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ISPs keep their distance from deep packet inspection
Lawmakers in Washington took a break from dealing with the economy this morning to examine one piece of controversial technology that big companies are quickly distancing themselves from - Deep Packet Inspection. The technology, which allows deep granular analysis of network traffic, grabbed the attention of privacy advocates when it was revealed that Internet Service Providers were interested in DPI as a means of delivering targeted advertising at their customers. Now, big name ISPs are distancing themselves from DPI about as much as campaigning Republicans are distancing themselves from the Bush Administration. Testimony this morning from AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner Cable executives were all very similar: we respect our customers privacy, customers should be given an opt-in- not opt-out - ...
Why
Look in the network closet in any good-sized company today and you’ll find a wide assortment of network gear: firewalls, switches, gateways, routers, hubs, bridges, the list goes on and on. Each of these devices essentially either directs or secures the packets that form the automobiles on the streets and freeways of today’s networks. All data networks -- including the mother of all data networks, the Internet -- are built from these packet-directing and packet-securing devices. All this equipment works pretty well, as long as they don’t care what is actually inside the packets. And there’s the rub. The amount of traffic going over the network that is XML formatted -- in particular, Web Services messages -- is set to explode, and all that equipment in the closet is completely unprepared to direct or secure that XML traffic.read more
New Firefox Plug-In Double-Checks So-Called Unsafe Sites
Intercepting Internet traffic and spying on the communication between two computers is a gold mine for hackers. Now Carnegie Mellon University researchers hope software they've built will make it harder for criminals to hit that jackpot. The software, for use with latest version of the Firefox Web browser, creates an additional way for people to verify whether the site they're trying to visit is authentic.
Sprint Will Launch 4G WiMAX with Localized Features
In advance of its WiMAX rollout this fall, Sprint announced Thursday a lineup of mobile partners to localize its customer's 4G experience. In what the company calls "geobrowsing," XOHM users will get local news, weather and many other localized networking features delivered to their laptops and mobile devices.The WiMAX service is expected to kick off in Baltimore in September, with Chicago and Washington, D.C., to follow before the end of the year.Location, Location, LocationGPS in the XOHM system continually updates the user's position and feeds it to back-end applications. This feature is added by California-based Open Wave. Using uLocate as the foundation for the service, Sprint has tested and implemented a number of applications before rollout.The partnership between Sprint and uLocate includes building the entire XOHM localized experience, with APIs provided to third-party developers for their applications. Some big names will be part of the launch.Yelp will provide local business news all the way through local restaurant reviews. Eventful service will not only list events for XOHM users but will also map the locations. NAVTEQ will stream up-to-the-minute local traffic information, while Google will serve up localized searching and map features.John Polivka, spokesperson at Sprint, explained the difference between the XOHM user experience and using the Internet. "With Internet access you could go to each vendor now as a separate interaction; but with XOHM, the services are aggregated into a service package that correlates them due to the intelligence in the network; for example, plotting friend locations on a map, identifying a restaurant or entertainment venue from local search, and sharing plans to convene with the benefit of weather, traffic or ticket-purchase convenience."XOHM users will have standard Internet as well. Polivka noted that there is no charge for third-party developers to become part of the program, but there would be...
Macworld
What if they gave a Macworld expo and Apple didn't come? That's the central question surrounding the event that opened Thursday in San Francisco without the company that created its reason for existence. This is the first time in 25 years that Apple has not supported or participated in Macworld, and the company has indicated that it prefers to focus on its Apple stores and not be bound by Macworld schedules for product rollouts.The expo runs through Saturday, while the conference began on Tuesday.The World Without AppleThe expo's kickoff has often been a speech with new product introductions by Apple CEO and cofounder Steve Jobs, but this year New York Times technology columnist and book author David Pogue gave the keynote presentation.His presentation was packed with technology jokes and skits. One skit was a takeoff on Frank Capra's classic movie, It's a Wonderful Life, in which the Jobs character wondered what would have transpired if he had never cofounded Apple. Star Trek's LeVar Burton stepped into the Jobs role and witnessed a world where nearly all the computers ran DOS Version 22.0. Ironically, of course, the expo was imagining what its world will be like without Jobs or Apple.In this year's incarnation of that world, there are plenty of new products -- many of them aimed at the iPhone and iPod -- but few major announcements. According to news reports, there were only half as many exhibitors as last year. About 30,000 people were registered, which is comparable to last year's attendance but not as good as three times that number in some previous years. 'A Very Different Kind of Event'New applications attracting attention include the Inrix Traffic Pro, which enables an iPhone owner to watch real-time traffic reports and have access to traffic cameras. A new service, called...
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