Cisco risk
Ready-made code to bring down Cisco Systems' networking hardware has been made available on the internet only hours after the vulnerability was reported. Cisco discovered a flaw in how its Internetworking Operating System (IOS) handles IPv4, which renders most of its switches, routers and wireless access points vulnerable to denial of service attacks. When the hardware is flooded with data, it stops working and needs to be rebooted, so a widescale attack could take a network down for many hours. A major part of the internet is powered by Cisco hardware, so patching should be treated with great urgency, says security specialist Internet Security Systems. http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sa-20030717-blocked.shtml%23secpro
Grid iron
IBM is releasing a version of its WebSphere application server tomorrow using grid technology to balance the workload across several servers. This can improve the efficiency of a cluster of servers by ensuring that no processor remains idle when a spike of activity occurs, such as the morning rush to download emails.
According to IBM, WebSphere 5.02 can cluster hundreds of servers, and next year, the grid will expand to allow load sharing among several clusters. IBM calculates that in a typical organisation, a mainframe is idle 40% of the time, and some PC and Unix servers may be actively serving for only 10% of the day.
www.ibm.com/news/us/2003/07/211.html
Airline sights
IT accessibility charity AbilityNet said this week that none of the nine most popular airline websites was fully accessible for the visually impaired. It judged Virgin Atlantic's site the worst, because it places important information within difficult-to-access Flash animation. AbilityNet rated EasyJet's website as best, although the charity said it still has a few features that cannot be used by the visually impaired. Owners of websites that are inaccessible to the disabled could be committing an offence under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, although no cases have yet been brought. www.abilitynet.org.uk
Small print
Cerience has released a free mobile viewer to allow documents produced using its RepliGo application to be viewed on a wide range of mobile platforms. Like Adobe Acrobat, the market leader in this field, RepliGo converts documents to a file format that allows text and graphics to be viewed in their original fonts and formats, regardless of whether the fonts are available on the host device. Unlike Acrobat, the files produced are smaller and more applicable to the constrained memory used in mobile phones and handhelds. The RepliGo viewer is available for Palm OS, Pocket PC, Microsoft Smartphone, Nokia Series 60, Sony Ericsson P800, and Windows. www.cerience.com/viewers/pc.php
Veil goes up
The NHS has lifted a veil of secrecy on on its £2.3bn electronic patient record system. Documents containing the specification of the integrated care records service (ICRS) have been posted on the website of the Department of Health's information policy unit. Extracts from the specification appeared in Online on June 12 (NHS spree revealed). At the time, the specification, which had been sent to companies bidding to supply the ICRS, was a closely guarded secret.
The documents appeared on the site last week with the announcement: "This document is provided for information only. As it is a closed document, the National Programme will not be answering any queries about it, unless these are from suppliers as part of the current procurement process."
First contracts to build and run the ICRS are due to be signed in October.
www.doh.gov.uk/ipu/programme
Java jives
Applying a Model Driven Architecture (MDA) to Java development can deliver productivity gains of 35%, according to tests conducted by the Middleware Group. For the study, two equally skilled teams were pitched against one another: one used a standard code-centric development environment while the other employed Compuware's OptimalJ, based on MDA.
The MDA team delivered the application in 330 hours, while the group using traditional methods finished in 507 hours, according to the report. The result confirms findings by analyst firm Gartner, that tools using models and design patterns will be needed to reduce the 70% of projects that miss both time and budget projections.
www.middleware-company.com
Neutralise RFID
PR agency Fleishman-Hillard has presented plans to the Auto-ID Center, a Boston-based group promoting controversial RFID (radio frequency identification) tags used for tracking products, which "neutralizes opposition" and "mitigates possible public backlash" to the technology. One suggestion would change the name of RFID tags to "GreenTag - a revolution in convenience, safety and value".
www.autoidcenter.org
www.nocards.org/press/pressrelease07-07-03_1.shtml
