Baseline articles from September 2003

Baseline archives from September 2003

To Protect and Serve.
September 1, 2003... Many organizations are keeping a lid on security spending, but that doesn't mean they're standing pat. Instead, they're trying to spend available dollars more wisely. That can mean consolidating responsibility for security under a single...

Girding The Grid.
September 8, 2003... Innovation may be the life-blood of technology, but once the electrons stop flowing even the best information system goes limp. About 50 million electricity customers throughout the Northeast and Canada learned that lesson the hard way--an Aug....

Port Security: Required Reading.
September 9, 2003... Here are links to key reports, white papers and other research on homeland security and how marine terminals play a key role. *Brookings Institution: "Protecting The American Homeland." *Rand: "'Seacurity': Improving the Security of...

Gotcha! Secure Information Sharing.
September 10, 2003... Did you know that: The main problem is sharing, at all Security and government regulations are driving law enforcement and intelligence agencies to share sensitive information over great distances, instantly. But sharing data effectively...

Carrot and Stick: Selling Security to Shippers.
September 10, 2003... U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner is trying to fight terror with a stick and a carrot. He's telling business leaders to batten down their supply chains, meeting standards set by Customs to secure every aspect of the way they process...

ADT Security Services: Spread Far and Thin.
September 10, 2003... Gobble up everything in sight, and you may get indigestion. Parent company Tyco International was already collecting security firms when it bought ADT in 1998--and then went right on munching. Tyco's accounting during the growth spurt has...

Verizon: Reconnecting.
September 10, 2003... Verizon's phone cables were crushed and submerged in water after 7 World Trade Center crashed. Finally, its rehabilitation work is just about complete. By the end of this year, more than 1,000 customer-service staffers at Verizon...

NYBOT: Going Home.
September 10, 2003... In effect, Pat Gambaro began planning for this day in 1993. This month he is coming home, to new offices with a state-of-the-art trading floor for the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT), where Gambaro serves as chief operating officer. The...

FBI: Under the Gun.
September 10, 2003... Darwin John had established himself as a bit of a miracle worker before being asked to lead an information- systems renaissance at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But John, former director of information and communications systems for...

Voice of Experience: Dean Barrett, Under Controls.
September 10, 2003... Dean Barrett Kansas City Convention & Entertainment Centers Building Operations Manager Kansas City, Mo. www.Kcconvention.com Manager's Profile: Supervises operations and maintenance of 1.6 million-square-foot convention center. The...

American Dynamics: Lan, Camera, Action.
September 10, 2003... Traditional video-security systems are known as closed-circuit television (CCTV) for a good reason: These workhorses of perimeter security typically use dedicated coaxial cable to carry images in analog waves. They can't hook into companies'...

Johnson Controls: Controlling the Building.
September 10, 2003... Dean Barrett is piggybacking on a $13 million energy-saving program to install access control and fire monitoring systems at the Kansas City Convention and Entertainment Centers. He's using a Johnson Controls building control system, which...

Science Applications Int'l Corp.: Looking for Lapses.
September 10, 2003... Where are the weak spots in your organization's security perimeter? Is there a black market in your company's access key-cards? Is your backup data center a power failure away from going dark? If your company needs answers to such pressing...

The Future Demands Your Flexibility.
September 10, 2003... I was in charge of technology at Conoco when PCs first came out--and PCs weren't very good. But they enabled technology to proliferate much faster than it would have. And they gave business people freedom from their centralized computer...

Quashing a Bug Before It Alights.
September 10, 2003... Security is again blowing a hole into Microsoft's relationships with its customers--both individual and corporate. The Blaster worm and its siblings took down many corporate networks in late August, and cost up to $1 billion in lost...

By the Numbers: September 2003.
September 10, 2003... States vs. Cyberterror: Where is it a Crime? If information security used to be about preventing teenage hackers from breaking into corporate networks, 9/11 changed that. Since 2001, 24 states have considered legislation to address...

A Letter to President Bush.
September 10, 2003... Dear President Bush: You probably don't know Joel Phagoo. He is a 21-year-old college student who decided to go fishing in New York's Jamaica Bay with his kid brother and a cousin. They ended up washing up just off Runway 4 Right at JFK...

Quiz: Which Processor Do I Need?
September 10, 2003... 1. We can easily compile and optimize the application we want to deploy for 64-bit processing. TRUE FALSE 1. 2. 2. Others have used this or a similar application successfully on 64-bit platforms. TRUE FALSE 1. 2. 3. Floating-point calculations...

Managing A Budget: Starting from Zero.
September 10, 2003... It was all so easy a few years ago. Come budget time, you pulled up last year's spreadsheet, talked to your managers, added 5% and shipped off next year's budget to the chief financial officer. Now, you have to look at every buck before you...

Primer: 64-Bit Processing.
September 10, 2003... This isn't new. No, it's not. Digital Equipment Corp. came out with the first 64-bit processor, the Alpha, in 1992, and Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems soon followed. What's new is the idea that "industry standard" computers, not just...

Securing Systems: CyberSecurity for the Masses.
September 10, 2003... The Blaster worm brought businesses worldwide quite literally to a standstill last month. Just ask railroad operator CSX about its trains. Yet it wasn't a surprise attack: Microsoft knew about the vulnerability and released a patch on July 16....

QUIZ: Assessing Your Company's Security Aptitude.
September 10, 2003... To give companies a jump-start on computer security education, the Information Technology Association of America and survey firm Brainbench created in June a certification program that works much like the driver's license renewal process....

Sun Puts Wrapping On 'Unwrapped' Open Source.
September 15, 2003... BROOMFIELD, Colo.--Scott McNealy, the chairman, president, chief executive officer and most prominent founder still at Sun Microsystems, likened freely distributed open source code to "unwrapped software." In an interview with Baseline...

McNealy: Innovation Matters, But So Does Profitability.
September 15, 2003... BROOMFIELD, Colo.--Innovation matters, Scott McNealy says. The founder and still chief executive of Sun Microsystems says that he will remain committed to a "controversial strategy" in the computing industry that says, good research and...

Conway 'Bulletproof' at PeopleSoft Connect.
September 15, 2003... ANAHEIM, Calif.-- Chief executive officer Craig Conway put on the dog today as he welcomed customers to PeopleSoft Connect, the enterprise software company's annual users' conference. Actually, he walked out on the stage with his dog -- a...

PeopleSoft CEO: "Spending Is Creeping Back".
September 15, 2003... ANAHEIM, Calif.-- Technology spending is creeping back, notwithstanding the results of database giant Oracle Corp., PeopleSoft Inc. CEO Craig Conway said Monday. "Oracle's results could mean something about technology or they could mean...

Tool: Adding up Application Maintenance.
September 18, 2003... Testing, installing and applying patches isn't the entirety of what it means to maintain applications. But when you are looking for costs to cut, it may help to separate those relatively repetitive tasks from unpredictable ones like...

Quiz: Which Way To Budget.
September 25, 2003... Which budgeting approach best fits your needs? For starters, download this Excel quiz. Answer the True and False questions below, then scroll to the key to see how your responses break down. While some aspects of each of the three approaches...

Quiz: Assessing Your Company's Security Aptitude.
September 25, 2003... To give companies a jump-start on computer security education, the Information Technology Association of America and survey firm Brainbench created in June a certification program that works much like the driver's license renewal process....