October 2010 Archives

William Beer, director, OneSecurity, PwC comments on the cyber security threat:

Government and corporate computer systems are being targeted daily by a growing number of well-resourced and highly sophisticated cyber-criminals and even state-led operations. We therefore welcome the extra awareness and the resources that are being made available to help protect the public sector and UK plc from such cyber attacks. The UK's critical national infrastructure and corporate secrets are at risk from cyber criminals, and our own research shows that many organisations are simply unaware of how many information security attacks they have suffered. This is despite the fact that this same research shows that direct financial loss and theft of intellectual property are the key areas that impact businesses.

Businesses are now taking cyber security much more seriously. However, they need to question their readiness and ability to recognise and manage the growing threat to their most sensitive data and ensure that it is an issue on their board's agenda.

...at least according to James Nunn-Price from Deloitte's UK information and technology risk practice:

"The information and technology methods for tackling organised crime, cyber security, benefits fraud and tax evasion are converging. To get the most "bang for their buck" in these investment areas of almost £2bn across government, departments need to look at joining the dots, securely sharing sensitive information and behaving as one.

 

"Traditional silo approaches will limit success and the effectiveness of what are all key investment areas for the government. Whilst initial joint working on fraud and error has been announced by HMRC and DWP, the information and technology overlaps with these additional policy areas and other department remits warrants taking a more holistic approach."

Pubic sector IT mangers will need to know what's happening on their networks, says Steve Demianyk, UK channel development manager, network management division, Ipswitch:

Timing couldn't have been worse for the many high level government IT departments who had already begun their regular infrastructure refresh reviews. IT managers in public sector departments are now scrambling around to undertake a full infrastructure review and look at what infrastructure they have got, what has been long forgotten, what is being used optimally and what can be redeployed across disparate offices and departments.

Comment from Kate Craig-Wood, CEO and founder of hosting company Memset

As expected, there are big cuts for central and local government. They said one third for central government, and that will certainly have an impact on IT spending as they look to make the savings. However, I think there is good scope for efficiency improvements within central government IT, and am hopeful that this will finally end the large incumbents stranglehold on government big IT by forcing public sector to look to agile, efficient SMEs and new innovations in cloud computing and shared services to deliver those services.

The 28% cut for local government is going to be challenging for them though, I think. The local councils I have engaged with outside London are already pretty lean. There too, though, there are savings to be made in ICT. The G-Cloud should really help there; if they can spool up a number of generic line of business software as a service solutions that can be used across local government it will certainly cut the IT budgets - there is a huge duplication of systems at present.

It's not all bad news though. IT was mentioned as a way to make savings in the fight against tax evasion; £900m for Inland Revenue I think, to save £7bn, so there is still some faith in IT's ability to improve operational efficiency.

In summary, I expect ICT budgets to take part of the brunt of the required savings, but there are also opportunities for those able to bring the flexibility and efficiency modern IT (for example, agile development and cloud computing) into the public sector.

James Nunn-Price, an associate partner in Deloitte's UK security practice, discusses how security could be impacted by the fallout from the Spending Review >>

 

 

We're seeing a fair amount of industy comment around the Spending Review. Perhaps IT has a role to play...

CloudApps deputy chairman, Stephen Kelly says:

The current economic system has proven resistant to failure and looking beyond the current hard times, there are reasons for optimism among the UK business community. UK is still a great place to do business, our innovation is truly world-class and the green movement, fostered by government sponsorship is strong and growing..

With the comprehensive spending review, IT has a chance, once and for all, to prove it can well and truly help the government save billions. For all ComputerWeekly.com's live coverage see our Spending Review special >>

All's fair in love and war, the saying goes. Another saying is that God is on the side of the big battallions. But with fairness breaking out all over the new government, it seems that some of us are not quite getting the message, at least when it comes to providing broadband access.

BroadbandQuality2010.xls

NationalSecurityStrategy2009v2.pdf

So Benoit Mandelbrot, the man who managed to describe Nature in a simply mathmatical formula (z = z² + c) is dead, at 85, from cancer.
The former IBM Fellow invented fractal geometry, a discipline that underpins our current understanding of  chaos, or how things become and behave in real life. These range from the behaviour of stock markets to the formation of galaxies to the development of a foetus to the shape of trees.
In the process he was the godfather to millions of strangely hypnotic images that exhibit the same patterns at all scales.
His insight came while studying the frequency of errors in transmission in IBM computer systems. Rather than at random, the errors ocurred in groups. Looking into the group, he discovered that these groups or patterns were replicated at all scales, such as minutes, hours, weeks or even decades. He wrote up his ideas in a seminal essay, How long is the coast of Britian? in 1967.

Matt Brittin, managing director for Google's UK and Ireland operations, believes open source poses a problem for Apple.  

Responding to the question, 'Is Apple unstoppable?', at the AOP Digital Publishing Summit today, Brittin said, Apple is "brilliant" and has created new experiences for consumers but open source challenges Apple's closed system.

"In the long run, we think open rather than closed will win. Innovation is great inside a closed system but open is about allowing more people to participate," he said.

Brittin spoke about the Android operating system (OS) and the ability to change features on smartphones, such as the touch-screen keyboard, by chosing different applications developed through its open source system.

Interestingly, Gartner predicts open-source platforms, Symbian and Android will dominate the mobile OS market with anticipated OS sales of 264 million and 259 million respectively in four years' time.

Brittin also said HTML5 will enable more engaging web pages.

"The pace of change is accelerating, wait until in two three years time when we have mobiles with iPhone capabilities outselling computer internet connections - that's gonna change the world much more than the last five years," he added.

Stephen Miron, CEO of Global Publishing, also raised a future challenge for Apple. 

"I worry for Apple," he said at the AOP summit. "We're at an interesting phase now where kids will think that the 'cool' device that their parents own is something that mums and dads have - and that's not cool."

Miron said Apple's "beautiful" devices may no longer appeal to the younger generation in 10 years' time.  

"Customer is king," says Andy Lees, president for mobile communications business at Microsoft, as he announces the launch of Windows Phone 7 - it's new mobile operating system) at the ICA launch event in London. But as Microsoft talk a lot about the consumer, they've forgotten the business user.

Lees references the wealth of content written about Microsoft's position in business in the run up to the launch. But perhaps the scepticism was justified?

Ashley Highfield, managing director of consumer & online for Microsoft UK, says Windows Phone 7 has put the consumer at the heart of everything, "Today is about the launch of Windows Phone 7 and is representative of a renewed focus on the consumer," says Highfield.

But it's not purely for the consumer, it's for "productivity", says Microsoft's Aaron Woodman as he demos the Windows Phone 7. For instance, the Microsoft Office hub brings together OneNote, documents and SharePoint. But there's a lot more attention paid to Xbox integration and the ability to have your avatar on your phone.

In a live link to the annoucement in New York, Steve Ballmer, says this is a different kind of Windows Phone, which is modern in all aspects: in hardware, design principles and how people use internet services.

Microsoft have made it clear that Windows Phone 7 is all about the consumer. Business users have not been overtly targeted this time round. Perhaps Microsoft is overlooking its loyal enterprise market. Or perhaps they're relying on the 'consumerisation of IT' in some sort of reverse psychology strategy? 

Handsets from HTC - the HTC 7 Mozart - will be available running on Windows Phone 7 in the UK from 21st October.

Actatext.pdf

While mobile NFC payments are still slow-moving towards UK mass market, Transport for London (TfL) is demonstrating the faster progression of contactless card payments with its Future Ticketing project, promising contactless credit and debit card payment capability on London buses by 2012.

TfL has predicted contactless payment, in partnership with Visa, Mastercard and American Express, will be available on London's bus network by early 2012 and has announced it is in discussion with "leading card schemes" and transport operators in major international cities to develop a common standards and system for the new technology.

Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor's transport adviser, said in a statement,

"These technologies have the potential to propel us into a world where travelling around London can be easier and even more convenient for passengers. The Mayor is continually looking for new thoughts and ideas and that includes contactless payment.

"This technology is now maturing and could enable people to pay for their travel using credit and debit cards - resulting in a simpler process for the customer, and reducing commission and processing costs for TfL.

"This type of evolution to the next generation of emerging technologies would be a big step for the Oystercard. Any improvements we introduce would clearly need to deliver value for money but we are excited about the potential benefits there could be for the London commuter."

While banks and retailers, such as Barclaycard, are working to familiarise consumers with contactless capabilities, London is likely to be the easiest place to introduce the new contactless technology due to the familiarity of the contactless Oyster travel card.

It will be interesting to see how TfL develop a multi-card reader along side ITSO's work to establish a standardised specification for smart ticketing across the UK to allow the ITSO card to be used anywhere in the country for transportation.

TfL believe contactless payment using credit and debit cards will make London's public transport more accessible to visitors who may carry contactless credit or debit cards from an overseas bank and will be able to use them for London travel.

As TfL was the first organisation to carry out a large-scale NFC trial, perhaps London would also be the most sensible place to launch NFC payments in the UK?  

More details of the TfL Future Ticketing initiative are to be announced by the end of the year.

Barclaycard have outlined its commitment to develop a 'mobile wallet' by looking to extend its contactless payment portfolio from credit cards to mobile devices, wristbands and RFID tag stickers.

At a roundtable discussion hosted in food store, EAT, this week, Barclaycard said it is "taking payments to the next level."

In partnership with Orange, Barclaycard said it continues to liaise with phone manufacturers about embedding a chip into a handset to allow for contactless payments via mobile devices.

But the discussion threw up more questions than answers.

For now, Barclaycard's contactless payments are processed through the same payment technology as standard cards with periodic PIN checks.

But when asked who had responsibility of payment between financial services companies and mobile phone operators in light of a contactless-enabled handset being stolen, Barclaycard's head of research and development, Colin Swain, answered both parties can cancel payments.

If, hypothetically, Orange and Barclaycard can control the blocking of a bank account or smartphone application, how will that work?

Swain also said Barclaycard plan to develop a private cloud application to store consumers' purchase receipt data but gave no details about how they will provide a secure data service.

As the first retailer in the UK to have an integrated contactless system with Barclaycard and EPoS supplier, Vivotech, EAT is now set to pilot mobile payment stickers and contactless loyalty cards in early 2011.

"We are pleased to have been involved in the growth of contactless technology from the start and the next step for us is working towards payments via mobile phone, which is already a huge phenomenon in the Far East," says EAT head of IT, Rene Batsford.

"It won't be long before customers in the UK can swipe their mobile phones over contactless terminals in order to pay for items - and we want to be at the forefront of that," he adds.

The UK has thousands of contactless payment terminals and millions of contactless cards in circulation. But the progression of using mobile devices for contactless payments - and particulars of how financial services firms and mobile network operators will manage mobile contactless payments - is still a lot of talk and not much tangible detail.