Data Delivery Within a Cloud Infrastructure

/

Today, there is a growing trend worldwide amongst private and public organizations to move towards having an open non-private data ideology. Reason being there is a growing need to facilitate access to non-private data for citizens and employees. This is as a result of the Information Age and its predominance in today’s society. The issue this raises is what kind of impact would routine publishing of non-private data have on an organization’s infrastructure? It is evident that cloud computing can be a clever and cost effective means to achieve this end.

Organizations have begun to create what is referred to as an “open data catalogue” hosted in the cloud as this was the most time efficient manner to make non-private data easily accessible to those individuals this information was meant for. This also allowed for minimal infrastructure changes, flexibility, convenience and at a low cost. It has proven to be a great way for organizations to be transparent to their employees and drive interest from the public. It has also been fundamental in fostering a feeling of empowerment to employees as they feel more involved in the shaping of the organization they are a part of.

Moving forward organizations are looking to develop a process for establishing standard operations for the addition and maintenance of data sets in the catalogue in order to create an open data infrastructure.  It is imperative that employees and citizens have a good understanding of the benefits and value in making this type of information available. Transparency is key to building and fostering trust. It will help to generate employee interest in being more involved and excited about where they work resulting in strengthened unity. Unity within any organization is of paramount importance to its long run health and viability.

Chris Medina

Do you have an open date catalogue project on your radar? What are the challenges and obstacles you foresee in the future?

Wireless Networking for the Rest of Us

/

Wireless networks are everywhere and have become a part of our everyday lives because they allow people to remain connected without sacrificing mobility.Their popularity really skyrocketing in the past six months and I couldn’t be happier about that since I am a bit of a wireless junkie.  

I think a large contributor to the success of wireless networking is their relative ease-of-use. It is very easy for someone with very little wireless knowledge to setup and connect to a basic wireless network; this makes them very attractive.  Unfortunately, it is the apparent ease-of-use that masks the fact that wireless networks are incredibly complex and that they require a lot technical skill and planning to fully understand and deploy properly. With that in mind, consider this my first post in a series designed to explain the inner-working of wireless networks in language that anyone can understand. Basically, I want to take the technical-mystery out of wireless networks and help people understand how they work.

The remainder of this post is actually a republishing of a post I created for my, now retired, personal blog several months ago. Posts to follow will contain explanations of how antennas work, understanding radio frequencies (RF), and authentication and encryption. Without further ado, I give you “What You Thought You Knew About Your New 802.11n Router”:

If you have recently purchased a new wireless router, the odds are good you are the proud owner of an 802.11n router. Odds are equally as good that the sales person told you all about the increased range, reliability, and speed that you will experience with your new purchase. It's during the speed pitch that the sales person, usually a high school kid with no wireless networking background, will introduce you to the term 3x3 MIMO and make one of the following claims:

  1. "3x3 MIMO means the router can send and receive three times as much as the older wireless routers could."
  2. "3x3 MIMO means you can send and receive three streams of data (spatial streams) at the same time, effectively tripling your speed."
  3. "This router has three antennas so three different computers can connect without interfering with each other since they will each have their own dedicated antenna."

The first two statements actually contain tiny shreds of truth but are incredibly over-simplified and misleading. The third statement is a piece of creative genius which, from the look on the teenager's face when I asked him what 3x3 MIMO meant, was thought up on the fly. After I left the store, I'm sure he gave himself a pat on the back for thinking so quickly on his feet. Unfortunately, all of this quick thinking means you probably bought an 802.11n router with a slight misunderstanding of its capabilities. 

True, your new 802.11n router may indeed say 2x2 MIMO, 2x3 MIMO, or 3x3 MIMO on it. Also true, those number do refer to the number of radio chains in the router. Here's the skinny on radio chains and MIMO terminology:

2x3 - This refers to the number of transmitters and receivers in your access point or router, respectively. In this case, the router would have two transmitters and three receivers.

MIMO - This means multiple-input multiple-output. Your router is capable of sending and receiving multiple signals at the same time because it has multiple radios and antennas.

Radio Chains - A radio chain is comprised of a radio, and all of the supporting components for that radio. A radio chain does not need to have both a transmitter and a receiver. Here are a few examples of MIMO systems with the number of radio chains shown:

  • 2x2 MIMO - Two radio chains. Each radio chain has a transmitter and a receiver.
  • 2x3 MIMO - Three radio chains. Two radio chains are comprised of a transmitter and receiver, and one of the radio chains only has a receiver.
  • 3x3 MIMO - Three radio chains. Each radio chain has a transmitter and a receiver.

Understanding this terminology, you can now see that there may have been some truth in what the sales person told you in the store. A 3x3 MIMO system may actually be capable of supporting three spatial streams. If that was the case, you would definitely see a theoretical tripling of your wireless speeds. Unfortunately, as I've shown above, the term 3x3 only refers to the number of transmitters and receivers; it does not speak to the capabilities of the access point or router itself. Most 3x3 access points and routers on the market today actually only support two spatial streams. This means that, while they may have three transmitters, they were not given the capabilities of using all three transmitters to broadcast discrete streams of data simultaneously, so you'll only really see a theoretical doubling of your wireless speeds instead of the tripling you were told about at the store.

Dan C.

Did this post explain MIMO and 802.11n in a way that you could understand? If not, please let me know which parts I could explain better and I promise to try and clarify my explanations.

Information Security at TED2011: Cracking Stuxnet

/

I have been a big fan of TED for some time now. The talks hosted on the website cover an incredibly broad range of subjects including: parenting, art, science, and everything in between. The great thing about this venue is its ability to inspire, fascinate, and inform people. Whether you agree with the speakers or not is irrelevant; these videos make you think.

Imagine my surprise when I found an information security topic being featured on the TED homepage. Stuxnet is 'old news' by now but still a very important and interesting subject. Take what you will from the talk. For now, I am just impressed to see information security being presented, and presented well, on as prestigious a venue as TED2011.

Dan C.

What are your thoughts on the evolution of cyber weapons? Do you think Stuxnet is a one off or a sign of things to come? What are your thoughts on the apparent blurring of the lines between information security and physical security? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Creating & Remembering (C0mpl3x) Passwords

/

With password complexity becoming more and more important as computer processing becomes faster and cheaper each day, how can we be expected to adhere to the strict password policies that expert’s layout for us, and still remember all our passwords? Most of us will have passwords for Twitter, Facebook, Hotmail, Gmail, Windows logon and online banking. We also need to ensure that these passwords aren’t duplicated to prevent a snowball effect in the event someone manages to get their grubby paws on one. Then we have the issue that we absolutely can’t use passwords that only have letters, so we need to toss numbers and special characters into the mix( ie. !#$%^&*()) and you must always stay away from using names of pets, family members, dictionary words and other addresses/things associated to you.

So where does that leave us? We have eliminated most of the ways people create passwords and ways they have developed for remembering them. But moving forward, we need to develop new ways of developing and remembering passwords.

Here are some suggestions to consider when creating passwords.

There is the common substitution where you change out a letter for a symbol that looks similar:

  • A = @
  • S = $ 
  • T = 7
  • And = &

This on its own still isn’t enough, but if we combined words, acronyms, dates and use substitutions, we can create a very strong password.

Combining words, acronyms and dates:

  •    If you have a few animals in your house take the first letter from each of their names in the order you got them.
  • Now pick a word that has to do with the account you are creating the password for, if you ‘re making a Facebook password don’t use the word “face” or “book” but something like “social” or “friends” but the more unrelated the word is while still maintaining the connection for yourself the better
  • And mix in special characters

Animals: BRE. Word: social, Sisters birth year: 1992

The final product after mixing in special characters: (Bre*$0c1al92). This would be a great password that can be remembered because it has significance to only the individual creating it.

Now that you have created this password you can reuse parts of it to create other passwords such as one for your bank. If we just change the word we use to something like “mykids” (because that’s where all your money goes) we can create another strong password while still utilizing parts of your other passwords so you can have a standard.

(Bre*MyK1d$92)

A few months later the whole process will need to be repeated to create a new batch of passwords. Many people don’t find creating new secure passwords a whole lot of fun, but keep in mind that you’re are protecting YOUR private information that you are responsible for.

Blake T.

 

Do you have any tips or tricks for creating stellar passwords? Share them with everyone in our comments section.