on August 9, 2011. Facebook later launched a BlackBerry version in October 2011. An app for Windows Phone, though lacking features including voice messaging and chat heads, was released in March 2014. In April 2014, Facebook announced that the messaging feature would be removed from the main Facebook app and users will be required to download the separate Messenger app. An iPad-optimized version of the iOS app was released in July 2014. In April 2015, Facebook launched a website interface for Messenger. A Tizen app was released on July 13, 2015. Facebook launched Messenger for Windows 10 in April 2016. In October 2016, Facebook released Messenger Lite, a stripped-down version of Messenger with a reduced feature set. The app is aimed primarily at old Android phones and regions where high-speed Internet is not widely available. In April 2017, Messenger Lite was expanded to 132 more countries. In May 2017, Facebook revamped the design for Messenger on Android and iOS, bringing a new home screen with tabs and categorization of content and interactive media, red dots indicating new activity, and relocated sections.
Facebook announced a Messenger program for Windows 7 in a limited beta test in November 2011. The following month, Israeli blog TechIT leaked a download link for the program, with Facebook subsequently confirming and officially releasing the program. The program was eventually discontinued in March 2014. A Firefox web browser add-on was released in December 2012, but was also discontinued in March 2014.
In December 2017, Facebook announced Messenger Kids, a new app aimed for persons under 13 years of age. The app comes with some differences compared to the standard version. In 2019, Messenger announced to be the 2nd most downloaded mobile app of the decade, from 2011 to 2019.
In December 2019, Messenger dropped support for users to sign in using only a mobile number, meaning that users must sign in to a Facebook account in order to use the service.
In March 2020, Facebook started to ship its dedicated Messenger for macOS app through the Mac App Store. The app is currently live in regions include France, Australia, Mexico and Poland.
In April 2020, Facebook began rolling out a new feature called Messenger Rooms, a video chat feature that allows users to chat with up to 50 people at a time. The feature rivals Zoom, an application that gained a lot of popularity amongst the COVID-19 pandemic. Privacy concerns arose since the feature uses the same data collection policies as mainstream Facebook.
In July 2020, Facebook added a new feature in Messenger that lets iOS users to use Face ID or Touch ID to lock their chats. The feature is called App Lock and is a part of several changes in Messenger regarding privacy and security. The option to view only "Unread Threads" was removed from the inbox, requiring the account holder to scroll through the entire inbox to be certain every unread message has been seen.
On 13 October 2020, Facebook's Messenger application introduced cross-app messaging with Instagram, which is yet to be launched. In addition to the integrated messaging, the application announced the introduction of a new logo, which will be an amalgamation of the Messenger and Instagram logo.
Features
The following is a table of features available in Messenger, as well as their geographical coverage and what devices they are available on. In addition there is a vanishing message feature. In addition there is an audio recording feature which allows audio recordings of up to one minute which may or may not be vanishing:
Messenger Rooms
It is a video conferencing feature of Messenger. It allows users to add up to 50 people at a time. Messenger Rooms does not require a Facebook account. Messenger Rooms competes with other services such as Zoom.
Back in 2014, Facebook introduced an unrelated, stand-alone application named Rooms, letting users create places for users with similar interests, with users being anonymous to others. This was shut down on December 2015.
In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook revealed video conferencing features for Messenger called Messenger Rooms. This was seen as a response to the popularity of other video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Skype in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Messenger Rooms allows users to add up to 50 people per room, without restrictions on time. It does not require a Facebook account or a separate app from Messenger. When used, it only prompts the user for basic information. Users can add 360° virtual backgrounds, mood lighting, and other AR effects as well as share screens. To prevent unwanted participants from joining, users can lock rooms and remove participants.
Some have voiced concerns in regards to Messenger Room's privacy and how its parent, Facebook, handles data. Messenger Rooms, unlike some of its competitors, does not use end-to-end encryption. In addition, there have been concerns over how Messenger Rooms collects user data.
Monetization
In January 2017, Facebook announced that it was testing showing advertisements in Messenger's home feed. At the time, the testing was limited to a "small number of users in Australia and Thailand", with the ad format being swipe-based carousel ads. In July, the company announced that they were expanding the testing to a global audience. Stan Chudnovsky, head of Messenger, told VentureBeat that "We’ll start slow ... When the average user can be sure to see them we truly don’t know because we’re just going to be very data-driven and user feedback-driven on making that decision". Facebook told TechCrunch that the advertisements' placement in the inbox depends on factors such as thread count, phone screen size, and pixel density. In a TechCrunch editorial by Devin Coldewey, he described the ads as "huge" in the space they occupy, "intolerable" in the way they appear in the user interface, and "irrelevant" due to the lack of context. Coldewey finished by writing "Advertising is how things get paid for on the internet, including TechCrunch, so I’m not an advocate of eliminating it or blocking it altogether. But bad advertising experiences can spoil a perfectly good app like (for the purposes of argument) Messenger. Messaging is a personal, purposeful use case and these ads are a bad way to monetize it."
Reception
In November 2014, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) listed Messenger (Facebook chat) on its Secure Messaging Scorecard. It received a score of 2 out of 7 points on the scorecard. It received points for having communications encrypted in transit and for having recently completed an independent security audit. It missed points because the communications were not encrypted with keys the provider didn't have access to, users could not verify contacts' identities, past messages were not secure if the encryption keys were stolen, the source code was not open to independent review, and the security design was not properly documented.
As stated by Facebook in its Help Center, there is no way to log out of the Messenger application. Instead, users can choose between different availability statuses, including "Appear as inactive", "Switch accounts", and "Turn off notifications". Media outlets have reported on a workaround, by pressing a "Clear data" option in the application's menu in Settings on Android devices, which returns the user to the log-in screen.
User growth
After being separated from the main Facebook app, Messenger had 600 million users in April 2015. This grew to 900 million in June 2016, 1 billion in July 2016, and 1.2 billion in April 2017.
In March 2020, total messaging traffic increased by 50% in countries that were on quarantine due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Group calls grew by more than 1,000%.
Government attempt at surveillance/decryption
In early 2018, the US Department of Justice went to court to attempt to force Facebook to modify its Messenger app to enable surveillance by third parties so that agents could listen in on encrypted voice conversations over Messenger.
The court decided against the Justice Department, but sealed the case.
In November 2018, the ACLU and EFF filed suit to have the case unsealed so that the public can be informed about the encryption/surveillance debate.
This motion was denied in February 2019, and an appeal was filed in April 2020.
See also
Messenger Kids
Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients
Comparison of VoIP software
References
External links
Messenger (software)
2011 software
Freeware
XMPP clients
VoIP software
IOS software
Social media
Windows Phone software
Meta Platforms applications
Mobile applications |
36277736 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%20Compute%20Engine | Google Compute Engine | Google Compute Engine (GCE) is the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) component of Google Cloud Platform which is built on the global infrastructure that runs Google's search engine, Gmail, YouTube and other services. Google Compute Engine enables users to launch virtual machines (VMs) on demand. VMs can be launched from the standard images or custom images created by users. GCE users must authenticate based on OAuth 2.0 before launching the VMs. Google Compute Engine can be accessed via the Developer Console, RESTful API or command-line interface (CLI).
History
Google announced Compute Engine on June 28, 2012 at Google I/O 2012 in a limited preview mode. In April 2013, GCE was made available to customers with Gold Support Package. On February 25, 2013, Google announced that RightScale was their first reseller. During Google I/O 2013, many features including sub-hour billing, shared-core instance types, larger persistent disks, enhanced SDN based networking capabilities and ISO/IEC 27001 certification got announced. GCE became available to everyone on May 15, 2013. Layer 3 load balancing came to GCE on August 7, 2013. Finally, on December 2, 2013, Google announced that GCE is generally available. It also expanded the OS support, enabled live migration of VMs, 16-core instances, faster persistent disks and lowered the price of standard instances.
At the Google Cloud Platform Live event on March 25, 2014, Urs Hölzle, Senior VP of technical infrastructure announced sustained usage discounts, support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Cloud DNS and Cloud Deployment Manager. On May 28, 2014, Google announced optimizations for LXC containers along with dynamic scheduling of Docker containers across a fleet of VM instances.
Google Compute Engine Unit
Google Compute Engine Unit (GCEU), which is pronounced as GQ, is an abstraction of computing resources. According to Google, 2.75 GCEUs represent the minimum power of one logical core (a hardware hyper-thread) based on the Sandy Bridge platform. The GCEU was created by Anthony F. Voellm out of a need to compare the performance of virtual machines offered by Google. It is approximated by the Coremark(TM) benchmark run as part of the PerfKitBenchmarker Open Source benchmark created by Google in partnership with many Cloud Providers.
Persistent disks
Every Google Compute Engine instance starts with a disk resource called persistent disk. Persistent disk provides the disk space for instances and contains the root filesystem from which the instance boots. Persistent disks can be used as raw block devices. By default, Google Compute Engine uses SCSI for attaching persistent disks. Persistent Disks provide straightforward, consistent and reliable storage at a consistent and reliable price, removing the need for a separate local ephemeral disk. Persistent disks need to be created before launching an instance. Once attached to an instance, they can be formatted with the native filesystem. A single persistent disk can be attached to multiple instances in read-only mode. Each persistent disk can be up to 10TB in size. Google Compute Engine encrypts the persistent disks with AES-128-CB, and this encryption is applied before the data leaves the virtual machine monitor and hits the disk. Encryption is always enabled and is transparent to Google Compute Engine users. The integrity of persistent disks is maintained via a HMAC scheme.
On June 18, 2014, Google announced support for SSD persistent disks. These disks deliver up to 30 IOPS per GB which is 20x more write IOPS and 100x more read IOPS than the standard persistent disks.
Images
An image is a persistent disk that contains the operating system and root file system that is necessary for starting an instance. An image must be selected while creating an instance or during the creation of a root persistent disk. By default, Google Compute Engine installs the root filesystem defined by the image on a root persistent disk. Google Compute Engine provides CentOS and Debian images as standard Linux images. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 images are a part of the premier operating system images which are available for an additional fee. Container Linux (formerly CoreOS), the lightweight Linux OS based on Chromium OS is also supported on Google Compute Engine.
Machine types
Google Compute Engine uses KVM as the hypervisor, and supports guest images running Linux and Microsoft Windows which are used to launch virtual machines based on the 64 bit x86 architecture. VMs boot from a persistent disk that has a root filesystem. The number of virtual CPUs, amount of memory supported by the VM is dependent on the machine type selected.
Billing and discounts
Google Compute Engine offers sustained use discounts. Once an instance is run for over 25% of a billing cycle, the price starts to drop:
If an instance is used for 50% of the month, one will get a 10% discount over the on-demand prices
If an instance is used for 75% of the month, one will get a 20% discount over the on-demand prices
If an instance is used for 100% of the month, one will get a 30% discount over the on-demand prices
Machine type comparison
Google provides certain types of machine:
Standard machine: 3.75 GB of RAM per virtual CPU
High-memory machine: 6.5 GB of RAM per virtual CPU
High-CPU machine: 0.9 GB of RAM per virtual CPU
Shared machine: CPU and RAM are shared between customers
Memory-optimized machine: greater than 14 GB RAM per vCPU.
The prices mentioned below are based on running standard Debian or CentOS Linux virtual machines (VMs). VMs running proprietary operating systems will be charged more.
Resources
Compute Engine connects various entities called resources that will be a part of the deployment. Each resource performs a different function. When a virtual machine instance is launched, an instance resource is created that uses other resources, such as disk resources, network resources and image resources. For example, a disk resource functions as data storage for the virtual machine, similar to a physical hard drive, and a network resource helps regulate traffic to and from the instances.
Image
An image resource contains an operating system and root file system necessary for starting the instance. Google maintains and provides images that are ready-to-use or users can customize an image and use that as an image of choice for creating instances. Depending on the needs, users can also apply an image to a persistent disk and use the persistent disk as the root file system.
Machine type
An instance's machine type determines the number of cores, the memory, and the I/O operations supported by the instance.
Disk
Persistent disks are independent of the virtual machines and outlive an instance's lifespan. All information stored on the persistent disks is encrypted before being written to physical media, and the keys are tightly controlled by Google.
Each instance can attach only a limited amount of total persistent disk space (one can have up to 64 TB on most instances) and a limited number of individual persistent disks (one can attach up to 16 independent persistent disks to most instances).
Regional persistent disks can be replicated between two zones in a region for higher availability.
Snapshot
Persistent disk snapshots lets the users copy data from existing persistent disk and apply them to new persistent disks. This is especially useful for creating backups of the persistent disk data in cases of unexpected failures and zone maintenance events.
Instance
A Google Compute Engine instance is a virtual machine running on a Linux or Microsoft Windows configuration. Users can choose to modify the instances including customizing the hardware, OS, disk, and other configuration options.
Network
A network defines the address range and gateway address of all instances connected to it. It defines how instances communicate with each other, with other networks, and with the outside world. Each instance belongs to a single network and any communication between instances in different networks must be through a public IP address.
Your Cloud Platform Console project can contain multiple networks, and each network can have multiple instances attached to it. A network allows you to define a gateway IP and the network range for the instances attached to that network. By default, every project is provided with a default network with preset configurations and firewall rules. You can choose to customize the default network by adding or removing rules, or you can create new networks in that project. Generally, most users only need one network, although you can have up to five networks per project by default.
A network belongs to only one project, and each instance can only belong to one network. All Compute Engine networks use the IPv4 protocol. Compute Engine currently does not support IPv6. However, Google is a major advocate of IPv6 and it is an important future direction.
Address
When an instance is created, an ephemeral external IP address is automatically assigned to the instance by default. This address is attached to the instance for the life of the instance and is released once the instance has been terminated. GCE also provides mechanism to reserve and attach static IPs to the VMs. An ephemeral IP address can be promoted to a static IP address.
Firewall
A firewall resource contains one or more rules that permit connections into instances. Every firewall resource is associated with one and only one network. It is not possible to associate one firewall with multiple networks. No communication is allowed into an instance unless a firewall resource permits the network traffic, even between instances on the same network.
Route
Google Compute Engine offers a routing table to manage how traffic destined for a certain IP range should be routed. Similar to a physical router in the local area network, all outbound traffic is compared to the routes table and forwarded appropriately if the outbound packet matches any rules in the routes table.
Regions and zones
A region refers to a geographic location of Google's infrastructure facility. Users can choose to deploy their resources in one of the available regions based on their requirement. As of June 1, 2014, Google Compute Engine is available in central US region, Western Europe and Asia East region.
A zone is an isolated location within a region. Zones have high-bandwidth, low-latency network connections to other zones in the same region. In order to deploy fault-tolerant applications that have high availability, Google recommends deploying applications across multiple zones in a region. This helps protect against unexpected failures of components, up to and including a single zone. As of August 5, 2014, there are eight zones - three each in central US region and Asia East region and two zones in Western Europe region.
Scope of resources
All resources within GCE belong to the global, regional, or zonal plane. Global resources are accessible from all the regions and zones. For example, images are a global resource so users can launch a VM in any region based on a global image. But an address is a regional resource that is available only to the instances launched in one of the zones within the same region. Instances are launched in a specific zone that requires the zone specification as a part of all requests made to that instance.
The table below summarises the scope of GCE resources:
Features
Billing and pricing model
Google charges the VMs for a minimum of 10 minutes. At the end of 10th minute, instances are charged in 1-minute increments, rounded up to the nearest minute. Sustained usage based pricing will credit the discounts to the customers based on the monthly utilisation. Users need not pay a commitment fee upfront to get discounts on the regular, on-demand pricing.
VM performance
Compute Engine VMs boot within 30 seconds which is considered to be 4-10x faster than the competition.
Disk performance
The persistent disks of Compute Engine deliver higher IOPS consistently. With the cost of provisioned IOPS included within the cost of storage, users need not pay separately for the IOPS.
Global scope for images and snapshots
Images and disk snapshots belong to the global scope which means they are implicitly available across all the regions and zones of Google Cloud Platform. This avoids the need for exporting and importing images and snapshots between regions.
Transparent maintenance
During the scheduled maintenance of Google data center, Compute Engine can automatically migrate the VMs from one host to the other without involving any action from the users. This delivers better uptime to applications.
References
External links
Cloud computing
Cloud computing providers
Cloud infrastructure
Cloud platforms
Compute Engine
Web services
Computer-related introductions in 2012 |
36323080 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaio | Metaio | Metaio was a privately held Augmented Reality (AR) company that developed software technology and provided augmented reality solutions.
Headquartered in Munich, Germany, with subsidiaries in San Francisco, California, New York City, New York and Dallas, Texas, Metaio provided a software development kit (SDK) for programming PC, web, mobile and custom offline augmented reality applications.
Additionally, Metaio was the creator of Junaio, a free mobile AR browser available for Android and iOS devices.
On 28 May 2015 it was reported that Metaio GmbH was acquired by Apple Inc for an undisclosed sum.
History
Metaio was founded in 2003 in Munich, Germany, by current CEO, Thomas Alt and current CTO, Peter Meier. The company grew out of an internal project within Volkswagen that received a German grant. The founders used to bootstrap their enterprise.
In 2005 Metaio released the first end-consumer AR application called KPS Click & Design in Germany, which allowed the user to put virtual furniture into an image of their living room. In addition of this, Metaio also released the Unifeye Platform which enabled third-party developers to create their own commercial AR solutions. In 2006 Metaio released the first browser plug-in for web-based AR applications.
Shortly thereafter, Metaio launched the first fully integrated AR application for mobile devices with the release of the mobile AR browser Junaio.
From 2010 to 2012, Metaio presented the first commercial 2-D Marker less Feature tracking application for print and television on a consumer mobile device and as a result won the ISMAR Tracking Contest in 2011.
On May 23, 2015, Metaio ceased product licensing, cancelled all pending conferences, and posted this notice on their support site:Metaio products and subscriptions are no longer available for purchase. Downloads of your previous purchases will be available until 15 December 2015, and active cloud subscriptions will be continued until expiration. Email support will continue until 30 June 2015.On May 28, 2015, TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple Inc. had bought the company.
Products
Metaio offered products covering the needs of the AR value chain from product design, engineering, operations, marketing, sales and customer support.
Metaio SDK - The Metaio SDK allows developers to use content without prior encryption. No offline tools or server side encryption is needed when generating and deploying 3D assets and tracking patterns. The SDK is currently supported on Android, iOS and Windows with an additional plugin for development in Unity for Android, iOS, Windows and OS X platforms.
Metaio Creator - The Metaio Creator was an augmented reality software that allows users to create a complete AR scenario without specialized programming knowledge through an easy to use drag and drop interface.
Metaio CVS - Metaio Continuous Visual Search (CVS) manages marker searching online for instant image recognition.
Metaio Cloud - Allows developers to store and manage content online.
Junaio – Junaio is an augmented reality browser which allows users to experience mobile augmented reality through multiple channels on their mobile devices.
Metaio Engineer - Provides solutions for technical assignments from the visualization of future facilities, within a current production environment, over illustrating working instructions on a component to deviate measurement between virtuality and reality.
Events
Since 2006 Metaio has organized insideAR, an annual event solely dedicated to Augmented Reality developers, researchers and businesses. In 2013 insideAR was the world's largest Augmented Reality Conference.
Press
In 2011 Reuters wrote an article about Metaio in collaboration with ST-Ericsson announcing the company as "The World-Wide Leader in Augmented Reality Technology."
In 2012 The Next Web announced: "…While there are a slew of apps that tap GPS, image recognition, visual search and other elements of augmented reality, Junaio does a good job of merging them all."
Awards
2014
Auggies Award for the "Best Campaign"
2013
Volkswagen Augmented Reality Tracking Challenge
ISMAR Best Poster
2012
Auggies Award for "Best AR Demo"
2011
ISMAR Tracking Contest Award for "World’s first mobile 3D Tracking"
Augmented Planet Reader's Choice Award for "Best AR Marketing Campaign" and "Best AR Developer Toolkit" for the Metaio Mobile SDK
Best Android AR App Ever – Second Place for "Best App Ever"
2010
Augmented Planet Reader's Choice Award – Runner up for "Best Augmented Reality"
"Innovation Spreis Des Jahres" or "Innovation Award Of the Year "for "Virtual Dressing Room"
2009
"I Caught Their Eye" Award, Winner in the Innovation for Tomorrow category
2007
First Prize at "Deutscher Internetpreis" (German Internet Award)
2004
Der Innovationspreis für zukunftsweisende Business-Ideen (The Innovation Award for Forward-Thinking Business Ideas)
References
External links
Metaio home page - website for Augmented Reality
Metaio Augmented Reality Blog
Junaio home page
Metaio Thermal Touch Technology
Augmented reality
Software companies established in 2003
Software companies of Germany
2003 establishments in Germany
Companies based in Munich
Apple Inc. acquisitions
2015 mergers and acquisitions |
36352657 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solus%20%28operating%20system%29 | Solus (operating system) | Solus (previously known as Evolve OS) is an independently developed operating system for the x86-64 architecture based on the Linux kernel and a choice of the homegrown Budgie desktop environment, GNOME, MATE or KDE Plasma as the desktop environment. Its package manager, eopkg, is based on the PiSi package management system from Pardus Linux, and it has a semi-rolling release model, with new package updates landing in the stable repository every Friday. The developers of Solus have stated that Solus is intended exclusively for use on personal computers and will not include software that is only useful in enterprise or server environments.
History
On September 20, 2015, Ikey Doherty announced that "Solus 1.0 will be codenamed Shannon, after the River Shannon in Ireland", indicating that "codenames for releases will continue this theme, using Irish rivers."
In July 2016, Solus announced the intention to discard the concept of fixed point releases and to embrace a rolling release model.
In January 2017, Doherty announced that Solus will adopt Flatpak to reassemble third party applications. In August, Doherty announced that Solus also will adopt "Snaps" (next to Flatpak).
On June 13 the same year, it was announced that the developer team had been expanded with Stefan Ric, and Ikey Doherty – previously working for Intel on Clear Linux OS – started working full-time on Solus.
On November 2, 2018, technology website Phoronix published an open letter from original founder Ikey Doherty confirming that he was stepping back from the project, assigning "any and all intellectual, naming and branding rights relating to the ownership of Solus" to the development team "with immediate and permanent effect, acknowledging them as the official owners and leadership of the project."
On January 1, 2022, experience lead Josh Strobl announced his resignation from Solus, after 6 years of involvement with the project.
Releases and reception
Point releases
Solus 1.0 "Shannon" was released December 27, 2015. Jessie Smith reviewed the release as part of a feature story in DistroWatch Weekly, a weekly opinion column and summary of events from the distribution world. While he "ran into a number of minor annoyances" such as "Solus panicking and shutting itself down", he concluded that "Solus 1.0 represents a decent start".
Solus 1.1 was released February 2, 2016. HecticGeek blogger Gayan has described Solus 1.1 as a "well optimized operating system", praising significantly faster boot and shutdown times than Ubuntu 15.10. Due to several usability issues encountered, he recommended to wait another year before trying it out again.
Solus 1.2 was released on June 20, 2016. Michael Huff has described Solus in his review 'Finding Solace in Solus Linux' as a unique and original project for "those who’ve been reluctant to travel the Linux galaxy".
Solus 1.2.0.5 was released on September 7, 2016. Michael Huff, a programmer and data analyst, wrote in his second review of Solus in Freedom Penguin that "we finally have the power and ease-of-use of a Mac in a Linux distribution" and "that the only people who need to use Solus are those who value their happiness in computing", praising the operating system as only one of few independent projects assured of "a tight cult following with the potential for mass appeal."
Solus 1.2.1 was released on October 19, 2016. This is the last fixed point release of Solus and all future releases will be based on the snapshot model (the OS is now following the rolling-release model).
Rolling releases
Solus is considered a curated rolling release. It is a rolling release in the sense that once installed, end-users are guaranteed to continuously receive security and software updates for their Solus installation. Updates become available every Friday.
Solus 2017.01.01.0, a snapshot following the recently adopted rolling release model, was released on January 1, 2017.
Solus 2017.04.18.0, was released on April 18, 2017.
Solus 3 was released on August 15, 2017.
Solus 3.9999 (Solus 3 ISO Refresh) was released on September 20, 2018.
Solus 4.0 "Fortitude" was released on March 17, 2019. Announcing the release, Solus Experience Lead, Joshua Strobl stated that Solus 4.0 delivered "a brand new Budgie experience, updated sets of default applications and theming, and hardware enablement".
Solus 4.1 was released on January 25, 2020.
Solus 4.2 was released on February 3, 2021.
Solus 4.3 was released on July 11, 2021.
Editions
Solus is currently available in four editions:
Budgie flagship edition, a "feature-rich, luxurious desktop using the most modern technologies";
GNOME edition, running the GNOME desktop environment, "a contemporary desktop experience";
MATE edition using the MATE desktop environment, a "traditional desktop for advanced users and older hardware";
KDE Plasma edition, "a sophisticated desktop experience for the tinkerers".
Budgie
Ikey Doherty stated that, regarding Budgie, he "wanted something that was a modern take on the traditional desktop, but not too traditional", aiming to keep a balance between aesthetics and functionality.
Core team
Technical lead: Beatrice T. Meyers [DataDrake]
Global Maintainers: Friedrich von Gellhorn [Girtablulu], Joey Riches [joebonrichie], and Pierre-Yves [kyrios]
Features
Curated rolling release
Solus brings updates to its users by means of a curated rolling release model. It is a rolling release in the sense that once installed, end-users are guaranteed to continuously receive security and software updates for their Solus installation without having to worry that their operating system will reach end-of-life. The latter is typically the case with fixed point releases of operating systems such as Fedora and Ubuntu but also Microsoft Windows. Marius Nestor at Softpedia has argued that all operating systems should use the rolling release model in order to decrease development and maintenance workload for developers and to make the latest technologies available for end users as soon as these are ready for the market.
Compared to other rolling release operating systems such as Arch Linux - which provides bleeding edge software, i.e. software so new that there is a relatively high risk that software breakages might occur and render the system partially or completely unusable, Solus takes a slightly more conservative approach to software updates, hence the term curated rolling release. In contrast to Arch, Software on Solus is commonly referred to as cutting edge, typically excluding beta software, and is released after a short period of testing (in the unstable software repository) to end users in order to provide a safer, more stable and reliable update experience. By prioritizing usability (curated rolling release) over availability (pure rolling release), Solus intends to make the operating system accessible to a wider target market than Arch Linux, which is mainly aimed at more advanced users possessing in-depth technical knowledge about their system.
Solus is also a curated rolling release in allowing its users to participate in the actual curation process, broadly conceived as the process by which software is selected, maintained and updated (on the server side in the software repositories of the operating system as well as on the client side on the end users computer system). More specifically, and contrary to other operating systems with various 'enforced update mechanisms', a Solus user has the freedom to choose what gets updated and when updates are applied (if at all), except for mandatory security updates.
Software availability
Solus comes pre-installed with a wide range of software that includes the latest Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Transmission and GNOME MPV. Additional software that is not installed by default can be downloaded using the included Software Center. Wireless chips and modems are supported through optional non-free firmware packages.
Package management is done through eopkg. Michael Huff has quoted project founder and lead developer Ikey Doherty that Solus will not be defined by its package manager. In a previous interview with Gavin Thomas from Gadget Daily on February 8, 2016, Doherty stated that as an end user the goal is to actually not interact with the package manager, sharply outlining the project's direction in terms of user experience. According to Doherty, the goal is "to actually get rid of it, so the user doesn’t even know about it." In Solus, the package manager is not intended to be used as a tool to deploy but to build software, distinguishing it from less beginner-friendly practices on other Linux-based operating systems.
Software developed by Solus
Budgie desktop environment: a GTK 3 desktop that tightly integrates with the GNOME software stack, employing the underlying technology. Starting with version 11, it was announced that Budgie will no longer be written in GTK, and the GNOME software stack will be fully replaced, due to unsolvable disagreements with the GNOME team.
Raven: a sidebar interface that serves as an applet panel, notifications center and houses the desktop customization settings.
Budgie Menu: a quick category and search-based application launcher.
Budgie-wm: the window manager of the Budgie Desktop.
eopkg: (Evolve OS Package) a fork of the PiSi package manager.
ypkg: a tool to convert the build process into a packaging operation.
ferryd: the binary repository manager for Solus.
Software Center: a graphical frontend to install software in Solus.
Brisk Menu: a menu co-written with the Ubuntu MATE development team, featured in Solus MATE.
Security
In July 2015, Solus announced integration of Clear Linux patches to deprecate insecure SSL ciphers, responding to a community post on Google+ by Arjan van de Ven.
In response to security issues experienced by the Linux Mint project in late February 2016, Solus introduced improvements by providing a global Solus GPG key on its download section. Joshua Strobl, Communications Manager at Solus, announced the separation of official and community mirrors on the download page with official mirrors "to be regularly audited and updated" and "daily integrity checks against every ISO mirror" to be performed.
Within its software center, Solus contains a wide variety of dedicated security software ranging from encryption software such as VeraCrypt to anonymization tools such as Tor.
Solus integrates AppArmor instead of SELinux for restricting programs' capabilities.
Popularity
Because of user privacy, the Solus project doesn't track users so there isn't a direct and reliable way to measure popularity.
As of July 2021, the DistroWatch website, which records the frequency of page clicks on its own site, ranked Solus 13th in the 6-month page hit rankings, 6th among the most popular rolling release distributions. and achieved an average reader-supplied review score of 8.42 out of 10.
Critical reception
Solus 3 was named one of the best Linux distributions of 2017 by OMG! Ubuntu!
Matt Hartley praised Solus in his overview of the best Linux-based operating systems of 2017, as "Perhaps the most interesting distro in recent years...taking a unique approach to a logical user workflow, package management and how they work with the community. I see them doing great things in the future."
In the more mainstream media Jason Evangelho covered Solus a few times for Forbes magazine. Solus received a lot of appraisal from Evangelho in his articles covering PC gaming and tech industry, most notable regarding gaming on Solus Linux and about the 4.0 release.
References
Notes:
External links
Solus on OpenSourceFeed gallery
Free software operating systems
Linux
X86-64 Linux distributions
Rolling Release Linux distributions
Linux distributions |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.