The WAVE Report
Issue #0405 (0349)------------------02/06/04

The WAVE Report archive is available on http://www.wave-report.com

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0405.1 Hot Topics

0405.2 Story of the Issue

0405.3 3D

0405.4 Wireless

0405.5 Semiconductor

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0405.1 Hot Topics

*** ParallelGraphics releases the offline version of Outline3D
(February 4)

ParallelGraphics released the offline version of Outline3D, their 3D interior design software, the latest member of the Outline3D family, which includes online ASP-services and client-server solutions for Internet/Intranet.

The offline version allows the creation and demonstration of interior designs without having to access the Internet.

With Outline3D the user can create a 2D plan of the interior and generate a 3D model from it, add furniture and finishings from an Outline3D catalog or files stored on the local PC, get detailed specification of the interior and export it in VRML format.

A small-sized VRML file can be published on the Web or delivered via e-mail and viewed by any standard VRML browser such as ParallelGraphics Cortona VRML Client.

http://www.parallelgraphics.com
http://www.Outline3D.com


*** Stratex Introduces ProVision V
(February 4)

Stratex Networks, Inc. announced ProVision V, a scalable element software management system, developed in parallel with the
Eclipse) wireless transmission system, with the involvement of Network Operating Center users.

Scalable to manage 10,000 network devices, ProVision V supports all Stratex Networks products including its new node-based wireless transmission system, Eclipse. It is a platform-independent client server solution that can be supported on either Solaris 8 or Windows 2000 operating systems. ProVision V can be integrated into higher-level management systems such as TeMIP, Netcool, HP OpenView, Remedy, Metrica, and Concorde.

http://www.stratexnet.com


*** TI Introduces Eight-Channel ADCs with Serial LVDS Interface
(February 2)

Texas Instruments Incorporated announced a family of octal, 10- and 12-bit, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) from the company's Burr-Brown product line.

The ADS527x family features serial low-voltage differential-signaling (LVDS) outputs and consumes 123mW of power per channel at 65 MSPS (138mW/channel at 70 MSPS).

The ADS527x family includes 40, 50, 65 and 70 MSPS (mega samples per second) versions in 12-bit resolution, and 40, 50 and 65 MSPS versions in 10-bit resolution. All products in this family are both pin and serial LVDS compatible.

The ADS527x family is optimized to work with TI's TMS320C6000 DSP platform, offers signal-to-noise ratio of 70.5dB (60.5dB for the 10-bit family) at 10 MHz input frequency and operates from a 3.3V supply.

All eight channels share a common sample clock with a peak-to-peak differential input range of 2V.

Samples and Evaluation Modules of the ADS527x family are available now with volume production scheduled for March 2004. The devices are packaged in an 80-lead TQFP.

Part # Bits MSPS Price 1KU
ADS5273 12 70 $121.00
ADS5272 12 65 $65.00
ADS5271 12 50 $50.00
ADS5270 12 40 $45.00
ADS5277 10 65 $40.00
ADS5276 10 50 $36.00
ADS5275 10 40 $32.00

http://www.ti.com
http://www.ti.com/tidc04mr
http://www.ti.com/sc04020

0405.2 Story of the Issue

*** COMENT 2004
By M. Usman Choudhry

January 26-29
New Convention Center, Washington D.C

In its 26th year, COMNET 2004 is first major networking conference on the calendar. How ever once an event that overflowed the Old Washington Convention Center's 381,000 square feet now uses about one-third of that space at the new convention center. COMNET this year has 76 exhibitors listed on its Web site, down from last year's 141.The conference continues to slide, with little to celebrate in the sessions or on the exhibit floor. Now a low down on the key notes, feature presentations and the exhibit floor.

Key Notes and Presentations:

Information Security on its 100th Birthday:

Dr. Whitfield Diffie, Chief Security Officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Diffie is best known for his 1975 discovery of the concept of public key cryptography, for which he was awarded a Doctorate in Technical Sciences (Honoris Causa) by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1992.

The main points of his presentation

Information security as we know it today dates from the introduction of radio by Marconi in 1903. Cryptography, which was the major research challenge for most of the 20th century, is now the well-developed segment within the field.

Early 20th century had electromechanical devices dominating cryptography. Although cryptography was employed during World War I, two of the more notable machines were employed during World War II: the Germans’ Enigma machine, developed by Arthur Scherbius, and the Japanese Purple Machine (not built out of rotors but of telephone stepping switches), developed using techniques first discovered by Herbert O. Yardley.

U.S Military and secret services have been using cryptography for a long time before Public cryptographic standards were put in place examples being SigSally, the digital secure phone in the 1940s, based on 2400 bits/sec vocoder , with racks of equipment 37 ft long and each weighing a ton. By the end of 1960s time sharing became more common; more secure computing issues arose, how ever the decade saw some interesting stuff like Blacker network security system that used cryptography to maintain integrity and Java language.

In the 1970s, Dr. Horst Feistel established the precursor to today’s Data Encryption Standard (DES). In 1976, The National Security Agency (NSA) worked to establish FIPS PUB-46, known today as DES.

While Cryptography configuration was the major issue in the 20th century, the main issue for the 21st century is Cryptography and Process confinement.

Take the example of a classic hotel versus a modern one, the classic one having a landlady sitting by the only door so that you won’t leave without paying her and the modern one with many open doors and you can come and go as you please any time you want with no security checks any where, the only difference being that they got your credit card information before you checked in. Security is changing on a multilevel the same way.

Whitfield summarized his views at the end with ‘Information security is moving from parameter to infrastructure’.

The Next Five Years:

Howard Anderson, Senior Managing Director, YankeeTek Ventures
Howard Anderson founded The Yankee Group, a technology research and consulting firm, where he served as President and CEO from 1970 until 2000.

He had an interesting presentation with the audiences deciding how the next five years will be for their company and the IT World. Each Attendee was given 5 Cards (1, 2,3,4,5 printed on them) and in answer to every question they were asked to vote based on
1(Strongly agree).....5(Strongly disagree)
Howard made brief comments on the verdicts which are as follows.

My company will move its Call Center off shore in the next five years
The verdict: 1
Moving the Company Call centers offshore to Asia helps reduce costs thanks to the cheap labor there so most of the companies are working in that direction or at least thinking what applications they can move offshore to reduce budget.

Our total communication cost (Local, long distance and wireless) will be 3% or less in 2004(assume level employee count)
The verdict: 3

The Odds that our Corporate Headquarters will go VoIP by 2006 is less than 10%
The verdict: 2
Our PBX infrastructure is aging and hopefully by the end of 2004 5-10% U.S employees will have VoIP. How ever there will be security issues involved here.

By the beginning of 2005 we will have substantially eliminated the Spam problem in Corporate America
The verdict: 5
According to an estimate 60 Billion emails are sent and received every day. Bill Gates suggestion to the Spam problem has been that we should charge people for sending email.

The total IT Budget at your firm from Last year
1: 5% increase
2: 0-4% increase
3: even
4: 1-4% decrease
5: more than 4% decrease
The verdict: 3 and 4

The importance given to the following issue at my company the next five years.
1(Important)... 5(Not Important)

Antispam, Viruses, Trojans: 1
VoIP: 2.5
Wireless: 3
Linux: 3
RFID: 4

Panel Discussion
Surviving and innovating in the tough IT Market:

Host:
John Gallant, President & Editorial Director, Network World, Inc.
Panelists:
Robert Galey, Chief Information Officer, AMTRAK
David Swartz, Chief Information Officer - Information Systems and Services, George Washington University

John Gallant started the discussion by recalling the ‘Do IT’ mantra in the early 90s, the subsequent crash later in the mid 90s and the changing times now as the IT stock is picking up again. His discussion with the panelists proceeded as follows.

Organizational view of IT in your organization

Robert Galey said that the 90s dotcom crash really didn’t have a major effect on Amtrak as they were not working on a lot of centralized IT projects at that time. How ever now they are spending more money on the company’s IT department, the main focus being equipment replacement every 3 years and web site maintenance. The email traffic at Amtrak has increased 5 times in the past two years.

David Swartz said that the technical research work funding at George Washington University is provided by student tuition and now it is harder to get funding for new IT based projects than it was a few years earlier.

Is the Big Budget Mentality coming back soon?

Robert Galey said that their 31 year old company is more interested in smaller projects as compares to big ones.

David Swartz said that the big budget mentality is not coming back any time soon but it is no cause of alarm as before the big leap in 90s, it had been a rather steady slope of development and the progress in the IT field has been quite steady over the last few years.

Challenges in Security

Robert Galey said that according to a Government Study post 9/11, a virus/worm attack by terrorists will a big concern in the future and he thinks that security should be implemented at the server level.

David Swartz said that the good way to counter harmful downloads at an organization would be to come up with a model that keeps check on the desktops’ updates in the system

Is your IT Budget up from last year

Robert Galey said that now 30% of their business is through the website even more than the through the call center. How ever their budget, with some adjustments, is still the same.

David Swartz said that the IT budget at their university has gone up from last year.

5 years from now

Robert said that at Amtrak things will be much more network oriented in the future.

According to David Swartz ‘Not one size fits all’, how ever he sees higher speed connection between points at his organization.

Panel Discussion
How is a government-based move to VoIP different than a private sector move?

Moderator:
Richard Grigonis, Editor-in-Chief, VON Magazine
Panelists:
Ronald I. Koenig, President & CEO, VIACK Corporation
Doug Mohney, Consultant

Highlights of the Koenig’s presentation

92% of Government agencies detected computer security breaches within the last 12 months.
Are you at Risk?
4 out of 5 IT Related crimes are committed from within an organization
Is your staff snooping?
75% of Government agencies acknowledged financial losses due to computer breaches
Are you prepared?

The government is responding to these questions by using cyber alerts, setting up computer incident supports centers and by using a reactive (not proactive) approach to the problems. How ever next on the agenda is e-gov initiatives (making use of all types of cyber activities), cyber security legislation, Buy versus Build (Due to budget constraints it is good idea to use an existent application that can feed government needs instead of building a new one) and maximizing wired infrastructure (Adding CAT5 wiring to the infrastructure).

Mohney’s presentation goes as follows

Is VoIP is really considered telephony? It is considered more as an application than telephony but if it looks like a telephone, quacks like a telephone then it must be a telephone. FCC Chairman Powell’s policy about it is like, that it is not really a phone it just talks to a phone some times so we don’t really need to regulate it as much.

The drawback though is that recording bits is not considered as big a deal (it is not like we are wiretapping any one, it is only bits).

The other issue is Quality of service as basic IP is not designed for scaling, broadcast or QoS prioritizing. MPLS and IPv6 provide some QoS but there is no universal date of adoption for IPv6.

The National Communication System is working on IPS (Internet Priority Service) which will ensure assured communication and enhanced priority to government officials in the case of an emergency.

A brief introduction to Enum, a phone number to IP address mapping protocol was given at the end.

For more information about Enum check the site

http://www.enum.com/index.jsp

Can Security survive the onslaught of wireless Networks:
An interesting presentation by Sondra Schneider, Founder & CEO, Security University. Check out the survey sheets.

Computer Emergency Response Team Report
Online security “incidents”
52,658 in 2001
21,756 in 2000
9,859 in 1999

ICSA Virus Prevalence Survey 2002
1.2 million Virus incidents in 2002
74% of respondents said “getting worse”
81,000 dollars in cleanup costs

MessageLab VirusEye Report 2003
372,000 copies of Yaha
343,000 copies of Palyh
293,000 copies of Klez
.....
And
1 in every 145 emails contained a virus

Symantec Internet Security Threat Report-February 2003
In 2003 50 new vulnerabilities each week
1,200 new 32 bit windows viruses in 2002

The bottom line is ‘Things are getting worse, twice as likely each year as previous. The basic rules are to install Anti-Virus Software, keep it up to date, make regular backups and use personal firewalls.

However existing security technologies are failing. Signature based solutions missing new and modified threats, security alerts confusing users, users turning off security that interferes with functionality, and current security products not designed to detect Trojans are just a few of the issues here.

Recommendation
Use Secure Logon with Out of Band Authentication

Suggestions for wireless network security
-Schedule access point discovery and security audits,
-Connect access points to switches
-Use VLANs to segment wireless traffic
-Configure mutual authentication for clients and access points against the server

Making Wireless Work: Secure and Effective Enterprise Applications:

The speakers present were

Craig Mathias, Principal, Farpoint Communications
Tim Scannell, President and Chief Analyst, Shoreline Research
Dave Juitt, Bluesocket, Inc.
Jim Baker, COO, Alereon, Inc.

Tim Scanell gave the introduction and overview of the agenda.

Craig Mathias said that the main wireless challenges are the economics of scale; improvements in coverage and throughput, WWAN (Wireless WAN) Reliability/Availability and improving WWAN Performance.

He brought the following question going forward;
Cellular Messaging versus Internet Messaging, Which technology will predominate? And the forecast is that email wins. Bottom-line is that wireless messaging will be as important as voice and a standard capability of all networks and subscriber units.

Dave Juitt said that when data is denser we need to manage Bandwidth and avoid unnecessary encryption overhead. He predicted that Voice over WLAN will be widely used in the future.

Jim Baker covered the history of wireless from Government Radio Regulations 1912 to the UWB (Ultra Wide Band)-Patents 1960s to FCC Approval 2002.

The summary of his discussion was that UWB is not WiFi or Bluetooth replacement but a solution to the real problems with more than 10 times the throughput of 802.11a/g, more than 25 times reduction in power and a $1B+ semiconductor market within 5 years.

The security recommendations given were 802.1x (if you are using Layer 2 security), IPSec (Be sure not to forget mobility), VLAN (Deploy per-user VLAN Policy if your network supports it) and EAP (Consider EAP-TLS if client certificates infrastructure is in place)

On the Expo Floor:

Opnet Technologies:

A fancy booth publicizing two software suites

OPNET IT Guru
Has the ability to model the entire network and helps diagnose application performance problems, validate changes to the server and router configurations.

OPNET SP Guru
SP Guru is for service providers migrating from circuit-switched to packet networks, deploying 3G wireless services or VPNs, or implementing MPLS-based traffic engineering. It understands Layer 2/3 networks and helps in troubleshooting, operational validation, planning, and engineering of service provider networks.

http://www.opnet.com/

Avocent:

Avocent is a supplier of keyboard, video and mouse switching solutions. Two new products on display were:

SwitchView SC
Lets you switch between classified and unclassified networks, automatically clears the keyboard buffer after data is transmitted through the switch, access up to four attached servers using one keyboard, monitor, and mouse. It is priced at $349.

DSR4010
KVM over IP switch supports multi-platform, multi-location, multi-device installations, over a standard IP connection. It combines digital and analog access in a 16-port KVM switch, providing simultaneous access for up to 4 users (all 4 being remote or 3 remote and 1 local). It uses Avocent’s DSView centralized management software for remote IP-based access. User software for 1 user is $750; User software for 5 users is $2,500.

http://www.avocent.com/

AdventNet:

They had a demonstration of their new software ManageEngine OpManager 4, a Network, System and Application monitor that offers network monitoring functionality with a live view of Routers, Switches, Servers and Printers using maps which show the status of interfaces / ports and services.

Fault Management capabilities include Event-alarm correlation, color-coded alarms, SNMP trap support and Email / SMS based notifications. Operators get alarm handling functionality like acknowledging alarms, alarm suppression and alarm escalation rules.

The unit prices for single, two and five user editions respectively are $795, $1295 and $ 2495 respectively. Annual Maintenance & Support Fees for single, two and five user editions respectively are $159, $259 and $499 respectively.

http://www.adventnet.com/

Western Telematic:

The highlight of their booth was CMS-16 Console Port Management Switch that provides in-band and/or out-of-band access to RS232 console ports and maintenance ports on UNIX servers, routers and other network equipment. When inquired about its features and pricing, the following data was provided:

Sixteen RS232 DB-9 Serial Ports
10Base-T Ethernet Port
Modem Auto-Setup Command Strings (User Definable)
Data Rate Conversion, 300 to 115K bps
No Software Required
AC and 48V DC Powered Models
Eight Port and 32-Port Units Also Available

CMS-16 is priced at $1,295.

http://www.wti.com/

0405.3 3D

*** Discreet Announces lustre 2 Color Grading System
(February 3)

Discreet released details of its lustre 2 system, the next version of its real-time color grading system for digital media and digital intermediate workflows, based on Discreet's GMask vector shape system.

It features a real-time, 3D color look-up-table engine enabling manipulation of digital images. lustre 2's open engine allows integration of the Eastman Kodak Company's monitor calibration and film-look preview system, and the ARRI Colour Management System.

The lustre 2 system's scalable options include:

lustre Master Station- Digital grading Solution with combined data, HDTV and dual-link HSDL capabilities

lustre Command Station- Digital grading solution available in either data-only, data/HDTV or data/HDTV/HSDL configurations

lustre Assistant Station- Designed to support the Master and Command Stations

lustre Background Render Nodes- Designed to accelerate the time to completion of complex look-creation and design tasks

lustre Conform- Software for conforming and revising digital intermediates from standard EDLs and Change Lists.

lustre 2 is now in beta and is expected to ship in March 2004.

http://www.discreet.com
http://www.discreet.com/lustre

0405.4 Wireless

*** USI Announces 802.11g Wireless ADSL Gateway
(February 4)

Universal Scientific Industrial Co. announced the launch of its new 802.11g wireless ADSL gateway (54 Mbps max. transmission speed).

USI's 802.11g wireless ADSL gateway is ADSL2+ compliant and offers features like router, printer server.

Samples of USI's 802.11g wireless ADSL gateway are now undergoing test by their major customers, and the mass production of this device is expected to start in Q2, 2004.

http://www.usi.com.tw

0405.5 Semiconductor

*** TI Unveils 6.25Gbps CMOS Serial Link Technology
(February 3)

Texas Instruments Incorporated announced its 6.25Gbps serial link product TLK6B008 enabling 6 Gbps transmission over legacy system backplanes that currently run up to 3Gbps.

The TLK6B008 has eight 6.25Gbps bi-directional serial data channels on the sharp end and sixteen 3.125Gbps serial data channels on the blunt end, providing 100Gbps data throughput. The receiver uses 4-tap adaptive DFE (Decision Feedback Equalization) receive equalizer technology, including cancellation of the first post cursor. The transmitter uses a 4-tap equalizer with fully programmable coefficients at 5-bit resolution.

Features of the TLK6B008

-Octal 6.25G/3.12G/1.25Gbps MUX/1 DEMUX Device
-4-Tap Adaptive Decision-Feedback Receiver
-Programmable, 4-Tap, 5-bit Feed-Forward Equalized Transmitter
-Binary (PAM-2) NRZ Signaling
-1.2/2.5 V Power Supply
-Available in ASIC Core Library

The TLK6B008 comes in a 19x19 pins full-array FC-BGA package with 1 mm ball pitch. The TLK6B008 is available for sampling now to partner customers.

http://www.ti.com
http://www.ti.com/sc04029
http://focus.ti.com/lit/ml/sllt164c/sllt164c.pdf

 

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