Recent moves by top storage vendors to add data deduplication to their product lines have not only brought those vendors in line with smaller competitors who have been offering the feature for years, but have also brought new opportunities to solution providers looking to cash in on one of the fastest-growing parts of the storage market.
VMware is meeting Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)'s challenge to its dominance of the server virtualization market with a counterattack plan to offer free downloads of its hypervisor-based server virtualization technology.
There’s a huge concern among conservative talk radio hosts that reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would all-but destroy the industry due to equal time constraints. But speech limits might not stop at radio. They could even be extended to include the Internet and “government dictating content policy.”
Philip O'Reilly, former CEO of high-profile solution provider Solunet, has been tapped by Juniper Networks (NSDQ:JNPR) as its new senior vice president of U.S. enterprise sales, a position O'Reilly called his "dream job."
Juniper Networks Tuesday dove headlong into the enterprise market by unveiling a line of Ethernet switches it claims will change the current modus operandi of corporate networking. The switches, developed under the code name 'Hurricane,' are the Juniper EX line of modular, chassis and fixed-configuration stackable devices.
Do text messages disappear? Only sort of
BY TOM HENDERSON
CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
Download the Crain's Detroit Business article (PDF)
Don't send any text messages or e-mails you don't want to see in the newspaper was a lesson Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick learned last week, and one repeated by area attorneys and business consultants.
"I advise everyone and practice it absolutely. I don't send anything I don't want public," said Mark Malven, leader of the technology transaction practice in the Bloomfield Hills office of Dykema Gossett P.L.L.C. "I don't put anything sensitive into an email or a text message that I wouldn't want to see in the newspaper. Executives have come crashing to the ground. Companies get ruined."
Service providers say they erase text messages from their servers - AT&T deletes messages after 72 hours, according to spokesperson Howard Riefs, and others do so in times ranging up to two weeks - but you shouldn't rely on that, say industry professionals.
"Though officially deleted by official policy, my suspicion is that they archive them longer than public communication dictates, and legislation on e-discovery is making it easier and easier for these types of communications to be used in civil and criminal proceedings," said Steve Barone, CEO of Creative Breakthroughs in Troy, an IT staffing, consulting and managed-services firm and the No. 1 provider of Symantec services in the Midwest.
"Don't rely on word the messages are gone," said Malven. "Providers want people to keep using it (text messaging) and not be worried. They may delete it on the server, but backups may be out there."
"Service providers back up constantly, as a matter of course. Just assume it will be stored somewhere and accessible either intentionally or by accident," said Jose Nazario, a senior security researcher in the Ann Arbor office of Massachusetts-based Arbor Networks Inc., which provides Internet security by monitoring Web sites for assaults by hackers and helping fight them.
Even if private text messages are deleted, companies and governments may have contracts with communications providers spelling out retention policies that require much longer storage, which was the case with the city of Detroit's contract with Mississippi-based SkyTel, whose BlackBerry-like SkyWriter was the tool of choice for the mayor and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty.
Kilpatrick and Beatty are public figures with fewer rights of privacy than most citizens. But once even private citizens start using company equipment in their communications - whether it's e-mail from the office computer or text messages from the company cell phone or BlackBerry - expectations of privacy disappear. "There is no right of privacy then. An employer can do anything he wants," said Malven, including monitoring e-mails and Internet use and getting copies of text messages.
In 2005, a survey by the American Management Association showed that three-fourths of employers monitor employees' Web-site visits, and 65 percent use software to block connections to inappropriate sites. About half review and retain e-mail messages, and a third track keystrokes.
Henry Cendrowski, president of Bloomfield Hills-based Cendrowski Corporate Advisors L.L.C., which advises companies on technology issues and fraud avoidance, said text-message security remains an issue even after messages are deleted from the provider's server. A text message sent by cell phone, for example, remains both in the phone's memory card and the phone's internal memory. Most people think pulling out the memory card protects their sensitive information, but it doesn't.
Phone manuals describe the complicated reset commands to delete information from the internal memory, but that assumes people don't lose their instruction manuals, know they need to delete sensitive information before they turn their phones in or recycle them, and are willing to take the time.
Federal authorities have prosecuted child molesters by getting search warrants to find text messages stored in phones after they were supposedly deleted.
Cendrowski said he advises clients to be particularly careful not to text message or use wireless e-mail to discuss such things as business intelligence or trade secrets. Savvy snoops with the right equipment within broadcast range can easily capture those messages.
Kilpatrick wasn't just at risk from future lawsuits when he and Beatty traded messages about their dalliances, he was at risk from political enemies and potential blackmailers.
"Wireless, in particular, can be eavesdropped on. Anyone with the appropriate software can watch messages come and go into your phone, and malicious software can hijack your computer," said Nazario. "The equipment is available off the shelf and the knowledge is out there."
Tom Henderson: (313) 446-0337, thenderson@crain.com
The law requires that a name be associated with the data to necessitate breach notification, but Social Security numbers (SSNs) do not have to be present. The law affects all state agencies and companies that do business in the state of California. The change to the law was prompted in part by a report from the World privacy Forum that said a quarter of a million people become victims of medical identity theft every year.
Use of NAC at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City revealed that slightly more than half the machines using the network flunked endpoint checks.
Because NAC is still an emerging set of technologies, there's no solid definition yet of what it is. If you ask 10 people in Fortune 1000 companies what NAC is, you'll probably get 10 different answers, said Steve Barone, president and CEO of Creative Breakthroughs Inc., a network security consultancy in Troy, Mich. But all 10 will say they want it, he said.
Until just a few months ago, Gary Warner did not have the kind of day job you'd expect from an antiphishing crusader. He didn't work for a security vendor or a bank, or any kind of company you'd expect to care about phishing.
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