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RSA, aside from being the security arm of data and storage specialist EMC, has been hosting an annual security conference in the US for years which routinely attracts the best and brightest from the IT and security worlds including Bill Gates and Al Gore. Competing with the likes of Infosec in the UK, the European version of the event doesn’t attract quite the same level of speakers as its US sibling but can still boast luminaries such as BT security iconoclast Bruce Schneier and last year’s guest speaker, former fraudster-turned-security expert Frank Abagnale.

The organisers of the RSA Conference like to have a theme to pull all the disparate elements of the show together. Last year, the show was themed around the achievements of UK computing pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing. This year’s show continued the cryptographic theme but from the more esoteric perspective of novelist Edgar Allan Poe.

While Poe’s The Gold Bug famously includes a cypher-based search for treasure, his tale of The Black Cat probably has more in common with the themes explored at this year’s show. In the story, a man murders his wife while in the throes of trying to kill the family cat. The cat’s plaintive meowing eventually gives away both crimes and Poe uses the story to illustrate the idea of the unintended consequences that wait in store for even the most effective strategist.

Jumping from the 19th-century to the present-day zeitgeist of social networking, the show included a warning about the consequences of interactive web sites on corporate security. While some CIOs might look to block access to Facebook through fears of lost productivity, the real concern should really be the exposure of so-called ‘gateway data’, Herbert ‘Hugh’ Thompson, chief security strategist for People Security and professor in the Computer Science department at Columbia University in New York, told RSA delegates. Thompson defines gateway data as innocuous information that, when disclosed, can be used to access secure systems. “You might never heard of a the term ‘gateway data’ before but that’s because I totally made it up,” he said. “Basically it’s data that seems harmless but when used properly can facilitate access to highly sensitive information.”

For more go to CIO.co.uk

Adoption rates of virtualisation have yet to match the hype surrounding it, here Andrew Donoghue hears from businesses who’ve already taken the plunge.

Despite vendors touting the numerous benefits that virtualisation can bestow on businesses that adopt the technology, there is a flaw in the rhetoric that is hard to get around: not many companies are actually adopting virtualisation.

Figures from analyst Gartner released earlier this year reveal only 16 per cent of current IT workloads are running on virtual machines. Although that estimate is set to grow to some 50 per cent of workloads by 2012, it still paints a picture of the reality of virtualisation being well behind the ‘must-have’ technology image portrayed by vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and VMware.

Zahl Limbuwala, chair of the British Computer Society datacentre specialist group says some of the coolness towards virtualisation is down to the economic downturn making any new IT projects harder to execute. But also, virtualisation technology itself has matured and companies are taking a more strategic approach to it.

“It is generally accepted that there is a positive benefit from virtualisation irrespective of which technology you decide to virtualise with,” he says. “But I think there has been a dampening of enthusiasm around virtualisation and consolidation projects over the last 18 months probably due to a combination of the economic climate and increasing complexity around the technology.”

According to Limbuwala, companies are increasingly realising that successful virtualisation is about more than just tackling a few servers and hoping to save hardware and electricity costs.

“I think there is a little more complexity and detail to it now than people just saying, ‘Let’s just go and call in our favourite virtualisation vendor, buy a set of new blades, install them and we’ll make a 16 to 1 saving on energy costs’,” he says. “I think there is a little bit more thought going into it now and so it takes a little bit more time.”

John Tuccillo, chairman of the board for The Green Grid, a confederation of end-user and vendor organisations focusing on energy efficiency, believes companies have begun to realise that virtualisation isn’t the panacea it was made out to be and are taking a more considered approach.

“I think a lot of people looked on virtualisation as a silver bullet,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, it is a fantastic tool but it’s just one of the tools available. And it’s not an inexpensive exercise to get value from virtualisation.”

For more go to Silicon.com

Just returned from a last trip to the UK before we hunker down in Budapest for Christmas and the birth of our daughter  in February. It was good to see everyone and catch-up on work but slightly soured by the experience of flying Wizz Air.

Not only was my flight out delayed by two hours and diverted to Venice! – yes Venice – so that the airline could deliver a spare part but I was clobbered with a £100 charge for excess baggage despite paying for an extra bag online.

The Venice diversion wasn’t anything to do with our plane being faulty – it was fine – it just turned out that delivering a part to the Venice using our plane and our time – was the easiest option for Wizz Air. Which might have been just about tolerably despite adding two hours to our flight time if they had the sense of fair play to offer a sandwich or a cup of tea but we were told by the air-hostesses that although they would like to – the company would not allow it.

The second mishap on the way back was due to fact that Wizz Air has a stupidly complex – some might even say purposefully so – website when it comes to excess baggage that requires you to not only pay £15 for an extra bag but then pay more depending on how much that bag will weigh!! Thinking that I had paid for my bag I missed the extra step only to find out that I had paid for an extra bag which wasn’t actually allowed to weigh anything! The cost of paying for the bag which weighed 8Kgs was £104 at £13 a Kg. Nice – especially at 6.30 am.

Anyway – suffice to say I that I won’t be flying Wizz Air again.

Here’s my complaint letter:

Dear Sir/Madam

I am a UK journalist currently based in Budapest. I specialise in writing about technology and the web and have a question to ask about your website regarding the excess luggage section.

I am wondering specifically why it is possible to select the option of paying for an extra bag – and then being given the option to choose one that weighs 0 kg?

I am asking this question as I fell foul of this fault this morning when traveling back on Wizz Air Flight W6 0202 to Budapest from a press trip to London. As I was bringing back some products for my pregnant girlfriend – I was happy to pay for an extra bag – which I did online and was charged an extra 5500 HUF.

However it was not until I arrived at the airport to catch my flight this morning that I was told that although I had paid for an extra bag – I had not paid for any kg!!!!. I would like someone to explain to me why the site is designed to let this happen as at worst it is very poor site design and at worst could be seen as willfully misleading and simply an opportunity to confuse travelers and make them pay more for excess luggage.

I did try to tell the check-in attendant that I had tried to pay for the extra bag but was told that there was nothing that could be done and I would have to pay an extra £104 for a bag that I had thought I paid for. The attendant – evidently guilty about enforcing the rules which must catch plenty of people out – actually admitted to me to my face that: “Well they are a low-cost airline and will do what they can do get money out of people.“

I would like this money this money compensated back to me as I feel that the web site is misleading and poorly designed – in a way that could be construed to try and extort money from unsuspecting customers – and will be exploring as much in frequent blog postings, news articles and features on the poor customer service at Wizz Air.

I was happy to pay extra for the bags but feel I have been unjustly penalised thanks to the poor design and wording of the site.

This problem was bad enough – but on my outward trip to Luton from Budapest W6 209 on 27 November – the flight was delayed by over two hours because your airline thought it was easier to deliver a part to Venice by diverting our flight to London and inconveniencing everyone on board – than send it by another route.

The flight was due to take off at 17.45 and but did not actually take off till nearly 18.30. The detour to Venice then meant us waiting on the ground for another 45 minutes before the part could be dropped off – before we finally took off again for London. We arrived in London at 21.40 – over 2 hours late.

Despite inconveniencing passengers for your own ends – we were told by the cabin crew that they could not compensate us in any way at all – not even a drink or sandwich was offered – despite the fact that we had been inconvenienced to save your airline time and money rather than as part of any kind of safety emergency or technical problem with our plane.

In short – my whole experience of your airline has been terrible and as someone who regularly meets with senior business executives in the UK and Hungary I will be only too happy to spread the message to everyone I meet during the busy Christmas period ahead.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Donoghue

The Green Grid’s John Tuccillo and Zhal Limbuwala from the British Computer Society argue that consuming less IT and upgrading less frequently isn’t necessarily the most sustainable approach

IT vendors are very keen on discussing environmental and low-carbon approaches to IT in terms of energy efficiency. The idea that new technology will be more efficient and “greener” than older kit fits nicely with the perpetual upgrade mantra that has been the mainstay of the computing industry since its inception. Out with the old and inefficient and in with the new and shiny.

But alongside the focus on energy efficiency, some experts, including representatives from UK government, have begun to look to the IT industry to expand its sustainable horizons to include the entire life-cycle of technology. For example one study from the University of Tokyo estimates that of the total carbon debt of a PC through its life-cycle, 75 percent is incurred during the manufacturing phase. Most of the carbon damage is done when devices are built – not from the energy they consume during their lifetime, experts argue.

Not surprisingly the idea of embedded carbon is not one the IT industry is as eager to embrace as energy efficiency, just as the concept of selling less kit that lasts longer doesn’t fit well with the “new shiny thing” fundamentals of the technology industry.

eWeek Europe UK recently caught up with two experts in IT energy efficiency to discuss the issue. John Tuccillo is chairman of the board for international data centre energy specialist The Green Grid, and Zhal Limbuwala is chair of the British Computer Society data centre specialist group.

The Green Grid is a consortium of IT vendors – including Intel, Microsoft and AMD – and end-users of IT, which aims to develop tools and approaches to help its members improve the energy efficiency of their data centres. The BCS data centre specialist group is one of the 40 or so sub-organisations of the British Computer Society – also known as The Chartered Institute For IT – focused on similar issues to the Green Grid.

The two groups have announced a partnership which will see them collaborate on initiatives designed to improve the sustainability of data centres, including the development of simulator tools which should enable IT professionals to make more accurate judgements how sustainable their infrastructure could be.

For more go to: eWEEK Europe UK

One of the world’s poorest countries is following offer African nations in looking to IT offshore services and crowd-sourcing

The effects of a twelve year civil war may still be very much in evidence in the African Republic of Burundi but aid-workers and educators believe the Internet could offer a brighter future for the country.

Neighbouring Rwanda has invested heavily in broadband and IT infrastructure in the years since the country was rocked by genocide in the mid-90s and Burundi appears to be following a similar strategy. UK charity World Emergency Relief issued a statement this week explaining its decision to fund a computer lab in a school in Burundi’s capital city Bujumbara.

The charity said over 500 pupils from some of the poorest areas of city attend the Himbaza School – and the new IT suite goes some way to offering them a future. The charity believes that by giving more African children access to computers and the internet, the continent could potentially challenge India and Asia in the market for outsourced IT services and virtual admin tasks also known as crowd sourcing.

“At the moment this is principally benefiting areas which already have a reputation for competitive software development such as India and South East Asia but there is absolutely no reason why Africa should not become an extremely competitive option,” the charity states

For more go to eWeek Europe UK

Despite a struggling economy and public debt, the Hungarian government continues to spend millions on Microsoft licences when cheaper alternatives exist, say open source groups

With governments across Europe including the UK looking to slash public spending to tackle budget deficits resulting from bank bail-outs and other effects of the recession, open source could be an important way to cut IT costs, according to free software advocates.

But with Microsoft and other IT vendors equally keen to maintain lucrative government contracts as the private sector continues to keep costs down, open source groups in countries such as Switzerland and Hungary are asking hard questions about why the software is not even being considered as an option for some public sector departments.

According to a statement on the EU Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations (OSOR) – a site for information exchange about community developed software – five open source groups including the Hungarian Open Document Format Alliance (ODFA)  are petitioning the Hungarian government to disclose how much it spends on proprietary software licences.

In an open letter to the Hungarian government’s procurement agency – Directorate General for Central Services (KSZF) – the ODFA states that last year the government spent around 9.5bn Hungarian forints (35 million Euros) on Microsoft software and has already spent 6.3m Euros on educational licenses and millions more on consultation and services from the software giant. “Please make your calculations known to the public which will prove that open source will not be a viable low cost alternative,” the letter states.

Like other economies in eastern Europe, Hungary has taken a battering during the financial crisis and was the first EU country to accept a loan from the International Monetary Fund in October, worth around £15.6 billion.

For more go to: eWeek Europe UK

Internet registry RIPE NCC turned a blind eye to cybercrime, and Russian police corruption helped the perpetrators get away with it, according to the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency

Amsterdam-based Internet registry organisation RIPE NCC has been singled out for its involvement with notorious criminal network provider Russian Business Network (RBN) by the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency.

The registrar took money from the well-known criminal organisation, and subsequently corruption in the Russian police allowed the network’s organisers to escape SOCA’s clutches according to Andy Auld, head of intelligence for the agency’s e-crime department, speaking at the RSA Conference Europe security event this week in London.

RIPE NCC denies any wrong-doing and Auld explained that the registrar wasn’t actually being investigated for its involvement with RBN – but as the registry body had accepted payment from the Russian criminal organisation, it could be seen by some as having been complicit in criminal activities, he said.

“An entity like Russian Business Network – a criminal ISP and recognised as such by just about every media outlet worldwide that covers these things – RBN was registered as local internet registry with RIPE, the European body allocating IP resources to industry,” explained Auld.

The SOCA officer argued that any company that does business with a known cyber-criminal organisation such as RBN could itself be open to accusations of acting illegally.

For more go to: eweekeurope.co.uk

European legal committee member Brian Crowley has publicly supported an Irish investment by Intel – which was recently fined €1 million for market abuse

The comments from Brian Crowley, MEP for The South, one of four European constituencies in Ireland, appear in a press release issued by Intel this week discussing the launch of a new Innovation Open Lab at the Intel Ireland campus in Leixlip, County Kildare.

The launch of the lab was also attended by Conor Lenihan, Ireland’s Minister for Science, Technology & Innovation as well as Dr. Martin Curley, global director, Intel IT Innovation and director, Intel Labs Europe. In a press release issued by Intel, Crowley praised Intel for its contribution to research and development in Ireland.

For more go to: eWeek Europe UK

A senior lawyer at Microsoft is calling for the creation of a global patent system to make it easier and faster for corporations to enforce their intellectual property rights around the world.

In a blog posting on Tuesday, Microsoft’s Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez said that a backlog of patent applications internationally was needed to tackle the 3.5 million pending patent applications around the world — including around 750,000 in the US.

“In today’s world of universal connectivity, global business and collaborative innovation, it is time for a world patent that is derived from a single patent application, examined and prosecuted by a single examining authority and litigated before a single judicial body,” said Guiterrez. “A harmonized, global patent system would resolve many of the criticisms leveled at national patent systems over unmanageable backlogs and interminable pendency periods.”

Guiterrez went on to praise efforts to harmonise international patent systems through projects such ad the Patent Prosecution Highway and the “IP5” partnership but said more needed to be done to allow corporations to protect their intellectual property.

For more go to: ZDNet UK

The UK government has taken Internet copyright-protection out of Ofcom’s hands, and is rushing through measures that could cut off everyone at an address

File sharers in the UK could have internet access for their whole household suspended. New government proposals would bypass a planned Ofcom consultation and enact swift retribution for those persistent copyright-infringers.

Privacy advocates have criticised a government announcement that called for feedback on a swifter, tougher regime than that originally proposed in the Digital Britain report. Tthe forthcoming Digital Economy Bill could allow more drastic action against file-sharers including suspending their internet access.

The government said that it was considering actions that would include forcing ISPs to take action against “repeat infringers” which could include blocking access to download sites, reducing broadband speeds or even “temporarily” suspending an individual’s internet access.

For more go to: eWeek Europe UK